Georgia:
Atlanta’s high temperature yesterday reached only 73 F (22.8 C), the coolest high temperature on record for August 15, and a full 15 degrees below average for this time of year, and four degrees below the previous record high of 77 F (25 C) which was set in 1908.
China:
Rare summer snowfall in Xinjiang,” reads the headline.
China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region witnessed a rare display of summer snowfall on Tuesday as a powerful cold air front moved into the area.
North Carolina:
The North Carolina Port City set a record Thursday, and not one normally associated with a Carolina summer.
Thursday’s 71-degree high temperature was the area’s lowest for an Aug. 15 and the seventh-coldest in August since records began to be kept in 1874, according to the National Weather Service.
Arctic
Temperature above 80 degrees north drops below freezing early, and continues to drop. it looks like the drop in about two weeks early.
Then there is this from Steven Goddard at Real Science:
The Next Grand Minimum 
Russ, According to the weather channel, todays high for Atlanta, August 17, 2013 was 67 degree’s . Breaking yet another record for the lowest high temperature ever recorded. If this trend continues, then the cooling is already more on a rapid decline worse than the 1970’s. Due to more cloud cover and more rain combined along with a cooler atmosphere. All controlled by the sun. Because of more cosmic rays, more cloud cover, more precipitation in the form of rain, the whole south east coast including N.C,S.C,GA. were all well below there average temp’s. Anthony
Thanks for the temp record update.
What’s really odd is that while we have had a very cool and pleasant August in Baltimore-Washington area, it has been averaging 5-10 degrees warmer than Atlanta which is 650 miles southwest of us. Atlanta is usually warmer than us. They have also had a very wet summer. The other odd thing is that some places have been quite warm reflecting a polar jet stream with a higher north south amplitude. The average of it all shows global temps not changing much yet but I think this behavior is more common with a cool PDO and declining global temps whereas the warming periods have more zonal flow of the jet stream consistent summer temps. I really wonder how the change in solar activity will be distinguished from the patterns that develop around the change in ocean states like te AMO / PDO and the ENSO cycles.
re: your temperature graph for 80 degrees north latitude. The legend should be degrees Kelvin no centigrade.
Here’s the AO (Artic Oscillation) Index for April-July 2013 respectively:
0.322 0.494 0.549 -0.011
The AO is a good indication whether Continental Polar Air masses will migrate southward from the Artic Circle polar source regions. Negative numbers indicate that polar air has and is advecting equator ward. Positive numbers indicate that these frigid air masses will remain bottled up near the poles. Here’s an example of the AO index for the same period during the cold 2009 year:
0.973 1.194 -1.351 -1.356 Note the large negative step change from May through June of 2009.
This year the change from positive to negative was much less than in 2009. And it should be noted that both Europe and North America experienced both hot and cold temps. The Eastern quarter of the US has definitely seen a cold summer. At least during the summer, the East Coast this year has suffered partially from a negative AO, as well as seasonal changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation.
While I won’t say this is an indication of things to come, what’s going on now could be part and parcel of very long term trends in our global climate. For it is very, very rare to see polar air masses to penetrate as far south as Atlanta in July.There usually not enough cold air in the polar source regions to sustain such a cold outbreak during the middle of summer.
JP says, ” the East Coast this year has suffered partially from a negative AO’. Having to deal with temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s in the mid-Atlantic region throughout the month of August is anything but suffering.
Goddard’s Graph: if you take only 1993 to present, the increase in maximum summer temperatures is 0.75C (roughly 29.75 to 30.5*C), over 21 years, for a rise of 3.6C/100.
It is not cherry-picking, though, when you claim that from 1993 to the present (and beyond) is “special”, i.e. the atmospheric conditions are different now from pree-1993. This is how the warmists dismiss history and embrace modelling: we only know the future through inspiration, not observation.
Oh, why the drop from 1932/31.5*C (roughly)? Doesn’t matter. That was then, before CO2 dominated.
The logic is unassailable. What the mainstream non-technical (and many engineers and other mathematical formulae driven types) don’t understand is that logic (and math) may be internally correct but externally unrealistic. Just because you have logical or mathematical correctness doesn’t mean you have representational correctness, i.e. that reality matches your expectations.
FYI. It seems some have not heeded the warning that the arctic is going cold early. At least 22 yachts may be caught in the ice.
http://www.sail-world.com/USA/North-West-Passage-blocked-with-ice—yachts-caught/113788
Hi Russ, a very sensible blog you have here.
I have forecast a long intense cold shot from around the 7th Jan 2014 to late Feb 2014. My forecasts are solar based, and are calculated from heliocentric planetary angular analysis down to less than weekly scales. The mechanisms I’m looking at are short term effects of the solar wind speed on the NAO and AO.