This 'N That And Storm Videos Too

After a nice day, storm clouds gather late in the afternoon Friday
over Georgia, Vermont. They produced wind gusts to about'
 40 mph and brief downpours. 

Last evening in Vermont proved that even once you get rid of the humidity, storminess can still reign.

It was certainly gorgeous in the Green Mountain State Friday, with that lower humidity and sunshine. But, a serious of little cold fronts continued to slide through, and one was timed perfectly in the late afternoon and early evening to produce some gusty showers and thunderstorms.

Winds aloft were pretty strong for this time of year, so the storms were able to pull some of that wind to the surface. There was nothing severe, but gusts of 40 mph and brief heavy downpours, like what I saw in Georgia and other Vermonters saw, are nothing to sneeze at.

Today will be showery, too, even with the sun mixing in. In the mid and upper atmosphere, some of the coldest air in North America is over or near us. With the air temperature rapidly dropping with height, updrafts are easy to create. These form billowing clouds and showers. There won't be anything extreme. And Sunday is looking nice: Sunny and warmish (70s) with low humidity.

Elsewhere, obviously, the weather is worse.

In places like Washington State and parts of the northern Rockies, they are simultaneously under wildfire alerts and flash flood watches. That sounds a little strange but can happen from time to time.

Thunderstorms are expected to move through that area later today and tonight, and some of them will be strong. Like most outbreaks of thunderstorms, this one will be rather hit and miss. Near the edges of the thunderstorms, lightning will hit dry vegetation and set fires, while erratic winds from the storms spread the blazes.

In the core of the thunderstorms, gushing downpours will develop, causing quickly rising water and debris flows, especially in areas denuded by previous forest fires. Today's not a great day to be hiking in the northern Rockies or Pacific Northwest, that's for sure!

In Europe, it's awfully stormy. The United Kingdom's Met Office is alerting people to the flash flooding and high winds expected today. Yesterday, a tornado him Amsterdam, the Netherlands and an even bigger twister hit Luxembourg, of all places. The Luxembourg tornado injured at least seven people and damaged at least 100 houses.

Here's a video, most of it in slo-mo, of the tornado in Luxembourg:



Meanwhile, near London, the Luton Airport, a smaller cousin to the more famous Heathrow, had its own trouble as torrential downpours broke through the roof. Watch:



In eastern China, a typhoon made landfall on Friday. In this Chinese government video, a landslide caused by the typhoon's heavy rains abruptly blocks an expressway tunnel:



Finally, a tornado/waterspout breezes through a waterfront area of Amsterdam the Netherlands:

Update: Europe Heat Indeed Shattered Records

People trying to keep cool in Europe this week. Photo by Nicolas
Economou/NurPhoto/Getty Images

As expected, more all-time heat records were set in western Europe Thursday as the second unprecedented heat wave of the summer grilled the region.

Paris soared to incredible 108 degrees, beating the old record of 104 degrees to be the hottest temperature anyone has seen there. Breaking an all-time record is one thing. Breaking it by four degrees is just incredible. 

Records in Paris go back to 1658, so it's not like they just started keeping track of temperatures in Paris and missed something a few years back. The heat really was just out of this world.

Germany on Thursday had that nation's hottest temperature on record, when it got to 106.7 degrees in the town of Lingen. That breaks a national record that was established just 24 hours earlier.

In the Netherlands, the temperature reached 104 .7 degrees, also breaking the national record set a day earlier. Before that, the Netherlands hottest temperature on record of 101.5 degrees  had stood for 75 years.

As has been the case with many other recent extremes, a lot of experts say the hands of climate chang were all over this heat wave.

Says Reuters:

"Peter Inness, senior research fellow at the University of Reading (Great Britain) said: 'The fact that so many recent years have had very high summer temperatures both globally and across Europe is very much in line with what we expect from man-made global warming."

Climate change might be influencing these kinds of hot spells in two ways. The baseline temperature is just warmer than it was decades ago, which means the chances have increased for record breaking spikes in temperature.

Additionally, it's possible climate change is messing with the jet stream, making blocked, stalled and much wavier patterns, like the one that caused the Europe heat wave this week, to become more common.

Of course, these blocky patterns create areas of cool weather, too, where the jet stream dips. It's just that most of the time, the cool waves aren't as chilly as they used to be.

The pattern that caused the western Europe heat wave is creating a pretty sizeable area of chilly weather in parts of Russia and surrounding areas. There might be a few record lows there, but it won't match the extraordinary departures from normal in western Europe.

Similarly, as noted yesterday, a surge of dry air into the southern United States created some record low temperatures. Austin, Texas, dropped to 58 degrees, the first time on record there that a July temperature sank below 60 degrees. But, by afternoon, it was 90 degrees in Austin, which is only a few degrees below normal.

As the heat dome works its way north through places like Norway and finally the Arctic, it could also re-jigger the jet stream over our neck of the woods to give Vermont relatively cool weather during much of the first half of August.

It won't be extremely cold, and there's no guarantee that it will actually be refreshingly cool, but there is a decent chance that could happen. Stay tuned......

Europe Heat Sets All-Time Records Again, Plus More Bad Climate News

Forecast map of the departure from normal in Europe for expected
high temperatures today. Areas that are whitish will be about
30 degrees hotter than normal, which is uncharted territory
for these regions. 

The second super intense heat wave of the summer is now underway in western Europe, and like in the June heat wave, all-time record hot temperature records are falling.

This isn't your grandfather's heat wave. This one is much worse.

