An unseasonably cold airmass looks to wash over the northern United States, in a pattern eerily similar to the one seen this past winter.
The Climate Prediction Center's 6-10 day temperature outlook shows significantly above normal temperatures across the West US, most severe over Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and California. In response to this warmth, we see a deep airmass of unseasonably cool temperatures pushing south across the Midwest, with states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri all affected on the highest level. Warmer than normal weather looks to retreat to the Gulf Coast and coastal regions along the Eastern Seaboard, but the main story here is indeed the colder than normal weather.Shown above is a long range forecast of temperatures on the morning of July 15th, in the middle of this unusually cold spell. We see temperatures on this morning plummeting to as low as the mid-40s in the Midwest, where the heavy blankets might need to make a surprise appearance. Temperatures in the far northern Plains into the upper Midwest might even flirt with the low-40s, possibly even into the upper-30s if there will be clear skies. Those finer details will need to be ironed out in days to come, but the general idea is that things are looking pretty cold for a wide swath of the country in the next week or two.Oddly enough, the atmospheric pattern behind this expected cold blast is quite similar to the pattern we observed this past winter. On the top-left image, we see the mid-level atmospheric flow valid on July 14th. Here, we can see a strong vortex dropping anomalously south from Canada, nearly pushing into the United States. If you recall, we had the polar vortex take a very similar path down south more than once last winter, which is how the weather got so cold so often. So what's provoking this to happen again, only this time in mid-July? The same thing that made it happen six months ago. We see a very strong ridge pushing north across the northeast Pacific and into the Gulf of Alaska, which is how the West US should end up with those much warmer than normal temperatures. And, bringing things back full-circle, that ridge is likely being caused/enhanced by the body of above-normal water temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska that we targeted as the mechanism responsible for the brutality of last year's winter. The latest water temperature anomaly image is shown below, which identifies the body of much warmer than normal water in the northeast Pacific.

New government data suggests that the average temperature in the United States has cooled by approximately 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit during the last decade.

The statistics come courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which for nearly a decade has been collecting weather data from 114 different stations administered by the US Climate Reference Network, or USCRN, across the country. Combined, the weather stations are among the most state-of-the-art and advanced in the nation.

Last month, Watts Up With That? blogger Anthony Watts wrote that an analysis of the last few years' worth of data implies the US has cooled slightly, not warmed.

"Not only is there a pause in the posited temperature rise from man-made global warming, but a clearly evident slight cooling trend in the US Average Temperature over nearly the last decade," Watts wrote after examining the data.

"We've had a couple of heat waves and we've had some cool spells too. In other words, weather," he wrote.

Over the past few months night sky watchers in the southern parts of Australia have been presented with lots of beautiful displays of the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights.

So what causes the impressive display of lights in the night sky?

As with any scientific question, the easy questions often don't have easy answers. First we need to know a little bit about the sun and its behaviour.

The sun is not a constant bright object in the sky. It's true that its brightness doesn't change much in the visible range (a fraction of a percent over its cycle) but it is much more variable in the ultraviolet (UV) and x-ray range.

In fact x-rays from the sun go from virtually none to frequent events, and back to none, over a cycle known as the solar cycle.

This cycle lasts on average a little more than 11 years but can be a year and a bit longer or shorter from one cycle to the next.

Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from huge blasts of deadly solar radiation, has been weakening over the past six months, according to data collected by a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite array called Swarm.

The biggest weak spots in the magnetic field - which extends 370,000 miles (600,000 kilometers) above the planet's surface - have sprung up over the Western Hemisphere, while the field has strengthened over areas like the southern Indian Ocean, according to the magnetometers onboard the Swarm satellites - three separate satellites floating in tandem.

The scientists who conducted the study are still unsure why the magnetic field is weakening, but one likely reason is that Earth's magnetic poles are getting ready to flip, said Rune Floberghagen, the ESA's Swarm mission manager. In fact, the data suggest magnetic north is moving toward Siberia.

"Such a flip is not instantaneous, but would take many hundred if not a few thousand years," Floberghagen told Live Science. "They have happened many times in the past."

A powerful typhoon has pounded southern Japan as residents took refuge from destructive winds, towering waves and storm surges.

Airports closed and residents were evacuated from low-lying areas and shorelines as Typhoon Neoguri was passing through the islands comprising the southern Okinawa prefecture.

The storm has sustained winds of 108mph per hour and gusts up to 154mph, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

A powerful hailstorm hit Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia, Tuesday afternoon minutes before 5 o'clock.

Pieces of ice the size of a walnut poured down for more than ten minutes without stopping. The disastrous hail has broken tens of cars' windshields, windows of buildings, tree branches all over the city.

The downpour caused traffic jams in the city center. Some of the main streets have been flooded and traffic is hampered.

"This is Mini-Ice-Age/Wild Jet Stream Age stuff," says astrophysicist Piers Corbyn.

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"The news about damage caused by very large hail keeps popping up on the Internet," says reader Argiris Diamantis. "People are hiding in their basements because of the giant hail stones."

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Hailstones as big as softballs

Three people sustained head injuries on Saturday afternoon near a lake west of Bismarck, North Dakota after a severe storm dropped hailstones as large as softballs.

Hailstones of this size can be fatal. Luckily, it's been 14 years since the last known fatality directly caused by hail in the United States.

A hailstone slightly larger than a baseball can fall at a rate of more than 100 MPH according to NOAA, so it's a surprising fact that more people aren't injured or killed by hailstorms more often.

Hail Seriously Injures Three in North Dakota

Event Time
2014-07-08 12:56:26 UTC
2014-07-08 23:56:26 UTC+11:00 at epicenter

Location
17.617°S 168.359°E depth=114.0km (70.8mi)

Nearby Cities
13km (8mi) NNE of Port-Vila, Vanuatu
263km (163mi) SSE of Luganville, Vanuatu
382km (237mi) NNE of We, New Caledonia
540km (336mi) NNE of Dumbea, New Caledonia
13km (8mi) NNE of Port-Vila, Vanuatu

Scientific data

The last five years have seen Oklahoma experience more than 2,500 earthquakes - the vast majority of which are being connected to the oil and gas exploration process of fracking.

Although past studies have also suggested Oklahoma's earthquake spike is related to fracking, this is the first time scientists have pinned such numbers to the controversial procedure. Notably, they found that fracking could also be responsible for earthquakes occurring nearly 20 miles away from drilling and waste deposit sites.

According to Scientific American, Oklahoma has seen more than 230 earthquakes registering magnitudes of 3.0 or higher in this year alone. Before 2008, the state only averaged one of these earthquakes a year.

In a report published by the journal Science, researchers from Cornell University and the University of Colorado found that roughly 20 percent of all the earthquakes that occurred in the central and eastern United States were caused by activity at just four fracking wells situated near the town of Jones, Oklahoma.

Shiveluch, one of the largest and most active volcanos of Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, has spewed a plume of ash as high as 8 km into the air, the Kamchatka Emergency Service reported on Sunday.

"The wind is driving the ash cloud southeastwards. There are no populated centers along its path," the report says.

Although no ash fallouts have been registered in the Ust-Kamchatsky district, rescuers have recommended tourist operators to cancel tours in the vicinity of the volcano. The orange-level volcanic alert has been issued for aircraft flying over the peninsula.

It's the second ash plume ejected by Shiveluch since the beginning of July. On July 1, a cloud of ash shot up 7 km above sea-level. The town of Klyuchi with a population of 5,000 is the nearest community to the 2,500-high volcano, 45 km away from it.

After Shiveluch intensified in May 2009, a crack about 30 m deep appeared in its dome.