Heat Worldwide: Weather Off The Rails - Continued

People flee into the sea in Greece
as wildfires bear down on them
this week. 

It's been a busy month across the Northern Hemisphere as records keep falling in so many disparate locations.

Plus, throw in deadly wildfires, devastating flash floods, incredible hail accumulations, and a few tornadoes to make the whole mess complete, and you've got quite a July to report.

I've already described some of the very, very weird weather over the past month - the deadly Quebec heat wave that killed dozens of people, the Siberian heat wave, the extreme floods in Japan, the Midwest tornadoes, it goes on and on.

There's so many new extremes being reported over the past several days that I can't keep up. And I'll get to the weather weirdness here in Vermont later in this post.

You probably have already heard of the tragic wildfire in Greece, the one that roared through a coastal resort town and killed at least 74 people.

People had to flee on foot to the ocean ahead of the fast-advancing flames and many people didn't make it. Or, they got trapped on a cliff overlooking the sea and the blaze overtook them.

It's too horrible to even think about.

JAPAN ROASTS

Meanwhile, heat waves are still breaking records all over the world. Japan, devastated by that flood earlier this month that I mentioned, is having its worst heat wave on record.

As Dr. Jeff Masters noted in his indispensable Category 6 blog, the city of Kumagaya, Japan, about 40 miles northwest of Tokyo, reached 106 degrees on Monday, establishing the record for the hottest temperature on record anywhere in Japan.

Records there go back to at least the late 1800s.

People trying to beat the heat this week near Tokyo, Japan.
Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Until this month, the all time record high temperature for Kyoto, Japan was 101, set in 2014. Starting on July 14, six out of seven days beat that previous 101 degree reord high, peaking at 103.6 on July 19, tying Kyoto's all time record high for any month, Masters tells us. 

Needless to say, the heat wave is killing scores of people in Japan and South Korea. Several cities in both North and South Korea set all-time record high temperatures.

In Japan, the good news is the heat wave will ease within the next few days. The bads news is that's because a typhoon is headed their way. Japan can't catch a break.

FIERY SCANDINAVIA

Meanwhile, Scandanavia, including areas north of the Arctic Circle of all places, have also been contending with record heat lately.

All time record highs have been set at 14 locations in Norway, ten places in Finland and 3 towns in Sweden.

Large forest fires in Sweden this week. Photo by Maja Muslin/AFP/
Getty Images

Rare 90 degree heat has been seen north of the Arctic Circle. A village in northern Sweden just north of the Arcrtic Circle of 90.5 degrees, said climatologist Maximiliano Hererra, as reported by the Weather Channel.

It was also 90 degrees in Lapland, which we associate with winter reindeer. At least I do.

The result of all this heat is the northern fir tree forests in Scandanavia are on fire, big time.  Dozens of dangerous wildfires are burning across the region.

The bad news is it looks like intense heat will rebuild across most of western Europe, including Scandanavia, over the next few days. Those wildfires will only get worse.

NORTH AMERICA HEAT

Here in the United States, the parts of the Southwest from Texas westward  continue to bake in a relentless heat wave.

On July 23, Waco, Texas broke its all time record high temperature when it reached 114 degrees, breaking the old record of 112 set on August 12, 1969. Record high temperatures were reported across much of Texas earlier this week.

Thermal, California lived up to its name this week when it reached a record high of 122 degrees two days in a row. That's the first time on record Thermal had two consecutive days so hot.

Normally cool Seattle had three day in a row this week with 90 degree heat. This will also be onlu the fifth July in Seattle with five days that hit 90 degrees. It was 94 degrees or hotter for four days in a row in Portland, Oregon.

Way up in northern Canada - here we go with Arctic heat again, it was near 90 degrees this week in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Normally frigid Dawson, Yukon was 88 degrees.

Atlantic Canada shared in northern New England's oppressive humidity this week. Heat advisories were up as overnight temperatures in the region were at record highs.

Here in Vermont, Burlington is on track to possibly have its hottest month on record. It depends on what the closing days of the month do. (The next few days are going to be somewhat cooler than they recently have been. It has been 90 degrees ten times this month, tying the record for the second highest number of such days. (There were 11 days in the 90s in July, 1949.)

This post is statistics heavy. Here, I just wanted to prove that this heat is everywhere this summer.

I purposely didn't get into why all these heat records are being broken, and what this means for you and me. That deserves a separate poset, which I will get to in the coming days.  Lots of interesting science and economics associated with this.