Germany broke its national all-time record high Wednesday when one town reached 105 degrees. Belgium had its hottest day on record with a reading of 103.8 degrees. The Netherlands also broke its all time record, reaching 102.7 degrees.

The city of Bordeaux, France, reached its all time record high of 106.1 degrees.

Incredibly, these new records are in danger of falling today as the heat wave, if anything might grow more intense. And expand. Paris, France, might break its all-time heat record. So might the United Kingdom.

Already this summer, 25 percent of France's weather stations have reported all time record high temperatures, according to the Category 6 blog. Forty-four of Germany's 490 stations have also done so, and that will surely increase today.

Most European homes don't have air conditioning, so this is a dangerous situation. Governments have learned from other, recent deadly heat waves and have set up cooling centers, air conditioned places and other options for vulnerable people to go.

By Saturday, cooler air will undercut the heat ridge and push it north into Scandanavia. That would probably make all time record highs fall up there, too.  It's possible the heat dome will extend as far as the North Pole, which isn't exactly great news for the already scant Arctic sea ice pack.

There's other types of climate related trouble and news, too:

ARCTIC FIRES

The center of this heat wave will move to Scandanavia and parts of the
Arctic this weekend, which is bad news for the ice up there. 

Extensive probably unprecedented wildfires burning in Alaska, northern Canada and Siberia and cloaking the Arctic in smoke, Forbes reports. Wildfires in such northern areas are bad to begin with, but these could contribute a bit toward making climate change worse.'

Especially in areas were peat is on fire, the blazes are belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds to the surplus that's causing climate change in the first place.

Soot particles from the fire are landing on Arctic ice. Bright white ice reflects sunlight, but darker material draws the sun's warmth in. The soot would therefore make the ice melt faster in the summer than it otherwise would.

ICELAND GLACIER DEATH

An Icelandic glacier dubbed OK is officially dead, the apparent victim of climate change. Summers in Iceland have gotten hotter in recent years and decades. That means the island's 400 or so glaciers are in retreat.

OK is the first of Iceland glaciers to be declared dead but it won't be the least. A glacier "dies" when it becomes so thin that it can't move on its own because it doesn't have enough weight.

According to Slate, the OK glacier probably died several years ago, and there's likely a few other glaciers in Iceland that have also died.

PAST CLIMATE CHANGE SMALLER

People who say climate change doesn't exist point to other climate shifts that happened before we started pushing all that CO2 into the atmosphere. They point to the Roman Warm Period between the years 0 and 300 AD, the Dark Ages cold period around the year 500 AD, the Little Ice Age in the 1300s through 1700s and the Medieval Warm Period around the year 1000 as examples.

According to Science News, these past climate events were regional, covering only sections of the Earth. That's unlike the current global warming, says Science. They report that 98 percent of the Earth is warmer now that it has been at any time in the previous 2,000 years.

This new study appears in the journal Nature.  The scientists conducting this study came to their conclusion by using proxies for temperatures from tree rings, glacier ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, cave deposits and historical documents.

Alaska's The Latest Place To Get "Baked" By A Record Heat Wave

People cool off in a lake near Wasila, Alaska during this
record breaking heat wave. Photo by Mark Thiessen/AP

If you like cool summer weather, Anchorage, Alaska is your kind of place.

Normal highs there this time of year are in the mid-60s and lows generally get to the low 50s.

Except this week. Parts of Alaska are having what might turn out to be an unprecedented heat wave, joining a long list of other places to have previously unheard of type heat waves.

Until yesterday the highest temperature on record for any date in Anchorage, Alaska was 85 degrees.  On this year's Fourth of July, Anchorage reached 90 degrees.

To break an all time record by five degrees is really something.  Heat waves - at least some of them - have gotten more extreme in recent years, and this is another example.  It's rare to break an all time record high, and much more rare to break it by such a big margin. And just last month parts of Europe broke record highs by similarly odd, large margins.

For perspective, it was hotter in Anchorage on the Fourth of July than it was in Little Rock, Arkansas and Key West, Florida, though it was more humid in Arkansas and Florida than in Alaska.

It's going to stay hot in much of Alaska for the next week or so, and it's already been off the charts for a week.

The seven-day period ending on Wednesday in Anchorage was the hottest such period on record, with a 67.4 degree average temperature. And that was before the real heat set in yesterday for a what will probably be a week long stay.

Other Alaskan places are hot, too. King Salmon and Kenai, Alaska broke or tied all time high temperature records at 88 degrees. Kodiak, Alaska just had its hottest July day on record, with a reading of 83 degrees. Northway, Alaska hit an all-time high of 92 degrees on June 30.

Last month was the warmest June on record in Anchorage, with a mean temperature of 60.5 degrees. That beat the old record set in 2015 by a whole degree. And talk about the longevity of the southern Alaska warmth! Each of the past 16 months have been warmer than average.

June in Anchorage was also the driest on record, with just 0.06 inches of rain. For perspective, a one-hour rainfall of that magnitude would barely make the pavement wet.

As can imagine, the odd warmth and dryness has been causing lots of problems. Overall, the current young wildfire season in Alaska is only slightly worse than average, but the fires could really get out of hand with the upcoming week of hot, dry weather and lightning strikes.

Plus, the Anchorage area is usually on the moist side, but not this year. So wildfires and the resulting air pollution is hanging around that city much more than usual.

