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2010 – 2011: Earth’s most extreme weather since 1816?
Every year extraordinary weather events rock the Earth. Records that have stood centuries are broken. Great floods, droughts, and storms affect millions of people, and truly exceptional weather events unprecedented in human history may occur. But the wild roller-coaster ride of incredible weather events during 2010, in my mind, makes that year the planet’s most extraordinary year for extreme weather since reliable global upper-air data began in the late 1940s. Never in my 30 years as a meteorologist have I witnessed a year like 2010–the astonishing number of weather disasters and unprecedented wild swings in Earth’s atmospheric circulation were like nothing I’ve seen. The pace of incredible extreme weather events in the U.S. over the past few months have kept me so busy that I’ve been unable to write-up a retrospective look at the weather events of 2010. But I’ve finally managed to finish, so fasten Read more…
Rain Colombia’s ‘worst’ natural disaster: Santos
A Colombian police officer helps evacuate a shop after a landslide in Sabaneta, near Medellin in Colombia. Some 160,000 police officers in the country and 52 aircraft are participating in emergency operations following deadly floods that killed 67 people and caused widespread damage, officials have said.AFP – Colombia faces its worst natural disaster on record due to the effects of relentless heavy rain that has been pounding most of Colombia this year, President Juan Manuel Santos has said.
The heavy rain, triggered by the La Nina weather phenomenon, has killed at least 69 people in April alone, bringing the total death toll to at least 90, officials said.
“It’s as if our territory had been struck by a hurricane that arrived last year and does not want to leave,” Santos said in an address to the nation.
“This is without doubt the worst natural tragedy of our history,” he said, as he called for “national unity” to face the Read more…
Historic Tornado Outbreak: 3 Days, 241 Tornadoes, 14 States
This image, courtesy of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in San Diego, Calif., shows tornado reports April 14-16, 2011 as of 12:00 p.m. EDT Sunday April 17, 2011..From Thursday, April 14, 2011 to Saturday, April, 16, 2011, devastating tornadoes rampaged across communities of the southern United States. Cities and towns from Oklahoma to North Carolina were assaulted by the deadly twisters.
The tornado outbreak led to a total of 241 tornado reports in 14 states over the three-day period. This will likely rank this tornado outbreak among the largest in Read more…
Fires and Drought Trouble Texas and Other US Plains States
Photo: Alberto Tomas Halpern
A volunteer firefighter fights a fire which began outside Marfa, Texas, and was carried by winds to nearby Fort Davis, April 9, 2011
Drought conditions and high winds have fueled destructive wildfires in northern Mexico and the southern U.S. plains states, especially Texas, where dozens of homes have burned in recent days. The dry weather is also having an impact on agriculture that is likely to cause some food prices to rise.
Fast-moving wildfires scorched around 32,000 hectares of land in the west Texas ranch country around Fort Davis on Saturday and Sunday, killing cattle and horses, and leaving pastures charred and smoky. The fires reached populated areas near Fort Read more…
China’s droughts nears worst in 200 years, adding pressure to world food prices
The recent unrest in the Middle East, which has been attributed, in part, to high food prices, gives us a warning of the type of global unrest that might result in future years if the climate continues to warm as expected. A hotter climate means more severe droughts will occur. We can expect an increasing number of unprecedented heat waves and droughts like the 2010 Russian drought in coming decades. This will significantly increase the odds of a world food emergency far worse than the 2007 – 2008 global food crisis. When we also consider the world’s expanding population and the possibility that peak oil will make fertilizers and agriculture much more expensive, we have the potential for a perfect storm of events aligning in the near future, with droughts made significantly worse by climate change contributing to events that will cause disruption of the global economy, intense political turmoil, and war. Read more…
Russian volcano activity causes global concern
Now the world has something else to grip about when it comes to Russia – the weather.
