China Records Biggest One-Day Temp Difference On Record; -52C In Xinjiang (Far West), 38C In Badu (South)

Oh, and a southern hemisphere TS off Brazil.

China’s Xinjiang region, in the far west of the country, experienced record-breaking low temperatures of -52.3C on 18 February, surpassing a 64-year-old record for the region. The figure was just shy of the lowest national temperature of -53C, which was recorded in the Heilongjiang region in January last year.

The extreme weather has caused big disruption after the lunar new year celebrations, with blizzards and ice leaving people stranded on roads and railways. On the same day, Badu in the south of China recorded a maximum temperature of 38C, meaning there was a staggering temperature difference of 90.3C across the country. This is the largest temperature contrast ever recorded for a single country, surpassing the US in January 1954 by a whole degree Celsius.

In the same week, a weather system off the coast of south-eastern Brazil had strengthened to form Tropical Storm Akará. On 18 February, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center reported that Storm Akará had formed overnight with sustained wind speeds of 40mph and a pressure of 1,000 millibars.

Unlike in the north Atlantic, it is a rare occurrence for tropical cyclones to form in the southern hemisphere due to strong wind shear and a lack of favourable weather disturbances for development. Akará is the first named tropical storm to develop in the south Atlantic Ocean since Tropical Storm Iba in 2019, and only the third since Anita in 2010. Furthermore, Hurricane Catarina in 2004 still stands as the sole recorded south Atlantic hurricane in history.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/23/weather-tracker-china-contrasts-cold-heat-break-records