...Today in other non-Rox/Sux news...
several people have already died from historic flooding in Houston — today has been the region’s rainiest day on record, topping 400mm before midday at some locations. Seattle (where I live) had a sizzling 31 degrees Celsius today. (That’s 88F for you non-metric folks.) It shattered the previous daily record by double-digits (F scale), and broke the all-time April record, which was set 40 years ago on April 30. Today’s forecast was for low 80s… when I left the office around 2:30 to take the shuttle for a work meeting somewhere else, it certainly felt warmer. I was still shocked to see our home’s north-wall thermometer hit 29.4c around 4:30 (we’re on a hill, so always a couple of degrees cooler than the official city temperature).The average daily high for Seattle on April 18 is 15c (59F). This type of weather would be considered hot even at the height of Seattle’s traditionally-mild summer. We were actually hotter than Phoenix today. Tomorrow is forecast be in the 80s too. The link above cites the various records expected to be broken this week.
At least it’s not like the suffering felt in Houston, where over a thousand residents already had to be directly rescued from their homes due to flooding. Rescue officers say it was still relatively fortunate that most of the downpour took place overnight and early morning, reducing the number of people risking it on the road.
Both local phenomena, as well as the snow in Colorado this weekend, are apparently related to the Omega Block, which seems to be a springtime sibling to winter’s Polar Vortex. The Jet Stream gets stuck in an Omega-shaped pattern, leaving some regions high and dry and others under water.
Much as I like temperatures around 30c (hey, I’m from the Middle East), the odds of such weird weather patterns have greatly increased as human-caused global warming continues to make itself felt.
I wonder how the actual summer will look like here. Last year, some longstanding trees in our garden, and of course many trees in forests all around the region, died because of extreme warmth and dryness.