Another week, another weekly observations thread!
Share whats happening in your hometown, region or country that might not be in the focus of international media!
Please provide a general location. For Example:
Location: Southern Ireland
Picture: Rhodes in flames
In the more rural areas during unfortunate peek times you may not be able to reach 991 immediately but get a “caller is busy” sound.
There is multiple reasons for it one being a lack of volunteers at the fire department due to people having to take 2nd jobs to be able to pay their bills.
West Germany.
Thats interesting, haven’t heard about that problem yet. Didn’t know that the Notrufzentralen are also staffed with volunteers. Do you think that mandatory fire brigade service (Pflichtfeuerwehr) might become more common in the next years?
The notrufzentrale isn’t staffed with volunteers but the problem is rather if they have no one to dispatch this might happen
Ah, I misunderstood you then. Very concerning
Yeah I didn’t explain well
Israel, it is so hot, I’m used to vent at night. The nights are now 20-30c.
Also the little democracy we had is going away.
Location: Colorado.
This weekend I backpacked through some mountainous areas like where I used to live in Colorado 20 years ago. The woods seemed oddly…sterile? But you could only really see it if you paid close attention. Fewer birds, fewer small critters, just an eerie quiet. And no bugs except for pests—tons of flies and mosquitoes.
It’s a lonely quiet world.
Edit: Forgot to add that there was a tornado on Pikes Peak. Yeah.
Rural area in France near swiss border. Got a tornado today. It wasn’t an extremely violent, but there is still one dead and few harmed people. First time such thing happens in the area over a long distance. ( 41 years ago there was a tornado, much more violent in the area, but it traveled 2 miles. The one of today, travelled 33 miles.
It peaked at an incredible 217Km/h, ripping roofs off some buildings.
Do you typically have basements or cellars in that area? I think it’s relatively common, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ve seen several places around the world experience rare tornadoes over the past several years. I have to assume that trend will continue.
Canada; it’s so hot and for so long, and whenever it’s not sunny it seems to be a bad thunderstorm or tornado warning?? So different from when I was growing up
I’ve had a very similar experience. I can’t remember a summer where we’ve hit 30C this frequently. One of our provinces lit up with tornado warnings like a Christmas tree last week, including places that were initially only supposed to get small thunderstorms.
I’m also very concerned about the upcoming weather systems. Scientists are now predicting that this el Nino is likely to last into next year, which could spell a lot of trouble for some people.
In some areas, we can look at previous moisture data and make a pretty decent guess that they will receive more or less precipitation than they would in a normal year. Other areas fluctuate a lot more in that regard. Anyone in those fluctuating areas should pay close attention to the weather during this winter. A warmer winter in those areas could mean less snow, but it could also mean that they will have to deal with heavy ice storms.
With all of these new record-breaking temperatures, long term weather prediction is coming into uncharted territory. A large amount of our weather is controlled by these sea temperatures.
From what I read on the US NOAA, there is also great uncertainty this year in terms of tropical storms. Tropical storms thrive and feed on heat and humidity. Normally an el Nino would mean that the Pacific ocean heat would create winds with enough force to shear through developing tropical storms. This year, it’s a waiting game to see which winds will be stronger. This affects Canada too, as our eastern parts can also see these bad storms.
Norway. (And neighbour Sweden).
Extreme weather “Hans” with high winds and LOTS of downpour hitting us. Expecting floods and earth slides.
Edit: We got floods and earth slides.
Tasmania. Winter is really warm, so warm that we have flowers and blossoms appearing during times we’d normally have frosty conditions.
Location: Norway. I’m escaping the heat wave of Southern Germany.
Norway looks to be in decent shape to my shallow tourist eye. Not a lot of birds, though. Denmark we passed through looked like it was in a long-term drought however.
Not yet back, but the weather in southern Germany whiplashed to 14 deg C and torrential rain. Some locations have been hit with ginormous hail. Wonder about the harvest this year.
California: this spring i was looking at the northwest pacific current temperature, and figured that it was gonna be a hot one this year (there’s some research that the Kyushio current can influence northern hemisphere weather). didn’t make a post but i should have, this heat wave has gone global. been over 100 for a week now, soon i’m traveling in Eurasia and there’s heatwaves at every destination i’m going to. i tend not to leave the house, partly due to the weather, partly due to the lack of social connections. it’s not like i don’t have friends, but summer seems to make them all drop off the map? there’s probably a career to be made studying how intensifying heat affects human socialization, but in summary people aren’t even doing the normal summer hangout things. no beach, no grill, etc. money is too tight and the air is too hot. the local forest service knocked out two brush fires this weekend, and if the winds pick up there’ll be even more. the current off the coast here is supposed to be cold as it’s coming down from alaska, part of the overall pacific gyre i alluded to earlier. if it heats up, it’ll stay warm after the sun goes down, and when the land cools and the ocean doesn’t, we’ll get strong santa ana winds coming from the coast inland: perfect for a firestorm.
Meanwhile in coastal Southern California: it’s 17C and tonight the restaurants have their outdoor gas-burning heating on. For lulz, or is it just naïveté, or foolishness, or recklessness? On the other side of the mountains they reached 35C and the rest of the state is under a heatwave. “I can’t even.”
(And some have flames inside narrow vertical tubes, again for the fun of it. As if the CO2 emergency was something happening elsewhere.)
Western Europe
I made a large garden just for butterfly and bee friendly flowers, and it’s very petty. I’m not in expert but I thought they’d already be active right about now? I saw a single butterfly so far and many smaller flying insects.
I see a few in Southern Germany but not a lot. Right now the weather is too wet and cold for them to fly.
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Location: Offline
Very minor garden update: The sunflowers are blooming and they’re one of my favorites. It’s quite nice.
I also have a corn plant that is ~3m tall and still not showing signs of tassel nor silk. I just fed it some liquid flowering fertilizer in an attempt to get it to stop growing lol
T+10 Days Edit: The tall corn continues to grow. Sunflower harvest has started. Picked a very nice cabbage. Something ate my first batch of tomatoes to ripen. The tomatoes that sprouted outside of the supplemented soil (and some inside) have some extra purple in the vegetation, which I think is indicating nutrient deficiency as expected. The sunflowers in the native soil are quite small and stunted, but not altogether insignificant. Barley doesn’t give a fuck as long as it gets enough sun and water. Despite the poor soil test results, I think the most negative effect is coming from the dense/compacted soil structure. I had almost zero sprouting success outside of tilled areas, so I will have to accept an initial till despite my no-till ambitions. I expect I will actually see some soil structure progress next year where deeper roots were allowed to grow this year. I also intend to expand the cultivated area next season.
Oh, and some pretty flowers bloomed. I looked them up. A nightshade, of course. I planted a few potential intoxicants (barley and hops…), but I don’t think nightshade was one of them. Very similar hue to my chamomile. Best not get them mixed up!
Perfect marshmallow temperature
