Extreme Temperatures
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills three in Jharkhand, India; other regions sizzle with above 40 degree Celsius temperatures


Times of India
Mon, 09 May 2016 18:10 UTC
Lightning
Temperatures hovered around normal levels in most parts of the country except in some areas of Odisha and Rajasthan, where Phalodi town sizzled at season's highest of 48 degrees Celsius, even as three persons were killed in lightning incidents in Jharkhand.

In the national capital, it was a clear sky with the maximum temperature settling at 38.4 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year. The minimum was recorded at 27.6 degrees Celsius, three notches above the season's average.

In Jharkhand's Hazaribagh district, which recorded 30 mm rainfall, three persons, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed by the thunderbolt at Katkamdag, Chharau, and Oreya villages, police said.

Palamau and Chaibasa recorded maximum of 41.6 and 41.5 degrees Celsius respectively even as several parts of the state experienced cloudy sky with temperatures between 35 and 39 degrees Celsius, the MeT officials in the state said.

Rajasthan's Phalodi town in Jodhpur district recorded the season's highest at 48 degrees Celsius due to which normal life was thrown out of gear.

Sizzling heat affected normal life in other parts of the state as well, particularly the western areas where Bikaner recorded 45.4 degrees Celsius. Churu, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Kota, Jaipur, and Ajmer registered a maximum of 44.8, 44.7, 44.4, 44.1, 42.9, and 42.6 degrees Celsius respectively.
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Igloo

Global cooling skyscraper proposed to save the planet

Eric Worrall
Watts Up With That
Mon, 09 May 2016 01:18 UTC
Global Cooling Skyscraper
© Paolo Venturella ArchitectureGlobal Cooling Skyscraper.
Italian architect Paolo Venturella has proposed a gigantic megastructure to prevent global warming, though building it may present a few practical difficulties.
Our planet is going through the irreversible process of global warming, and even if various strategies have been planned to solve the problem, none of them provided a solution.

This is causing natural disasters all over the planet. The temperature all around the planet is increasing making the ice in the pole melt.

Only a "global strategy" can be adopted.

To cool down the temperature a huge greenhouse is placed in between the sun and us.

This works according the same principle of the "solar tower". Thanks to the accumulation of heat in the glazed structure, air flows naturally from hot to cold generating rapid and strong flows. These flows bring hot air far from the Earth cooling down the temperature of the whole globe.

The air flows restore better climate conditions and moreover generate renewable energies by wind turbines placed inside the structures.
Read the rest of Paolo's article here.
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Snowflake

Winter-like storm brings snow to Palm Springs, California

Joe Galli
KESQ News
Fri, 06 May 2016 11:06 UTC
Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
© KESQ/Chris TarpeningPalm Springs Aerial Tramway
A spring storm brings winter-like conditions to the Coachella Valley. Rain drops fell on the valley floor and our local mountains got a dusting of snow.

When it's wet outside more people pop into Luigi's Barber Shop in Palm Springs to get a quick cut and dry.

"It's actually good. For some reason people don't go to work and they just feel like getting a haircut. So we get busy when weather gets like this," said Roman Ocelo Owner Luigi's Barber Shop.

Locals and tourist in the Coachella Valley enjoyed this unseasonable blast of winter weather. We talked to one man who escaped major rain in the Los Angeles area which had flooded streets.

"It was pouring in certain areas and it was pouring in Pasadena when we were on our way over," said Shawn Maestretti.

The tops of our local mountains also saw a dusting of snow. Some families at the Palm Springs Ariel tramway were caught off guard with the snowfall.

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Snowflake Cold

Rare May snowfall in northern Chinese cities


CCTV
Mon, 02 May 2016 18:57 UTC
Snow China
Unusual snow in May blanketed the suburb of Beijing and the mountainous region in Chengde City, north China's Hebei Province on Monday, forming an amazingly gorgeous scenery.

Thunder shower hit the Yanqing District of Beijing at dusk on Sunday, with average precipitation reaching 19.1 millimeters from 17:00 on Sunday to 14:00 on Monday. Because of the high altitude of the Haituo Mountain, where the temperature was minus 0 degree Celsius, the rainwater turned to snow.

Elsewhere, the lowest temperature in Wulingshan National Nature Reserve in Chengde City dipped to minus 15 degrees Celsius and the depth of snow was estimated at 18 centimeters.

The current snowfall in May marks the second one in Chengde since 1991, according to local meteorological department.

"It is quite rare to see such snow and it really came all of a sudden," said Wang Jihui, staff member of Wulingshan National Nature Reserve.

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Snowflake Cold

May snowfall and frost damages crops across Europe


freshplaza.com
Thu, 05 May 2016 13:09 UTC
Farmers in Grisons, Switzerland protecting their vineyards from frost on April 27 with thousands of fire lights.
© Meteo EuropeFarmers in Grisons, Switzerland protecting their vineyards from frost on April 27 with thousands of fire lights.
In several European countries - such as Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, France and Belgium - apples, pears, cherries and grapes were frozen early last week. The snowfall also created challenges with the roofing systems, and occasionally the snow completely ruined things. Snow and cold temperatures are predicted for some places in the coming nights again. NFO, the Dutch fruit growers association, summarised the results per country as follows:

Austria

In the cultivation area in the state of Styria the words 'complete catastrophe' have been used. About 80 per cent of the fruit harvest would be destroyed (see photo left of the news report in which firefighters remove snow from hail nets in Gleisdorf, the link is at the bottom of this article and external). During the night from Monday to Tuesday the small fruits had to endure temperatures of 2 to 6 degrees below freezing according to the Landwirtschaftskammer. Initial estimates concerning approximately 2,000 Styrian cultivators indicate €100 million Euro in damages for the fruit sector (without grapes) alone. Councillor Hans Seitinger: "This is truly a unique situation, which has not occurred in the last 50 years."

