Extreme heat, wildfires wreaking havoc with hottest months still ahead
Smoke billows upward from a planned ignition by firefighters tackling the Donnie Creek Complex wildfire south of British Columbia on Saturday. (B.C. Wildfire Service/Reuters)
The oceans are record warm while heat waves have invaded multiple continents and ice levels are at historic lows
by Ian Livingston, Dan Stillman and Jason Samenow
Spring has only just begun to transition to summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but some of the season’s most odious and dangerous extreme weather is already running rampant.
Prolonged and punishing heat waves in Asia have sent temperatures soaring to 100 degrees as far north as Siberia and above 110 degrees in Thailand and Vietnam, breaking records.
Wildfires are raging in Canada, which has never seen so much land burn so early in the year. They come after a record-warm May.
Extreme conditions extend to the Southern Hemisphere too, where record warmth and historically low sea ice levels linger even as that part of the globe enters winter.
The extremes are all connected to ocean waters that have hovered at record-warm levels for months, boosted by human-caused climate change. The weather chaos could escalate in the coming months as summer temperatures peak and a developing El Niño elevates air and water temperatures worldwide further.
Siberian record heat
Extreme heat is swelling into locations unusually far north.
Over the weekend, parts of Siberia soared to highs near 100 degrees (38 Celsius), setting all-time records.
In Jalturovosk, the 100 degrees (37.9 Celsius) recorded June 3 was the highest ever observed there, according to extreme weather historian Maximiliano Herrera. Alexandrovskoe and Laryak in Siberia also set all-time records on Sunday, with 97 degrees (36.1 Celsius) and 95 degrees (34.9 Celsius), respectively.
Many additional records — some all-time — were set on Monday.
Pulsing warmth and dry conditions have been common in the region this year. An outbreak of wildfires several weeks ago killed more than 20 in the Ural Mountains and Siberia.
Unusual warmth at high latitudes is a hallmark of climate change. On June 20, 2020, the temperature in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk, which sits above the Arctic Circle, soared to a searing 100.4 degrees. It was confirmed as the highest temperature ever recorded so far north.
Record heat in China and Southeast Asia
Parts of China and surrounding East Asian nations including Thailand and Vietnam are in the midst of a several month heat wave that has broken more than a thousand daily, monthly and all-time records. The record heat comes on the heels of similar episodes in the summer of 2022.
Herrera tweeted that the heat wave in China was “mind blowing” and “rewriting” the weather history books.
Just since June began, all-time records have fallen in dozens of locations across southern China, with temperatures reaching at least 108 degrees (42.2 Celsius), and mountainous locations also witnessing heat on a level rarely seen.
Record highs for the month of June have been observed in Vietnam, where Muong La reached 111 degrees (43.8 Celsius) and in Hong Kong where it reached 100 degrees (37.9 Celsius). In late April and May, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos established national all-time heat records with temperatures over 110 degrees (43.5 Celsius).
The heat in southeast Asia, in its 13th week, is “most brutal never ending heat wave the world has ever seen,” Herrera tweeted.
Japan just finished its warmest March to May period on record, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The country and surrounding area later faced a pulse of high heat on the periphery of Typhoon Mawar before the storm delivered all-time record 24-hour rainfall to Japan’s Pacific coast, including 19.3 inches in Toba.
Rounds of record heat have also occasionally spread westward toward the Middle East. A new pulse of extreme temperatures is expected to envelop much of China for the next seven to 10 days.