Worldwide, The Weather Extremes Continue

Two guys build a snowman over the weekend near
Ballarat, Australia. Photo by Ian Currie/Herald-Sun

Now's a good time, on a nice slow weekend, to catch up on the weather extremes gripping other parts of the world lately.

As usual, it's pretty extreme in spots.

In Italy, at least four people died when a flash flood swept through a festival site near Venice, the BBC reports.  Several people were swept away while in their tents or cars. Some people clung to trees during the flood and survived.

Down in Australia, they just had a relatively rare bout with snow and cold.

In the high elevations outside of Sydney, Australia, it snowed in the past few days.  The Blue Mountains do get snow from time to time in the Australian winter, which is now. Temperatures reached near record lows in some areas of Australia with this latest cold front.

The cold front that caused the snow also packed high, damaging winds, thunderstorms, sleet and a deep chill, according to the Herald Sun of Australia.  The high temperature in Melbourne Friday was 50 degrees, only the fourth time since 2000 the temperature stayed that low there.

This cold isn't unprecedented in Australia, but since they've had record warm temperatures consistently for the past year and a half, this chill must have come as a shock.

In the Pacific Ocean, Super Typhoon Halong is now packing 160 mph winds, and could cause a lot of trouble in southern Japan or maybe Korea later this week. Conditions along the storm's expected path are good for the typhoon to remain strong.

A program note: When there's a big typhoon in that part of the world, a sharp cool snap often follows in the central and eastern United States a week or two later. That happened twice in July after huge typhoons hit the western Pacific ocean area.

Japan has had enough problems lately. Last week, a torrid heat wave in Japan killed at least 15 people and sent about 8,600 to hospitals. Temperatures there exceeded 95 degrees, and the humidity was killer. Korea is experiencing a torrid heat wave, too.

England just endured its 8th hottest July since 1910, and the heat has been interspersed with severe storms and flooding. The heat is fading now, but local flooding is expected to continue.

Meanwhile, in Instanbul, Turkey, the problem was a tornado and other severe weather that passed through the other day.

Here's a video of the tornado and downpours in Instanbul: