lystn

What a week it's been! A heat dome moved into south central Canada, the Midwest and Great Lakes area. From last Tuesday onwards numerous cities in every state have been seeing 90°+ highs on a daily basis. This 90° heat is unique in that it blew in on east winds and the most intense heat came as winds blew from the northeast. Chicago officially saw 4 consecutive days with highs of 90°+ despite the cold lake that lies to the east, northeast and even slightly southeast from the city. This means that there was a lake component to this wind at all times yet this wasn't able to prevent the 90° heat from occurring. The solar insolation is the highest in the world over the Great lakes this time of year when skies are clear (but soon it will be the Arctic).  Due to Low pressure that's been hanging out down south and east (even a tropical storm) the high pressure and its associated clear skies positioned itself in perfect proximity to bring maximum heating to the Lake water temperatures. The minimum water temperatures shot up 10° this past week.  There is so much going on right now which I don't have time to write about here or even speak about but much of it is covered in this episode. As exciting as this episode is, it hopefully will be outdone in a couple weeks as 90° heat heads into the actual arctic (as shown on some computer models). The June Arctic solar insolation is more intense than even the hottest cities. Therefore, if skies are clear and the ground is thawed (snow free) it is the perfect opportunity for maximum heating which usually will include widespread  86°-95°F heat. In fact in this episode we discuss 101° heat that took place in the upper latitudes in Russia and official 99° heat that took place on 60° N Latitude. If that doesn't interest you, perhaps the 126° in Shushtar, Iran will.