Record heatwave across Northern Hemisphere

From the Arctic Circle and Scandinavia to California, Japan and North Africa, an exceptional heatwave has been sweeping across the Northern Hemisphere for several weeks, setting record high temperatures and causing drought and wildfires.

Meteorologists say the summer weather conditions are a result of climate change.

"2018 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record, with new temperature records in many countries," said Elena Manaenkova, deputy secretary-general of the World Meterological Organisation (WMO).

"This is no surprise," she added. "The heatwaves and extreme heat we are experiencing are consistent with what we expect as a result of climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. 

"This is not a future scenario. It is happening now.” 

30 C in Arctic Circle

The summer weather in the north of Europe has been especially unusual with the thermostat in the Arctic Circle hitting 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

Record temperatures were reported in northern Norway at 33 C last week, more than 15 degrees C higher than normal, according to the Norwegian meteorological institute.

Another record in Norway was set at Makkaur on the Barents Sea where the mercury in the land of the midnight sun on July 18 never dropped lower than 25 C.

And near the Arctic Circle at Kvikkjokk in Sweden temperatures climbed to 32.5 C on July 17, while the Finnish Lapland the next day saw 33.4 C, according to Meteo France.

In Russia's Siberia, the mercury hit 37.2 C at Tompo on July 9 and 35.5 C at Vanavara on June 26, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA).

Across Europe

In other parts of Europe, a heatwave has moved across Ireland and the British isles to France, though the temperatures have not set record highs.

Southern European countries, in contrast, have seen summer temperatures lower than normal, according to the WMO.

But the still hot, dry weather triggered wildfires in Greece, claiming at least 82 lives, making them Europe's deadliest this century.

41 C in Japan

In Japan, several dozen people have died in the scorching heat which reached a national record of 41.1 C at Kamagaya on Monday, official data showed.

The same day it reached more than 40 C for the first time in Tokyo's metropolitan region.

African record?

In the Sahara desert of Algeria on July 5, the mercury soared to 51.3 C, which was probably "the highest ever recorded in Algeria by reliable instruments", the WMO said.

It is likely a record for the African continent, since reliable records began, according to Meteo France.

But if the WMO recognises data from Africa's colonial period as reliable, the 55 C temperature reached in Tunisia in 1931 would still be considered as the African record.

Neighbouring Morocco has also seen a new national record temperature at 43.4 C on July 3 at Bouarfa, the WMO said.

And in the Middle East, on the coast of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, the temperature never fell below 42.6 C, even at night, on June 28, which could be the highest minimal temperature ever registered there, the WMO said.

California's Death Valley

In the United States, California has been under scorching heat, including record temperatures on July 6 of 48.9 C in Chino in the west of the state, and the next day 47.2 C in the Van Nuys neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

At the Furnace Creek station in the Mojave Desert's Death Valley on July 8, the mercury registered 52 C -- still below the 56.7 C hit on July 10, 1913, although the historic world record is contested by some experts.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Hurricane Patricia as strong as 'Yolanda', says UN

GENEVA - Hurricane Patricia, which is heading towards southwestern Mexico, is now comparable to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), the UN World Meteorological Organization said on Friday, referring to a storm that killed 6,300 people in the Philippines in 2013.

Patricia has continued to strengthen overnight and has maximum sustained winds of about 185 miles per hour, or 295 km per hour, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

The US National Hurricane Center, meanwhile, called Patricia the strongest eastern north Pacific hurricane on record.

It said the storm will make a potentially catastrophic landfall later Friday in southwestern Mexico.

The center said Patricia has grown into a Category Five storm in the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, with maximum sustained winds of 325 kilometers (200 miles) per hour.

"Some fluctuations in intensity are possible today but Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous category 5 hurricane through landfall," the center said in a bulletin issued at 0900 GMT.

"An extremely dangerous storm surge is expected to produce significant coastal flooding near and to the right of where the center makes landfall," the center added.

Forecasts show that Patricia will make landfall in the western state of Jalisco, near the neighboring state of Colima.

The region includes the major port of Manzanillo in Colima and Jalisco's tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta, which Mexican officials said could face a direct hit.





Some businesses boarded up their store windows in Manzanillo as rain began to fall in the city.

"Better be safe than sorry. Hurricanes are unpredictable," said Enrique Esparza, manager of El Gran Mueble furniture store, which is near the seafront.

Rosa Elba Figueroa, a housewife, left a supermarket with a bag full of canned tuna, powdered milk, bread, water and batteries.

"We're running home to put wood and tape on the windows," she said.

Jose Maria Tapia Franco, director of the National Disaster Fund, said 400,000 people live in vulnerable areas but that local authorities will decide whether to conduct evacuations.

At the beach village of Boca de Pascuales, authorities took 70 people to a shelter while another 30 drove to the homes of relatives further inland.

"We are patrolling communities on the coast in the Puerto Vallarta area as well as Melaque and La Huerta, urging the most vulnerable population to get to safety," Jalisco state civil protection director Jose Trinidad Lopez Rivas told Foro television.

SCHOOLS, PORTS CLOSED

Mexican officials closed schools in Jalisco, Colima and Guerrero states.

Two dams in Jalisco and Michoacan were being drained to prevent flooding.

Ports closed to small boats in several ports in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Michoacan, Guerrero and Oaxaca. The port of Acapulco in Guerrero was shut for larger ships.

At 0900 GMT, Patricia was 255 kilometers south of Manzanillo and moving northwest at 19 kilometers per hour, according to the US forecasters.

Patricia is expected to produce eight to 12 inches (20 to 30 centimeters) of rainfall over the states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan and Guerrero, which could produce flash floods and mudslides, the US center said.

The Mexican water commission warned that rivers could rise and roads could be affected by the bad weather.

WIND FORCE SPARKS CONCERN

Officials said nearly 1,800 shelters for 259,000 people are available.

"The amount of water and the strength of the wind worry us," national civil protection coordinator Luis Felipe Puente told a news conference.

Jalisco, Michoacan, Colima and Nayarit are expected to get the equivalent of 40 percent of their annual rainfall in the next 48 hours, the water commission said.

Mexico faces the double threat of Atlantic and Pacific tropical storms during the hurricane season, which ends November 30.

In 2013, twin storms Ingrid and Manuel nearly simultaneously struck each coast, leaving 157 people dead in a rare double onslaught. With reports from Reuters and Agence France-Presse

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com