The end of last week saw significant hurricane activity in North and Central America. Hurricane Ida swept through Cuba as a category 1 hurricane on Friday and then continued to gain in intensity as it tracked through the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, building up to a category 4 hurricane by Sunday morning. Sustained winds reached 150mph and all flights to and from New Orleans airport were cancelled. Significant damage occurred along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts including collapsing buildings and intense flooding from the storm surge.
On the same day that Ida devastated Louisiana, along the west coast of Mexico Hurricane Nora made its way north towards the Gulf of California as a category 1 hurricane, bringing sustained winds of up to 75mph. This led to widespread damage including the collapse of a hotel building and the subsequent death of a teenager visiting from Spain.
Tyndrum, in Scotland, had the UK’s highest temperature for August 2021, reaching an underwhelming 27.2C on the 25th. It is not often that the UK maximum temperature occurs outside of England. However, the high pressure that brought the UK maximum temperature to Scotland also brought unseasonably high temperatures to north-east Iceland. Hallormsstaður in eastern Iceland reached 29.4C, beating the previous August record.