It's not just the air that's hot. Relatively speaking so are many of the oceans and seas along the coast of Alaska.  The northern Bering and southern Chukchi sea water temperatures are as much as 10 degrees warmer than normal. 

The hot water is screwing up fisheries. Also, lots of dead seals are appearing on Alaska's northern and western shores. It's a mess.

The Alaska heat has so far only made occasional forays into central and northern Alaska. June in Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow on the northern tip of Alaska was only a modest 1.4 degrees warmer than normal, but did feature one day that hit 73 degrees, the warmest June reading on record there.

Fairbanks, in central Alaska, definitely had above normal temperatures in June, but it didn't break records. Temperatures in Fairbanks are expected to reach the 80s over the next week to ten days, which is about 10 degrees hotter than normal for this time of year.

The Alaska heat wave was created by a very unusually strong and far north ridge of high pressure parked over the state. It's a similar setup to what caused the record European heat wave last month.

Climate scientists keep tellling us these extreme heat waves are boosted by climate change. Perhaps these heat waves would have occured without climate change, but are being made more intense by all the CO2 we're pumping into the air.

Referencing the Europe heat wave, Columbia University climatologist James Hansen told CBS: "For all practical purposes, the heat wave is caused by human-made global warming."

I suspect the Alaska heat wave has climate change fingerprints all over it, too.

Skeptics point out, correctly, that the jet stream is wavy.  Immediately to the east of the European and Alaskan heat ridges were dips in the jet stream. Under these dips, temperatures were or are cooler than normal.

That's true. But the chilly weather in these jet stream dips wasn't record-breaking, or nearly as far from normal as the temperatures in the core of the heat waves.

Here in Vermont, we will very briefly get into this "dip" in the jet stream on Sunday, when high temperatures will "only" reach the mid and upper 70s. That's just few degrees cooler than normal, and nothing at all unusual for July.

June In Vermont Was A (Mostly) Cool Spot In A (Mostly) Hot World

A shower blossoms over Lake Champlain Sunday. It was a fitting
close to a wet June 

Vermont experienced another relatively cool month in June, with most places running a little below normal in temperature and definitely above normal in rainfall.

With the final numbers in for June, the Champlain Valley actually eeked out a month that was pretty much right on normal for temperature.

But away from the lake, it was definitely cooler. Montpelier, which had a mean June temperature of 60.6, was 2.2 degrees chillier than normal. St. Johnsbury was downright frigid, with a mean temperature of 62 degrees. That was 3.6 inches colder than normal for June.

Did I mention all the rain? For the most part, we didn't have any kind of record rains, though there was certainly some flash flooding across central Vermont on June 20.  Montpelier had 2.55 inches of rain that day, contributing to a month's total of 7.06. That's more than three inches wetter than normal.

Most other areas of Vermont were wetter than normal in June, too, but not to the extent that central parts of the Green Mountain State experienced.

As you might have heard on the news, Vermont is a relatively cool island in a world that is experiencing yet another summer with odd heat waves. Well, OK, the Northern Hemisphere. South of the Equator, it's winter. I get it.

We've already mentioned that heat wave in Europe, which brought the hottest temperature on record to France and other areas of the continent. Countries that set new records in the past week for the hottest June temperature include Poland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg.

Also in late June, Florida had an intense heat wave. Yes, I know it's always hot in Florida in the summer. Miami set 10 daily record highs in June, including four consecutive ones last week. That city has been at or above 95 degrees eight times this year already. Before this year, Miami had never had more than six 95 degree days in the first half of the year, notes meteorologist John Morales on Twitter.

It was hot in the northern and central Plains this weekend, too. Heat indexes in some areas South Dakota and Iowa reached 110 degrees Saturday, thanks to temperatures in the upper 90s and dew points (a measure of humidity) in the upper 70s.

Back here in Vermont, we're setting up for quite a warm week, but we won't be seeing any record breaking heat. Each day through Friday will be in the 80s, and some spots could get into the 90s Wednesday and Thursday.

Europe Scorches To All Time Record Highs; Toasty Here, Too, With An Interruption

People try to cool off in the Trocodero Fountain in Paris Friday.
Photo by Zakaria Abdelkafi/Getty Images

Here in Vermont, it got up to 90 degrees in Burlington, the first 90 degree reading of the summer.

Fun fact: Last summer, the first 90 of the year didn't hit until June 30, and we ended up with 17 days that were 90 or over. Normal for an entire summer is about five such days.

It's cooling off today in Vermont, temporarily at least. Plus, if you didn't like Friday's toasty temperatures, it was nothing compared to much of Europe

As you might have heard on the news, France suffered through its hottest day on record. From a climatology standpoint, the record highs were even more impressive than at first glance.

The temperature reached 114.6 degrees at Gallargues-le-Montueux, France Friday, breaking the all-time hot record for France of 111.4 set on August 12, 2003.

It's obviously very rare for a nation to break its hottest temperature. It's downright bizarre to break the previous record by three degrees. These new all time records are almost always broken by a fraction of a degree, or perhaps one degree at most.

On top of this, the hot record was set in June, before the normal hottest part of summer. If there's going to be an all-time record high, you'd expect it later in July or in August.

As the Category 6 blog points out, there's yet another amazing fact regarding the French hot record.  A full dozen weather stations beat or tied France's previous all time record high temperature.

The small principality of Andorra, which is between France and Spain, also established a new all time record high of 102.9 degrees.

If all this is unbelievable here's another factoid: France has a shot today of breaking its all time record high temperature that I just said was established yesterday.