Whether financial support will be given to the affected growers has to be further examined. Austrian growers have broad weather insurance, but because of the high premiums not a lot of growers use it. Damages have also been reported from Burgenland, slightly more to the east, where temperatures were recorded at 3 to 4 degrees below freezing. Austria produces about 170 million kilograms of apples annually. Golden Delicious and Gala are the largest strains.

Frost damage
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Igloo

North Atlantic Ocean showing signs of shifting to colder temperatures

P Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Sun, 01 May 2016 20:13 UTC
Atlantic Ocean Temperatures
© NOAASea surface temperature anomalies: August 2014 (top), Today (bottom) where above-normal is represented by yellows, oranges and reds, below-normal is represented by blues and purples.
Paul Dorian of the excellent weather science site Vencore Weather here brings us up to date on the latest on one of the most powerful natural cycles driving our North Atlantic climate: North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) cycles.

Here I'll sum up the main points. Of course do read the entire post at Vencore for all the details.

In a nutshell the sites writes that the North Atlantic "is now showing signs of a possible long-term shift back to colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures (SST) and this could have serious implications on US climate and sea ice areal extent in the Northern Hemisphere".
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Snowflake Cold

Coldest end to April in more than 30 years for the UK

Lucy Verasamy
ITV News
Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:51 UTC
Snow in April
© Press Association
April is no stranger to snow. It falls most years in Scotland and northern hills of England and Wales - more so at the start of the month. Winter road gritting services continue until May.

On Tuesday we saw sleet, snow - as well as hail and graupel (soft hail) in many locations across the country.

On Wednesday night the temperature dipped to -8C in Cairngorm, Scotland - not out of the ordinary this time of year up there - but the air across the whole of Britain and Northern Ireland was also below freezing by the early hours. The ground/grass temperatures fell to -9C, even in southern counties. Dead plants anyone?

Wintry sleet, hail and snow this widespread, at this stage in April was last reported in 1989 and 1997. It last snowed in London in late April in 1985.
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Snowflake Cold

Deep freeze: Cold causing havoc for winegrowers in Switzerland


The Local ch
Thu, 28 Apr 2016 16:32 UTC
Farmers in Grisons, Switzerland protecting their vineyards from frost on April 27 with thousands of fire lights.
© Meteo EuropeFarmers in Grisons, Switzerland protecting their vineyards from frost on April 27 with thousands of fire lights.
Temperatures dipped below freezing in many parts of Switzerland on Wednesday night, with the intense cold causing havoc for winegrowers.

April weather is notoriously fickle in Switzerland but Wednesday night was one out of the box.

With temperatures ranging from - 3C to 0C in many parts of the country, winegrowers resorted to desperate measures to save their crops.

In eastern Switzerland's Bündner Herrschaft wine region where clear skies meant frosty conditions, vintners and volunteers braved the cold to lay out so-called frost candles.

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Attention

Arctic narwhal strands on Belgium shore for the first time ever

Sarah Keartes
Earth Touch News Network
Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:41 UTC
For the first time in recorded history, the
© Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor NatuurwetenschappenFor the first time in recorded history, the "unicorn of the sea" has washed up dead in Belgium.
The last time one of these near-mythical beasts was spotted in western Europe was in 1949 (the same year the Polaroid camera first came to market). The animal's skeleton will be moved to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, where it will join the collections as an important natural history specimen.

"This sighting is particularly significant as in the past 14 months we've had other Arctic cetaceans visit our waters," explains Dr Peter Evans, founder of the Sea Watch Foundation, an organisation that works to monitor whales, dolphins and porpoises in the area. "Sea temperatures were unusually low last spring, and [there's] a possibility that the fragmentation of floating ice may have resulted in whales typically associated with pack ice straying much further south." One such animal was a beluga whale, the only other species in the family Monodontidae, to which narwhals also belong.

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are known to travel in groups of 15 to 20 individuals, so there is some concern among scientists that this carcass won't be the only one to surface. However, the topology of the North Sea has been known to function as a "whale trap" under certain conditions, and it's entirely possible that this animal was separated from its pod.
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Sun

Extreme heat wave kills 300 across South Asia, hottest month still ahead


RT
Sat, 30 Apr 2016 03:43 UTC
India heatwave
© Adnan Abidi / ReutersA boy cools himself off as he sits under a fountain on a hot summer day in New Delhi.
South Asia has been setting temperature records: A roasting heat wave has been ripping through much of the region since early April. Hundreds of people suffered severe heat strokes in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, while the death toll in India exceeded 300.

Scorching temperatures have allowed at least three countries to set new all-time national heat records with Thailand, which has kept records since 1950, leading the way.

After Sukhothai, Thailand set the first record of 111.7 degrees Fahrenheit (44.3 degrees Celsius), on April 12, on Friday a remote, mountainous province in northern Thailand, Mae Hong Son banked in a record in with 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit (44.6 degrees Celcius), according to Christopher Burt, a weather historian with wunderground.com. He added that since April 19, more than 50 urban areas have recorded heat records.

"As of now we can say we've broken the record for the highest temperatures over the longest duration in 65 years - and the season isn't over yet," said Surapong Sarapa, head of the Thai Meteorological Department's weather forecast division.

Starting from March, the extreme heat has claimed the lives of as many as 21 people, Thai Department of Communicable Disease Control said Thursday. Thirteen of the victims succumbed to heat outside their homes, two in vehicles, one in a temple, and five in houses. Authorities called for the population to stay indoors and drink lots of water to avoid heatstroke.
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