In case you missed it, July of 2020 was Buffalo’s hottest month on record. That’s a tough record to beat anywhere, but there’s one town in the Arctic Circle that can actually say that it’s been hotter.
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On June 20, the temperature soared to an alarming 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Verkhoyansk, Russia. That’s a Siberian town 1,700 miles farther north in latitude than Buffalo, putting it in the Arctic Circle.
That’s right, somewhere in Siberia beat Buffalo to the century mark, although that’s not a record that any northern city should want.
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Heat that intense wouldn’t have been possible without decades of warming for Earth as a whole. The Arctic Circle region has been warming three times faster than the rest of the planet. Combine that background warming with a stubborn blocking area of high pressure, and the ingredients were certainly there for the unprecedented heat.
And in case you’re wondering: yes, if it can get that hot in the Arctic, it can get that hot in Buffalo too. We just have yet to see that.
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