It was so hot in Spain that a pile of manure got so hot it self-ignited, sparking a 10,000 acre wildfire. 

The heat in Europe will roll on through this weekend. It'll shift eastward a bit, so that Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic might establish all time record highs, too. The heat is finally expected to diminish early next week.

The Europe heat wave is part of a trend that's probably connected at least in part to climate change. National Geographic notes that Europe's five hottest summers in the past 500 years have all occurred within the last 15 years.

Heat waves in Europe are exceptionally deadly because the use of air conditioning isn't nearly as widespread as it is in the United States. Fewer than five percent of German and French homes have air conditioning.

At least 70,000 Europeans died in a long, punishing heat wave in 2003. About 56,000 Russians met a similar fate in an epic 2010 heat wave there.

U.S. HOT, BUT NOT AS BAD

Summer does seem to be getting its act together in the United States. A broad area in the northern and  central Plains,  which had experienced a cold and wet winter and spring, is now under a heat advisory. 

Heat indexes in this neck of the woods are over 100 degrees today and tomorrow.

Back home in Vermont, it will actually be a fair amount cooler than normal Sunday with lots of clouds and an unseasonable cold, upper level low overhead. But that will quickly clear out by Monday.

The entirety of next week in Vermont won't exactly have record heat like Europe, but it will be on the warm side, with increasing humidity toward the end ofthe week.

Another Summer, And Record Heat Waves In World Are Starting To Pop

People in India wilting in this months record heat.
Photo via Getty Images.

Here in Vermont, we haven't had much in the way of summer heat. At least not yet.

The hottest it's been in Burlington so far this young summer is 85 degrees. And there is no sign yet of any sustained hot weather. It's actually going to be a bit cooler than normal over the next few days.

Last summer, heat waves blossomed in many, many areas of the Northern Hemisphere, including Vermont.  At least six deaths were attributed to the Vermont heat last July, making the hot spell the state's worst weather disaster since Hurricane Irene in 2011.

A lot of the heat waves around the world last year were  attributed to climate change.  At the time, I wondered if this year would be a repeat of those frequent, record setting heat waves.

You wouldn't know it here in Vermont with the cool weather, but the summer is off to a rough start in the Northern Hemisphere. There have already been some big, record setting, dangerous heat waves.

Much of India normally broils in May and June, before the seasonal monsoons hit. This year is no exception, except the heat there is even worse and more dangerous than anyone has seen.  New Delhi reached 118 degrees, the city's hottest reading on record.

In the lower elevations of India,  a heat wave is declared if daily temperatures reach or exceed 104 degrees. This heat wave is threatening to become the longest on record. The Hindustan Times said this hot spell has lasted 32 days so far.  The record longest heat wave lasted 33 days, so they're very close.

Elsewhere, Finland and parts of Russia just recorded the hottest weather on record for so early in the season.

Record heat has engulfed the West Coast, too. For three days in a row, numerous towns and cities in the San Francisco Bay Area have seen record high temperatures.  It got up to 100 degrees at the San Francisco airport Monday, tying the record for the fifth hottest day on record there.

That 100 degree reading is also the first time it's been that hot in San Francisco in a month other than September, which is when the Bay Area gets its most intense heat waves.  Monterey, California reached 97 degrees, the hottest day on record for meteorological summer (June-August.)

The heat is extending northward into Oregon and Washington, too.

In far southern Texas, record heat combined wit stifling humidity to create a heat index of 128 degrees, which of course is damn dangerous.

It looks like it will be a long, hot summer. If not in Vermont, then elsewhere

Polar Vortex Is Back In The News. Don't Panic, But It Could Cause Something Called "Winter"

Schematic of how something called Sudden Stratospheric Warming
can split up the Polar Vortex and send those cold pieces closer
to Europe and the United States, increasing the risk
of harsh winter weather. 

Some of you might remember the media hype back in the winters of 2014 and 2015 about the "Polar Vortex."

At the time it was hyped as some new-fangled thing unleashing supposedly apocalyptic winter despair on the nation, or something like that.  

Well, the hype is back, at least sort of. The polar vortex, or at least a particular orientation of it threatens us again. It could cause us to experience something called "winter."

The short version of this things are changing in the atmosphere, as they often do in the winter, in a way that could bring some sharp cold spells and maybe some good sized snowstorms to parts of the middle and eastern parts of the United States.

Let's explain: As non-insane people explained in the winter of 2014, the polar vortex is something that's totally, absolutely normal.  It's pretty much always there, spinning high overhead in the Arctic.

It's basically a circle of strong winds spinning around  a blob of particularly cold air up north.

Sometimes the polar vortex moves a little south, sometimes toward Europe, sometimes down into central or eastern Canada. When that happens, the cold air on the ground moves south, too.

If the polar vortex approaches Europe, it gets really cold there. If the polar vortex gets south into Canada, chances are there will be some subzero cold in the United States. Plus, depending upon how the polar vortex orients itself, some areas get decent snowstorms.

Now, I'm going to introduce another so-called villain that is getting a lot of hype this particular winter. 

It's called Sudden Stratospheric Warming. Again, it sounds terribly frightening to most people, because they've never heard of it before and it sounds like something has gone off the rails.

Well, no. Sometimes, very high in the atmosphere over the Arctic, above where most weather systems live, the air quickly gets unusually warm. Again, scientists have long known about this, and it's not like the world is going to end in 15 minutes.

