While a lot of attention (justified) has been spent on the record heat in Siberia and Europe this past month, the actual big story so far this summer is the heat wave in eastern China. This July will go down as the hottest ever measured for places like Shanghai, Changsha, and Hangzhou. Records for Shanghai date back to 1873 and no such heat has ever been observed there or in much of Eastern China. BREAKING NEWS: Greenland has just reported its warmest temperature on record.
weatherhistorian, • 9:17 PM GMT on July 31, 2013
It has been a wild weekend weather-wise around the world. Record rainfall in Philadelphia, record cold in the Midwest, record heat in eastern China, Japan, and Europe where violent storms produced tornadoes and waterspouts.
weatherhistorian, • 8:32 PM GMT on July 29, 2013
It has been a wild week for temperature extremes with the amazing heat wave in north central Siberia juxtaposed with an unusual cold spell in portions of Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina occurring simultaneously almost exactly opposite one another on the planet. Scroll down to end of blog for my fishy story!
weatherhistorian, • 9:10 PM GMT on July 26, 2013
The extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented heat wave continues in the central arctic region of Russia. Some locations have now endured 10 consecutive days above 30°C (86°F). Wildfires are erupting in the taiga forests. Norilsk maximum daily temperatures have cooled down a little, but yesterday (July 23rd) it enjoyed its warmest night so far with a low of 20.2°C (68.5°F).
weatherhistorian, • 7:54 PM GMT on July 22, 2013
Temperatures in New York City bottomed out at 81° on Saturday July 20th, the third consecutive day above 80° and possibly breaking or tying the record for such. On Friday morning (July 19) the minimum fell to just 83° in Central Park (1° short of the all-time record) and 86° at La Guardia Airport (tying their record). Cooler air is now filtering into the region and the heat wave should break on Sunday.
weatherhistorian, • 7:56 PM GMT on July 18, 2013
June featured the deadliest monsoon-related flood in recent history for India, as well as devastating floods in Canada and Germany. A record-breaking heat wave affected the interior southwest of the U.S. and also in Alaska. The Atlantic tropical storm season got off to an early start with two named storms. Fires in Sumatra, Indonesia blanketed Malaysia and Singapore under a pall of smoke while deadly wildfires in Arizona and Colorado took the lives of 21 including 19 fire fighters.Below is a summary of some of the month’s highlights.
weatherhistorian, • 9:52 PM GMT on July 15, 2013
There have been some interesting hail events the past few weeks. The town of Santa Rosa, New Mexico was hammered with up to a foot of hail accumulation last Wednesday July 3. Snowplows had to be employed to clear the highways. On June 25th a very rare, if not unprecedented, hailstorm struck Singapore. This is an updated blog to one I posted two years ago about the greatest hailstorms on record and the largest individual stones yet measured.
weatherhistorian, • 7:25 PM GMT on July 08, 2013
On Tuesday, July 2nd Redding, California measured 116°, just 2° short of their all-time record. Death Valley had a low of 104° on July 2nd, its second hottest night on record since 1920 (hottest was just last summer!). It has been an amazing past six days (June 27-July 2) heat-wise in the West. Many significant heat records have been broken. This is a daily update (July 3rd) on the latest with also some new information about earlier events.
weatherhistorian, • 6:12 AM GMT on July 02, 2013
Two incredible stories are breaking news at this late hour on Sunday June 30th. One is the possibility of a reliable 130°F temperature having been attained at the Furnace Creek site in Death Valley. Confirmation of this will not be known until the 7 a.m. observation at the site on Monday morning. The other breaking news is a report that 19 firefighters have lost their lives battling a blaze in and around Yarnell, Arizona. If this report proves true it would be the most tragic rural wild fire event (so far as firefighters are concerned) since the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles in 1933 when 25-29 firefighters lost their lives (according to conflicting sources).
weatherhistorian, • 4:53 AM GMT on July 01, 2013