Incredibly Dramatic Videos Emerge Of Scary Deadly Iran Flash Flood

Another big disaster: Huge floods in Iran have claimed at least 45
lives. It looks like it's going to get worse, too.

Devastating and deadly flash flooding hit much of Iran in the past week, killing at least 45 people and injuring scores more.

Reuters reports that the worst of the flooding is in northern and southwestern Iran, especially around the city of Shiraz, and the oil-rich province of Khuzestan.

Vast neighborhoods were or are under water and cars were swept off highways and left in huge heaps of twisted metal by the rushing water.

Iran is used to disasters such as earthquakes, and floods do hit the nation from time to time. But this one is probably one for the record books.  The rain so far is said to be the worst in at least a decade, and more heavy rain is in the forecast over the next few days in the hardest hit region.

As always, it's tempting to blame this disaster on climate change, but the direct connection is hard to prove. It can be said that climate change does add water to the atmosphere, potentially making big rain storms bigger and increasing the chances of floods.

So in this case like many others, the latest Iranian disaster is consistent with climate change, although it would take people a lot smarter than me to figure out how direct the connection might or might not be.

The flash floods were immense and caught people off-guard. As you'll see in videos below, the sudden, massive rush of water swept many people away and screaming, horrified onlookers could do nothing about it as the flood waters were too dangerous and fast to try rescues.

Hundreds of cars, some of them occupied, raced along with the floodwaters to.....somewhere. The videos also showed people trapped on suddenly-formed islands amid the water.

Here's one terrifying video compilation of the disaster:



More dramatic video from the Iran Press News Agency:



Video from an Iranian television station shows some of the scope of the flooding, and a TV reporter waist deep in the water:



Finally, here's a dog being rescued from the flood. It would have drowned had not these guys come along in a boat:

Possible New World Record High Temperature Set

A hazy sun sets over Lake Champlain during a hot spell
last year. Although it hasn't been too hot in Vermont
so far this summer, other area of the world
have had crushing heat. 

Here in Vermont, so far it's been a wet, occasionally humid, but not particularly hot summer.

That ain't true in some parts of the world, where the heat this year has been crushing.

A city in Iran in June week reached 129 degrees, which is the hottest temperature on record for that country.

It could also be a world's record for heat, but nobody knows for sure.

Although the 129 degree reading in Ahvaz, Iran was reliably measured, other standard bearers for record worldwide heat, um, let's just say not so much.

Many people take the reported temperature of 134 degrees in Death Valley, California on July 10, 1913.

However, weather historian Christopher Burt has said that the 134 degrees was not possible from a meteorological perspective and therefore unreliable.

Another purported world heat record of 136 degrees in Libya has been debunked.

The 129 degrees in Ahvaz, Iran felt even worse than it was. The heat index was reported at 142 degrees.

Earlier in June, the world saw a record hottest overnight low temperature. The temperature bottomed out at 111.6 in Khasab, Oman on June 17. Talk about an impossible night for sleeping!

Even worse, there was a reported dew point temperature of 91 degrees.

Dew point is a measure of atmospheric moisture. It's the temperature at which the temperature would have to fall for moisture in the air to condense into cloud

On the other extreme, on June 20 another Iranian city reached 116 degrees with a dewpoint of -28 degrees. In other words, the teperature would have to plunge by 143 degrees for moisture to condense out and form ground level clouds, said Dr. Jeff Masters at the Category 6 weather blog. 

The relative humidity that day was 0.36 percent. For comparisons sake, a dew point in the low 50s with a relative humidity in the 30s would represent a refreshingly pleasant non-muggy summer day in Vermont.

Meanwhile, in the western United States, the heat continues to grind on as well. The extreme heat of late June has waned a bit, down from readings that were as high as 127 degrees in Death Valley.

However, temperatures remain above normal out there. As of today, heat advisories and wild fire alerts are up in quite a few locations from Washington to Arizona.

Down in Las Vegas, the temperature reached 114 degrees Thursday, just one degree shy of the record for the date. Las Vegas residents must be sick of the heat. Yesterday was the 22nd day in a row in which the temperature reached at least 105 degrees.

That's the longest stretch of such weather on record in Las Vegas.

Record heat is forecast for southern  California and parts of Nevada through the weekend.

Here in Vermont, I see few if any signs of hot weather coming this way anytime soon. Temperatures will be near to slightly below normal for the next week. And yes, we have an almost daily chance of showers and thundershowers for at least the next five days.