The [almost] universal weather report for this week on the Northern Hemisphere: Troppo Scorchio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuSPdsPWit0

(The national weather report indicated a warning for our province as hottest in the country [35.6C @ 07:45 UTC] ... kids to be kept in shade and watched carefully... keep drinking... water of course!)

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Yes it has been 100 degrees here in Virginia--not to mention a bad storm came through and most of us have no electricity--

Thank you for the fascinating link, Sekerob. There are some red and orange dots flashing over us in Iowa, too. I feel sorry for the people on the East Coast who are without power in the awful heat.

Sgt Joe, how wierd that Minneapolis has the highest dew point and heat index in the U.S.

Good luck and stay safe to everyone in the world dealing with this heat.

You're welcome, Kate. If you watch it, you can, without looking at the time indicator, follow the sun rotating around the planet. Presently you see the big concentration of hot spots in mid/east Italy and Balkans, then they wane and the US East flares up. We had a cast over sky at 07:00AM, and hope of some thunder releasing rain, but by 09:00AM the sun had all but let it evap. Now a white veil up high in the sky and 73% humidity. The cracks in the garden [clayish type] soil are now a good 1cm wide. Watering is pointless. Those cracks go 2 feet and more deep.. have to wait for autumn rains. The grass is thoroughly brown, but it always has recovered in September, till now. The Fig trees have roots up to 60 feet deep, so even on our hill they can find the water table [already we can pick select ones with the abundant and month-long excess heat, and it's only July 5]. The other evergreens, mostly pine and olive, are fine too, but the fruit trees except for citrus are suffering. Small apricots this year. Few plums.

Why this is... the Mediterranean has a so-called teleconnection with the Pacific El Nino/La Nina. The current ENSO state is trending towards El Nino, and like La Nina have global weather implications. SOI gives a good indication of longer range weather trend http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soi2.shtml , about 3.5 years cycle, some 2 cycles in a solar cycle. As you can see, [strong] La Nina had the upper hand in the past 2 years, but now we're braced for the coming year. More Scorchio.

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Might you think that the thermometers are fooling you down in the cities



The remaining snow in North America [just 121,500 square miles] and elsewhere is telling the same story, without any man made mercury temp reading tubes:



Stay cool, and collect.