North American Weather (U.S.A & Canada)

[carinthian]

Amazing temps in BC. My cousin posted this image from her home in Oooyoos yesterday.

C

[karyo]

Very alarming to see all those records shattered and of course there is loss of life associated with the extreme heat! According to bbc news there have been 130 sudden deaths since Friday

[Coopsy]

This heatwave is truly amazing.

Lytton BC has broken the all time Canadian record three days in a row. The latest temp a mind blowing 49.6oC! At 50oN! 

That’s 4.1oC more than the previous Canadian record that stood for over 80 years. 

To put that into perspective that’s nearly 2.5oC hotter than the all time temperature record for Las Vegas (47.2oC).

It’s also hotter than any country in Europe have ever recorded. Or South America for that matter. 

Over 100 locations have broken their all time temperature records across western Canada. 

Other locations have recorded temperatures higher than the previous Canada record of 45.5oC in the last few days. 

Cache Creek (46.4oC), Lillooet (45.6oC) and Kamloops (45.8oC) all surpassed the old record.

Quite remarkable. 

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Coopsy

[cheeky_monkey]

8 hours ago, Coopsy said:

Wasn’t the record 39oC? if so, you’ve smashed that. Another record breaking day in Canmore.
 

that's our weather station on site which is downtown so not official... the PG weather station is at the airport which is in a very rural location about 5 miles out of town..there it only recorded 37.9c which is 1c below the record..the Edmonton record did not go yesterday either got to 36.2c.. forecast is 37c today and tomorrow which would still be short of the all time high 

[Geordiesnow]

On 29/06/2021 at 12:51, East_England_Stormchaser91 said:

I just can’t see 40c ever being achieved in the UK.

For it to happen, you would need a super plume, I.e a full blown African plume of 25c uppers minimum ideally between Mid July and Mid August. Not only that, the timing of peak uppers would need to fall right in the middle of the afternoon, not superseded by flash cloudcover or a change of wind direction from a more maritime direction. The Cambridgeshire/West Norfolk fens or Heathrow/Northolt Area on a SSE surface flow would be the places that likely crack it. In my opinion, easily a once in perhaps a millennium event. 

I think 40C could well be reached one day but western Europe probably need to be in some sort of drought to help to build enough heat that it can cross the channel without too much modification. 

That said in 50 years time, who knows just how high the global temperatures will get, if its like how some people are predicting then it does seem to be its a matter of when rather than if. 

Meanwhile the heat over Canada is just incredible. There's going to be the question of why the heat that built under the blocking high got so intense, surely the drought conditions over there are playing a part which of course is all linked to climate change. 

[carinthian]

1 hour ago, Geordiesnow said:

I think 40C could well be reached one day but western Europe probably need to be in some sort of drought to help to build enough heat that it can cross the channel without too much modification. 

That said in 50 years time, who knows just how high the global temperatures will get, if its like how some people are predicting then it does seem to be its a matter of when rather than if. 

Meanwhile the heat over Canada is just incredible. There's going to be the question of why the heat that built under the blocking high got so intense, surely the drought conditions over there are playing a part which of course is all linked to climate change. 

A phenomenal state of affairs in British Columbia. Temps of near 50c hotter than any place in the world over the past 3 days. National records were not just broken by small decimal digits but by whopping whole degrees. No doubt their will lots written in meteorological journals regards the intensity of this heat, especially occurring at 50 N ( never recorded that far north before ) One theory relates to the  surge in the warm air mass from Hawaii  which traveled over ocean temps with a + anomaly of 5c, that in itself is in the extreme. The warm flow deflected and surpressed by the strong upper ridge over the NW States with a resultant strong Adiabatic heat process as the warm air descended and compressed over the Casades into lowland BC. Add that with sun at its highest point and records broken big style.

C

 

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by carinthian

[stodge]

You wouldn't think, geographically, with a vast cold ocean immediately to the west areas like British Columbia and California would see the levels of heat they do.

California and Nevada have been in a prolonged drought for years - the level of Lake Mead at the Hoover Dam continues to fall.

The synoptic set up triggering this heat episode has been well explored but once the HP recedes and declines east you're left with the large Pacific HP and in response shallow LP forms over the heat lands of the Rockies and while that make bring some refreshing N'ly breezes to coasts, it doesn't as the air dries over the mountains.

It's also remarkable what's happening further north - Deline on Great Bear Lake is 65 deg north but it's forecast day maxima above 20c in the next few days.

[cheeky_monkey]

2 hours ago, Geordiesnow said:

I think 40C could well be reached one day but western Europe probably need to be in some sort of drought to help to build enough heat that it can cross the channel without too much modification. 

That said in 50 years time, who knows just how high the global temperatures will get, if its like how some people are predicting then it does seem to be its a matter of when rather than if. 

