Image of the Day: The Hottest Place on Earth?
The highest temperature ever measured on Earth came on Sept. 13, 1922, when the thermometer at a weather station in El Azizia, Libya, reached 136.4°F, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That reading took the title, "Hottest Place on Earth", away from Death Valley, California, which set the previous record at 134°F in July… Read More
Image of the Day: Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home
Climate change could be a leading cause in the decline of native ladybugs, according to John Losey, one of the world’s leading experts on the beetles. Warmer weather is disastrous to ladybugs, as snow covers their hibernation sites, it keeps the ground temperatures at 0 degrees, allowing them to remain dormant in the winter. If the temperatures … Read More
March Heat Wave Shatters Monthly Records
Chicago easily set a record for the warmest March, after breaking or tying daily high temperature records on nine consecutive days from March 14-22 — the second-longest stretch of daily temperature records of any type for the Windy City dating back to 1871. The previous warmest March on record there occurred in 1910 and again in 1945, when average… Read More
You Want Records? Search! Interactive Temp Tracker
In recent years, record daily highs have been outpacing record daily lows in a pattern that has been shown to be inconsistent with natural climate variability alone. So far in 2012, the daily record high to record low ratio has been 17-to-1 through March 27, for monthly record highs compared to monthly record lows the ratio has been a whopping 33-t… Read More
What if July Beats Records The Way March Just Did?
But February, which normally alternates between cold and bitterly cold in Princeton, N.J., where Climate Central is headquartered, was unusually mild. Call me selfish, but I kind of liked it. I didn’t realize at the time that March would be even warmer, and I really liked that. … Read More
“Strong” Links of Manmade Heat, Rainfall Extremes: Study
The March heat wave in the U.S. and Canada, for example, occurred during a period when a so-called “blocking pattern was in place in the atmosphere, and weather systems over North America were progressing eastward extremely slowly, locking a heat dome in place across the Midwest and East for more than a week.… Read More
Image of the Day: Cherry Blossoms Hit Premature Peak
The cherry blossoms are a huge draw for tourists in Washington, D.C., with its National Cherry Blossom Festival that signifies the beginning of spring. The festival began on March 20. However, the unusually high temperatures caused the cherry blossoms and tulips to bloom much earlier … Read More
Heat Wave Sends Temps Soaring into Uncharted Territory
The volume of records being set during this long-duration heat wave is staggering. On March 18 alone there were 1,597 warm temperature records set or tied in the U.S., compared to just 58 cold temperature records. For the year-to-date, there have been 14,737 warm temperature records set or tied, compared to 1,296 cold records — a ratio of about 11-… Read More
