Saturday, July 20, 2013

Summer heat waves all over


While Ed Hoskins on WUWT was warning that an ice age cometh, I saw that many parts of the world were in the grip of a heat wave.

India is reportedly considering categorising heat waves as a "natural calamity" entitling compensation to next of kin of people who die because of heat.  Hundreds of people have died from heat related deaths in India this year.  How's this for coming off a heat wave - from last month: "Temperatures in northern India have eased to around 42 degrees Celsius in recent days".  That's right, eased to 42 Celsius.  Imagine a cool change at 42 degrees Celsius! (107 degrees Fahrenheit.)  And then the monsoon came with a vengeance and killed almost 6,000 people.

Japan had more than 10,000 people hospitalised for heat related conditions this month and 85 heat-related deaths so far this year.

In the UK they are suffering as well, with hundreds of heat related deaths estimated.  Central Europe had a big one last month.

In the USA the weather is doing funny stuff and the heat wave continues in the north east of the continent.  Ignoring borders, of course, and hitting Canada as well.  Give a thought to the emergency workers in heat waves, like these firefighters in New Jersey.

And even Melbourne in southeastern Australia has had a winter warm wave.  Melbourne recorded its hottest July day on record this week at 23.3 degrees Celsius (74 Fahrenheit).  This narrowly beat the previous record of 23.1 degrees set in 1975.  So far the average maximum for July is 16.7 Celsius, which is 3.2 degrees Celsius above the long term average of 13.5 Celsius.


No, Philip - it's not cold in Perth compared to the past


As for cold extremes? I read this comment on WUWT just now:

Philip Bradley says:
July 19, 2013 at 11:57 pm  tango says:  July 19, 2013 at 3:47 am I am charted out I think I will put on my overcoat because It is freezing here in Australia
Coldest winter I can remember in Perth. Must be all that sea ice, which is a good 200 km closer to us than normal. Be interested to see the UAH July update.

So I went to the Bureau of Meteorology website to see just how cold it is in Perth.  I didn't see a long term record for Perth itself so I had to make do with different sources.

So far this month, the average maximum temperature at Perth Lawley and Perth Airport is 18.6 degrees Celsius (65.5 Fahrenheit) - not bad for the middle of winter.  The closest comparison seems to be this location, which from 1993 to now has an average July maximum of 18.4 degrees, a tad colder than this year.  And long term (but possibly not comparable), Perth regional office records the average for July from 1897 to 1992 at 17.4 degrees.

I'm guessing Philip Bradley has a very short term memory, because last year the average maximum for July was 19.4 degrees. All he remembers is that last year in July it was warmer than this year.

3 comments:

  1. Tango is a frequent poster at WUWT, but I get the clear impression that he/she is permanently intoxicated.

    Philip Bradley on the other hand can at least construct a sentence. Sadly his memory is lacking at the best of times. He made a comment a few days ago regarding the lack of cold fronts/low pressure systems crossing the Southern Ocean. I replied stating that seven had crossed the SO over the previous six days. Sadly my post was never published.

    Another poster at Watts, thingodonta also has selective amnesia. At least my reply to him was published.

    I found this site: http://www.australianweathernews.com/index.shtml
    It contains information on weather events back to 1996, and is a great resource to correct those with selective amnesia.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sou, I think Mr Bradley was writing about minimum temperatures. He still has a very short memory. I'm in Perth and I can remember winters this cold as long ago as the sixties. But they've never been this dry. Rainfall has been very low for the past decade or two.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Indeed.

    Hence the cold nights, with so little cloud cover to keep the heat in overnight.

    Climate change is not always hotter everywhere and for every time. But joined-up thinking does not appear to be a feature on some blogs...

    ReplyDelete

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