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A dangerous heat wave is ravaging parts of southeastern Europe resulting in wildfires across Turkey, Greece, and Italy, according to VOA News.

Firefighters across the European Union arrived in Turkey on Monday. The wildfires have burned for at least one week as political opposition mounts against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his sluggish fire response.

Turkey doesn’t have firefighting planes and has had to rely on other countries, including several EU members, for aerial fire support.

Erdogan tweeted a statement regarding the fires: “We will continue to take all necessary steps to heal our nation’s wounds, compensate for its losses, and improve its opportunities even better than before.”

Nex store in Greece, thousands of residents were evacuated in Athens as wildfires tore through the northern district of the metro area. Homes were burnt, and power grids were severed.

“It is a large fire and it will take a lot of work to get this under control,” greater Athens regional governor George Patoulis told state-run ERT television. “The foliage is very dense in these areas and it is very dried out due to the heatwave, so the conditions are difficult.”

On Tuesday, high temperatures were a blistering 115F as the country faces the worst heat wave in three decades.

“The fire is still raging, its perimeter is very wide and the heat load is very strong,” a fire official said Wednesday, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday, Greek emergency services warned residents and tourists of “extreme fire danger” in Rhodes and Crete.

In Italy, firefighters used helicopters with water buckets to battle the country’s wildfires along the Adriatic coast and Sicily region. Italy’s National Fire Corps said air tankers from Canada supported efforts to reduce the spread of fires where at least 715 flare-ups have been observed in the past 24 hours.

The heat wave is expected to abate in southeastern Europe after this weekend.

Christmas Tree Farms Scorched In Oregon Amid Record Heat

July 25, 2021

Christmas Tree Farms Scorched In Oregon Amid Record Heat

Oregon’s record-breaking heat waves and raging wildfires are set to dent Christmas tree crop output, resulting in supply constraints that may send prices skyrocketing come December.

According to Reuters, who spoke with multiple Christmas tree farm operators in Oregon, one of the top Christmas tree producing states, extreme heat and wildfires are impacting crop yields.

Jacob Hemphill, the owner of Hemphill Tree Farm in Oregon City, estimates he’s already lost more than $100,000 in trees due to the latest back-to-back heatwaves. At one point, temperatures in the area were triple digits for days.

“The second day of the heat, it was 116. I came in the driveway that night and seen the trees were basically cooking. Burnt down to nothing,” Hemphill said.

He said the losses will impact his farm revenue this year but hopes the 2022 season will improve.

“I mean, you just kind of got to roll with the punches, and replant next year… and hopefully make up for the loss that we’re gonna have in the future.”

Reuters spoke to several tree farm operators across the Willamette Valley who said the heat waves have severely damaged their crops.

On top of the heat waves, the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon, spurred by months of drought, has burned nearly 400,000 acres and is likely to increase in size as no relief is in sight.

Oregon is the top-selling state of Christmas trees which are Douglas fir, Noble fir, Grand fir, and Nordmann fir. This could present supply constraints come December.

In other words, on the back of already record-high prices, consumers could shell out even more money this year for a Christmas tree if shortages materialize in Oregon. On top of the supply crunch, the cost of everything, from fuel to labor to transportation, has soared and will positively impact prices.

California Grid Strained As Power Shortfalls Loom

July 10, 2021

California Grid Strained As Power Shortfalls Loom

Amid another heat wave across the Western half of the US, California issued a stage-2 power-grid emergency alert Friday and urged customers to conserve power as temperatures surpassed 100 degrees, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The state’s grid operator, California Independent System Operator (ISO), issued the alert on Friday, which is one step away from rolling blackouts.

Readers may recall, as early as Tuesday, we outlined how “scorching temperatures return to the West, persisting through mid-week, and reappear this weekend.” By Friday, we gave the full breakdown of the second heat wave and its impact for the next several days, affecting upwards of 28 million people from California to Washington State.

Excessive heat warnings have already been posted for California, Nevada, western Arizona, and western Utah. Watches have also been posted for interior portions of Oregon and southern Idaho.

By late Friday, ISO discontinued the emergency, but with multiple 100-degree-plus days forecasted for Saturday and Sunday for Californians, the power grid operator may have to reissue grid alerts.

