The sweltering weather continues Saturday with several parts of Canada under heat warnings and Toronto, Ottawa and Windsor experiencing the hottest day of the year.
“The growth-cycle this year is unprecedented,” with carrots, peas and broccoli heads “as big as a platter,” farmers market vendors say.
Temperatures in July reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, above the normal high temperature of 72.3 degrees.
Weather watchers are focused on the world's most northerly community, which is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave.
As record high temperatures swept Alaska, many people said that the heat was killing them. For Kuskokwim salmon, it was actually true.
Norton Sound residents have reported salmon die-offs in unusually large numbers during the last week. According to the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation (NSEDC), dead pre-spawned pink salmon were found in multiple river systems over the weekend.
In July, Norton Sound water surface temperatures reached 68.2 DEG F on 7/10 and 69.3 DEG F on 7/11, which is about 17 degrees above average. The water was warm enough to comfortably swim in.
People living in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta felt something unusual this past holiday weekend: a heat wave. Temperatures crept close to 90 degrees in many parts of the region.
A burying beetle was seen for the first time by an observer in Tuntutuliak.
Our operations and maintenance staff do their best to insure all mechanical systems are functioning properly. But several factors limited their ability to respond, including significant smoke from the Swan Lake wildfire.
Unusually high abundance of rusty tussock moth caterpillars in the Nome area.
Due to 'extreme fire danger,' all open fires have been banned across much of Yukon, effective immediately.
It was also during the week where a number of dead fish started to occur along the riverine segment.
Village wildlife observers worry that the unusual warmth of oceans off Alaska is causing problems throughout the ecosystem.
The science director for Cook Inletkeeper, a nonprofit organization that monitors the health of Cook Inlet, wrote a paper two years ago on what salmon streams might be like in the future with climate change.
Local residents debated whether a massive release of spruce pollen, which accumulated on every surface—including car bonnets, picnic tables and the nearby Kachemak Bay—amounted to a “golden sheen” or a “yellow scum”. The fine dust turned the surface of the sea the colour of butter and left a bright, lemony line on shore that marked the extent of high tide and gave off a sickly sweet smell. This huge release of pollen might be yet another symptom of a rapidly changing environment.
There’s little relief from the daytime heat in the forecast for the rest of the holiday weekend.
The fire had reached 90% containment by Thursday evening, according to the Alaska Division of Forestry.
The Artic landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace: in Sweden, Alaska and elsewhere entire towns and villages, houses half sunken into the ground, risk being moved to more stable ground, as the permafrost they had been built on shifts and melts. In the Canadian north, suitable houses have become so rare that apartment prices have skyrocketed, triggering a housing crisis. All around the Arctic, homes lay abandoned, the damage too severe. Roads and other vital infrastructure are at risk, too.
"My family and I have been RV camping across Alaska for the last several years. This year, the mass amounts of dead spruce trees have been more apparent than any year prior."
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