Extreme Temperatures
Losar village in Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh received an 'unexpected' spell of snowfall on Sunday as various parts of north India remain affected due to heavy rainfall.
The entire village was covered with a thick layer of snow after it experienced the surprise snowfall on Sunday morning.
"Losar village received an unexpected sudden snowfall on Sunday morning as various parts of north India are affected due to heavy rainfall," officials said.
Local authorities say that this is the first time it has snowed in Skardu in July in the last 18 years.
Temperatures have dropped in the Skardu valley and everything in sight is covered in white.
While the snowfall was unexpected, it has turned into a surprising delight for tourists hoping for a summer get away.
A very major event took place in Paris last week, only it got crowded out of the media coverage by Evgeny Prigozhin's weekend non-coup coup attempt in Russia. France's President Emmanuel Macron took the lead in bringing the global community together to develop a new financial architecture for the future and hosted the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris on 22 and 23 June. Among the attendees were many of the leaders of Western European, African and Latin American nations as well as the heads of the IMF, World Bank, US Department of the Treasury, the ECB and the European Commission.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking at the Summit For a New Global Financial Pact in Paris, 23 June 2023.
The need for a new Global Financial Pact, supposedly, is due to the risk of climate change and the transition from fossil fuels to clean, sustainable energy sources. Western experts estimate that this transition will require an expenditure of about $1 trillion per year through 2030. That's a lot of money, but it is actually among the more moderate projections of what it will take to Build Back Better. Western leaders are proposing to fund the transition by levying a global tax. The specific objective with respect to climate would be to limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels. Presumably, the new financial architecture for the world would entail a global tax paid to a supra-national governing structure - perhaps the World Economic Forum's partner organization, the UN - who would use that money to fix the climate emergency for us and save the planet.
After a slow start to the season, which saw Falls Creek unable to open for snowsports on Opening Weekend, the weather gods have made up for it, taking the average depth at the Victorian ski resort to 97cm (38 inches).
The area saw a nice top up of 23 cm (9 inches) in the last 24 hours.
Some road network and mountain passes connecting communities on the southern Drakensberg in the Eastern Cape could be closed on Thursday, following the potential disruptive snow on the roads and railways, especially during the morning hours.
Areas of potential impacts include Molteno, Barkley East, Lady Grey and Matatitele and there could be isolated loss of livestock in this northern region. Counterparts of the South African Weather Service in Lesotho have issued a forecast for bitterly cold temperatures with heavy snowfall over Lesotho and these conditions may spill over to QwaQwa in the north-eastern Free State.

A photo of an “omega sun” caused by an “inferior mirage” over the Outer Banks of North Carolina earlier this month.
What was actually happening was an "inferior mirage," the product of sunlight being bent upward by a layer of warm air over the water. Contrary to popular belief, mirages are not relegated to hot arid deserts, and instead frequently appear over bodies of water where air temperature varies considerably with height. That can bend, or refract, light, distorting what we see. The result? A picture-perfect peachy omega, sunny side up.
The Nanjiao observatory in southern Beijing on Saturday for the first time recorded temperatures above 40C (104F) for a third consecutive day, according to the newspaper Beijing Daily, citing the national weather bureau.
Temperatures have also soared above 40C in recent days in nearby Hebei province and the port city of Tianjin, prompting authorities to issue red alerts for extreme weather.
In China's four-tier weather alert system, red indicates the most severe conditions.

A vibrant aurora display during a geomagnetic storm.
The atmospheric temperature spike, which was caused by successive geomagnetic storms, suggests the "solar maximum" is fast approaching.
Comment: That's unless the sun's activity collapses into sporadic, albeit unprecedented outbursts, which is what mathematician and astrophysicist Valentina Zharkova predicts is occurring amidst what she's calling the Grand Solar Minimum.
The thermosphere extends from the top of the mesosphere, at around 53 miles (85 kilometers) above ground, to the bottom of the exosphere, which begins at around 372 miles (600 km) above the ground, according to NASA. Beyond the exosphere is outer space.
For more than 21 years, NASA has measured the thermosphere temperature via infrared radiation emitted by carbon dioxide and nitric oxide molecules. Scientists convert data collected by NASA's Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite, into the Thermosphere Climate Index (TCI), which is measured in terawatts, or TW. (1 TW is equal to 1 trillion watts.)
Comment: Below is a recent interview by Oppenheimer Ranch interview with mathematician and astrophysicist Valentina Zharkova mentioned above:
Gusty winds of 60 to 66 miles per hour were reported from New York to North Carolina, with golf ball-sized hail damaging cars in the latter.
Some areas in New Jersey received close to half a foot of rain, which flooded roadways. There were even tornado warnings in the Garden State but, as of Tuesday morning, no actual twisters reported.
Comment: Various kinds of unusual, rare, and newly discovered, atmospheric phenomena appear to have been on the increase in recent years: