You can see the thunderstorms piling into the east coast of Sicily all day, wrapped around a broader circulation from a developing cyclone to the south.
Catania (home to over 500,000 people) was in the bullseye for near constant thunderstorms today.
Explosive cyclogenesis under a rip-roaring jet stream in the Pacific is about to bring extreme weather down the west coast of North America.
Nerd bit: I have contoured mean sea level pressure under the jet to show the text book interactions of the left-exit. Poetry in motion.
This is how the wind gusts look as the low pressure rapidly develops. The storm is likely to reach hurricane force out at sea with waves of 30-50 feet.
Nasty.
Large rainfall totals incoming as tropical moisture blasts along atmospheric river like a firehose.
Some relief for the extreme drought covering much of western USA.
'The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station experienced the coldest average temperature for April to September in 2021 on record. This chart displays the average temperature since 1957 in degrees Celsius. (Richard Cullather/British Antarctic Survey)'