Weather geeks have been going bananas since at least early December over this winter's Sudden Stratosphere Warming when forecasts first indicated it might happen and then it unfolded. Until now, I've spared you this esoteric excitement because it had absolutely zero effect on your life.

But now it looks like we're approaching the time when you might, just might, feel the effects of this thing, which we'll call SSW for short. Trust me, you're not going die.

In the weeks after an SSW develops, its effects begin to trickle down to near the Earth's surface and begins to affect the weather we experience.

The SSW very often moves the polar vortex southward, or splits it up into two or three mini-polar vortexes. That's what is happening this winter. It looks like the Northern Hemisphere is temporarily home to three of these mini-polar, um, vortexes? vortices?  

These little baby vortices  also drift south, opening the door for Arctic outbreaks to hit the mid-latitudes. That's why central and parts of southern Europe have experienced so much snow and cold over the past couple of weeks.

Another "mini polar vortex" of sorts seems to be setting up in Canada. Though this is not definite, it looks likely that this might set the eastern and central United States up for some Arctic cold for the end of January and into February.

We might already be starting to see the effects of all this. We managed to get a typical cold wave on us this weekend, and another brief one will be upon us around Thursday. Things look like they will become more active and stormy within about a week or so, but nobody yet has any idea how stormy.

Long range forecasts after that indicate repeated influxes of Arctic air and a risk of some snowstorms through the beginning of February.  This somewhat more exciting weather pattern should be established within a week here in the Northeast.

There's no telling how extreme things will get. Yes, it'll be winter. So you have to expect these spells  of Arctic cold and snowy weather.  There's also a chance that other atmospheric conditions, like a strong west-to-east jet stream coming across the Pacific Ocean into North America, could thwart many of the invasions of Arctic air from the North Pole.

On some occasions, the weather following a SSW can get awfully extreme, worse than your standard winter conditions.

That was the case in 2015, when Boston had an unprecedented snow siege. The city had 94 inches of snow in just 30 days in late January and February that year. February, 2015 in Burlington, Vermont was the third coldest on record.  I've gotten wimpy in my old age, so I'm hoping we don't get a repeat of 2015.

Last year, harsh weather after an SSW blasted much of Europe, and contributed to frigid, snowy conditions in much of the United States through March. That snowy chill lingered well into April, especially in the northern and central Plains.

If the current aftermath of a SSW brings cold, snowy weather to New England or elsewhere in the United States, it's really not possible right now to tell how long it would last or how intense it will get.  It could be just a couple weeks of rough weather. Or, worse case scenario, a couple months.

Scientists are investigating whether SSW's would become more frequent because of climate change. Some preliminary evidence suggests this is the case. Which would bring many of us in Europe and the eastern half of the United States a strange irony:

Conditions would warm up as years and decades go by, but we'd still be at risk of occasionally getting some of the harshest possible long spells of Arctic winter weather.

Yes, It Snowed Here, But If You REALLY Like Snow....

There seems to be a bit of snow on the ground at the moment in
the Austrian Alps. Photo via Twitter by Pipp Ionguere/La Meteo

Snow lovers here in Vermont are having a so-so winter so far. The season got off to a bang, but in December snowfall was lacking.

Things have picked up somewhat now in January, and now there's a decent, but not spectacular snow cover in most places in the Green Mountain State.

Some areas along the western slopes of the Green Mountains have picked up as much as 18 inches of snow in the past couple of days.

However, if you like ridiculous amounts of snow, though, head to Europe.  It's absolutely crazy.

Wild amounts of snow- feet of it in some places -  have fallen there in the past couple of weeks, and it does look pretty amazing. Even wilder, several more feet of snow might come down there in the coming days.

There's videos at the bottom of this post.

It looks amazing, especially in the Alps, but as you might imagine, three to seven or more feet of snow is dangerous, especially if it all comes within a week or so.

At least 17 people have died in the snow and storms in and near Austria, and hundreds of people were stranded. One Austrian ski resort reported seven feet of new snow in just seven days. 

Try to shovel that out!

Some of the dead were avalanche victims. Another person was killed when heavy snow broke branches. The snow and branches fell on a man, killing him.

About 600 people were stranded in an Austrian village when the area became cut off due to snow-blocked roads. A few hundred other people were trapped on a train for hours because a snow-laen tree fell onto tracks near Kitzbuehel, Austria, The Weather Channel reported.

The snow created the highest avalanche danger since at least 1999, authorities said. An additional four feet of snow might fall in the mountains during the rest of this week, forecasters said.

The snow extended pretty far south. It snarled traffic in the higher elevations of Lebanon this week. Athens, Greece was also pretty much shut down by the snow.

Here's a BBC report of the situation in Austria:



Here's another pretty wild news report:

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.

While Nor'easter Battered New England, Great Britain Swallowed By Epic Snow, Cold

Eileen Maguire, 86, enjoys a chance to go sledding this
weekend with her grandson Jack in Ireland. Photo via
@irishmadegifts on Twitter. 

The East Coast of the United States wasn't the only place to get slammed by tremedously bad weather over the past few days.

The now-infamous "Beast From The East" also got Great Britain really bad, too, swamping England, Wales, Ireland and other places in deep snow drifts and numbing cold.

Some videos are at the bottom of this post.

At least ten people died in the cold and snow. Some of them got lost and disoriented walking in the snow.

On some roads, drivers were stuck in their vehicles for up to 15 hours, says the Guardian. Among those trapped for all those hours were 40 people on a bus, including a baby.