Meanwhile the heat over Canada is just incredible. There's going to be the question of why the heat that built under the blocking high got so intense, surely the drought conditions over there are playing a part which of course is all linked to climate change. 

there are no drought conditions in BC ..but there are south of the border..plus they had a record breaking heatwave further south a week 10 days ago..so there was plenty of heat to tap into added to that it was warm /hot in western Canada prior to the heat funneling north

[Roger J Smith]

Lytton BC is a hot location all the time, so if some place was going to manage this, it would be there. What pushed them a bit higher on Tuesday was that a marine layer moved into the Fraser valley and this forced all the superheated air present down there up the Fraser canyon and into the slightly lower region around Lytton (the Fraser carves out a very narrow canyon so most of the air moving up has to go higher than Lytton to get there). 

It is just as hot here today (our local high on Tuesday was 44 C) and then we get this very weak cold front setting off local storms by Thursday and Friday, just a very slight change in air mass back to the more normal heat we had last week before this super heat arrived. 

The upper flow looks very similar to the previous record period (mid July 1941) so it's a case of adding on the effects of greenhouse gases, and with it being preceded by a week of heat somewhat longer than in 1941, the ground already heated up before the super hot period began (we had about seven days in the low to mid 30s before these four days in the 40s). The monthly anomaly at Spokane WA is now sitting at +8.3 (F deg) which is +4.6 C deg. On the 19th the anomaly was about half that, so it has shot up with daily departures of 25 F or so. After today it should end up near +9F (+5 C). I am sure most places in southern BC will have similar anomalies. The mean temperature at the closest weather station to me (Warfield) is now at 21.1 C and set to finish around 21.6. 

Highs since 20th of June have been 30, 33, 35, 34, 32, 36, 40, 42, 43, 44. The first three days of June were also very hot (36, 37, 35). 

The only difference between this and a Las Vegas heat wave is that it cools off at night to the low 20s, down there it stays close to 30 C overnight. I happened to be in Vegas in Aug 2011 when they approached their all-time record high (hitting 116 F) so I have that memory of their extreme heat. The sun is almost overhead down that way, and metal surfaces heat up to dangerous levels. We could use those water sprayers they have along the Strip in Vegas during the summer heat. 

I had always wondered what it might be like to live through the famous 1936 heat wave so now I know. This is hotter than Toronto got (three days at 41 C) and even NYC only peaked at 41 C. The worst of the 1936 heat wave was in the Dakotas, Manitoba and Minnesota, readings of 44 to 50 C were recorded. A similar heat wave developed in 1937 but it didn't spread east as strongly, with more normal mid-90s to the east coast with that one (but similar brutal heat in the prairies and plains states). You have to wonder if that might happen again. This current heat dome is spreading well into the prairies and plains states now, but models show it becoming less organized once it tries to go much further east. 

There are as mentioned heat warning in place as far north as Great Slave Lake but that is considered subarctic rather than arctic, the boundary is probably best described as the "tree line" and that runs south of Great Bear Lake into southern Nunavut and extreme northern Manitoba. Currently the extreme heat has pushed as far north as 61 deg N (35 C on the Alberta-NWT border at Fort Smith NWT) but more moderate around Great Slave Lake (28 C at Yellowknife), and 26 C at the remote automatic station at Ennadai Lake in southern Nunavut (only 11 C at Baker Lake). So I wouldn't be too concerned about an instant meltdown of Baffin Island or Greenland from this, it has a limit. 

Nothing too extreme yet east of about Swift Current SK, Regina just 30 C and Pierre SD is 32 C (these fairly close to late June normal values). 

The current model evolution for this heat wave shows it gradually morphing to less extreme heat over the central plains states as it's eventually replaced over western Canada by cooler air from the western arctic. This won't apply to southern BC where we remain under a remnant heat trough for another week to ten days after this extreme event fades out. No effects are likely from this over the eastern half of North America which is currently under a rather hot air mass also (unconnected to this one). 

[BornFromTheVoid]

For those questioning if the <2C leap to 40C is too much for the UK to manage, something to consider...

 

[cheeky_monkey]

17 minutes ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

For those questioning if the <2C leap to 40C is too much for the UK to manage, something to consider...

 

what i find intersting or should i say confusing..is lots of places beat there previous heat records by big margins..like Grand Prairie..yet here in Prince George the record was never even close to falling highest temp was short by 1.1c yet its in the same general location as other places that smashed their previous records..not sure why this would be??

[BornFromTheVoid]

5 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

what i find intersting or should i say confusing..is lots of places beat there previous heat records by big margins..like Grand Prairie..yet here in Prince George the record was never even close to falling highest temp was short by 1.1c yet its in the same general location as other places that smashed their previous records..not sure why this would be??

