Lovely pictures, @jo! And such a great eastern horizon; I can see why it's so good for observing early-morning planets.

Apparently our vibrant sky colors the other night were caused by an unusual combination of clouds, atmospheric moisture, and low sun angle. Those clouds were actually the northern edge of a strong derecho (long-lived, high-wind storm event that can last hundreds of miles) that swept across eastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota, and parts of Wisconsin that evening. Heavy rains from that storm flooded numerous houses in the small town where I grew up, and even led to the skies being an eerie, almost fluorescent, shade of green over Sioux Falls.

The next week looks typical for July here: hot, humid with a chance of storms (we're back to needing rain again after having a surplus earlier this spring).

Winter weather is finally making its presence known.  The last two days varied, and I was staying home to get over a cough. Today it's wet and cold, with rain sometimes heavy, and winds sometimes gusty. Suddenly I remember how horrible winter weather is. Brr. Grateful for warm clothes and good heating in the lounge and bedroom. 

We are living through Summer 2011 all over again. It's fire season, major drought. Currently is 105F/41C and feels like 115F/46C. Can I melt now? We still have 12 weeks before the temperature even begins to break just because the days are shorter. 

Whew, starkat! Keep cool.

The third week in July is statistically the warmest of the year here, and by the forecast it will live up to the billing. A week to 10 days of 90s, close to 100 on Monday, with triple-digit heat indices. (Not as hot as the South, but we're famous for cold here, not heat).

Coincidentally, July 14 marks the date of the warmest temperatures ever recorded in Minnesota and the Twin Cities, in the blistering Dust Bowl year of 1936.  The state record is 114F/45.5C, and the Twin Cities record is 108F/42C. (The warmest temperature I've experienced in this state - excluding travel to places that are routinely hotter - was 105F/41C in the drought summer of 1988).

Later edit: I just saw a note on a local weather channel that the warmest temperature ever in the state of Indiana (116F) was also recorded on July 14, 1936. It was hot all over the Midwest.

Posted by: @stargazer

The third week in July is statistically the warmest of the year here

Yep, similar to here in southern Ontario: the last two weeks of July are always our hottest and driest weeks of the year. This is being lived up to this year, as well, as temperatures start climbing on Monday (thankfully with some needed rain) and stay hot for the rest of July. No more morning walks for me until August now, I'm thinking. Anyway, we are halfway through my worst month of the year now, and I already see signs that Autumn is not far away. Cooler, fresh temps; the crunch of leaves underfoot; more time outdoors; that beautiful Autumn earthy bonfire scent in the air, later morning and earlier evening dark for night sky gazing. Counting the days until August and beyond!

Talking about all this heat makes me want to jump in a cool pool!  

If you're in the northern hemisphere, it's hot. Period. I've been reading some of the horror stories from Europe right now due to the massive heat wave and very few over there have air conditioning.  

@Courtenay, I've read that your area may be hit here in the next day or two with that extreme heat. I hope you have a way to stay cool!

So, our heat here has been interesting. It's been hot yes, but it's been tolerable so far. In fact, yesterday, we hit 102F, but it was cloudy and there was a breeze, so it wasn't that bad at all. I've been far more miserable on days where it's 93F, humid, full sun, and no wind. But we'll see what happens this week. We have a lot of 100F+ days coming up, and Tuesday we're supposed to hit 107F. Lots of pool time for my kiddos in the early morning/late afternoon (pool is in the shade then) and hunker down indoors (especially in the basement) during the heat of the day. 

Stay cool everybody!

(Except for coracle, wagga, and other southern hemisphere people, you all stay warm )

Posted by: @fantasia

If you're in the northern hemisphere, it's hot. Period. I've been reading some of the horror stories from Europe right now due to the massive heat wave and very few over there have air conditioning.  

@Courtenay, I've read that your area may be hit here in the next day or two with that extreme heat. I hope you have a way to stay cool!

It's not too bad here so far, but tomorrow and the next day (Monday and Tuesday) the predicted top for this part of Cheshire is 36 and 37 C respectively — and up to 40 C down in the south of the country. This is serious heat even by Australian standards and I'm not laughing any more as I usually do when anything in the high 20s in Britain gets called a "heatwave"... this actually IS a heatwave. But I didn't grow up with air conditioning (that was only for rich people and businesses when I was little) and so it's nothing I haven't seen before — not that I've ever found this kind of weather enjoyable!!

However, I'm on night shifts at the moment, so that means I'm not out and about during the hottest part of the day, and the care home where I work does have air conditioning in most of the building — and naturally we have plans and guidelines in place to make sure the people we're looking after stay cool enough and have plenty to drink day and night. They've all been fine overnight so far.

My own new home is a ground floor flat at the corner of the building, so I have windows on two sides, but they happen to be the north side (least sunny over this side of the equator) and west side (which has a fence and lots of trees along it), so I get almost no direct sunlight — it's good light during the daytime but never blazing — and the place stays nice and cool indoors all the time. No air conditioning, but I haven't needed it! (It may be cold in here during the winter, but the storage heaters are pretty powerful and I think I should be fine... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In terms of physics, it's always a lot easier to heat a space than to cool it down anyway.)

Posted by: @starkat

We are living through Summer 2011 all over again. It's fire season, major drought. Currently is 105F/41C and feels like 115F/46C. Can I melt now? We still have 12 weeks before the temperature even begins to break just because the days are shorter. 