Large swaths of the West could experience temperatures 20 or more degrees above average. Below is a temperature anomalies forecast showing the heat dome could last through mid-next week

For those who are curious what “stage 2” means, power consumption is exceptionally high in the state, and the grid has become “reserve deficient,” allowing grid operators to resupply the grid with generators. If supply doesn’t meet demand, the next stage would be rolling blackouts to prevent the grid from collapse. The alert was the first in 2021 and was last declared in August 2020.

Making matters worse is a wildfire raging in southern Oregon and may threaten transmission lines bringing power into California.

The wildfire prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to issue an emergency proclamation to free up additional energy supplies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

7 Inexpensive Ways To Cool Off Without Air Conditioning!

July 14, 2020

7 Inexpensive Ways To Cool Off Without Air Conditioning!

With the hottest days of summer quickly approaching for most of us, it’s important to know how to stay cool, especially when you’re working outside and doing those homestead chores. It’s really easy to get hot but here are a few inexpensive ways to stay cool when the temperatures start to soar.

Wear Light Cotton Clothing – wearing cotton clothing in light colors will help you feel much cooler. Darker synthetic fabrics tend to absorb the heat from the sun, while the light will go through lighter colored clothes. Also, don’t wear anything tight. Loose-fitting clothes are best for the heat to allow better airflow. Cotton also helps by absorbing perspiration. Linen or silk are also great options for staying cool. Avoid synthetic fabrics such as elastane and polyester. Synthetic fibers retain heat and will increase your body’s temperature. You should also wear a hat to help keep the direct sunlight off your face and neck.
Stay Hydrated – Drink a lot of water. Your body gets dehydrated much more quickly during extreme heat. Sweating, the human body’s main cooling mechanism, uses your body’s water. Our perspiration does not evaporate easily when the air itself is full of moisture, so we feel hotter on humid days. Sweat also contains sodium, so make sure you are eating whole natural foods that can help replenish your body. I don’t mean pour a bunch of salt on your lunch, just some veggies known to have a slightly higher sodium content.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It’s the Volatility – not the Temperature!

July 19, 2019

It’s the Volatility – not the Temperature!

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, in relating your comments on weather and how the winters will spike to record cold and then the summers will spike to record highs, is this the same as a panic cycle in markets?

ANSWER: Yes. Our computer looks at the weather the same as it does with the price in a market. Patterns emerge and you can understand the causes ONLY by correlating the trends with everything else. This is indeed a Panic Cycle where we exceed the previous high and penetrate the previous low. This coming weekend will see temperatures break 100 in the Northeast. I have lived in New Jersey and there were plenty of summers where we have days at 103. This is NOT abnormal. What is abnormal is the volatility how we can go from a winter where it was colder in Chicago than it was in Antarctica and then we break the record highs in July. It is the VOLATILITY – not the empirical level of temperature we should be paying attention to.

As Midwest Freezes, Aussie Heatwave Reaches Record Highs

January 30, 2019

As Midwest Freezes, Aussie Heatwave Reaches Record Highs

While Midwest America hunkers down for the coldest temperatures in a generation, temperature records have also tumbled across South Australia, with the city of Adelaide experiencing its hottest day on record.

Life-threatening cold is sweeping across Chicago…

As Australians face animal culls, mass fish deaths across the nation, roads melting, and bats falling from trees…

Adelaide hit 46.6C, the hottest temperature recording in any Australian state capital city since records began 80 years ago, sending homelessness shelters into a “code red”, and sparking fears of another mass fish death in the Menindee Lakes in the neighbouring state of New South Wales.

In central and western Australia, local authorities were forced to carry out an emergency animal cull, shooting 2,500 camels – and potentially a further hundred feral horses – who were dying of thirst.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Temps To Hit 110 Degrees – Officials Warn “Stay Inside” As Holiday Heat Wave Hammers East Coast

July 4, 2018

Temps To Hit 110 Degrees – Officials Warn “Stay Inside” As Holiday Heat Wave Hammers East Coast

Just in time for American consumers to be “held hostage” by high energy prices as the WTI front-month contract eclipses $75 for the first time in three-and-a-half years, meteorologists are forecasting a heat wave that could drive temperatures on the East Coast into the 100s as Americans prepare for the July 4 holiday.

In anticipation of the high temperatures, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory affecting the northeast and mid-Atlantic from Virginia to Maine. “Heat advisories and some excessive heat warnings are in effect from central Virginia to eastern Maine. High temperatures in the 90s, combined with high dewpoints, are expected result in heat indices of 95 to 110 degrees for many areas.”

