THE ANOMALIES OF THIS SUMMER'S HEATWAVE ACROSS AMERICA...........

The twenty to thirty degree drop in temperatures Sacramento, California experienced yesterday and Monday, at only 75 degrees Fahrenheit as the high temperature, are not only very unseasonably lows for the Sacramento Valley, but are going against the weeks long tide of increasingly hot and rising temperatures and drought, sweeping across most of the United States.  The hundred degrees plus temperatures persisting in the Rocky Mountains, through the Midwest, to the Northeast and Southern States, continue unabated, making the record setting temperatures of the past month the hottest summer ever recorded since weather statistics were first kept in 1895, say authorities at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Drought is now the condition in 56% of the country, up nearly twenty percent from May, as a result of the June and July weather conditions.  This year's corn crops in the Midwest States, Iowa and Nebraska, are drying out and dying, which will severely negate the projected record setting 106 ears per bushel crop predictions that had been announced by the U.S. Agriculture Department.  Wildfires such as those in Colorado that are burning severely and persistently, are also being furthered by the heatwave and drought, and have charred 1.3 million acres nationwide.  National Climatic Data Center official Jake Crouch, indicates it may be a result of long term weather climate change and asserts climate change is playing a role in the unusual intensity of hot temperatures Americans are experiencing this summer, in what he describes as a, "new normal".  But even with 170 record setting warmer temperatures across the contiguous 48 United States since the start of June, in three States, Maine, Oregon, and Washington, top ten wettest ever months have occurred.  While in Florida, Tropical Storm Debby caused rainfall for the month of June to nearly double at 13.17 inches, up over 6 inches from the average monthly precipitation.  Sacramento area temperatures are expected to return to 85 degrees Fahrenheit today and to 106 degrees Fahrenheit by Sunday, as what may be this new normal introduces itself............Fr.  Troy