#ICYMI: Blistering heat wave scorches records in Europe, a hurricane comes and goes and fleeting weather phenomena in the sky
The formation of the first-named tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season came much later than usual. Tropical Storm Alvin organized off the coast of Mexico on Wednesday, and ever-so-briefly briefly became the first hurricane of the season in the basin on Thursday.
The storm was never a threat to land as it meandered on a west-to-northwest path into the cooler waters of the open Pacific.
As late as this first system is in starting the season, it isn't the latest first tropical system to form. In the hurricane seasons of both 2016 and 1969, the first-named tropical system formed on July 2. Alvin missed meeting this record by about a week.
While Alvin may be heading towards a cooler path, central Europe saw the mercury soar amid record-breaking heat from the Czech Republic to Spain.
The body of a 72-year-old homeless man was found near a train station near Milan, Rome, on Thursday morning, according to BBC News. Officials are currently investigating on whether or not the heat factored into his death as temperatures had been climbing past 33 C (into the 90s F) daily since Monday.
The heat wave resulted when a mass of hot air from Africa enveloped Europe and shattered many record high temperatures in Spain and France.
In Spain, site-specific June record highs were broken in Molina de Aragón and Daroca on Wednesday.
The average high temperature across all of France was 34.9 C (94.8 F) on Wednesday, which was also the highest value recorded in all of June.
Widespread triple-digit temperatures helped shatter a longstanding record for France later in the week.
On Friday afternoon, the highest temperature ever measured across France in the entirety of record keeping was set. Temperatures soared to 45.9 C (114.6 F) at Gallargues-le-Montueux in southeastern France, exceeding the nation's previous all-time record high of 44.1 C (111.4 F) at Conqueyrac on Aug. 12, 2003.
In the Czech Republic, 137 of 150 weather stations set daily record highs on Wednesday, and 41 broke June records for their individual locations.
Back in the U.S., a surveillance camera caught the violent collapse of a dock on video, as well as the close call with a group of boaters. The group had begun to disembark from their boat in a Kentucky marina when the winds began to pick up. A sudden gust drove the group scrambling to hold onto things either blowing away or posts to keep themselves on their feet. In the background, the marina next to them crumpled to the side, giving way under the intense winds.
Severe weather had moved through the area that day, and the damage survey team from the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Paducah, Kentucky, later found that a preliminary EF1 tornado with maximum estimated winds of 100 mph damaged parts of a marina. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident.
“We are so thankful and amazed that no one was injured during the tornado on Sunday,” the Moors Resort and Marina wrote in a tweet on Tuesday after the incident.
In this gust of severe weather across the states on Sunday, the Florida Forest Service believes a strike of lightning ignited the Sawgrass Fire. The wildfire nearly doubled in size from Monday to Tuesday, expanding from 18,500 acres to 32,000 acres overnight amid hot and dry conditions.
By late week, the blaze was 100% contained after burning up 42,000 acres, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Meanwhile, multiple water rescues were reported from Oklahoma to Missouri on the same day. Severe weather inundated parts of the central U.S. on Sunday and cut power to hundreds of people in Missouri and Kansas.
"A flash flood emergency was declared for southern Newton and northern McDonald counties in southwestern Missouri late Sunday morning," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski said.
A 64-year-old woman drowned after driving into a flooded creek in eastern Oklahoma, according to the Associated Press. The victim, later identified as Vickie Darnell, had attempted to drive her vehicle through a flooded crossing when the waters swept her car off the road.
Not all of the weather phenomena lately has been of the blistering, violent or inundating variety. A 59-year-old Virginia woman managed to snap a mesmerizing (not to mention serene) photo of a unique cloud formation at Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke. "I just knew it was very unusual, and I was in awe of it," Amy Christie Hunter told AccuWeather, adding that the cloud didn’t stick around for very long at all -- less than a minute. “I was lucky to see it, and very lucky I had a camera to snap the fleeting moment," she said.
AccuWeather Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer explained that these types of clouds usually occur in stable environments, like the backsides of storm complexes where rain-cooled air is present. They can form during or after a storm, even on a partly cloudy day. And speaking of Reed, he too captured video of a breathtaking and serene moment -- a gorgeous sunset in Big Sky Country this week.
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