Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Unbearable indeed

I finally got around to looking up the details behind the recent headline about some town in Oman recording a record high minimum temperature.   It really is pretty amazing:
The small fishing village of Quriyat located in Oman's northeast coast has just set a new world temperature record. Last week the temperature remained above 108.7 oF (42.6 oC) for 51 straight hours, making it the highest low temperature observed on Earth's surface.

Despite being in a desert environment, Quriyat's is also a very humid place as the water temperatures off the sea of Oman are usually very warm this time of year, with values reaching 93 oF (34 oC). So imagine a night in Quriyat with such high temperatures and such a humid environment. Unbearable!
So, a 42 degree night in a town surrounded by water of 34 degrees!  It's a wonder the fish caught aren't already poached.   

Update:   there's a lot of water which (at the surface) is between 30 - 35 degrees.   Here's the global temps for 4 July:


I don't know who runs that site - it seems to have no information about that at all.  Odd. 

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