Now that the seemingly summer-long heat wave has eased - at least for a while in New Jersey - it's time for a look back and some explanations.
Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that over land, July was the warmest on record globally.
Jassica Febick of Lacey cooling off on the job at a Barnegat garden center on July 6 (file photo by Bob Bielk)
Finland's highest-ever temperature reading was 99 degrees on July 29, while Moscow hit 102 - its highest reading ever - on July 30, according to a NOAA statement, which cites the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
China had its warmest July since 1961, according to the statement, which cites the Beijing Climate Center.
David A. Robinson, the New Jersey state climatologist at Rutgers University, has posted a monthly report – “Extreme Heat & Widely Variable Precipitation, July 2010 Overview, Plus a look at the Growing Season to date” - on his office's website.
In New Jersey, July was the second warmest since 1895, according to Robinson's report.
And after reading an AP story yesterday, I checked out an Aug. 11 World Meteorological Organization post on an “Unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events.”
“The occurrence of all these events at almost the same time raises questions about their possible linkages to the predicted increase in intensity and frequency of extreme events,” according to the post.
“A series of recent publications indicate that main patterns of atmospheric variability exhibit noticeable changes and are predicted to be different in a warmer climate,” the post says.
