Tehran, Iran – Every morning at 6am, Sara reaches for her phone – not to check messages, but to see when the day’s blackout will begin.

The 44-year-old digital marketer in Tehran has memorised the weekly electricity schedule yet still checks her phone each morning for last-minute changes as she plans her life around the two-hour power cuts.

“Without electricity, there is no air conditioner to make the heat tolerable,” Sara says, describing how Iran’s convergent crises – water scarcity, power shortages and record-breaking temperatures – have fundamentally altered her daily routine.

The water service cuts are unannounced. They last hours at a time and truly unnerve Sara, so she scrambles to fill buckets whenever she can before the taps run dry.

Crisis

For millions of Iranians, this summer has brought survival challenges in light of record-breaking heat, according to data from Iran’s Meteorological Organization.

The country is simultaneously grappling with its fifth consecutive year of drought, chronic energy deficits and unprecedented heat, a perfect storm that is exposing the fragility of basic services.

The Meteorological Organization said rainfall is down 40 percent during the current water year, the 12-month rainfall-tracking period, which starts in autumn.

As of July 28, Iran had received only 137mm (5.4 inches) of precipitation compared with the long-term average of 228.2mm (9 inches).