Austral Summer/Northern Winter 2019 - Amid Extremes, The Standout - Record Heat Almost Everywhere

[hatrack]

On March 2, 2019, Dover, Tasmania, attained an all-time record high of 40.1°C (104.3°F), the hottest reading ever observed in that Australian state during the month of March. Just the next day (March 4 in the U.S.) a temperature of -46°F was measured at Elk Park, Montana, a new (preliminary) all-time record for cold in that state for March. These two dramatic extremes were exclamation points on what has been one of the most extreme northern-winter/southern-summer pairings on Earth in terms of temperature (in the modern record, of course, extending back a little more than a century).

Consider that February brought Western Europe’s most exceptional winter heat wave on record. Although the temperatures were not dangerously hot, the departures from average were astounding. As detailed below, all-time national monthly heat records were measured in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Sweden, Hungry, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark, Andorra, and San Marino. Meanwhile, all-time (any month) coldest temperatures on record were observed in parts of Japan, Canada, and the U.S., both in January and February.

Australia has just endured its hottest summer on record, and in southern Africa, Angola saw its hottest temperature ever measured (any month). In this post, I make an attempt to summarize the temperature gyrations of the past three months. Unless otherwise stated, all of the records cited are heat records.

EDIT


Figure 1. A map outlining the more significant temperature records set in New Zealand during the heat wave of January 28-31, 2019. Image credit: NIWA, the New Zealand meteorological service.


Figure 2. A map summarizing some of the significant temperature records set in Chile during the late January and early February heat waves. Image credit: Meteochile.


Figure 3. Three of the four member nations of the United Kingdom saw their warmest February temperatures on record in 2019. All temperatures shown are in degrees Celsius. The event brought the U.K. its first temperature above 70° ever recorded during a winter month. At the same time, Los Angeles failed to hit 70°F for the first February since records began in 1878. Image credit: UK Met Office.


Figure 5. A graph of Australia’s summer mean temperatures since the official record for such began in 1910. Note the amazing anomaly that this past summer represents. Image credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.


Figure 6. Nearly all of Australia saw well above normal temperatures in the summer of 2018-19. The most anomalous departures were centered over the Northern Territory, where daily high temperatures averaged across the summer were more than 5°C (9°F) above the seasonal norm. Image credit: World Meteorlogical Organization.

EDIT

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/North-South-Winter-and-Summer-Record-Temperature-Extremes

[c-rational]

1. Good post and scary graphics. The more I read, the more I believe that NNadir may be correct

in his assessment that nuclear energy is the only realistic way out of the carbon mess and the so called green solutions are pie in the sky. Simply look at the math. How much energy humanity needs and what % available sources supply. This from a civil environmental engineer.

[Moostache]

2. It was game over in 2000...

We're just basically screwed and incapable of making the necessary changes to prevent our own demise.

I find d it ironic that Carl Sagan used to muse about whether society could survive nuclear weapons and now it is fossil fuels that have killed us off. Make no mistake, we are a dead society walking...it is baked into the atmosphere already.

We could have gone down different paths but never did...now, the bill is due and we can't pay it.

[The_jackalope]

3. IMO it was game over far earlier than that.

We are faced with the expansionist growth imperative of global industrial culture, the fact that most of the energy for growth still comes from fossil fuels, and the unwillingness of most people around the world to accept a contraction of their circumstances if there is any way to preserve growth.

As a result, humanity has never been willing to reverse course - even now when the cliff is in clear view. And when the problem is cultural, psychological and global, "not willing to" = "not able to".

It's time to concentrate far more energy on adaptation than on mitigation.