A string of volcanoes on Russia’s eastern seaboard of Kamchatka have been unusually active for the last six months. The dust they threw up diverted winds in the Arctic, pushing cold air over Europe and North America and causing the unusually cold winter this year, say scientists.
The volcanoes (160 in total, of which 29 are active) are still on the go and could create more problems this year, depressing harvests around the world just as global food prices soar and Read more…
Climate phenomenon La Nina to blame for global extreme weather events
Cyclone Yasi over Australia in February 2011. Image credit: NASA
(PhysOrg.com) — Recent extreme weather events as far as Australia and Africa are being fueled by a climate phenomenon known as La Nina — or “the girl” in Spanish. La Nina has also played a minor role in the recent cold weather in the Northeast U.S.
The term La Niña refers to a period of cooler-than-average sea-surface temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean that occurs as part of natural climate variability. This situation is roughly the opposite of what happens during El Niño (“the boy”) events, when surface waters in this region are warmer than normal. Because the Pacific is the largest ocean on the planet, any significant changes in average conditions there can have consequences for temperature, rainfall and vegetation in distant places.
Scientists at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), part of Columbia’s Earth Institute, expect moderate-to-strong La Niña conditions to continue in the tropical Pacific, potentially causing additional shifts in rainfall patterns across Read more…
Sri Lanka Flooding; nearly 900,000 Displaced
At least 13 people have been killed and more than 800,000 affected by fresh floods across Sri Lanka that have swept away homes, roads and vast swathes of agricultural land. Renewed heavy rainfall across several districts in Sri Lanka have forced army and navy personnel to fan out in teams to reach relief to the affected.
The incessant rains in several parts of the country have called for more humanitarian assistance for those who have lost their homes and livelihoods.
The prevailing weather conditions in most parts of the country have once again left thousands homeless for the second time in two months.
This time, however, the number of people that have been affected is somewhat lesser than last time. The people in the North Central and Eastern Provinces have been warned of the situation and have been advised to be on alert.
The situation has forced many schools to once again temporarily halt their activities for the safety of the children and the teachers. Some of them have been converted into temporary shelters for those who have been displaced.
While priority has been given for the well being of the affected people, the focus has also been on unprecedented effects of climate change.
The Meteorological Department admits that this was the worst weather condition experienced by Read more…
Map shows most of Northern Hemisphere is covered in snow and ice
At first glance it looks like a graphic from a Discovery Channel program about a distant ice age. But this astonishing picture shows the world as it is today – with half the Northern Hemisphere covered with snow and ice.
The image was released by the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Association (NOAA) on the day half of North America was in the grip of a severe winter storm.
The map was created using multiple satellites from government agencies and the US Air Force.
That Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland and the frozen wastes of Siberia are covered in white comes as no surprise. But it is the extent to which the line dips down over the Northern Hemisphere that is so remarkable about the image.
The shroud of white stretches down from Alaska and sweeps through the Midwest and along to the Eastern seaboard. The bitter cold has reached as far as Texas and northern Mexico where in Ciudad Juarez temperatures today were expected to dip to minus 15C.
In the U.S. tens of millions of people chose to stay at home rather than venture out. In Chicago, 20in of snow fell leading to authorities closing schools for the first time in 12 years. The newspaper for Tulsa, Okalahoma, was unable to publish its print edition for the first time in Read more…
Three of Next Five Winters Could be as Cold or Colder
This winter is on track to become the coldest for the nation as a whole since the 1980s or possibly even the late 1970s. According to AccuWeather.com Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi, three or four out of the next five winters could be just as cold, if not colder.
He is worried that next winter, for example, will be colder than this one.
Bastardi adds that with the U.S. in the middle of one of its worst recessions in its history and the price of oil in question, he is extremely concerned about the prospect for more persistent cold weather in the coming years putting increased financial hardship on Americans.
“Cold is a lot worse than warm,” Bastardi said, “and that’s why your energy bill goes up during the winter time: because of the fact that it takes a lot to heat a house.” Read more…
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