Very impressive for so far north.

That level of heat is dangerous and life threatening. We might moan about the climate here in the uk but thank god its impossible to get those sort of temperatures here,i just can`t imagine what 50c would feel like and would never want to.

I think a better word would be 'catastrophic' given that the area has now been engulfed by a forest fire as a direct consequence of the heat and drought.

I find these record breaking events are absolutely nothing to celebrate; quite the opposite.

I want to experience that as we have plans to go to Las Vegas in summer and take a tour bus from there to Furnace Creek to experience the heat and stand to take picture of the famous white temperature box station.  Someone stood next to it at 132F highest.

It is heartbreaking to read about what has happened in Lytton. About 90% of the village has been destroyed by fire according to the local MP. Multiple injuries reported. These devastating fires are only going to keep increasing in frequency across the whole of the western side of the US and Canada, as temperatures continue to rise.

Looking at the forecast the heat won't move to Toronto area as it show rain and normal summery average temps there. Likely the heat will fizzle out eventually if not move east as cold weather does.  Meanwhile Cyprus will have a heatwave with forecast of 43-44C today so there lot of heat around but UK remain the coolest spot in NH.  It the matter of time UK have to get a much welcome and much needed heatwave with low 30's. days.  No heatwave this year as anything below 30C is not a heatwave but very warm spell. 

Yes I'm aware of that but its still interesting from a weather perspective as this sort of heat doesn't happen in the Pacific NW very often.

I took a look at the daily temperature records for the record-holding town (Lytton BC at 49.6C) and the nearby town of Merritt BC (max 46.0C) using the GHCN daily data from the 1960's, Merrtt has a continuous record from 1969 to 2019 but that for Lytton is split into several sites

What is interesting is that this period at the end of June for both sites is well off the hottest period of the year on average. They are both usually about 4C cooler now than between Mid July and Mid August so presumably if this synoptic pattern had occurred later in the year it could easily have topped 50C at Lytton at least

I tried to calcuate return periods for these temperatures on the basis that the daily history is a normal distribution (but it is hard to tell exactly)

By detrending the data I looked at both the return period now and what it would have been without Global Warming since the 1960's

For the current temperature regime the return period in the hottest period of the year is beteeen 130-150 years and without Global Warming it is 380-560 years

In this part if the world the hottest period has warmed by about 1.5C since 1969

For this to occur outside the hottest period of the year (as it has in this case) the return periods are 750-790 years and without warming 4600-15000 years

What the hottest record for Lytton before? 

I know Toronto only mere 40.5C because it hard to get extreme hot due next to the cold Lake Ontario so any heat from the south have to cross over it like us in the English channel so that would modify the temps.  Lytton don't have any big lakes to reduce the temperatures.  Also the heatwave came in a right time just after the longest day so maybe Lytton might not reach 50C later if this heatwave come much later?  

Could it be due to Fohn effects?

Yes it is heartbreaking.  I find uself getting increasingly angered by those who have spent the last 20+ years denying that climate change is happening. Some of them used to contribute regularly in the old Climate Forum. There are still people denying what is happening despite the mounting evidence and people who accept it is happening but won't countenance the changes needed to try to slow it down.

The reality is that we're all locked into what is going to be an increasingly bumpy and nasty journey. We've seen the effects in Australia and more than once on the western side of North America; not to mention the heatwaves that have hit Western Europe in recent years.

Prior to this year the highest Max for Lytton in the GHCN series from 1960 was 42.2 on 31/07/1971 and 21/07/2006 so the 49.6 last week was truly exceptional

40.0 was reached or exceeded 48 times altogether in that period based on the GHCN daily max data prior to last week

Interesting point Martin. I wonder if certain antecedent conditions & synoptic set-ups don't sometimes favour the solar zenith, regardless of averages being higher later. Very dry ground, a failed sea breeze and a high sun might work together as they did in S England at the end of June 1976. Southampton, for example, has never got close to it's 35.6 in July or August. I wonder if the reduced conversion to latent heat in such dry conditions means the solar zenith might be best placed to create the highest temps and whether more advection from hotter surface regions accounts for, say, August heat when the sun might be no higher than the end of April/ start of May.

Interesting point Bert - also made by Jiries above too

Devilishly difficult to know one way or the other

I have daily max data for my nearest site (Kew Gardens) and these show the opposite so maybe there is a location dimension too

At Kew Gardens the maxima for JJA are 34.8 (26/06/1976), 37.6(25/07/2019) and 37.9 (10/08/2003)

I see that it doesn't apply in Kew- and as Jiries said, there's no modifying aspect of water in the Canadian record, and Kew is (a bit) more like that ;it's more remote from the sea than the S Coast. I suppose if all other factors were in line with conditions in July/August, include high upper temps and thicknesses, sort of level ground starting block, and the only remaining one was solar angle, then it would make a difference. How did Kew do on 1st July 2015, can you remember? Conditions were pretty good then, with 20+ 850s I think, although 2019 clearly pipped it.

Kew recorded a maximum of 35.6 on 01/07/2015 according to the daily records for Kew Gardens reporting station

Funnily enough I remember that day very well as it was the day I returned to Heathrow from a 2 week tour of Iceland and the oppressive heat and humidity was a bit of a shock to the system

The Kew Gardens daily records show that the 34.8 maximum for any June day since 1881 has been exceeded on 13 days in July and August

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57710048

Big fire now in Cyprus from the heatwave they had recently.  So much heat around so why UK not getting a heatwave or even a warm spell like 25C to 30C days?  It show how extreme heat in Canada while UK the coldest place in NH latitude zone.

I've noticed this all the time - When Cyprus has a heaatwave it's nearly always cool and changeable here.

It tends to be a common split with European weather patterns. If southeastern Europe is warm and settled, more often than not, northwestern Europe will be cool and wet and vice versa. It's quite rare to see all of the continent getting a heat wave or a cool spell at the same time.

Look at the size of Canada compared to not just the UK, but Europe. Extremes temps either way are just going to happen there more easily.

That is exactly what the data shows between 2 Canadian sites I looked at and my local site in London. The "scatter" of the summer data in Canada is about 30-40% more than in London when reflected in Standard Deviations of the temperature records.

This equates to the chances of getting a new extreme teperature record

Lapland's turn for record breaking heat.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/06/heatwave-hits-nordic-countries-lapland-temperature-&ved=2ahUKEwjZ2OXkgs7xAhXUmFwKHfFmA2QQFjABegQIBBAC&usg=AOvVaw17a1xqjYNkY38QxttMZGct&ampcf=1

34.3c in Arctic Norway,  not good.

Really heartbreaking for us here not got a single heatwave yet this year and UK the only country in NH did not have a summer heatwave which is normal to get it here.  It not normal this current Autumn weather since mid June and seem the N Atlantic and North Sea allowed them to get the heat in Nordic countries but here not allowed.

If wasn't the stupid models and LP dishing out over us here we would be looking at 37-40C this week so another opportunity missed and daylight now drawing in. For the Nordic was a perfect timing to record high temperatures while is 24hours sunlight. 

Back in 1990 I remember seeing the teletext showing Oslo 25c at nights and 30C at day time for a week then 32C before drop back slowly and same time UK was in a heatwave.