The key weather and climate features in the northern hemisphere in July 2016

Air temperature

First, we should remind that in June 2016 was one of the hottest in the history of Russia. In July, the heat continued to increase. Particularly noticeable was the European territory, especially the Russian North. In the south, the air heated to 40°C and more (in Lower Volga and North Caucasus republics), in the north in the Nenets Autonomous District air heated up to + 30°C or more. New maximum temperature was recorded at the Barents Sea to the Black Soil Region and further south to the Crimea, Stavropol, Kuban, Rostov and the Lower Volga regions. In the Russian North last July was the hottest in the history of meteorological observations. There monthly air temperature was exceeded by 4-8°C.

Warmer than usual it was in the Urals (the average temperature for the month has received the third rank among the highest values) and in most parts of Siberia, especially in the area of Lake Baikal, where the thermometer rose to + 35-40°C. In Ulan-Ude was first time was reached the temperature of the + 40°C, the absolute maximum temperature was recorded at the level of + 40.6°C. Record highs were also recorded in Tuva, Turukhansk region and Evenkia. Inhabitants of Yakutia have not got much warm in July. Arctic cold had intruded there quite often, which had led to frost and even new lows in temperature. There are some areas here where the temperature was always below normal during the whole month. In the first and second decades it was quite noticeably - by 2-4°C.

In the Primorsky, Khabarovsk and Amur regions, the average temperature for the month was close to normal, and in the north of the Far East: Kolyma, Chukotka, Kamchatka - by 1-3°C higher than it.

In general, July in Russia should be referred as hot. As in June, it was in the top three hottest since 1891.

It was hot in southern neighbors of the Russian Far East - China, Mongolia and Japan. In China, July 2016 was the third hottest in history. Its average temperature is second only to the record of 2010 and the 1930s. In the central and northern provinces of the country, as well as in Mongolia and Japan, anomalies of average monthly air temperature exceeded 2-4ºC. According to Japan's Meteorological Service, several heat waves have covered the country in July. Exhausting weather caused the death of dozens of people, more than three thousand - were hospitalized with a diagnosis of "heat stroke". Meteorologists predict that the summer of 2016 will be the hottest in the history of the country.

Active monsoon has pacified the heat in India. There temperature was a little lower than normal.

In Central Asia, the average monthly temperature was slightly higher than the norm, but some days were dominated by a deadly fever. In Termez (Uzbekistan), the thermometer rose above the level of + 45ºC, new record highs were set in many places.
Even hotter was in the Middle East. In Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and in the west of Iran the temperature rose above 50ºC. In Kuwait and Iraq were recorded absolute maximum air temperature in the eastern hemisphere of the Earth (at the level of +54ºC).
On a large part of the Middle East, average monthly air temperature exceeded the norm by 2-5ºC.

Noticeably hotter than usual (at 2-4º) in North Africa it was only in the countries of the Mediterranean: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt. At the rest of the continent temperatures generally corresponded to normal.

It was hot in July in Eastern Europe. In Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, the Balkan countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were established new temperature highs. Here, as well as in neighboring Austria and East Germany, average monthly temperatures exceeded the norm by 2-4ºC. At the end of the month, hot air from Africa hit Western Europe. In the south of France, Spain and Portugal, the air temperature rose above 40ºC, in England - above 33ºC.

Noticeably warmer than usual in July was in North America. In most parts of Canada, the air temperature was above the norm. In the north, this excess reached in some places 4-5ºC. Cooler than the norm was only in the east in the province of Newfoundland.

Also, generally higher than normal temperatures were in the United States. Mostly this excess summed for the month 2-3ºC. It was especially noticeable in Alaska, where the anomalies reached + 4ºC and more.
About the same abnormality as in the United States was registered in Mexico.

The Arctic again was extremely warm. It was the warmest July in the history of meteorological observations in this region of the planet. The rate of the average temperature was exceeded by nearly 3ºC, in some regions: Russian North Pole, Canada, Alaska – by 4-8ºC.

In the Northern Hemisphere in July 2016 was the warmest in regular meteorological observations in the history of our planet, i.e. since 1891. Its average temperature was higher than the previous record set last year by nearly 0.2ºC. Since May of last year and last month (15 consecutive months), the average monthly air temperature in the Northern Hemisphere reached record levels. Such thing has never happened in meteorological annals. The unprecedented increase in air temperature on Earth tied in part to El Niño, but it has been two months since it was completed, and global temperatures continue to rise.

In Moscow, the average July temperature has reached 20.9ºC, which is 2.7ºC above the norm.



