From the Jerusalem Post:

The year 2010 was the hottest by a large margin since records began being kept in Israel, with temperatures two to three degrees hotter than the average, according to the Israel Meteorological Service’s year-end summary. What’s more, temperatures were one to one-and-a-half degrees Celsius higher than the next hottest year, a striking statistic, according to the IMS. Most years, the average temperatures fall within 0.1- .0.3 degrees of other years. For example, the average temperature for Jerusalem between 1981 and 2000 was 17.5 [63.5 F] degrees. In 2010, the average temperature was 20.3 [68.5] and during the next hottest year, 1998, it was 18.7 [65.6 F]. […] The IMS also tracks rainfall, and while this past year was one of the driest, there have been drier years. However, 2010 was unique in that it had the least amount of days of rain at many of the monitoring stations. For example, in Jerusalem and Haifa, the fewest number of rain days were recorded in the past 80 years.

The article gives further interesting details, such as the unusually large number of rainy days in June and the absence of rain in November.  If you need help converting temperatures to Farenheit, this site will help.

Ran Shapira writes about the storm damage to Caesarea in the weekend edition of Haaretz.  Here are a few snippets:

The original breakwater, Margalit explains, was built in the 1950s. On top of the foundations of an ancient ship that had sunk into the seabed not far from the Herodian port, a thick concrete, L-shaped wall was constructed. The whole vertical part, in relation to the coast line, of this wall collapsed entirely in the storm. Indeed, the waves were so powerful that boulders, each weighing a ton, which had been laid on top of the breakwater to prevent people from walking on it, was swept away as though made of cardboard.
[…]
About 10 days after that meeting, Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov came to Caesarea, where he heard from local authorities about the dangers to the most popular tourist site in Israel after Masada; Caesarea has about 1 million visitors annually. The minister promised to act – but the storm got there before him. The waves, with the help of winds of 100 kilometers per hour and more, fulfilled the darkest of predictions. At present, say Margalit and his colleagues, the ancient port is totally vulnerable to the waves, and there is no way to assess how much damage has been caused below the surface of the water. Other areas of Caesarea archaeological park, north and south of the port, did not benefit even from the protection of the breakwater, meager as it was.
[…]
“We have to merge our efforts to rescue the site,” says Margalit. “However, the means at our disposal are meager. The state must join the efforts. If we don’t provide an immediate solution, in the next storm the site at Caesarea is liable to collapse totally, including more of the ancient port, the aqueduct, the city wall from the Byzantine period and so on. Even the Roman theater has been left defenseless. If it is hurt, [singer] Shlomo Artzi will have to find another venue for his performances.”

The full article is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

The Media Line has a good summary of the destruction of archaeological sites by last weekend’s storm. 

Winter’s belated arrival in Israel brought with it the biggest storm in two decades, wreaking havoc. Ships sank, billboards and power lines fell. Where there wasn’t rain, dust storms blanketed the cities and farmland. Coastal regions were pummeled by huge waves lifted by 100-kilometer-an-hour winds. The storms also caused severe damage to archeological and antiquities sites up and down the country’s Mediterranean coast, most seriously at the Herodian port city of Caesarea. Experts say the cost of restoring the sites will be in the millions of shekels, but in many cases the losses are irretrievable. “It was the most severe storm we have seen in the last 25 years, since we began measuring the waves along the coast of the Mediterranean,” Matti Weiss of the Israel Meteorological Service, told The Media Line. Waves reached a height of as much as 13 meters in some areas. Caesarea, where Herod the Great constructed one of the biggest ports in the ancient world between 22 and 10 BC, was hit particularly hard by the storm. A 1950s-era breakwater built off the coast of the site to protect it from the natural force of the sea broke up into three pieces during the storm, and the result was devastating.

The article notes that Caesarea is closed at this time and estimates for restoring the damage are about $17 million.  For more details, continue reading the story here.

Sand, rain, snow, and high winds have created a very unusual weekend of weather in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt.  Several individual reports I’ve heard have stated that they’ve never seen anything like it.  Snow has fallen in Jerusalem, Amman, and Damascus.  Precipitation levels are as high as 8 inches (209 mm) in Upper Galilee and there’s nearly 8 feet (240 cm) of snow on the Mount Hermon ski slopes.  Wind gusts were reported at up to 70 mph (120 kph). Israel’s ambulance services responded to 129 accidents on Sunday alone.  Egypt and Syria each closed their largest ports and 28 buildings collapsed or partially collapsed in Alexandria, Egypt.  Haaretz reports that an ancient port at Caesarea was destroyed.  There were many injuries and at least 19 related deaths.

This AP story does the best job of covering the effects around the Middle East.  The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz stories include photos.