Extreme Temperatures
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Sun

Bone dry and heat records fall as US West bakes under record heat

US heatwave
© AP Photo/Don RyanChildren play in the Salmon Street Springs fountain in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, July 1, 2015.
From Seattle to Salt Lake City, the West is baking under record heat. Temperatures reaching the triple digits have made fire conditions extreme and sent folks looking for relief heading into the Fourth of July weekend. Unfortunately, the forecast in many areas calls for more sun and sweat.

WASHINGTON

Seattle, not accustomed to prolonged hot weather, saw its hottest June ever.

The average high temperature each day in June was a record 78.9 degrees, breaking the 1992 record by more than 3 degrees, said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle.

"Our high is supposed to be in the low to mid 70s at this time and lows in the mid-50s," he said.

Instead, the Seattle area is seeing highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s.

Because the Seattle area suffers few heat waves, many people do not have air conditioning.

The weather was also dry in the Seattle area in June, when only 0.23 inch of precipitation was recorded. That's the fourth driest June on record.

Comment: While the west coast of the US bakes and is bone dry, Europe is experiencing a heat wave of their own with all time record temperatures. At the same time it is snowing in parts of Russia! You can't get much more extreme than that. It is as if the earth is responding with extremes as the human activity heats up. For more on the theory that human activity has an impact on how the universe interacts in kind with humanity read Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection.


Sun

Sizzling! Germany breaks national heat record at 40.3 degrees

thermometer
Germany has broken the national record for the highest recorded temperature due to Europe's weekend heat wave on Saturday and Sunday.

The thermometer in Kitzingen in the southern state of Bavaria read 40.3 degrees Sunday, breaking the 2003 record by 0.1 degrees, the German Weather Service said. It was the highest temperature Germany has experienced since the start of record-keeping in 1881.

Weather service spokesman Uwe Kirsche said Monday that the record will not be official until technicians have manually checked the station.

But he says "we assume that our equipment worked properly."

Snowflake

Snowstorm in Summer? Russian town of Vorkuta hit by July blizzard

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Snow in Vorkuta
Whereas many cities feel oppressed with the heat and the bright summer sun, this Russian town would gladly receive some more sunlight instead of snow.

The Russian town of Vorkuta saw a strange but nevertheless mesmerizing combination of green trees and white snow in the middle of summer.



Comment: Snow in Summer? Other regions that have experienced unusual snowfalls this Summer include Norway, which had 5 times more snow in June than normal, and "unprecedented" snowfalls on Scottish mountains.


Sun

London breaks U.K. July heat record; long-lasting Europe heat wave expands

Europe heat wave
© The Weather Channel
While record-smashing heat is searing the Northwest United States and southwest Canada, a European heat wave is smashing monthly records, becoming more widespread in Europe, and may last in some areas into next week.

Wednesday afternoon, the temperature at London's Heathrow Airport skyrocketed to 36.7 degrees Celsius -- 98.1 degrees Fahrenheit -- a July heat record not only there but for anywhere in the U.K., according to the U.K. Met Office.

The previous U.K. July heat record was set almost nine years ago -- 36.5 degrees C in Wisley on July 19, 2006. It was also the hottest day in Wimbledon history, topping the previous record of 34.6 degrees C on June 26, 1976.

Paris, France saw its temperature soar to 39.7 degrees Celsius -- 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit -- Wednesday. This is the second hottest reading there dating to 1873, according to Météo-France.

Parts of Belgium and The Netherlands also sweltered in 35-degree Celsius -- 95 degrees Fahrenheit -- heat Wednesday.

Sun

Record breaking heatwave envelopes Central Asia

heatwave
© unknown
Turkmenistan reported its hottest June on record Wednesday, as a heat wave envelops former Soviet Central Asia.

"June 2015 was the hottest June since 1891 when records began. Daytime temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius in the shade 16 times," a spokeswoman at Turkmenistan's state meteorological service in the capital Ashgabat told AFP Wednesday.

She noted that Tuesday, when temperatures reached 47.2 degrees celsius, was the hottest June day in Ashgabat in the recorded history of the energy-rich country.

Fire

Record temperatures, field fires destroying crops in France

heatwave france, europe 2015
High temperatures projected for Europe on July 2, 2015 by the ECMWF computer model.
Fires linked to hot, dry weather are disrupting the early stages of this year's grain harvest in France, the European Union's top producer, destroying hundreds of hectares and triggering fire prevention measures in some areas.

Wednesday saw record temperatures for the time of year either side of 40 degrees Celsius in several parts of the country as a heatwave intensified, adding stress on crops in central and northern France that faced a dry spell this spring.

Fires can be sparked by combine harvesters and quickly burn crops as well as the straw left after crops are cut.

In the Eure-et-Loir administrative department, which covers part of the Beauce plain that is one of France's biggest grain belts, local authorities on Wednesday ordered farmers to plough 10-metre-wide borders around fields to prevent fires spreading.