Drifts were so deep in so places that police made "avalanche poles" out of pipework to poke into the drifts, looking for buried cars. Up to three feet of snow fell on eastern Ireland.

The monetary disruption from the cold and snow could be so great that it could cut Great Britain's expected economic growth rate for the first quarter by half, says the BBC.

Bit snowed in around Kilkenney Ireland late last week

The cold covered much of western Europe as well. Two deaths were reported among the homeless population in Warsaw, Poland, as temperatures fell to as low as 5 above zero.

Elsewhere the cold claimed seven lives in Slovakia, six in the Czech Republic, and five each in Lithuania and France, the BBC reported. 

On tbe bright side, it was cold enough in Amsterdam, The Netherlands that scores of people were able to skate on smooth ice on the city's canals. The ice was definitely thick enough to support all the skaters.

All bad or good things must come to an end. It's warming up in Europe at the moment.

To many people's relief, the weather is warming up in England, Wales and Ireland. For the next week, London's overnight temperatures will stay above freezing while daytime highs will reach the upper 40s and low 50s. In Dublin, Ireland, daytime temperatures will also stay in the thawing 40s for the next week at least.

There are some fears that rain, combined with the melting snow, could cause some flooding.

Elsewhere, it's finally warming up, too. Warsaw, Poland should get into the low 40s and even Moscow, Russia should get into the 20s this week. Not warm, but definitely better.

Some videos from Europe's "Beast From The East."

Wexford, Ireland looking pretty snowed in with this video:



Driving was a bit of a challenge in Poringland, in northeastern England:



t wasn't just New England dealing with damaging storm surges over the past couple of days. Here's what it looked like in Wicklow, Ireland Friday:

Bitter European Arctic Blast Creates Roman Winter Holiday; California Epic Hail

Welcome to snowy Rome, Italy.

Priests had a rare chance to partake in snowball fights
in St Peters Square as an unusual snowstorm hit
Rome this week. Photo by Alessadro Tarantino/AP

Yep. It doesn't usually snow there, but it did this week, big time, as you might have seen in various press reports.

The last decent snowfall before this week in Rome was in 2012, and that last time before that was in the early 1980s. This time, between 1.5 an 6 inches of snow fell around Rome.

Since Rome doesn't usually get snow, the city basically shut down. Schools, airports, public transportation, businesses and streets closed.

Which left the people of Rome to just enjoy the spectacle. People were treated to the sight of priests engaging in snowball fights in St. Peters Square.

Rome did open subway and train stations to provide refuge to homeless people.

After a couple chilly days - with high temperatures near 40 today and Wednesday, temperatures in Rome are likely to rise into the more seasonable upper 50s later this week.

Elsewhere in Europe, temperatures fell into the teens in Brussels, prompting officials there to detain homeless people forcefully to protect them if they didn't want to go to warm shelters, says Reuters. 

The current weather pattern in Europe has been dubbed the "Beast From The East" as the current rather odd weather pattern has shifted winds over Europe so they're going from east to west. The air is coming from Siberia, so of course it's very cold in a broad stretch from Moscow to London.

The weather pattern has also brought an odd burst of above freezing air to the Arctic, so it was actually warmer for a time at the North Pole than in normally temperate western Europe.

SACRAMENTO ICE

A very whitened Sacramento, California after
a Monday hailstorm. Via Robert Krier
@sdutKrier on Twitter.

Meanwhile, in California, they had a hail of a time in Sacramento on Monday.  Thunderstorms combined with colder than normal temperatures unloaded a big dump of hail on California's capital city.

The hailstones weren't big enough to ding cars or damage windows, but there was a lot of it. The hail accumulated up to three inches deep in some parts of the city, snarling traffic with slippery roads. There was so much hail that some people built snowmen, er, hailmen with it.

At least the hail was some sort of moisture. California has been very dry this winter, raising fears of a return to severe drought.

There are more showers and mountain snows around California this week. Snow levels in the hills and mountains in southern California are unusually low due to a cold spell out there.

Winter storm warnings are up for elevations as low as 2,000 feet east of San Diego.

Some videos:

Snowball fight in Rome:





Here's a news report from the Sacramento hail chaos:

Western Europe's Weather Is Off The Rails, Too. Especially Paris Flooding

A statue engulfed in Seine River flood water this
week in Paris. 

Many people, including myself,  have always wanted to go the Louve in Paris. If you're in Paris now, you're out of luck. The Louve - at least part of it -  is closed. 

Some of the worst flooding along the Seine River in decades has flooded neighborhoods and streets, and forced evacuations of some neighborhoods. As a precaution, the Louve moved some priceless artworks in lower parts of the complex to upper floors.  

Parts of the Paris Metro are shut down, expressways near the river are also closed, and tourists can't take riverfront cruises.

The flood along the Seine in Paris is peaking today, and the water should slowly recede after that.  The river is peaking at 5.95 meters, just shy of the 6.1 meters in 2016. This would make the Seine flood among the worst in modern records. On the bright side, it's not THE worst.

Initially there were fears the Seine could reach the record level of 8.62 meters, which would have shut down basically the entire city of Paris and would have forced the evacuation of at least a few hundred thousand people, if not more.

This has been Paris' third wettest December-January period on record.

The Seine flood is a symptom of how stormy it's been in western Europe this month. There were two whopping wind storms that caused extensive damage from England to Germany.

Guards on a rooftop for the Davos World Economic Forum
in Switzerland had a tough time of it with deep snow.