The temperature of the ocean surface

In the Pacific, despite the ending of the El Niño, the mean sea surface temperature (SST) was very high. It was almost at the level of the extreme values reached earlier. This happened due to the temperate and northern latitudes, where SST anomalies, in the first case, were greater than  + 2ºC, and in the second - + 4ºC. The last was seen in the north of the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait. In equatorial latitudes continued strengthening of the neutral phase of the Southern Oscillation. There, in the eastern part of the ocean everywhere observed negative SST anomalies, sometimes in absolute value greater than 1ºC.

In the Atlantic, the average SST anomaly was approximately the same as in previous months, i.e. about + 0.5ºC. As well as in the Pacific Ocean, very large SST anomalies were observed in the high latitudes: Baffin Bay, Davis and the Danish straits, Greenland and Barents Seas. SST anomalies were greater than + 2 ... + 3ºC. Above normal water temperature were in the Gulf Stream and the European seas: the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean. Apparently, colder than usual was Canary Current. As in previous months, the negative SST anomalies has occurred in the central part of the temperate latitudes.

Precipitation

In most of the European Russia was a lot of rainfall. This applies particularly to the northern and southern regions, i.e. to the Northwestern, Southern and North Caucasian Federal District. There precipitation norm in some places was exceeded in 1.5-2.0 times (the Leningrad, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan region, Republic of Karelia, North Ossetia, Dagestan and Ingush Republic). Sometimes the rains were very strong – a day poured half the monthly norm of precipitation or more. Between the north and the south, in the Central and Volga federal districts, precipitation was close to the norm, although in some areas of the Kostroma, Ivanovo, Lipetsk region, Republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, Udmurt Republic, the Perm region of the sum for the month barely counted halves of the norm.

The Urals got approximately norm of the rainfall, with the exception of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, where it was exceeded in 2.0-2.5 times, and the rains were often accompanied by sleet. In most parts of Siberia, there was little rainfall, only in the south in Tomsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Altai Region and Altai Republic, rains summed the norm, and sometimes even exceeded it in 1.5-2.0 times.

Precipitation was close to norm in the Far Eastern Federal District, only in some places in Yakutia and Khabarovsk Region it was exceeded by about 1.5 times.

The Asian monsoon struck China with all strength. Rains flooded the country. In the Eastern provinces precipitation exceeded the norm by 2-4 times, the rest of the amount of rain for the month was the norm and more. At the beginning of the month, the rains poured Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Guizhou provinces. They have caused devastating floods, from which, as well as landslides caused by them, affected up to 1.5 million people, dozens were killed or got missing. After that, it rained the whole month, and in the third decade pours newly intensified. Landslides, mudflows and floods started again. A particularly difficult situation was in the regions of the Yangtze River Basin.

Heavy rains also took place in Korea and in the north of Japan.

Southeast Asia got relatively little precipitation, while Thailand and Malaysia received about the norm of it, and Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam only about 50%.

The Indian monsoon was very active in the eastern and northern parts of the country, while in the south and west it was slightly weakened. In the states of Assam, Uttar Pradesh and neighboring Nepal precipitation exceeded the norm by 2-3 times. River Brahmaputra and its tributaries burst their banks. Floods and mudslides affected around 2 million people. In Pakistan was a catastrophic situation. There the norm of precipitation was exceeded by 2-3 times.

Much rain went to the Central Asian states. In the central and eastern regions of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan their amount for the month exceeded the norm by 2-4 times, in the west of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was little precipitation.
There was not much rain in the Middle East. Only in the mountains of the Caucasus and Iran, some heavy rains have created a negative situation. Mountain rivers, left out of the shores, destroyed houses, roads, and the substitution of power transmission towers.

In West Africa was approximately the norm rain or less. Heavy rains caused flooding in Niger.

The Baltic countries, Poland, Central European countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria), the Balkan countries were actively poured with rain. Sometimes it was accompanied by strong hail. For a month there in some regions precipitation amount was 1.5-2.5 times more than the norm. In Ukraine, Moldova and Romania, as well as in the west of the continent's rainfall was not enough, and sometimes it was not at all. In the north of the continent in the Nordic countries and in Scotland the rainfall was close to the norm.

Last July was rainy for North America. In the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, in the US states of the Atlantic Coast, in the Midwest and Alaska, as well as in Mexico, the amount of precipitation for the month exceeded the norm in 1.5-3.0 times. At the end of the month in the US state of Maryland rains caused severe flooding. Noticeably less than normal precipitation has got areas of the Pacific coast and those, which are close it. In Canada, it is the province of British Columbia, and the US - California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. There are areas, especially in California, where in the past month was not rain at all.

In Moscow in the past month fell 122mm of rain, i.e., about the same as in last year's July. This amount exceeds the norm by about a third, and, at the same time, it is 1.5 times less than the record rainfall in July 1965 and 2008.