A thread for weather extremes that don’t normally get reported

Tyrone212 wrote: »

Tornado in Auckland . 1 fatality.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/06/auckland-tornado-government-donating-100k-to-communities-damaged-by-papatoetoe-tornado.amp.html

Yea it was pretty rough here
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300338917/auckland-tornado-the-aftermath-in-pictures

Tornado in the Czech Republic.

https://twitter.com/MJimramovsky/status/1408131538148024334?s=19

https://twitter.com/Matesaaaci/status/1408137343463211011?s=20

Yep now the next target is the all-time record for BC which is 44.4 C set on July 16 and 17, 1941 at Lytton and Lillooet BC (really it was 112 F, the value of 44.4 is the standard conversion of that reading so it might have been 44.2 or 44.6 for all we know). The two locations had a week-long heat wave which is not that unusual in our climate but the temperature values were extreme. Heat waves further east in 1936 and 1937 produced similar readings in SK and MB provinces, several other instances of 112 F and one of 113 F on July 6, 1937 in southern SK, that being the recognized Canadian maximum and we could see that fall in BC today or Monday.

The 1936 heat wave (112 F south of Winnipeg MB) produced astounding heat in the U.S. plains states, with North Dakota managing a 122 F (50 C) reading. That heat spread to the east coast and most stations that have weather records from 1936 had their hottest temperatures during the spell July 8 to 15. Toronto hit 105 F on three consecutive days (8th-10th) and NYC hit 106 F on July 9th.

Overnight lows in the 80s F were common in those brutal 1930s heat waves and thousands of people perished from heat prostration in an era that was generally before air conditioning became widespread in homes.

Where I live is about three hundred miles east of the hot spots mentioned but there are other ones around the province that have a chance to hit similar values, one of which is quite close to my location (Warfield BC) -- it was about 101 F there today (Sat). Osoyoos in the Okanagan and Pemberton further west are other very hot locations.

In the nearby state of Washington, readings above 110 F are a little more common and began to appear on Saturday but I think for them the worst will come around Monday-Tuesday when the heat dome settles down over top of them (now it's over top of us).

Portland, Oregon breaking records

https://twitter.com/NWSPortland/status/1409303279872274434?s=20

https://twitter.com/NWSSeattle/status/1409320197584945161?s=20

https://twitter.com/NWSSeattle/status/1409321460196282369?s=20

You'll always get extremes anywhere on the globe at any given time at all times of year. Worth noting parts of north America are below or well below average temperature wise for the time of year as with the Arctic region.

I don't see anything extreme at all broadly. Just a small enough pocket of heat the through the pacific northwest but it will be gradually shifted in the next days to much cooler conditions closer the average for the region but still above by a few degrees for a while.



Current anomaly

Canada sets new national record as temperature reaches 47.5°C (117.5°F) in Lytton, British Columbia

Looks like we have a 47.8° @ THE DALLES MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, Oregon

New record for Canada again today, wonder if tomorrow will beat it

https://twitter.com/NWSEastern/status/1409682508074082306?s=20

The cold anomaly in large parts of the Arctic.

Normal (i.e last year)



Now it's sub -8c 850's...quite unusual for the time of year even more so to see sub -10s anywhere at those latitudes, this will be impeding melt at the surface as temperatures at that level remain at or below freezing.

M.T is going to be Melt.T.

49.°c (120f) at Lytton BC

Bsal wrote: »

49.0c has been reached at Lytton, may go a little higher

https://twitter.com/robsobs/status/1410001361857437701?s=20

Move along folks
Nothing to see here

As mad as it, if it reaches 50°c I’ll be speechless. Climate is seriously in need of a check!

Taking its toll

https://twitter.com/bnonews/status/1410008275970560001?s=21

Highest temperature above 50N

https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1410027188653547522?s=20

https://twitter.com/blkahn/status/1409895436035538951?s=21

https://twitter.com/robsobs/status/1410381039751467014?s=20

https://weather.gc.ca/data/analysis/sai_100.gif

Updated 500 mb analysis, the heights are impressive but the thicknesses are to die for.

This is basically the 1936 heat wave applied to this part of the world. They also had a staggering death toll from heat prostration in large cities and it was probably a bit worse because that was a more humid air mass with overnight lows that stayed near 27 C (we have seen slightly lower minima although it means little because the temperature stays up near 25 C until 0300h then falls off for two hours before the sun starts the cycle over again).

I heard on the news that "only" 40 per cent of people in BC have air conditioning, which seems quite high to me, I don't think I have ever been in an air conditioned home in BC and that includes a few quite wealthy people (they weren't in at the time, ha ha) ... maybe a few luxury apartment buildings have a/c, ironically most of them are near waterfronts that remain cooler in heat waves. Also I wouldn't be surprised if people in these hot spots have a/c, I have only been through Lytton once and wasn't thinking to look (it wasn't all that hot).

We had the Spokane TV news on earlier and same story there, heat prostration emergency calls in poorer parts of town. Probably more residents of WA and interior parts of OR have a/c, there are places down there where you would need it to survive every summer not just this one. Of course it's very commonly found across the southern half of the U.S., back in Ontario when I lived there, also not that many people had a/c and there was a need for it several times in the average summer. People just get used to coping with the heat without it, you get onto a schedule of when to open the drapes or blinds, screen windows, and when to close them up. But when there's no relief at night it doesn't work too well (this is why they all have a/c in the southwestern states, the overnight lows are in the range of 29 C to 34 C on a routine basis down there).

Two similar aspects to 1936 for this heat wave -- (a) it broke existing records for dates by 10-15 F deg and all-time records by 5-10 F deg, and (b) it pushed extreme heat further north than had been seen before.

I am hoping a third similarity is that it won't happen again for a century. There have been some monster heat waves since 1936, but none of them quite matched it. Oddly this does not show up very well in the NYC temperature records, the only distinction for 1936 is that it set the all-time record of 106 F at NYC, but for a weekly average it barely made the top 50 (it was number one for that in Toronto however). Perhaps a close second would be the 1953 heat wave which lasted about ten days in late August and early September, with very high averages for those prolonged periods. We lived through one in 1988 that came at the same time as 1936 but only within about 8 F deg, it would have broken the pre-1936 records by a slight margin. And there was another attempt in 1995 to recreate the same flow pattern, but that time there was a lot of humidity present and the dew points were the big talking point rather than the air temperatures. For places around Chicago it was probably effectively a worse outcome with humidex values above 50 C from 37 C temps and 29 C dew points.

Anyway, every singularity is different (that's why they are singularities). This one has overstayed its welcome and as it oozes out into the prairies, I think over the next four or five days it will just slowly transform into a more normal summer heat pattern for the central portion of the continent, get swept away by a short wave and off to the oblivion of all such events, only to be recalled in later years by weather weenies and people with exceptional memories otherwise. It's good for the odd joke, like Bill Gates was fooling around with his weather control machine and everything backfired on him, or bring back air travel, we need more contrails.