A question of extremes

With average high of 80, the summer of 2015 is officially Seattle’s hottest on record

Scott Sistek

Desdemona Despair,

31 August 2015

(KOMO 4 News) – This might be the ultimate statistic to show just how hot a summer it's been in Seattle this year:

In typical summers, Seattle gets a handful of 80 degree days a year (25 to be exact -- OK, so they're big hands).

This summer? It was the average high temperature.

In about as big a surprise as Kanye West doing something zany at the MTV Video Music Awards, Seattle has officially notched its hottest summer on record. (Yes, technically there are still three weeks in summer by our calendar, what with that whole autumnal equinox and all, but "meteorological summer" runs June 1-Aug. 31. Meteorological fall is Sept. 1-Nov. 30; winter is Dec. 1-Feb. 28, spring is March 1-May 31).

And by all measures, it wasn't even close.

It is indeed the first summer ever here that averaged a high temperature over 80 degrees, checking in at 80.2. (The fact that 47 of the 92 days this summer were above 80 might have had something to do with it*.) Second place on the hottest average high temperature? WAY down the chart at 77.6 degrees, set both in 1961 and 1958.

Our average summer high is 73.4.

Beating a statistic averaged over three months by over 2 1/2 degrees is like winning the Super Bowl over the AFC champion by 36 points (wink).

What about by average overall temperature? Smashed that record too. The average temperature (high+low divided by 2) was 69.2 degrees, breaking the previous record of 67.4 degrees set way back in … 2013 (by nearly two degrees!)

In fact, the top three hottest summers at Sea-Tac Airport by average temperature are now the last three summers. 2014's summer was 66.8 degrees. 2009 is in sixth place. The average for summer is 63.6. [more]

With average high of 80, it's officially Seattle's hottest summer on record

Tasmania suffers the coldest winter since 1966

Investment Watch,

1 September, 2015

The state of Tasmania in Australia has suffered its coldest winter since 1966, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) confirmed on August 31, 2015. The winter season has also been exceptionally dry, as below average amounts of precipitation have been recorded in a number of areas. The cold and dry winter affected farmers across the state.

It’s been below average temperature and rainfall for Tasmania during this winter. “Preliminary analysis is all indicating that it’s the sixth coolest on record, that’s resulting in the coolest winter since 1966,” Debbie Tabor, BOM’s meteorologist said.

The heavy snowfall during the month of August reached sea level for only the seventh time since 1986. Strong snowstorm blanketed the state twice in a month, causing the traffic collapse across the affected area. Several schools have also been closed due to extreme weather conditions, and a few people got stranded in their cars.

In addition to heavy snowfall, the winter was also exceptionally dry, especially across the northern parts of the state. “We’ve had several places in terms of the rainfall across the northern half of Tasmania that’s been below average and very much below average in the north-east, but some central and southern parts of the state have seen totals closer to average for the season,” Tabor added.

According to BOM, about 100 mm (3.9 inhces) below average rainfall was recorded in Burnie and Deloraine, 80 mm (3.1 inches) below in Launceston and Devonport, 50 mm (1.9 inches) below in Smithton, 60 mm (2.3 inches) in Bicheno, and about 150 mm (5.9 inches) in St Mary’s.

“[It’s been] a little bit less so at places like Ross and Hobart that have been 30 millimetres (1.2 inches) below the winter average and Bushy Park and Ouse have been close to average,” Tabor said.

Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association president Wayne Johnston said the dry winter conditions have also made an impact on farming across Tasmania: “There’s isolated pockets around the state that are certainly getting more than their average rainfall but across the board I’m hearing that down towards the Midlands and towards the east coast they haven’t been getting any run off at all.”

For bullshit-of-the-day try this! 
Oh, sorry, that explains why the glaciers are melting (but they're not, sorry!) - lol

Did you know that much of Australia’s firefighting equipment is borrowed from overseas? 
With climate change driving longer bushfire seasons in Australia, fighting fires on the home front could soon be increasingly challenging. Read more:http://bit.ly/1Ju7cZi