(Courtesy of Fox News)

Furthermore, peak temperatures of 105-110 Wednesday afternoon could make even simple activities like walking outside dangerous.

✔

Ooof! Peak heat indices of 105-110 degrees this afternoon make even just walking home from work potentially dangerous. Limit time outdoors if you can and drink water, even if you don’t feel thirsty.

3:46 PM – Jul 2, 2018

The heat is so bad in some areas that, according to Fox News, nearly 150 elderly people had to be evacuated from a long-term care facility in Mount Holly, NJ following a mechanical problem that shut down the facility’s air conditioning and power.

Anybody planning to spend time outdoors, in parks or at the beach, should take precautions like staying hydrated and making sure there’s enough water on hand to avoid heatstroke, according to ABC 7.

The New York State Office for the Aging issued a warning to senior citizens to “stay inside” during the heat wave, as hot weather can be particularly dangerous for the elderly.

The heatwave looks like it will break on Wednesday with an afternoon thunderstorm expected in a few areas. But high temperatures are expected to persist until the end of the week.

Australia’s ‘deadliest natural hazard’: what’s your heatwave plan?

February 19, 2018

Australia’s ‘deadliest natural hazard’: what’s your heatwave plan?

Heatwaves are Australia’s deadliest natural hazard, but a recent survey has found that many vulnerable people do not have plans to cope with extreme heat.

Working with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre and the Bureau of Meteorology, my colleagues and I surveyed 250 residents and 60 business managers in Western Sydney and the NSW North Coast.

We found that 45% of those at risk – including the elderly, ill and very young – did not proactively respond to heatwave warnings as they did not think it necessary or did not know what to do.

Few at-risk people reported moving to cooler locations, and more than 20% of people in Western Sydney were concerned about the impacts of energy prices on their ability to use air-conditioning. For most people, extreme heat left them feeling hot and uncomfortable or unable to sleep, though around 15% felt unwell. Few people reported checking on vulnerable family members, friends or family during heatwaves.

Businesses also suffered disruption, and most companies with employees working on machinery or outdoors reported lower than normal productivity.

Many people said that they didn’t need to take any further actions to adjust to future extreme temperatures. However, for some extreme heat is already impacting their living preferences, with around 10% of people indicating that they are considering moving to a cooler town or suburb.

A HISTORY OF DEADLY HEATWAVES

Australia has a long history of deadly heatwaves. The table below shows numbers of deaths and death rates per 100,000 population from episodes of extreme heat in Australia by decade, reaching back to 1844. The information comes from PerilAUS, a database that records the impact of natural hazards reaching back to the early days of Australia’s European settlement.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What we learned about the climate system in 2017 that should send shivers down the spines of policy makers

January 15, 2018

What we learned about the climate system in 2017 that should send shivers down the spines of policy makers

Much of what happened in 2017 was predictable: news of climate extremes became, how can I put it … almost the norm. There was record-breaking heat on several continents, California’s biggest wildfire (extraordinarily in the middle of winter), an ex-tropical cyclone hitting Ireland (yes, Ireland) in October, and the unprecedented Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria that swept through the Atlantic in August. The US government agency, the NOAA, reported that there were 16 catastrophic billion-dollar weather/climate events in the USA during 2017.

And 2017 “marks the first time some of the (scientific) papers concluded that an event could not have occurred — like, at all — in a world where global warming did not exist. The studies suggested that the record-breaking global temperatures in 2016, an extreme heat wave in Asia and a patch of unusually warm water in the Alaskan Gulf were only possible because of human-caused climate change”, Reuters reported.

At both poles, the news continues to be not good. At the COP23 in Bonn, Pam Pearson, Founder and Director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, warned that the cryoshere is becoming “an irreversible driver of climate change”. She said that most cryosphere thresholds are determined by peak temperature, and the length of time spent at that peak, warning that “later, decreasing temperatures after the peak are largely irrelevant, especially with higher temperatures and longer duration peaks”. Thus “overshoot scenarios”, which are now becoming the norm in policy-making circles (including all 1.5°C scenarios) hold much greater risks.