That is odd. We might question whether it's a case of long term stations vs relatively new stations, but when so many have smashed their all time records (and in June, which isn't typically the warmest month), and the Canadian record has been smashed, there must be some more to it.

[cheeky_monkey]

35 minutes ago, CatchMyDrift said:

Not sure what source you use but the Canadian government are reporting drought conditions in parts of B.C. and I doubt this has changed much in a month with extreme heat:

Map Journal

MAPS.CANADA.CA

---

Web Experience Toolkit (WET) includes reusable components for building and maintaining innovative Web sites that are accessible, usable, and...

 

Exactly its only parts of BC ..other years have been far worse..2018 for example...Alberta and SK are in much worse shape right now than BC

[Roger J Smith]

Prince George BC seems to have fallen outside the superheated air mass and is in a transitional very warm zone along with regions to its north and west, with highs generally around 32 C in this less extreme air mass. Whether that was the case on previous days or not, I don't have immediate access to the information but I suspect that those regions were not quite under the full effects of the heat dome. Jasper AB currently showing over 40 C, quite remarkable for that location, even more so 39-40 C in far northern Alberta. I think the hot air mass probably extends to Great Slave Lake but that just thawed out a few weeks ago and must have water temps of 5-10 C so some nice cooling lake breezes there (Great Slave Lake is larger than Lake Erie). 

With the 1936 heat wave in mind, it has to be said that North American climate has always produced these singularities that don't repeat, we haven't seen anything really on that scale since 1936, although in 1995 the circulation set up in a  similar way, however there was no dust bowl or desertification of the plains states in place, but a healthy corn crop near maturity, so the 1995 version (at the same point of the summer, mid-July) produced some off the wall dew points instead of temperatures, I can recall seeing dews of 30-32 C in parts of IA and IL along with temps of about 42 C. The 1936 heat wave was probably more like 46 C with dp of 24 C. 

[matty40s]

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by matty40s

[Coopsy]

A muted Happy Canada Day today for some - very sad to see events unfolding in Lytton, BC. After recording almost 50oC, the hottest temp ever in Canada, it’s literally gone up in flames. Full evacuation order issued as mayor states ‘the whole town is on fire’. It’s unsure how much of the town is left. 

Apparently most of Main Street, locals businesses, fire stations and hospital have all been ravished by fire. Along with numerous homes. 

[DaveL]

Very sad news for Lytton, it's made the news headlines here in the UK too now. I hope they all got out safely, that's far more important than any records.

Edited July 1, 2021 by DaveL

[Roger J Smith]

Another very hot day at my location, near 40 C with more of a southerly breeze (30-50 km/hr at times) and 10% cloud cover from altocumulus mainly, blowing off developing thunderstorm cells in n central WA state. This entire region is forested (including the fifty miles south of the border), hilly to mountainous, so ideal conditions for thunderstorms to ride up the higher elevations west of my location (the Monashee Mountains) and into the Arrow Lakes region on the Columbia River (also a mainly forested region). Some commercial logging in the region but at any given time clear cuts form less than 10% of the landscape, so there's a lot of timber that could burn under the wrong conditions. It appears to be quite some time since major fires in this region, no burn regions evident as there are further west and north from previous summers. Keeping fingers crossed that we get through the next three days without an eruption of wildfires in the region, seems that some areas further west and north are at even higher risk. There's a weak front triggering these storms, which will be slowly advancing further east by tonight. It degenerates into a heat trough setup by tomorrow, still enough instability around to set off more storms probably. This will gradually advance into Alberta which is scorching hot today, as the core of the heat edges further east. 

Will report on what I hear about the Lytton situation later, we missed the news at noon and I only have limited news coverage on my cable package (I prefer to make up my own news, it can't be any worse). I did see one interview where the mayor was saying this is the third evacuation in five years, they are used to picking up essentials and leaving in a hurry. Everyone got out safely, I believe, and they are now over in various nearby towns like Spences Bridge, Ashcroft and Merritt. If it were me, I would head down to the coast and enjoy the 20 C seabreeze and cloud (yes cloud). 

