Extreme Temperatures
Cold front brings record-breaking temperatures to Oklahoma City
Temperatures in Oklahoma City climbed only to 72 degrees Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. The record for the coolest high temperature for July 16 in Oklahoma City was 74 degrees, set in 1967, according to National Weather Service records.
Cold front brings record-breaking temperatures to Oklahoma City on Wednesday
Record low temperature for Sioux City, Iowa
The National Weather Service recorded a low of 49 degrees at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, breaking the old record of 50 degrees set in 1976.
After record low, Sioux City to see warming trend
Cold Breaks 128-Year Record in Mobile - Huntsville ties 69-year-old record low
Forecasters say Mobile, Alabama, has broken a 128-year-old record with a low temperature of 64 F, one degree cooler than the low of 65 F set in 1886. Meanwhile, Huntsville tied a record low for the date of 59 degrees set in 1945. In fact, temperatures ranged from the mid- to upper 50s across north Alabama.
Cold temps break 128-year record in Mobile
In case you couldn't find the sunspot's tiny decaying core, here it is.
Long-time readers absorbing this image might be reminded of 2008-2009, years of spotlessness when the sun plunged into the deepest solar minimum in a century. The resemblance, however, is only superficial. Deep inside the sun, the solar dynamo is still churning out knots of magnetism that should soon bob to the surface to make new sunspots. Solar Max is not finished, it's just miniature.
Until the sunspots return, solar flares are unlikely. NOAA forecasters estimate the odds of an M-flare today to be no more than 1%. Updates on Twitter @spaceweatherman.
Around 5pm on Saturday, a married couple, both 57 years old, and their son, 24, and daughter, 23, were all admitted to St Olav's Hospital.
The couple and their daughter suffered only minor injuries from the lightning attack, but the young man was seriously injured. He was taken to intensive care at the hospital where his condition is said to be stable. He received vital heart and lung rescue at the scene of the incident after having a heart attack.
Tore Kyllo, operation leader with the local police, confirmed to NTB: "It is a family of four that is struck. One of them got a cardiac arrest, but resuscitation made his heart beat again."
Saskatchewan evenings have definitely been on the cool side lately, with at least five low temperature records falling Monday morning.
Assiniboia, La Ronge, Weyburn and Wynyard all broke July 14 records with single digit overnight lows.
Elbow, meanwhile, was colder this morning than it has been on this date since 1973.
Here are the communities, their Monday low temperatures in Celsius degrees and previous lows:
* Assiniboia 6.9 (7.0, 2013)
* Elbow 6.7 (7.2, 1973)
* La Ronge 4.9 (5.6, 2003)
* Weyburn 6.1 (9.0, 2013)
* Wynyard 7.3 (8.4, 1994)
According to CBC weather specialist Farah Singh, it's all thanks to cool air sweeping down from the north, combined with clear skies that let the heat escape at night.
Sunday was cool in the evening and early morning, too, with cold weather records for July 13 set in Elbow (7.0), Meadow Lake (4.0), Moose Jaw (7.5), Rosetown (6.3), Spiritwood (5.9), Uranium City (4.8) and Weyburn (6.1)
David Phillips, senior Climatologist for Environment Canada, joined Richard and Kathy on Winnipeg's Morning News. He confirms that yesterday's high, 15.7 degrees Celsius, was the coldest July 13th in Winnipeg since 1884.
He puts the reasoning behind a type of polar vortex - that cold low which is sitting over the heart of North America.
However, the good news is that it will be short lived according Phillips. He says starting tomorrow the mercury will continue to rise and by the weekend we should be hitting temps around 30 degrees.
That's, not the end of it either. Phillips forecasts the heat to continue over the next couple of months.
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11 July 2014 - "Although summertime snowfall high up in the Alps is not an unusual occurrence, snowfall down to 6000 feet elevation IN JULY is something that wasn't supposed to happen nowadays," writes P. Gosselin on notrickzone.com.
20 inches of snow
Last Tuesday, July 8, the Swiss online Blick reported that meteorologists were predicting snowfall down to 1800 meters elevation (6000 ft.), forecasting up to 50 cm (20 inches) of snow in the Canton of Valais.
Blick writes that the snowfall presented a problem for grazing cattle, which would either have to be brought down to lower elevations or housed in mountain shelters stocked with feed.
By evening, passes were closed and avalanche warnings had been issued.
"It wasn't just rain and snow, but real snowfall with snowflakes as white as during winter. T melted quickly, of course. A fantastic sight," ITAR-TASS quotes an eyewitness, Valery Semyannikov, as saying.
In some areas of the Chelyabinsk region, snow lay 5-10 cm thick.
It's the first ever mid-summer snowfall in the South Urals.
The Chelyabinsk weather service predicted "wet and windy weather with moderate to heavy rain throughout the region, thunderstorms and soft hail in the east and ice hail in the mountains."
Matt Bass, meteorologist from BOM, said the region was well below our average temperatures.
"If it felt cold, that's because it was, breaking that record is pretty phenomenal for Brisbane," Bass said. "The average for this time of year is 12C, so Brisbane was about 9C below average, it is pretty impressive really, to have the coldest morning in 103 years is a big record."
The coldest place across the state was Oakey which got down to -6.1C, which was the coldest temperature for the town since 2011. Brisbane wasn't the only town hitting landmark temperatures with Clermont breaking its coldest record two days in a row. "Clermont in the coal fields got down to -4.5 which is a new record for them, their previous record was -3.7, which was set yesterday, so they've re-broken their record two days in a row."

The French Alps looked more like a winter wonderland this week as the rotten summer weather continued in France.
Parts of the Alps looked like a winter wonderland on Thursday as summer snow continued to fall, disrupting the usual holiday activities.
The regional newspaper Dauphiné Libere reported that tourists in the town of La Rosière were asking shopkeepers for toboggans so they could go sledging on the slopes.
At the resorts of Tignes and Val d'Isere, the snowfall ruined the chances of activities such as flyboarding and mountain biking.
"How about July?"asks reader E Stephens.
"We should name icebergs still floating in Lake Superior in July after infamous AGW scientists. This one is Gavin," says Tilly LaCampagne via Twitter.
See photo dated 11 July 2014:
Thanks to E Stephens for this link