Currently in Toronto — July 7th 2022
The weather, currently.
High pressure will build across the great lakes, providing more sunshine while also deflecting any approaching rainmakers well south of our region. Bright skies to start your Thursday morning with a wake-up temperature near 17°C. We'll see mix of sun and clouds for the afternoon, with a forecast high of 26°C, which will seem closer to 29°C with the humidex. We will get 15 hours and 17 minutes of daylight. The UV index will be 7 or high and the wind will be light from the SE at 10-20km/h.
Thursday Night: partly cloudy with a low of 19°C.
Side Note: I am continuing to monitor the impacts of the extremely dry conditions across the region. Some farmers in Southwestern Ontario are now starting to sound off the alarm bells. While some strawberry growers have reported a great crop other growers have indicated that the exceptionally dry and hot conditions may likely have an impact on yields. More to come.
What you need to know, currently.
Scientists are working on developing plants that can better withstand heat waves, according to a new study in Nature. Even brief heat waves can have long standing effects on plant immunity, inhibiting their ability to produce salicylic acid—which prevents bacteria from spreading when they’re attacked by pathogens.
Scientists were able to manipulate the CBP60g, which acts as a master switch for plants, to allow them to keep their immunity levels up even as temperatures rose.
“We were able to make the whole plant immune system more robust at warm temperatures,” author Sheng-Yang He told SciTechDaily. “If this is true for crop plants as well, that’s a really big deal because then we have a very powerful weapon.”