Keeping an eye on the tropical storm as it makes landfall in Texas. Amazing how much rain has fallen down there.

We're within a week of the summer solstice, but even now winter-like temperatures can rear their heads. International Falls, the "Nation's Icebox," recorded a low of 34F/1C this morning. It could have snowed had there been precipitation.

A frost here might be welcome to take care of the flying vampires. I stepped outside last night to see the ISS and had to dodge lots of mosquitoes. Kind of dreading what numbers this summer may bring.

Never a dull moment in the weather world, though many south of here may wish there would be. Yesterday morning a derecho - a long-lived storm featuring straight-line winds of hurricane strength - stretched over 500 miles (800 km) from South Dakota almost to Lake Michigan. Wind gusts of over 120 mph (190 km/hr) were recorded, resulting in many downed trees and damaged buildings across southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.

Golf-ball sized hail and localized flooding occurred in the Twin Cities. The storm passed quickly and today is a beautiful summer day with a lot less humidity.

Boy, did we have storms last night too. Severe thunderstorms, and first tornado warnings, then later, watches. Today the humidity is waaaay down. We were awake from 2-3 early this morning from the intensity of the storms. Non-stop thunder and lightning for an hour. Best light show ever over the farmers' fields. It was amazing. We should have turned on the news at that point, because we found out later that the tornado watches were in full force right then, and we probably should have gone down the basement, but it was too exciting to look at (from a place of safety). I have not yet heard if a tornado touched down anywhere. The weather was almost surreal, it was so intense, and apparently covered a very large area.

From what I see, the next week or so is supposed to be very pleasant and comfortable weather, with a falling of rain at times. Today almost feels fall-ish. We have had a day or two of humidity here and there, but no 10 day stretches, whew. Still, those could yet come in July.

And I learned a new word today ... derecho.

Tornados in Canada? I would have thought they stopped at the headwaters of the Mississippi. So far this winter we have had quite a bit of rain, with more coming in the next few days. It has been definitely cold so far this winter, and there is at least another month of chilly weather to come.

At least I've not heard the skiers at Perisher Valley, Khancoban and Smiggins Holes complaining. Yes, I've heard that Whistler was a Canadian ski resort but keep getting the name confused with James Whistler's painting of his mother.

Yuppers, tornadoes in Canada. In fact, there is quite a list gathered over the years. One of the most 'famous' and devastating tornadoes was the "Barrie tornado" of 1985. Driving north in our small car, we literally missed being caught in the funnel by 1-2 minutes!

Nice list, jo. Didn't know Vancouver area got tornadoes. My favourite so far is

A tornado at Watrous, Saskatchewan destroys a large barn and scatters pigs up to 5 km from the barn.

We generally only get dust devils--impressive, but not damaging. There were none very close to Calgary when we lived there. Apparently, it's too close to the mountains?

Friends were in Edmonton in '87, and, like you, were only a few minutes away from the direct path. My cousin and his wife were first responders (RCMP and nurse) to Pine Lake in 2000, as well. That's as close as I've ever been--second hand accounts--and happy to keep it that way.

Sounds like quite the close call. Sometimes we in the States forget just how far north tornados can develop.
Thankfully we have not had anything so severe around us. Most of the weather has been rather mild of late. Some rain, and a little wind. But mostly the humidity is the only frustration right now. It does help with the temps dropping into the 60'sF, or even the 50's in the evening.
Now, if only the mosquitos would go away.

Yikes, aileth, that must have been unnerving for them! (We can relate!)

Ahh, mosquitoes—our bane.

This week has been very pleasant, with quite a bit of precipitation up until today. For July, it's really comfortable out—22C/71.6F with no humidity. However, that will be changing beginning Saturday, as the stickiness builds until Monday will feel like 34C/93.2F. Which is kind of the norm for some of you, but for us northerners, it really sucks. That is supposed to break by next Wednesday, apparently.

For the first part of June, farmers were crying for rain; now they're begging it to stop. Well, it does look to be dry until late Monday, so they'll be glad.

Well, yesterday was beginning to feel warm, yet still manageable, but today—even this morning—is like "air you can wear" (thanks, stargazer, for that apt term!). Miserable, to put it bluntly. This humidity is going to build until Tuesday (feeling like 35C/95F that day), when thunderstorms should relieve the oppressiveness for a few days, anyway. The sun is dominating today and tomorrow: this typical muggy July weather is where I wish I could just hibernate. I am grateful for the four distinct seasons, to be sure, and thankful that this spring and summer, thus far, have been quite pleasant, for my personal tastes, at least.

I'm west of you, jo, so that hot muggy weather you're expecting is over us now. We had a July 4 campfire yesterday but sat quite a distance from it due to the warm temperatures. Today will be even hotter, with torrential rains expected tonight and tomorrow to break the heat, as least temporarily.

