From a frigid winter to an oppressively hot summer, 2013 has had its share of extreme weather. The widest tornado ever recorded in the United States wreaked havoc on Oklahoma. Wildfires ran rampant in the West, claiming the lives of 19 young firefighters in Ariz. The world as a whole experienced one of the hottest Junes ever recorded.

This infographic from the World Resources Institute plots the most extreme weather events from January until now. WRI created a similar infographic last year, focusing on weather events from January 2012 through September 2012. According to their site, the group focuses on the intersection between environment and socio-economic development, topics that come to the forefront in the aftermath of weather-related disasters.

"All weather events are affected by a warming planet," President Obama said in his climate change speech on June 25th. "The question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it's too late."

On July 24th, about an hour after sunset, Gerardo Connon of Rio Grande city in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, walked outside and witnessed a rare display of nacreous clouds. The colorful apparition was as bright as the street lights in the city below:
These clouds, also known as "mother of pearl clouds," form in the stratosphere far above the usual realm of weather. They are seldom seen, but when they are, the reports usually come from high-northern parts of our planet. This apparition over Tierra del Fuego was unusual indeed.

The Seine-Maritime is known to be frequently affected by erosion. But what happened last monday, July 18, 2013, is almost unbelievable! As shown in this incredible video, a huge cliff just 100 meters from the beach detached and nearly 30,000 tons of rock spread suddenly onto the beach in the municipality of Saint-Jouin-Bruneval. This impressive (it is the least we can say) landslide was caught by a BFM TV witness (76news). You said quiet vacation?

An emergency situation has been declared at Letterkenny General Hospital following flooding in a significant section of the hospital.

The facility's emergency department; radiology department; outpatient department; pathology and medical records departments; and several wards and kitchens have all been evacuated.

A nearby tributary of the River Swilley overflowed and caused the flooding between 5pm and 5.30pm.

In a statement, the HSE confirmed 11 patients have been moved to the day surgery area, which is not in use over the weekend.

The executive has said there is no risk to patients currently in the hospital and the emergency service continues to function.

Mystery surrounds the death of 25,000 fish in a showpiece ornamental lake, which are thought to have died of mass suffocation.

Theories for the deaths include thunderstorms and a deadly form of algae, after environment officials found oxygen levels in the lake at Pittville Park, Cheltenham, were unusually low.

It thought that thunderstorms in the early hours of Tuesday morning could have stirred up silt, making the lake thick with muck.

While it is not thought that the water had been deliberately tampered with, a bloom of blue green algae could also have had a dramatic impact on water oxygen levels.

Dog walkers have been warned to keep their pets out of the toxic water while experts carry out tests into why the fish - mainly young roach with a handful of pike - were killed.

Janice Peacey, a community ranger, said: "We know that oxygen levels are low but at this stage we don't know more than that.

Event Time
2013-07-26 21:32:59 UTC
2013-07-26 19:32:59 UTC-02:00 at epicenter

Location
57.789°S 23.959°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi)

Nearby Cities
203km (126mi) NE of Bristol Island, South Sandwich Islands
2715km (1687mi) ESE of Ushuaia, Argentina
2937km (1825mi) ESE of Rio Gallegos, Argentina
2952km (1834mi) ESE of Punta Arenas, Chile
2258km (1403mi) ESE of Stanley, Falkland Islands

Technical Details

It creeps in slowly in the dark of night, and once inside, it almost never goes away.

It's known as the Hum, a steady, droning sound that's heard in places as disparate as Taos, N.M.; Bristol, England; and Largs, Scotland.

But what causes the Hum, and why it only affects a small percentage of the population in certain areas, remain a mystery, despite a number of scientific investigations.

Reports started trickling in during the 1950s from people who had never heard anything unusual before; suddenly, they were bedeviled by an annoying, low-frequency humming, throbbing or rumbling sound.

