This year will be Britain's warmest since records began

[antiimperialist]

The global temperature for the US must be up there too.
This December where i live (New York City) has brought us upper 50 temperatures that make it feel as if christmas is not around the corner.

Surge in temperature astounds weather experts
Man - not nature - is to blame, researchers say.

The Guardian

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Same here in Minneapolis

It's been in the 40s for nearly a week, which is unheard of at this time of year.

And when I was in England this summer, all anybody could talk about was the heat, especially since most people don't have air conditioning. However, during my stay, in mid-August, the temps suddenly dropped into the 60s, and I had to buy a sweater.

[tenshi816]

4. I know what you mean.

Temps in the 60s in mid-August is actually normal in England, but I can see how it could feel chilly to someone not expecting it. It certainly caught me by surprise.

"Hot" means something different to people in the UK than it does to Americans. I'm originally from Georgia and used to think that 80 degrees was nicely warm but nothing to get worked up about, and it needed to hit the 90s before I would concede that it might be hot. However, when I moved to the UK 20 years ago, I discovered that the British have a much lower threshold for what they consider to be hot weather. My mother-in-law, for example, thinks that 70 degrees is very warm and anything much above that is nearly unbearable to her. If it hits 75 degrees, all the country's beaches are overrun by people rushing to take advantage of the weather and the media start throwing around terms like "scorching" and "heat wave".

I was miserably cold for my first few years in Britain until I became acclimated to the weather, and now I find it hard to adjust when I go back to visit my family in Georgia.

Damnit, I want snow instead of this interminable Indian summer!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. 80 degrees feels like a REAL heat wave when you're

staying in a hotel that was originally built as an 18th century coaching inn and still has no air conditioning, and the window of your room opens onto an inner courtyard that gets NO breezes.

Those thick old walls had had a whole summer to absorb the heat, so the room stayed hot, even after temperatures returned to a more normal 60s.

[tenshi816]

7. That's the truth.

We don't have air conditioning either - in fact, I don't know any homeowners (or renters, for that matter) who do. We live next to Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire and the moor caught fire back in July and raged for days, with the smoke constantly rolling in our direction. Keeping the windows shut was a necessity against it and there were times I felt like I was close to melting down completely (physically and mentally) because it was so hot inside the house. Air conditioning would have made such a huge difference.

Here's what the fire looked like, so you can imagine what it was like being indoors with all the windows shut in the summer heat (and it was an exceptionally hot summer in the UK this year once it finally got going):



We used to live in a cottage in Oxfordshire that was built in the 1840s and had a courtyard similar to the one you described. It was a wonderful place to sit and take advantage of the oh-so-brief English sunshine on nice days, but not so pleasant on the rare occasions when the mercury climbed above the mid-70s. There was absolutely no air circulation at all.

[nealmhughes]

2. The forecast Friday for the Tennessee/Alabama state line near Huntsville: 75 and sunny.

Three days ago my water pipes froze that night here, it was 12F.

I have not had any heat in 2 days. Not even at night...Unheard of here.

[tenshi816]

3. I hate it.

We still had new roses blooming in the middle of November and haven't had a frost yet, and we live at a high altitude in Yorkshire. Usually we've had some snow by now, but this autumn/winter so far I've barely worn a jacket. There are gale force winds today though.

On the other hand, there were a few days in June this year that I switched on the central heating to knock the chill off first thing in the morning.

It's just not right. It seems like our seasons are gradually shifting so that the weather normally corresponding to each season is off by a couple of months.

[JCMach1]

5. Record rains continue in the UAE... will be the wettest Dec. on Record

It has rained almost every day this month!

Sometimes it can go for years without raining here!

We are expecting more rains and possible flash flooding today.