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