1st August - Today's News: Hottest August On Record Forecast .... Well, Sort Of .....

Woman killed by fallen tree as wild weather batters Tasmania

Meanwhile snow falls in the suburbs on the coldest day of the year for Melbourne and Mother Nature delivers snow to the Adelaide hills and wild wind and rain to SA

And in NZ, wild winds whip south.   Well, it is winter!

Denmark has one of the hottest Julys in 140 years

Summer storms rip throug Croatia, Montenegro whilst more floods hit western and central Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania

In the Indian monsoon, a 63-year record: Santa Cruz got 1,469mm rain in July

India landslide: hopef fade for survivors as toll rises to 60

Giant waves found in Arctic could be accelerating sea ice loss

In the strange but true category (or is it the karma category?) Tennessee tornado helped bust local thief after it destroyed his home and threw items he stole from his neighbors on to front lawn

Asteroid impacts significantly altered ancient Earth

No, there is no suggestion of life once existing there, but fossils could be found on the Moon - if they are in rocks that were ejected from the Earth (by impacts here) and later landed as meteorites on the Moon.

And according to Piers Corbyn:

We are 80% confident that Central England mean temperatures (which covers a large triangular region typical of most of the Midlands and much of the South of England this August will pip or be equal to the warmest on record. Our statement gives details of what this means and includes comment on the fact that while official records probably exagurate temperatures this August would still likley be in or near to the top 5 in the record of over 300 years if likely data exagurations were corrected.

I assume by that that he means it will be the warmest/joint warmest on record, according to official figures, but because (he thinks) the MetO always exagurate (sic) temps, in reality it will only be one of the top 5 warmest at best .......   At present there is nothing to suggest August will be exceptionally warm, but not expecially cool either and I think there's a good chance it will be another above average month (the 8th consecutive such month this year).

(incidently, his acolytes are already claiming that the Met Officer are predicting a washout August, on the basis of media stories saying it will rain this week.  You couldn't make it up!)