Wolf

Heatwave dog attack warning after 6 children hospitalised in 3 days in Sussex, UK

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Warning: Police say they were called to a string of dog attacks earlier this month
Police sounded the alert after a string of dog attacks on children - including one where a 12-year-old girl needed 11 stitches in her face

Parents and dog owners have been warned heatwave conditions could trigger a spike in dog attacks after a series of incidents involving young children.

Police sounded the alert after a string of dog attacks on children over a three-day period - including one where a 12-year-old girl needed 11 stitches in her face after being attacked by her families Fox Terrier.

Animal charities have also warned dogs can become more irritable in extreme heat and that attacks are likely to rise as dogs and children play outdoors in the sunshine.

Sussex Police revealed it had been called to six serious dog bite incidents in just three days over the weekend of 19-21 June.

Sun

Death toll rises to 1,233 in southern Pakistan heat wave

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© ReutersA relative waits while volunteers search for a body at the Edhi Foundation morgue in Karachi, Pakistan.
A devastating weeklong heat wave in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi killed 1,233 people, an official said.

Nazar Mohammad Bozdar, operations director at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said about 65,000 heatstroke patients were treated by doctors at all of Karachi's hospitals since June 20 when the heat wave struck Sindh province, where Karachi is the provincial capital.

Officials say temperatures during this heat wave are the hottest the country has seen in 15 years.

He told The Associated Press that 1,923 patients with heat-related ailments were still being treated.

"The government quickly responded by making arrangements for the treatment of heatstroke patients and the situation has improved now," he said.

Pakistan's deadliest heat wave on record coincided with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when Pakistan's Muslim majority observed a dawn-to-dusk fast.

The temperatures in Karachi came down to 93 degrees Fahrenheit after reaching 113 degrees Fahrenheit a week ago amid chronic power outages, which forced many residents to spend nights outdoors.

The heat wave shocked many Pakistanis just weeks after soaring temperatures caused nearly 2,200 deaths in neighboring India.

On Saturday, TV footage showed a charity burying several unidentified bodies of people who died earlier this week because of the heatstroke. Pakistani television stations reported that several unidentified bodies were buried by the Edhi Foundation charity because local morgues were overflowing.

Comment: Pakistan heat wave kills hundreds: Victims 'dying on the streets'


Igloo

Britain braced for mini-ice age as temperatures are set to drop to a 300-year low

Icy Weather
© BT.com
Low temperatures not seen for 300 years could be on the way to Britain thanks to a drop in solar activity, experts have warned.

If you were enjoying the current warm spell, enjoy it while it lasts as forecasters have warned that the UK could enter a mini-ice age.

A Met Office-led study in conjunction with scientists at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Reading, found that a return to low solar activity not seen for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and eastern parts of the United States.

But the study, which was published in the Nature Communications journal, added that the freeze will not be enough to halt global warming.

Sarah Ineson, a Met Office scientist and lead author of the study said: "This research shows that the regional impacts of a grand solar minimum are likely to be larger than the global effect, but it's still nowhere near big enough to override the expected global warming trend due to man-made change.

"This means that even if we were to see a return to levels of solar activity not seen since the Maunder Minimum, our winters would likely still be getting milder overall."

It is understood that the sun's output increases and decreases, measured by the number of sunspots on the star's surface, over a timescale of 100 to 200 years.

Sun

Pakistan heat wave kills hundreds: Victims 'dying on the streets'

Pakistan heatwave
© B.K. Bangash / AP
Pakistanis cool themselves Tuesday under a broken water pipe in Islamabad as temperatures increase during Ramadan.
A heat wave raging through southern Pakistan has claimed more than 700 lives, officials said, with witnesses describing victims "dropping dead" on the streets.

Temperatures have exceeded 110 degrees in recent days, and thousands of people have been left to face the heat without electricity amid widespread power outages.

At Karachi's largest hospital, more than 150 people have been admitted for heatstroke since Monday, according to Ali Nawazish, the emergency room registrar at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center.

"Some patients have come to us with their families, some have been found by ambulances, and some families have come here looking for their loved ones who they fear are dead or affected," Nawazish said. "It's chaos."

Ramzan Chippa, who runs a volunteer ambulance service with a fleet of 300, told NBC News that all his vehicles are committed and that most of their relief activity is taking bodies to morgues.

"Most of the bodies we are recovering are people dying on the streets. They're just dropping dead," said Chippa. "Graveyards have filled up."

The army has joined the relief effort, setting up heatstroke relief camps in Karachi and five other cities in Sindh province. But relief systems are stretched across the city, and small, angry skirmishes have erupted in protest.

A deputy commissioner in the Korangi suburb of Karachi admitted that public relief services are stretched to their limits.

"People are screaming at us on our helpline to get help them, and when we do, they fight to get on the ambulance," he said.

More opposition parties, including the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi movement, are blaming the federal government for the crisis, which they say has been compounded by massive power cuts all across Sindh province.

Dildar Shah lives in the Karachi suburb on Malir and has lost two neighbors to the extreme conditions. "This is like the Day of Judgment," he said. "It seems all of us will die in this heat together."