It’s not your imagination, this may be hottest summer on record

Satellite image: NASA. A 2004 heatwave in Spain and Portugal cost eight people their lives when temps reached a scorching 138 degrees F/59 degrees C

Temps in Moscow, Russia, surpassed 100°F for the first time in recorded history.on July 30. Finland also broke a heat record this summer. Experts say this summer will be one of the hottest summers on record throughout the northern hemisphere.

With 43 days into summer and 51  to go, this is shaping up to be the hottest summer since records have been kept, and not just here in the United States, but across the entire northern hemisphere.

The southern U.S. and along the Eastern Seaboard have been particularly hard-hit with many days going over the century mark. Fourteen countries have reported record heat, according to meteorologist Jeff Masters at Weather Underground.

On July 29, Moscow, Russia, reported a sweltering 102 degrees, and in Finland, a record 99 degrees was registered in Joensuu.

Even the Middle East, where searing summer temperatures are the norm, hasn’t been spared from summer’s onslaught of above normal temperatures.

All-time record highs of 125.6 degrees were recorded in Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Pakistan reported a whopping 128.3 degrees.

Conversely, the western United States has experienced relatively mild summer temperatures thanks to the trouble-making high pressure system which moved farther east, sparing the west from its normally scorching heat.

Temperatures in the east and deep south have averaged two to four degrees above normal for June and July, while the opposite occurred in the west.

While the northern hemisphere is experiencing summer, it’s winter in the southern hemisphere. It will interesting to see when summer comes to them if they also experience above normal temperatures.

Is what’s happening in the northern hemisphere an anomaly, or the harbinger of the heat wave of the future.

Could it get any hotter at the equator? Is this summer’s heat a symptom of global warming or is it just one of those odd weather things that occasionally happen? Only time will tell.