You might have also seen the footage out of Davos, Switzerland, where all those worldwide mucky mucks just had their big soiree. It snowed like hell there, making transportation difficult, and - horrors! making the helicopter landing pad temporarily unusable.

Some people in Switzerland were evacuated due to an avalanche danger. A few places in the Alps got ten feet of snow in a week.

In the lower elevations of western Europe, they've been enjoying a very warm winter, if you discount the storms, flooding and wind damage, I guess.  Denmark looks like it's going to have its warmest January on record. On Wednesday, one town in Denmark reached 55 degrees, a national record for warmth in Denmark for January. Other nearby nations will come close to having a record warm January.

As we Americans in the eastern United States shivered in one of the coldest New Year's Eves on record, it was almost t-shirt and shorts weather in Europe. Most of Germany had its warmest New Year's Eve on record, with temperatures as high as 56 degrees.

The Northern Hemisphere's wild winter weather ride has been caused by a unusually wave jet stream pattern, with a big bulges to the north in western North America and western Europe. This  has caused mostly dry, warm conditions in California and the very warm, stormy weather in western Europe.

Big corresponding dips in the jet stream froze out eastern North America earlier this winter, and is persistently freezing eastern Asia. At least the Winter Olympics in South Korea are safe, as it's been unusually cold and snowy there. Seoul, South Korea got down to 0 degrees last week, at least 20 degrees colder than normal.

In Moscow, caught in a persistent storm track, they had what can easily be described as the ultimate gloomy December. That far north, a clear December day in Moscow can still yield seven hours of sunshine. For the entire month of December, the sun was out a total whopping amount of six minutes.

Not hours. Minutes. No wonder Russians have a reputation as being grumpy.

The weather pattern temporarily relaxed in North America in the past couple of weeks, as I've already noted in yesterday's post, but it still looks like it's going to get cold and active again for a good chunk of February.

Wild European Storm Has People, Objects Blowing Away In The Wind

People struggled with the winds in The Hague,
Netherlands this week as the worst storm in years swept through.

A severe storm battered much of Europe over the past couple of days, killing at least eight people amid hurricane-force wind gusts across the Netherlands, Germany and other nations in the region.

The storm was said to be the worst to strike Germany in 11 years. Train service was badly disrupted by trees falling on rail lines.

In the Netherlands, winds clocked as high as 90 mph sheared roofs from buildings, knocked over trucks on highways, pushed over stacks of containers at the port of Rotterdam and flung pedestrians across plazas in that city.

Insurers are already estimating about $110 million in damage in just the Netherlands from the storm.

Dramatic videos are below:

The first one is labeled "funny video" but I'm not sure it's funny that people were blown across this Netherlands plaza. (reports are the people weren't hurt, though.)



More storm footage:



Here's a German  news report of the storm. You likely don't understand German, but I'm sure you get the gist:



First half of this video shows a hair-raising plane landing during the storm at Dusseldorf's airport

Hot Times Coming To New England, But If You Think 90 Is Bad......

People try to escape the heat in Lahore, Pakistan recently.
Photo from Getty Images

A spate of summer weather is finally heading toward New England, as temperatures over the past couple of days have climbed to seasonable levels, and will go upward even more by Sunday.

Sunday through Tuesday across the Northeast will see highs well into the 80s in most of northern New England, with 90s thrown in from central New England and points south.

Many people welcome the summer heat, though some people who work outside dread it.

Some record highs will probably fall in several cities from the Rockies to the East Coast over the next few days, but this won't be the nastiest heat wave ever

It could be worse, though..

 However, as I perused Dr. Jeff Masters's Catagory 6 weather blog recently, I found news of some truly awful heat elsewhere in the world.

In the blog, guest writer Maximiliano Herrera detailed incredible heat records that hit big sections of the Middle East, east Asia and parts of Europe in late May and early June.

On May 28, the temperature reached 128.3 degrees in Turbat, Pakistan, making it the hottest May temperature recorded anywhere on Earth ever.

Oman and Pakistan had their all time hottest temperatures. Not hottest for the date or the month. I'm talking hottest ever.

In Iran, the temperature reached 127 degrees, Oman broke its all time record high of 123,

Of course, they're used to heat in the deserts of the Mideast and in places like Pakistan and India, but not like this Extreme heat of this nature is very, very dangerous.

For instance, we know at least 10 people died in an extreme heat wave in parts of India this week, and that toll will likely rise.

In Europe, Norway had its hottest May temperature on record with 90 degrees, and Austria also had its hottest May reading on record at 95 degrees at the end of the month.

One weird record high was set at the top of a 15,584 mountain in the Italian Alps when the temperature reached 42 degrees.  Chilly, yes, but still a record high for that elevation.

Enjoy summer!

Europe Gets A Last Big Blast Of Winter

Tulips in southern Germany this week. Photo by Angelika
Warmth/Getty Images

I know, I know, you don't want to think about winter this time of year, but sometimes, winter has enough strength to push aside spring, if only for a moment.

Not here, thank goodness.

However, parts of Europe got a weird late season blast this week as snow fell across much of the central and eastern part of the continent. 

Nearly a foot of snow fell in eastern Ukraine, and six inches fell in parts of Switzerland. Accumulating snow this week also hit Germay, Poland, Slovakia ad Romania.

Trees in the region are starting to bloom and leaf out, so the weight of the snow, combined with the leaves that can catch the snow, caused branches to break. Which in turn caused power failures.

The unseasonable snow was enough to cause a 40-car pileup on a highway in Slovakia.

