If you’ve ever compared the (lack of) clear air in Israel today with scenes in older photographs, you may not be surprised that one factor affecting Israel’s skies today is pollution arriving from other countries. From Haaretz:

Air pollution from North Africa and Europe containing toxic materials has reached Israel, according to a series of studies by the Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Tests show that toxic materials also get here on particles of desert dust.
[…]
Scientists have been studying air particles arriving in Israel for years, and it is known that pollution can move long distances. But only in recent years has a precise analysis been made of the pollution and its origins.
The meteorologic data indicates that for two thirds of the days of the year, air currents arrive from Western and Eastern Europe, and for more than one-fifth of the year, air currents arrive from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and North Africa.

The story continues here.

The rainy season in Israel is over and the results are not good.  This marks the seventh consecutive year of drought.  From the Jerusalem Post:

This year, the North received much more water than the center and the south, reaching a bit more than 90 percent of Israel’s average rainfall, according to Schor, but he cautioned that this is not worthy of celebration. […] To be 100% average, Schor explained, is not sufficient, particularly because this is the seventh consecutive year in which we are “taking more water than we get.” Overall, including the South and Center, the country achieved an accumulation of only 70% of average, he said. Meanwhile, despite heavy rains in the past few months that have brought water levels in the Kinneret [Sea of Galilee] above the red line, Schor warned that “we are missing almost four meters of water” from the reservoir.

The full story is here.

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.