From summertime flooding, to a dangerous derecho sweeping across the Midwest, this week has been a busy week of weather. But what weather events have been happening around the world?

We start our trip on the largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily. A waterspout whipped up sand and debris and sent beach-goers running as it pushed on shore. Thankfully, no one was injured.

Our week was full of waterspouts and tornadoes, and Canada was no different. We head to the province of Manitoba where a deadly tornado ripped through the countryside. Canadian officials rated this tornado an EF-2.

Our final tornado this week comes from the Inner Mongolia region of China. This storm ripped through a tourist site injuring at least 33 people and destroying 150 yurts.

The month of August continues to surprise mainly for those who like very cold, as it registered frosts in negative temperatures every day of this month.

In South Brazil High Mountains (Serra Catarinense) registers historical cold (record cold) with three consecutive days at the -8º mark.

In Bom Jardim da Serra the Keizer stations network scored -8.8°C.

Tasmania records coldest ever recorded temperature but it was colder that day in Tasmania than Antarctica, during winter. Third atmospheric river sweeps the continent bringing over topping dams, record cold and repeating snow cycles from 1882. In the Andes mountains 13 feet of snow fell which was beyond anything ever seen as South Africa piled on hundreds of new all time record cold events.

Usually in mid-August, Greenland's surface mass balance (SMB) is LOSING 4 Gigatons of snow & ice a day. Not yesterday, however — on Aug 10, 2020, the ice sheet GAINED a record-smashing 4 Gigatons of global warming goodness (and just listen to the silence coming from the MSM, it has so much to say).

Before this year, the Greenland ice sheet had never grown anywhere-close to 4 Gigatons in any of the months of June, July, or August, according to DMI records (which go back to 1981). In addition, the DMI record books also reveal that yesterday's 4 Gt GAIN smashed the previous mid-Aug record by over 2 full Gigatons.

Here are the latest (Aug 10, 2020) measurements:

Record low temperatures across regional South Australia brought rare snow to the Flinders Ranges on Friday, August 7, turning the red outback desert into a winter wonderland.

Records for the lowest daily maximum temperature were broken on Thursday at several locations including Hawker, Whyalla, Yongala, and Port Augusta. The Bureau of Meteorology expected more temperature records to be broken on August 7.

A cold blast of wintry air brought the conditions to Australia in early August, according to the weather bureau. Snow was reported in parts of Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales.

Videos posted by the Skytrek Willow Springs Station show snow blanketing the red desert around the outback station. Staff from the station told Storyful they had seen snow on the top of the hills around them before but never so much down in the valley.

If you thought it was cold this morning, spare a thought for Liawenee in Tasmania's Central Highlands — it is already one of the coldest places in Australia and has just broken its own record.

Temperatures dropped to -14.2 degrees Celsius just after 6:00am — a new record low for the state and even colder than Antarctica.

Michael Lasko from the Bureau of Meteorology said the Liawenee temperature was 2C colder than the town's previous record low of -12.2C, made back in 2013.

"But also it looks like that -14.2 is the coldest minimum for all of Tasmania," Mr Lasko said.

The previous record for Tasmania was -13C at Tarraleah and Butlers Gorge back in 1983.

On July 31^st 2020, Sun et al. published a paper in Science Advances [1] that suggests the Younger Dryas cooling event nearly 13000 years ago was triggered by the Laacher See volcanic eruption rather than a cosmic impact, the usual explanation. Until now, over 60 primary peer-reviewed journal papers together with dozens of supporting responses all agree the Younger Dryas event was caused by Earth's collision with debris from a disintegrating comet. Only one paper has previously suggested it was caused by the Laacher See volcanic explosion - and that paper was thoroughly refuted only a year later.

In their new paper, Sun et al. focus on platinum group elemental abundances, and especially osmium isotope abundances and ratios, found in the sediment of Hall's Cave, Texas. The sediment in this cave, many meters deep, has accumulated over tens of thousands of years, providing a convenient record of environmental conditions near the cave over this time (see photo below). An easily visible transition in the colour of the sediment at a depth around 1.51 m signifies a dramatic change in climate, and has been suggested to indicate the onset of the Younger Dryas climate anomaly when the Northern Hemisphere experienced a sudden return to near ice-age conditions for over 1000 years. This view is supported by the discovery in this boundary layer of the same kinds of microscopic impact debris found at many other Younger Dryas boundary sites across four continents [2]. So, it appears that Hall's Cave is yet another record of this most dramatic and important cosmic impact event, thought to have reset human Cultures and extinguished many species of large animal across the globe. An event that is probably remembered by numerous extant religions, and might even have helped trigger the rise of our own civilisation [3].
However, the platinum group metal abundances in the sediment around the Younger Dryas boundary layer at Hall's Cave have not previously been investigated. If the prevailing view is correct, we should find anomalies in them very close to this layer, since cosmic impacts generally produce enhancements in several of these elements. For example, the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub impactor was particularly rich in iridium, and coated Earth in an iridium-rich layer of dust and debris. However, we know from analysis of the GISP2 ice core in Greenland, that the Younger Dryas impactor was instead rich in platinum.[4] Since that discovery peaks in platinum concentration within sediments have been used to locate the Younger Dryas boundary accurately at many other sites [5].

Australia's ever-intensifying Antarctic Blast is beginning to deliver. This morning (Aug 5), swathes of Tasmania received their first settling snow for 40 years.

As picked up by Yahoo News Australia, Tasmania's riverside city of Launceston was hammered by snow on Tuesday evening, as the mercury at the airport sank below-zero just after 9pm.

Bureau of Meteorology's Matthew Thomas said the settling snow in Tasmania's north is a weather event not seen for some 40 years.

"It's a very rare event for Tasmania," said Thomas.

"We saw some snow settled in Hobart, with the last two occurrences in 1986 and 2015. [However] the last time we saw snow settle in Launceston was in the early 1970s," he said.

Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino described it as "a historic event for Tasmania":

There's been heavy snowfall up high in parts of the Alps overnight, where six glaciers are currently open for summer skiing.

Passo Stelvio in Italy (pictured above and below this morning, Tuesday 4th August) has reported 40cm (16 inches) of "heavy snow" above 2,700 metres altitude.

Other ski areas currently open in the Alps are Les 2 Alpes in France; Hintertux and Molltal in Austria and Saas Fee and Zermatt in Switzerland. The 'Matterthorn Glacier Paradise' ski area above Zermatt can also be accessed from Cervinia in Italy.

Melbourne is set to shiver through its coldest four consecutive days in 24 years as a powerful wintery blast sweeps across Australia's southeast from Antarctica.

The weather will bring freezing temperatures to Tasmania overnight as snow falls at sea level, with the mercury plummeting to 0C in Hobart.

A trough is expected to bring cloudy conditions to Melbourne which will limit daytime heating and bring top temperatures of 11-12C from Tuesday to Friday.

This will be the city's first four-day period at or below 12C since 1996, Weatherzone's Ben Domensino said.

'Outside central Melbourne, temperatures could even get cold enough for snow to fall on some of the hills around the city,' he said.

'Snow is also likely in other low-lying parts of the state on Tuesday and Wednesday.'

The cold air mass has been described as 'exceptional' as it moves up towards Australia from Antarctica.