The cases seem to have several factors in common: Generally, the Hum is only heard indoors, and it's louder at night than during the day. It's also more common in rural or suburban environments; reports of a hum are rare in urban areas, probably because of the steady background noise in crowded cities.

Many Americans are reaching for their jackets less than a week after a sweltering heat wave pushed temperatures to record highs, as a cold front sweeps across the country that's expected to last up to two weeks.

The cooler weather, which will sink temperatures between 5 and 20 degrees lower than July averages, will primarily affect the Upper Midwest, causing thunderstorms from Michigan to Illinois to eastern Missouri on Friday.

Temperatures on Friday will average 75 degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago, 70 degrees in Boston and 86 degrees in Charlotte, N.C. Saturday looks to be a little cooler than Friday.

'The quick change of air mass to cool Canadian air is unusual in that the northwest flow is also going to last a week or two,' said Bill Karins, a meteorologist for NBC News. 'Typically a cool spell in the summer would last one or two days.'

The cool air comes as a relief after a week of excessive warmth that baked every region of the country with several days of record-breaking highs pushing the heat index above 100 degrees.

Last week should be the worst of the summer in terms of heat, according to Boston meteorologist David Epstein.

Saying that he believes the worst of the heat is over, Epstein explained that severe heatwaves aren't sustainable as the summer wears on due to a number of factors including less daylight and the sun being at a lower angle, 'the likelihood of a weeklong heat wave starts to diminish.'

Event Time
2013-07-26 07:07:17 UTC
2013-07-26 18:07:17 UTC+11:00 at epicenter

Location
15.362°S 167.584°E depth=135.5km (84.2mi)

Nearby Cities
48km (30mi) ENE of Luganville, Vanuatu
274km (170mi) NNW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu
615km (382mi) N of We, New Caledonia
760km (472mi) N of Dumbea, New Caledonia
760km (472mi) N of Paita, New Caledonia

Technical Details

A break in neighboring cities' water main created a 20-foot hole and closed the city's busiest intersection for three weeks.

On the morning of June 22, the bottom of a 36-inch water main in the heart of Robbinsdale burst, peeling back several feet of concrete-coated steel pipe like a can of sardines.

Over the next 40 minutes, an estimated 600,000 gallons of water blasted downward, creating a hole 20 feet deep at the city's busiest intersection.

"This is your worst nightmare," said Crystal City Engineer Tom Mathisen, who supervised the repairs. "It's always kind of hair-pulling, but yet, because we do this kind of stuff all of the time, there's a process to do it."

The complete repair and reconstruction of the giant Robbinsdale Sinkhole was finished in three weeks, an impressive feat considering the magnitude and complexity of the damage. Water gushing from the broken water main bored down 10 feet and destroyed a sanitary sewer line, which filled with sand and dirt. Then water, dirt and debris churned upward, taking out a storm sewer pipe that sat less than a foot above the water main.

The water continued to drive toward the surface, and eventually popped off several manhole covers, flooding the intersection of 42nd Avenue (County Rd. 9) and Bottineau Boulevard (Hwy. 81) around 10 a.m. In a stroke of luck, a nearby gas line was unscathed and no one was injured.

"I certainly have to commend the [various public works departments] for how quickly they turned the water off ... and then repaired it," said Robbinsdale Mayor Regan Murphy. "It was an amazing response - I mean, it was a 20-foot hole, and they had [Hwy. 81] open in two weeks,"

The repairs were especially tricky because the water main takes two slight turns near the break, one at a 45-degree angle and one at a 12-degree angle. The bends had to be replaced with custom piping, which was trucked in overnight from Dayton, Ohio.

"Thirty-six-inch ductile iron pipe is not something you just keep on your shelf," said Mathisen.

There was speculation that the blowout was related to the severe weather that ripped through the Twin Cities June 21-22, but city officials say that the break was probably a result of a leak that slowly built for years. Mathison pointed out clusters of pinholes around the spot where the 50-year-old pipe burst as evidence of it weakening over time.