Extreme weather hits Europe and Russia

Record breaking heat continues across western and central parts of Russia this month. Meteorologists have said temperatures at times have been around 12C degrees above normal.

May 2007 has seen several temperature records broken. Central Moscow saw temperatures rise to 31.3C (88F) on Sunday. But the real swelter was on Monday when the mercury soared to 32.9C (91F), breaking the record high for the month of May.

There are fears of power outages over the coming days as electrical consumption reaches unusually high levels, as people struggle to keep cool.

Meanwhile, in contrast, many parts of Europe have been affected by very unsettled and cool weather. Heavy storms, landslides, flash floods and lightning have killed at least 23 people across the continent over the past few days.

In the UK max temperature of 7.9C was recorded Tuesday at Heathrow Airport making it the second coldest May day on record. The cold weather extended into Scotland where sleet and snow fell across the mountains bringing a good few centimetres.

www.bbc.co.uk...

There's been other unusual weather patterns reported, though whether this is simply from our heightened awareness of climate change or better data collecting isn't quite clear. And while there's a lot of data out there, it really does need supercomputers to crunch the whole globe's worth of data in any sort of realistic time frame.

It's a good idea, though, to keep an eye on the science magazines and see what's being said there.

...and BBC is a wonderful source, too!

I agree with Byrd. For one we haven't had weather-related data collecting technology for too long. Long enough to recognize global patterns that take hundreds of years, at least.

Freak weather anomalies happen all the time, as well, but now that global warming is in the forefront of most people's minds it's easier for us to skew it into something it's not, due to our human tendencies for exaggeration.

In one of my college classes some guy tried telling the class that "Global warming is real. Just look outside...it was snowing last week and now it's 60"

I should've put a damper on his parade but I decided against it. It was just New England weather in March, not global warming. I've seen crazier weather shifts my entire life. Anyhow, all I'm trying to say is that if you're mind is looking for it you can easily misconstrue the perception of what you see into what you want.

...here i am in southern italy. i have been looking forward to the summer since i got here last october. it was getting warmer and warmer...and then...last week i had to pull my heater out of the closet. dangit!

i dont know if it is necessarily an ominous sign, but it is certainly freakin annoying.

i have heard about this crazy weather for some time. maximums of 7 degrees in England and death waves in western Europe.
it seems to be a repeat of the deadly wave that hit last summer, i hope this time people wise up though, what was it 25,000 deaths or something? i hope im not exaggerating on this.
or could it be the opposite? people are expecting hot weather and it freezes them all to death instead whilst they are still wearing shorts and shirts ready for the summer...