Hot Weekend Here, But Elsewhere In The World, Ridiculous! Our Time Will Come, Though

People in Tokyo's Ginza district use umbrellas to shield
themselves from the intense sun during a record heat
wave last Saturday. Photo from AFP-JIJI

We had our first spell of 90 degree weather in the Champlain Valley over the weekend, but it wasn't as hot as it could be. We didn't set any real record highs.  

If you don't like heat, we got off easy. Especially since the hot spell in Vermont was brief, and it wasn't all that humid during this episode.

Elsewhere in the world, though, we're already having another summer of insane record high temperatures. I've already posted about the extreme European heat of a week or two ago, but since then, there have been other incredible hot spots. 

So let's dive in and look.

As the Associated Press reports:

"In China's northern Henan province Friday, Xuchang hit 107.8 degrees and Dengfeng hit 106.9 for their hottest days on record, according to global extreme weather tracker Maximiliano Herrera. And in Japan Friday, Tokamachi and Tsuanan set a time heat records while several cities broke monthly marks, he said." 

No fewer than 25 cities in China recorded their hottest temperature on record for any date of the year Froday. Beijing roasted at 102 degrees.

Tokyo, Japan just tied its record for the hottest June day with a high of 97 degrees, which was also hottest for so early in the season. At least nine other Japanese cities established new all time highs for June. 

Isesaki, a city about 50 miles north of Tokyo, reached 104 degrees Saturday, setting a new June record high for the entire nation of Japan.  

 Way up in Siberia, The town of Tazovskoe set a June record of 90 degrees. Some Arctic islands way up near the North Pole, near 80N have lost all of their snow, the earliest on record that it has disappeared in the summer. 

Parts of the Middle East and central Asia area also baking.  The port cit of Bander-e-Dayyer in Iran reached a whopping 127 degrees this past week.  The temperature reached 113 in Turkmenistan and 112 in Kazakhstan.  

The heat in the United States hasn't set all time records, but it has certainly been widespread.  No fewer than 15 states reported high temperatures of at least 100 degrees on Thursday. 

The hot weather is temporarily easing in the U.S. for the next couple of days, though heat advisories remained in effect for the Pacific Northwest through Monday.  No really extreme heat waves are in store for the nation at least through July 1.

But remember, there's plenty of time for renewed heat waves in July and August throughout the northern hemisphere.

The heat records I mentioned above have been coming fast and furiously.  Same has been true in the last few years, as I've noted above.

Of course, records are made to be broken, so you're always going to see a few record highs and a few record lows broken from time to time. But the fast pace of these heat waves - especially monthly and all time - is a hallmark of climate change.

Climate change is super charging heat waves. What would otherwise be forgettable hot spells have become unprecedented blasts of torrid conditions.

It can happen anywhere, anytime. I've said that so far, we in Vermont have had a Goldilocks summer. Sure it was hot this past weekend and chilly the weekend before, but we haven't had any kind of unprecedented weather so far. 

Overall, this summer is at least starting out cooler than recent ones. But there's nothing stopping us for experiencing heat Vermont has never seen before. It's really a matter of time with climate change. 

I don't know if that will happen this summer, next summer or a few or several summers from now. But eventually, Vermont's all time hottest reading of 105 degrees, set way back in 1911, and Burlington's all time record of 101 set during the World War II year of 1944, will seem quaint and cool.