Yes, indeed, and I know that 2011 was definitely another La Niña year, though not as bad as this triple La Niña year has been in Australia. Japan in 2011 had that terrible 9.0 earthquake & tsunami, Christchurch in New Zealand was flattened in another earthquake, Brisbane, in particular, with its Wyvenhoe Dam overflowing in the Lockyer Valley, suffered terribly from floods, & a storm wrecked a Bathurst, NSW, cinema where they had been screening Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 

@Stargazer: The third week in July is statistically the warmest of the year here, and by the forecast it will live up to the billing.

Odd you might say that.   The third week in July is just as predictably one of the coldest of the year, here, in Sydney, and it certainly has felt colder than normal, in the wettest July we have ever had in Sydney, according to any records we have had. Today, our replacement air-conditioning unit finally arrived, & was installed. But it is yet to thaw me out, when I felt like I was living in an icebox without it these last few months. I've been grateful for everyone's good wishes, here on this thread, but the flooding has been no joke in Sydney, either, & though we have had a couple of short few days breaks from these rain events, even more rain is predicted for the rest of July. I think I better invest in a snorkel for outdoor wear.      

@Courtenay: No air conditioning, but I haven't needed it! (It may be cold in here during the winter, but the storage heaters are pretty powerful and I think I should be fine... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In terms of physics, it's always a lot easier to heat a space than to cool it down anyway.) 

Quite so. I'm glad you are comfortable in Cheshire, even though the weather reports I've seen, indicate it is a tad warm for UK, even for an Australian, as you say. Down here, this morning, Melbourne was reported as having temperatures of -2 C whilst Tasmania is definitely snowed under. With real snow, not just work.   Definitely a chilly winter down here. Unfortunately, though we do have an oil heater from decades ago, it only warms the kitchen, at best. And the best idea to keep warm, otherwise, is simply to go to bed early. Getting up in the morning has been horrible!  

I had forgot that 2011 was the year of Japan and Christchurch. We're not supposed to drop below 100F/38C for at least the next ten days. I'd take a hurricane at cat 2 or under as long as it keeps moving at this point. 

We're having a horrible, cold, wet week in most of the country. For the third time in 3 weeks, my street is flooded too deep to drive my car out, although my home is safe. My part if the street us lower than the rest of the neighbourhood.

It's inconvenient as I i have things to do to prepare for a friend's special birthday tomorrow and her afternoon tea on Saturday. But I'm not in danger  

Many people are affected here (Christchurch) and in other cities further south along our east coast, with evacuation offered in some areas. I've never seen my city so flooded! Rivers burst banks, sodden ground couldn't absorb any more water as it kept raining.  Whole streets are closed.

We've had 70mm in 24 hours (2.5 inches)  more than the usual July total of 60mm, and its generally a grey, wet month (middle of winter).

@coracle Gosh, hope the flooding clears up soon! Stay safe and I hope your friend's party goes well.

We're back to normal summer weather in Britain now — low to mid 20s with occasional rain.  I was so glad I was largely unaffected by the recent heatwave, but it was very difficult for a lot of people and I hope it won't happen again for a long time. Have to admit, though, I'm slightly amused to think that no-one in this country — not even the screaming tabloid newspapers — will ever go referring to 28 C as a "scorcher" again...  

Let's keep cool (or warm) out there!

The heat is moving to the Pacific Northwest this week, and I'm reminded of last summer's blistering heat there. Many residences don't have air conditioning, and temps will be closing in on 100F/38C in places like Portland and Seattle.

Here in the Midwest we're getting a bit of a breather before the heat returns this weekend, and the short-term outlook is for much-hotter than normal conditions over the next 10 days. The Twin Cities is back in the moderate to severe drought range now.

Areas around St. Louis, Missouri had heavy rains overnight and there was quite a bit of flooding and Interstate highway road closures. No fatalities, at last report.

When I was child my family and I went to England on vacation several times, and I remember low temps in the summer -- we took raincoats and were wearing them in most of the pictures. When the sun was out it was hot in the middle of the day, in the low 70s, like when we visited Stonehendge. But mostly it was in the low-mid 60s (note I'm using Fahrenheit here not Celsius.) I can't imagine it being 100+ there. Even when I went back in the mid-1980s we had to take raincoats.

In Seattle it was in the mid 90s yesterday and probably today. Hot, but not the 102 - 108 of the heat wave we had a year ago. That was monstrous. I was at home on vacation then and could SMELL the hot house around me a combination of hot wood, metal, tar, plaster. Ever since then, the old house has had creaks in it that weren't there before.

We've  had truly glorious  weather the past few days: low humidity (amazing for July!), generally clear skies, and highs around 80F/27C.  It was so nice we enjoyed a backyard fire this evening, ending with a viewing of the ISS.

But we're off to the races soon. A local meteorologist showed that the GFS model predicts a high of 112F/44C next Wednesday, which would be the all-time record high here. But he pointed out that the model is quite aggressive with the temperature and that other models are predicting highs between 97-100F (around 38C). With high humidity returning, that's plenty toasty!

After 2 dry days, the rain is back. It was inconvenient packing out all the things we used for my friend's birthday party this afternoon, im the cold and rain. Hoping my street won't flood overnight!