It's been about 10 days since I've seen a blue sky, even when there have been no clouds. The Canadian forest fire smoke has dominated our sky the last week, making it milky white by day and almost starless by night (last night the Moon was dimmer and redder than I've seen it in many years, including during total lunar eclipses). The big storms tonight are expected to clear out the smoke.

(The same weather pattern that has brought us the smoke and kept it over us is the same that has made it extremely warm in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle has been close to 35C/95F, and that's very rare for them. A lot of people - my brother's family included - don't have air conditioning and have to find other places to go to keep cool).

The sun is dominating today and tomorrow: this typical muggy July weather is where I wish I could just hibernate. I am grateful for the four distinct seasons, to be sure, and thankful that this spring and summer, thus far, have been quite pleasant, for my personal tastes, at least.

I believe the right term for a long summer snooze is "aestivate". Some animals do. We had quite muggy weather last summer, also. Personally, at the moment I'd prefer to be hibernating, especially in the morning. Weather is nice and crisp, not at all muggy. It is even gorgeous in the sun at midday, but we have had the longest run of cold and frosty mornings for twenty years. Temperatures as low as 1 degree Celsius this morning or even -1 degree Celsius. Icy. And it takes till about 10.00 am before I feel I've properly thawed out. At what point does water in pipes and swimming pools freeze?

At what point does water in pipes and swimming pools freeze?

Freezing pipes can be an issue here, where winter temperatures routinely go below -25C. I think the answer is variable, depending on things like home insulation (a must here!), length and severity of the cold, etc. One bit of advice they give here is to leave the water running at a trickle, since moving water freezes much more slowly than standing water.

Swimming pools? I have no idea. It's usual to drain them here for the winter - and outdoor pools are rather rare here given the relative short duration of summer. But water has a high heat capacity, and pools hold so much water that a night or two around freezing may not do much. But I really can't say.

Today will be even hotter, with torrential rains expected tonight and tomorrow to break the heat, as least temporarily.

This forecast was spot-on. The heat index yesterday was in triple digits F (over 40C), with 'air you can wear.' The cold front now moving across the central US triggered amazing thunderstorms and deluges overnight. The Twin Cities set a new single-day rainfall total for July 6 (2.87 inches/73mm) in just a few hours, and towns just east of here reported over 7 inches (188mm) overnight. (The average for the entire month of July is 4 inches/100mm). There was localized flooding here and more serious flooding in western Wisconsin.

The Canadian forest fire smoke cleared out briefly, but northwest winds accompanying the front have brought it back, with greatly reduced visibilities here and air quality alerts issued.

The cold front now moving across the central US triggered amazing thunderstorms and deluges overnight. The Twin Cities set a new single-day rainfall total for July 6 (2.87 inches/73mm) in just a few hours, and towns just east of here reported over 7 inches (188mm) overnight. (The average for the entire month of July is 4 inches/100mm). There was localized flooding here and more serious flooding in western Wisconsin.

The same front moved through here late yesterday. We got an inch of rain in 15 minutes and as of two hours ago we've had just over 3.5" of rain since yesterday. That is completely unheard of in Kansas. Most years once June ends we don't see any rain until the Fall.

High today, 75F.

Speaking of random weather patterns...

We've made it through the first six months of the year without hitting 95F for the actual high temp. We'll change that some time in the next week or so.

We are starting to fall back into a more regular weather pattern for summer. Hot, humid, and the occasional afternoon thunderstorm. As wet as we've been this year, it should be interesting to see what the rest of hurricane season holds. We've already had one tropical storm hit the gulf coast.

It's been about 10 days since I've seen a blue sky, even when there have been no clouds.

Wow! I don't remember this being so extreme from other summers since I've known you. Is this more a rarer occurrence than not?

I believe the right term for a long summer snooze is "aestivate".

Nice. That'd be me, then.

At what point does water in pipes and swimming pools freeze?

First ... *sends over a hot water bottle to wagga*
Second ... we had a pool at our old place, and dropped the water below the skimmer (so, about 6") at closing. The normal process is to add a bunch of chlorine to keep any algae at bay if there are any warm days prior to the freezing cold setting in. This also helps the water not to freeze, for, if it does so, that could damage the liner.

Quite the rain, stargazer and fantasia! We are expecting thunderstorms later today, bringing with them a much cleaner air mass. Often during July we have 10+ day stretches of no rain and awful humidity, but I glanced at the long-range forecast, which shows a decent mixture of sun and precipitation until the end of the month, with the head index not climbing much over 30C/86F—still too warm for me, but not utterly unbearable. However, I will still mostly 'aestivate'. (But here it is not uncommon for July to hover around 40+C/104+. )

We find that living just out of town allows slightly cooler temperatures with all the open fields around. Plus we now have a bungalow, which I find does not get nearly as hot as our former split-level did, even though the upper floor was only 6 steps up.

The next few days will be in the low 20sC/low 70sF (very pleasant), then the humidity building a bit on the weekend. But by then we're nearly mid-July, and what is the most uncomfortable month (for me) will be halfway over.