Signal

Amidst the overwhelming noise, there is signal:

Japan's highest recorded temperature ever was Monday.  The record might not last the week.

"Less than two weeks after torrential rains wreaked destruction across Japan, the country is facing yet another weather-related crisis: a record-breaking heat wave that forecasters say could last until early August. More than 30,000 people have been admitted to the hospital for heatstroke, and at least 77 deaths have been registered in the past two weeks...“This heat is a threat to life,” a spokesman for Japan's Meteorological Agency said in a news conference Monday. “We recognize it as a natural disaster.”

A scorching heat wave that has cooked Japan since the second week of July brought the country its hottest temperature ever recorded on Monday, July 23: 41.1°C (106°F) Forecasts go higher.

"A deadly heat wave across Asia is stretching electricity grids from southern China up to Tokyo and Seoul, sending prices to multiyear highs and sparking warnings of more power stress to come."

At least 74 people are dead in Greece after wind-driven fires swept through areas near the capital of Athens on Monday afternoon. The two largest wildfires--one 10 miles east of Athens near Rafina, and the other 30 miles west of Athens, in Kineta--broke out Monday during hot, dry, windy conditions."

A hot July across much of western Europe will climb to another level this week as a heat wave builds from Spain to Scandinavia. Anyone living in the core of this heat wave will be at a high risk for heat-related illnesses, especially the elderly and young children..."

"The continued hot, dry weather in Sweden will hinder efforts to put out numerous wildfires that have affected the country in recent weeks. Firefighters from several other countries including France, Italy, Norway, Germany and Poland have assisted in the efforts to tame more than 50 wildfires..The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency has called the recent fires the country's most serious wildfire situation of modern times."

Some locations that may have their highest temperatures of the year this week include Madrid, Spain; Paris, France; Frankfurt, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Stockholm, Sweden."

The heat wave, which has included the U.K.'s highest temperatures in 50 years, has also extended through northern Europe. Blistering temperatures and an ongoing drought has turned fields dry and brown from Poland and Latvia to Finland and Sweden. Many European farmers are dipping into their winter food supplies already. They have also warned that crop yields and milk quality will be lower due to the lower quality of the grass."

"An excessive heat warning was issued for a broad swath of the southwestern U.S. on Monday with temperatures expected to approach 120 degrees -- almost 49 Celsius -- this week in what forecasters say could prove to be the hottest days of the year."

US Southwest Suffering Heat And Drought Not Seen Since The 1930's Dust Bowl: "At this moment, almost the entire Southwest is in some stage of drought. Agricultural production has been absolutely devastated, major lakes, rivers and streams are rapidly becoming bone dry, and wild horses are dropping dead because they don’t have any water to drink. In addition, we are starting to see enormous dust storms strike major cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix, and the extremely dry conditions have already made this one of the worst years for wildfires in U.S. history. "

Health officials issued a heat alert for Los Angeles County’s inland valleys Monday, warning that a multiday heat wave expected for Southern California this week will put the community’s most vulnerable residents at risk.
Temperatures aren’t expected to be quite as blistering as they were during a heat wave that shattered records two weekends ago, but the one expected this week will last longer and reach from the San Gabriel Valley and high desert to the coast, the National Weather Service said."

"At the height of the tourism season, Yosemite Valley is choked in smoke from the Ferguson Fire, and now officials say they plan to close large sections of the national park in California's Sierra Nevada as air quality reaches hazardous levels....The areas of the park will remain closed until at least July 29... "

"The remainder of July will be dominated by a resurgence of heat across the northwestern United States. The recent reprieve from the mid-July heat wave in the Northwest has come to an end as the heat intensifying over the Southwest has expanded northward. "This stretch of heat actually looks to be longer than what was experienced in mid-July," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said. "The heat could last right through this weekend."

"The National Weather Service is warning that another round of heavy rain could bring "potentially dangerous, even life-threatening" flooding to the east coast Tuesday and Wednesday. Flash-flood watches and warnings have been issued from North Carolina to Pennsylvania."

On July 5, it reached 124 degrees Fahrenheit in Algeria: an all-time record both for the country and the entire African continent. The following day, Los Angeles set an all-time record at 111 degrees."

If the message carried by the signal isn't clear enough:

Like the heat itself, much of the media coverage was stupefying. “Major broadcast TV networks overwhelmingly failed to report on the links between climate change and extreme heat,” according to a Media Matters survey. “Over a two-week period from late June to early July, ABC, CBS, and NBC aired a combined 127 segments or weathercasts that discussed the heat wave, but only one segment, on CBS This Morning, mentioned climate change.”