Heavy snow in Munich, German this week. Photo by
Tobias Hase/Getty Images

The snow was accompanied by unusual cold for this time of year, threatening crops in wide areas of Europe.

Apple crops are in trouble in Germany, Bosnia and Ukraine, and grapes for wine could might have gotten nipped in France.

Crop losses have already been reported.  

Closer to home, northern Maine can't seem to escape winter, either.

Four or five inches of snow fell up there in the past few days, and winter weather advisories were in effect for the rooftop of Maine this morning.

Don't worry, fellow Vermonters. There might have been a few wet snow flakes up in the mountains early this morning, but that's it in the forecast for winter weather.

Today will be somewhat damp and cool, but sunshine Sunday should boost afternoon temperatures to a seasonable 60 degrees or so.

Fatal Italy Avalanche Part Of A Current Brutal European Weather Pattern

In the lobby of the avalanche-destroyed hotel in Italy
a wall of snow and debris is seen pressing into the building
on the left.  

We awoke to the sad news today that a giant avalanche smashed into a resort luxury hotel in Italy, which is likely to have claimed 30 lives.

The avalanche came after incredibly heavy snows hit the mountainous Abruzzo region of central Italy in recent days.

The area has also been hit by swarms of earthquakes in recent months. More earthquakes Wednesday apparently sent the deep snow hurtling down mountainsides.

Incredibly severe weather also hampered rescue operations. Drifts were reported to be 16 feet deep, and it took many hours for rescuers to reach the hotel through blizzard conditions.

Some of the avalanche victims might have survived the snow slide, but froze to death awaiting rescue.

Plus, some of the guests might have already left before the slide hit because they had checked out. However, they were still there when the avalanche hit, waiting at the hotel for crews to clear snow-blocked roads so they could leave, Reuters reported.

The Italy avalanche tragedy is the worst part of a brutal weather pattern that is causing misery in much of central and eastern Europe.

Another huge concern is the refugee crisis in the region combined with the harsh winter conditions.

Snow and freezing cold have hit normally temperate areas of southern Italy, Greece and Turkey.

Even before the latest blast of frigid weather hit this week, at least five refugees had died as of last week from the cold and many others suffered from frostbite and hypothermia, The Guardian reported.

Some refugees in Greece have been moved to warmer buildings, but many others in Greece and elsewhere are stuck in flimsy tents, unprotected from the cold.  

Refugees in Belgrade, Serbia try to wash clothes
and themselves in hard winter conditons over
barrels filled with water and heated from below
with scraps of wood. Photo via Getty Images

In Serbia, women and children are mostly in warm shelters, but up to 1,200 men and unaccompanied boys are outdoors, unprotected as temperatures plunge into the single digits Fahrenheit.

Some countries, and people, are hostile to the refugees, and there are reports of police confiscating clothes and mobile phones from them, preventing them from calling for help or staying warm in the horrible weather.

This is beyond cruel. So-called humans have quite a capacity to destroy others, don't they?

No real relief is in sight as renewed cold and snow are due through the weekend in Greece, Italy, Turkey and the Baltic nations

Texas Keeps Getting Slammed By Floods. Europe, Too

The results of extreme flooding in Germany this week.  

Flash flood warnings and watches are up for big swaths of Texas again today as another round of incredible rains drowns the.

This has happened repeatedly for at least a year now. Flooding is common in Texas, but the repeated bouts of record high river flooding is not nearly so common.

This time it was the Brazos River that reached record crests.

At least six people have died in the flooding, including Darren Mitchell, 21, whose scary photo I ran in the last update on the Texas flooding.

He took the photo as his truck was sinking beneath the water and posted it to Facebook on May 26 with the message, "All I wanted to do was go home."

Mitchell had been missing for several days, until his body was found this week downstream from  his overturned truck.

The most recent flooding over recent weeks has hit almost all corners of Texas, from Lubbock to Houston.  Texas officials declared states of disaster in 31 counties across the Lone Star State.

If anything, it's even worse in Europe, because of an upper level low stuck in Austria. That has caused repeated rounds of strong thunderstorms which in turned touched off severe flooding in parts of Germany, France, Belgium and adjacent areas.

Here's a jeep being swept away Tuesday northeast of Austin, Texas. It doesn't look like anyone was in it, thank goodness:



This video shows the extreme flooding in Germany

Snow In Poland, Snow Forecast For New England. Winter's Coming!

Snow in the Czech Republic this week.
A few high elevation places in New England might
look a little like this by Sunday.  

We here in New England are now watching a series of cold fronts cross our area. It'll get a little colder behind each one.

One particularly strong cold front is due to come through later Friday into Saturday, and that should bring the first accumulating snow of the season to New York's Adirondacks, Vermont's Green Mountains and New Hampshire's White Mountains.

Parts of Maine are going to turn white over the weekend, too.

Several inches of snow will probably pile up in the highest elevations, making skiers salivate.

I suspect elevations as low as 1,000 feet will get at least a slushy coating in some areas. Lower valleys might escape with light flurries.

Meanwhile, early season snows are hitting elsewhere, like in central Europe. Leaves are still on the trees in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany as parts of those countries got a good half foot of snow.

With the snow piling up on leafy trees, branches snapped, cutting power to at least 9,000 Polish home and businesses. 

I don't think things will get that bad in northern New England, but I imagine there could be a few scattered power failures as snow falls on some of the trees that have leaves in higher elevations over the weekend.

Plus, as I noted before, the snow and the foliage will make for some pretty photography on Sunday.