[Mountain Snow]

Such awful news, wildfires are truly scary things. I spent a good chunk of summer 2006 in BC, it was hot enough then, temps in the high 30s, the couple I was staying with lived out in the sticks and would get nervous when we had thunderstorms incase they sparked wildfires. Not a lot you can do to protect a timber house surrounded by  bone dry forest.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Mountain Snow

[Roger J Smith]

This radar shows developing storms over southeast BC and inland WA, n ID and w MT. 

http://radar.weather.gov/?settings=v1_eyJhZ2VuZGEiOnsiaWQiOm51bGwsImNlbnRlciI6Wy0xMTYuNjI4LDQ5LjQzMl0sInpvb20iOjd9LCJhbmltYXRpbmciOmZhbHNlLCJiYXNlIjoic3RhbmRhcmQiLCJjb3VudHkiOmZhbHNlLCJjd2EiOmZhbHNlLCJzdGF0ZSI6ZmFsc2UsIm1lbnUiOnRydWUsInNob3J0RnVzZWRPbmx5IjpmYWxzZSwib3BhY2l0eSI6eyJhbGVydHMiOjAuOCwibG9jYWwiOjAuNiwibG9jYWxTdGF0aW9ucyI6MC44LCJuYXRpb25hbCI6MC42fX0%3D#/

[Coopsy]

It’s been a very muted Canada day. Certainly one for reflection. Limited, if any, parades and lots of peaceful protests regarding the indigenous atrocities.

Also very sad - pretty much complete devastation in Lytton, as pictures start to emerge. 

As Roger has stated, more opportunities of wild fires over the next few days, as well as quite a few already burning across the province. 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Coopsy

[ANYWEATHER]

Going back in History we have to get a balance , on the climate and weather of North America....The USA for instance had hotter summers way back a hundred years ago than they do now, Can you imagine the media hype on the dust bowl years ? The extreme heat in the far south west of British Columbia was produced by the Adiabatic effect and the funneling of heat given that Large parts of the USA were below average such as New Mexico which are having there coolest temps on record for this time of year...but the media forgot to tell people that..July 1936 was a prime example of how hot North America was back then ,they were roasting from coast to coast of well above 100 heat...,July 4th 1911 was the hottest independence day on record with Boston Maccushites with 108f . The media forget on purpose to tell us the real truth. President Obama banging about rising sea levels bought a Villa in the Maldeves ,.Al Gore said in 2007 that the Artic would be ice free by 2014....and won  Nobel Peace prize Winner ...have a look at the historic data folks , ......!Bbc ,Itv , and Sky ,along with meriads of order innstintutions have been telling us lies, yes lies.....

[Coopsy]

Lots of storm warnings and storms yesterday. Looks like Calgary region got hit hard in places. Hail and flash flooding. Here’s some pics from soc media. 

 

@CatchMyDriftdid you get affected? 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Coopsy

[Derecho]

On 02/07/2021 at 23:10, ANYWEATHER said:

Going back in History we have to get a balance , on the climate and weather of North America....The USA for instance had hotter summers way back a hundred years ago than they do now, Can you imagine the media hype on the dust bowl years ? The extreme heat in the far south west of British Columbia was produced by the Adiabatic effect and the funneling of heat given that Large parts of the USA were below average such as New Mexico which are having there coolest temps on record for this time of year...but the media forgot to tell people that..July 1936 was a prime example of how hot North America was back then ,they were roasting from coast to coast of well above 100 heat...,July 4th 1911 was the hottest independence day on record with Boston Maccushites with 108f . The media forget on purpose to tell us the real truth. President Obama banging about rising sea levels bought a Villa in the Maldeves ,.Al Gore said in 2007 that the Artic would be ice free by 2014....and won  Nobel Peace prize Winner ...have a look at the historic data folks , ......!Bbc ,Itv , and Sky ,along with meriads of order innstintutions have been telling us lies, yes lies.....

The truth is that anthropogenic climate change is warming our planet and increasing the rate and severity in which summer heatwaves occur. You provide no references to your claims that summers in the USA were much hotter 100 years ago, just an incoherent tantrum with a refusal to look at the data that is driving changes to global climate. Yes, 1936 is still the hottest summer on record across all states but 2006, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2020 all came close to beating it.

When you look at the data for this heatwave, the intensity of the heat cannot simply be explained by atmospheric circulation over the NW USA alone, same with the France heatwave in 2019. The only thing that helps 1936 stand out so much is that the heatwave was overall more widespread across the US but the exceptional nature of the NW US heatwave cannot be denied, even if it was more localised in nature.

Take off your tin foil hat.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Quicksilver1989

[Roger J Smith]

Some slight relief from the extreme heat in southern BC and a lot cooler east of the Rockies now, some parts of the prairies did not reach 20 C on Tuesday.

Where I live we have only dropped off a few degrees and have averaged 35 C since the core of the heat dome moved on, and it is now 21 days since it last rained here. The average max in the last 19 days has been 37 C. That is probably an all-time record. The drought is normal here later in the summer season but this is rather early for either significant heat or drought. 

Spent most of the weekend "cooling off" in the lake district north of here where highs were closer to 30 C. A few thunderstorms were rumbling past to the north of us. But none of that moved far enough south to do anything here, it clouded over on Monday for most of the afternoon then cleared up again around sunset, after weak cells fizzled out. 

Local fire situation is not too bad but further north it becomes more of a concern.