As well, Pearson said that 2100 is a misleading and minimising measure of cryosphere response: “When setting goals, it is important to look to new irreversible impacts and the steady state circumstances.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This was Sydney before “Climate Change” hit — fifty degrees

January 9, 2018

This was Sydney before “Climate Change” hit — fifty degrees:

Windsor, 1939, records 50C hottest ever temperature, Tebbuts Observatory.

Jan, 12, 1939, The Northern Star

Penrith may have recorded 47.3C for at least one-second this week, but Windsor is only 23 km north-east of Penrith, and on January 13th, 1939, it recorded 122F or 50.5C with an old fashioned liquid thermometer, not a modern noisy electronic one.

Apparently, climate change makes our extreme heat less extreme.

Furthermore, this was not measured on a beer crate in someones back-yard, but on the historic Windsor Observatory which was built in 1863 by John Tebbutt F.R.A.S who had discovered The 1861 comet, and published many scientific reports in Astronomical Journals. His meteorological observations are published at Harvard in 1899 (among others). Tebbutt died in 1916, so it’s not clear what instrument the 122 F was recorded on in 1939, but a Stevenson Screen had been installed around 40 years earlier, and the measurement was made by Mr Keith Tebbutt, presumably his son.

Tebbutt’s portrait graced the back of our 100 dollar note from 1984 -1996.

See, Many Collapse in the Heat: Thursday Jan, 12, 1939, The Northern Star

Windsor Observatory | Photo: Winston M. Yang Wyp

All part of Greater Metropolitan Sydney

In 1939, I doubt either town was considered part of Sydney. But now both are on the metro network. Penrith is 54km from the CBD, Windsor, 56km. Notably, Windsor is a few train stops closer than Richmond, which the BOM acknowledges recorded 47.8C in 1939 on January 14, three days after the high of 122F recorded at Windsor.

Apparently Penrith that particular day, January 11th, was 110F, while Richmond was 115F or 46.1C. Neither Penrith nor Windsor appear to be recognised in BOM climate records.

Extreme heat of long ago — 48.2C (118F) at Windsor in 1896:

Thanks to Warwick Hughes, who has been looking at Windsor historic records too:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mortal Mugginess

September 6, 2017

Mortal Mugginess

Extreme Heat Stress in Florida and in the Persian Gulf

A spate of new research warns of lethally hot, humid weather in many regions by the end of this century- weather in which it would be dangerous even to walk outside, or turn off the air conditioning.

These are very long range projections, with all the uncertainty that that implies; it’s hard enough to forecast weather a few days ahead. But they got me thinking about heat stress. We see it every summer in Florida. I always thought of it as something to be dealt with and endured, not as a danger.

This July and August, the Heat Index (“feels like” temperature) seemed to climb into the “Danger” zone every day and stay there for hours, its peak often exceeding the forecast. Could we be approaching deadly weather already? What about other, even muggier parts of the planet?

Researchers descibe this extreme weather in unfamiliar terms, usually involving the “wet bulb temperature” in degrees Celsius. What we hear in daily weather reports and forecasts is the Heat Index, in degrees Fahrenheit. How do these measures relate- or do they? Here’s the official NOAA chart of Heat Index values:

Official NOAA chart of the Heat Index: How the combination of heat and humidity feels to a person wearing a short sleeved shirt and slacks, walking at 3.1 mph in shade. Direct sunlight can make you feel much hotter, up to an additional 15 degrees Fahrenheit.Calculating the wet bulb temperature for each cell of the chart (Note 1), you see the same pattern in both measures. They line up so well you could estimate one from the other with fair accuracy, even though one is a physical measurement and the other is based on experiments with human subjects reporting how hot they feel. Both are measuring heat stress.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BBC News – Australia sweats over extreme hot weather

December 7, 2014

BBC News – Australia sweats over extreme hot weather.

Australia has always suffered from bouts of extreme hot weather but the number and intensity of heatwaves is on the rise, prompting a rethink of how the country lives, works and plays in the sun.

Some like it hot, but the 13-day stretch with temperatures exceeding 40C in Longreach that ended last week was some of the hottest weather in living memory for the Queensland town.

It was also a new heatwave record for the cattle country town, beating the previous record by four days, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

Livestock dams began drying up, local companies asked staff to start work early to avoid the worst of the heat and native animals struggled to find water.

It was not an isolated weather pattern. Last year was Australia’s hottest since records began in 1910, according to the bureau.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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This was Sydney before “Climate Change” hit — fifty degrees:

All part of Greater Metropolitan Sydney

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