From record heat to record early snow?

Southern California - swimmin' pools, movie stars.....and some mighty weird weather.

Two weeks ago they were baking in the midst of triple-digit temperatures as drought conditions pushed the water managers to the brink of imposing restrictions. Now, the National Weather Service is predicting the possibility of snow in mid-September.

"This system will be almost unprecedented in terms of cold weather and snow levels for September in southwestern California," the NWS said.

"Many locations may well set record low maximum temperatures on Friday, with temperatures more typical of January rather than September," forecasters said.

Here in the San Francisco suburbs, we've had a day of cooling temperatures and steady winds that forced the Alameda/San Francisco ferry to curtail service. Feels like autumn back East.

So much for simplifying your wardrobe to fit the warming climate.

Future lifestyles for the non-rich-and-famous in California

If, as William Collins reported to us at the California Climate Change Conference, our state is in for longer and hotter heat waves, one helpful person has put together a list of 17 Cheap Ways To Keep Cool And Survive A Heat Wave.

Start thinking now of adjusting your summer California lifestyle to incorporate these survival tips, behaviors and habits.

To summarize (the descriptions are worth reading, too!):

#1 Visit the beach, lake or river.
#2 Visit water amusement parks.
#3 Find a community pool (or someone else’s pool).
#4 Buy an inflatable swimming pool.
#5 Install air conditioning.
#6 Circulate the air with fans.
#7 Make sure your house is well insulated.
#8 Install a whole house fan (in the attic or basement).
#9 Change your air filters.
#10 Use a programmable thermostat.
#11 Plant more trees and get some shade.
#12 Visit cooler spots.
#13 Slow down.
#14 Drink a lot!
#15 Wear the right clothes.
#16 Avoid humidity.
#17 Stick your feet out of your blankets.

Hopefully, your town will still allow you to fill a backyard pool. And...blankets?

Longer, hotter heat waves for California

William Collins was the keynote speaker for yesterday's California Climate Change Conference. Collins is a professor at U.C. Berkeley and a senior scientist and head of the department of Climate Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and he's conducted research on the observation and modeling of the Earth's climate system at both the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He is a lead author of the IPCC Assessment, Working Group I, which covered the physical science of global warming.

His talk was titled "the Future of California's Climate from a Global Perspective." (see here for the slides) He came loaded with explanatory graphics and statistics, and was suitably cautious in getting anywhere near predicting specifics, so the conclusions of his analysis were conservative. And here they are:

• Recent climate change is very likely human-induced.


• Near-term climate change before 2030:


• Western US will be noticeably warmer compared to climatology.


• Predictions converge across models and scenarios.


• This convergence could facilitate process of adaptation.


• Long-term climate change by 2100:


• Extremes include less frost, more dry spells, longer heat waves.


• Warming increases with increasing levels of atmospheric CO2.


• There are real prospects for more dynamic coupling of climate modeling, impacts, adaptation, and mitigation.

Weather impacts today - Japan, N. Korea, Bangladesh, Sudan, Norway

Lots of extreme weather news on the wires.

Record high temps and an extended heatwave are "baking" Japan.

A relentless heatwave scorched Japan on Wednesday as temperatures hit record highs in many regions amid concerns of a possible power shortage in metropolitan Tokyo due to a shutdown of a key nuclear reactor. In Tatebayashi city, 70 km (44 miles) north of the capital, the temperature rose to 40.2 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), just below the historical high of 40.8 C marked in 1933, government's Meteorological Agency said.

Estimated 300,000 homeless in North Korea after floods.

North Korea, which has suffered chronic food shortages for years, said hundreds were dead or missing after flooding over the past several days that washed away thousands of structures and ruined cropland in the country's agricultural bread basket. The North's official KCNA news agency quoted an agricultural ministry official as saying on Wednesday the damage to farm crops was heavier than in previous floods, with more than 11 percent of paddy and maize fields submerged, buried or swept away.

Spreading illness marks aftermath of flooding in Bangladesh and Northeast India

More than 53,000 people have contracted diarrhoea in Bangladesh, mostly caused by eating stale food and drinking impure water. A field hospital has been opened in the capital, Dhaka, to treat diarrhoea patients. "The overall diarrhoea situation is grim. Everyday there is a rush of patients," said Ayesha Khatoon, a senior official at the government's health directorate. "We are trying to cope with it."

Sudan's flooding has led to a cholera outbreak

The death toll from a cholera outbreak spread by devastating floods in east Sudan has risen to 53 with a
total of 763 cases identified, Sudanese health officials said on Wednesday. Sudan's health ministry is distributing chlorine to sterilise water, repairing latrines and spraying insecticides to try to stop the spread of cholera and malaria after the worst floods in living memory.

Flooding is devastating parts of Norway

"This is completely unreal," said Ronald Havsten after watching his home sail down the Lauvnes river in Flatanger and head towards the sea.
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Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Administration regional director Einar Sæterbø said that water levels in the region were well over so-called 'five-year flood' norms and were nearing 50-year flood levels, that is, flooding of a type seen only twice a century.

Cooking Greece - Record Temps and Fires

Southern Europe - Greece, Macedonia and Italy - have been seeing temperatures never recorded before, and fires are sweeping through the dry and baked landscapes. Athens is sweltering under temperatures I associate with Phoenix, Arizona, breaking 114 degree F.

Of course all the side effects are there, too. Electrical power failures due to overload, due to maximum reliance on air conditioning and fans. Deaths and health crises. Brush fires impossible to control.

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The "temperatures never recorded" as linked to above, should have pointed to this Reuters article describing the heat wave that "broke temperature records across the Balkans." Thanks to Ron for catching that error. My apologies.