Extreme Temperatures
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Sun

India records its hottest day ever as temperature hits 51C (123.8F)

India heatwave
© Reuters

The heatwave has already killed hundreds and destroyed crops across the country


A city in western India has suffered through the country's highest recorded temperature .

The record - a scorching 51C (123.8F) - was set in the city of Phalodi, in the western state of Rajasthan.

India's meteorological department said the previous high was 50.6C (123 F), reached in 1956 in the city of Alwar, also in Rajasthan.

Authorities have issued a severe heatwave alert for the next two days in the western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan and parts of the central state of Madhya Pradesh. That means the areas can expect temperatures of 47C (116.6F) or more.

The main summer months - April, May and June - are extremely hot across most parts of India before monsoon rains and cooler temperatures arrive.

Snowflake

Spring snowstorm causes loss of power for tens of thousands in Bozeman, Montana; up to 20 inches of snow

Snow on road
A spring storm swept through Montana, dumping up to 20 inches of snow in the mountains and knocking out power to tens of thousands of people across the state, officials said Tuesday.

Approximately 30,000 homes and businesses in Bozeman lost electricity on Tuesday morning as the storm moved through, NorthWestern Energy spokesman Butch Larcombe said. The lights were back on across most of the city less than two hours later, and crews worked to restore the remaining powerless areas and to find the cause of the outages.

"We had an issue with the transmission line," Larcombe said. "We don't know what the issue is, but we expect it's related to snow and wind."

The night before, the storm cut power to customers in Phillipsburg and Judith Gap. There were pockets of smaller outages scattered across central and southwestern Montana, Larcombe said.

Heavy snow fell in the Little Belt Mountains Tuesday with about a foot falling at the Belt Creek Ranger District office in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.
© Beth IhleHeavy snow fell in the Little Belt Mountains Tuesday with about a foot falling at the Belt Creek Ranger District office in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.

Bizarro Earth

North American tectonic plate peeling off

Earth's Mantle
© Johan Swanepoel/ShutterstockScientists suspect that chunks from the bottom of the North American tectonic plate, which is the upper portion of the mantle, are peeling off and sinking. Replacing the resulting void is gooey material from the asthenosphere.
An odd phenomenon may explain why the Southeastern United States has experienced recent earthquakes, even though the region sits snugly in the middle of a tectonic plate and not at the edges, where all the ground-shaking action usually happens.

This seismicity — or relatively frequent earthquakes — may be the result of areas along the bottom of the North American tectonic plate peeling off, the researchers said. And this peeling motion is likely to continue, leading to more earthquakes in the future, like the 2011 magnitude-5.8 temblor that shook the nation's capital.

To figure out the cause of these earthquakes, Berk Biryol, a seismologist at UNC Chapel Hill, and colleagues created 3D images of the uppermost part of Earth's mantle, which is just below the crust and comprises the bottom of a tectonic plate. These tectonic plates scoot around atop a layer of warm, viscous fluid called the asthenosphere.

The resulting X-ray images revealed that the plate's thickness in the southeast United States was uneven, with thick regions of dense, old rock combined with thinner areas composed of younger rocks that were also less dense.

Snowflake Cold

As much as 8 inches of May snow falls in Kransoyarsk, Russia

Snow in Krasnoyarsk
Snow in Krasnoyarsk
As much as 20 cm of snow cloaked the city of Kransoyarsk!

The Siberian city has been hit by a rare snowfall in late May, and the uniqueness lies in its abundance, as much as 20 cm of fresh snow!

The city, located just north of Mongolia, has been hit by a massive cold snap.

It is important to note that this happened on a large temperature contrast after the first 20-degree heat of the season.

Thanks to Martin Siebert for these links

Snow in Krasnoyarsk

Cloud Lightning

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

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.

Igloo

Global cooling skyscraper proposed to save the planet

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.

Snowflake

Winter-like storm brings snow to Palm Springs, California

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.


Snowflake Cold

Rare May snowfall in northern Chinese cities

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.


Snowflake Cold

May snowfall and frost damages crops across Europe

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

Igloo

North Atlantic Ocean showing signs of shifting to colder temperatures

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".