8 July 2012 by Gwynne Dyer It was 42 degrees C (107 degrees F)
in St. Louis, Missouri, last weekend, about the same as in Saudi
Arabia. Along the US Atlantic coast, it was cooler, but not
much: 41 degrees C (105 degrees F) in Washington DC, just short
of the city’s all-time record. And 46 Americans were already
dead from the heat wave. In Britain, it was incredibly wet.
Almost 6 cm (2.3 in) of rain fell on Saturday in parts of
southern England, and there were over 20 flood warnings and 100
flood alerts in effect. The wettest April ever was followed by
the wettest June (more than double average rainfall), and July
has started the same way. Russia had its hottest summer ever in
2010, with peat wildfires raging out of control – over 5,000
excess deaths in Moscow in July alone – but this summer it’s wet
in Russia too. Last Friday an astonishing 28 cm (11 in) of rain
fell overnight in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, and
flash floods killed 155 people. It is a big planet, and some
local record for hottest,