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Flooding Risk Raised for Midwest, Northeast, Neighboring Canada
Concerns for flooding continue through next week as two storms roll through the Midwest and the Northeast and adjoining areas of southern Canada.
First Storm
The storm coming today into Friday traveling from the Midwest to the Northeast U.S. will be the colder of the two storms.
What this means is that snow or a wintry mix will fall from around the central and lower Great Lakes through the northern mid-Atlantic and into New England. Rain will fall over the Ohio Valley through most of the balance of the mid-Atlantic and into southeastern New England and Nova Scotia.
Up north and well inland of the coast the snow and wintry mix will add to the water equivalent of the existing snowpack or will reduce that snowpack by very little.
According to Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, “Farther south and along the coast, heavy rain or the combination of rain and melting snow and ice will lead to urban flooding problems and perhaps some rises on streams and rivers.”
With the ground still frozen in some areas, the water will run off crossing roads, collect in fields, backyards and city streets.
According to Senior Meteorologist and Indiana native Jim Andrews, “In the Ohio and Tennessee valleys into Friday, enough rain can fall without the aid of melting snow to lead to rises on rivers and small stream flooding.” Read more…
Flood-hit town sees off Dianne but Carlos is on the horizon
HARD-HIT residents of Western Australia’s northern Gascoyne region are bracing for more floods after high river levels left a family stranded and crops damaged on the weekend.
At Carnarvon, 910km north of Perth, the river’s peak was among the highest ever recorded on Saturday because of rain from Cyclone Dianne.
This week, the town is expected to be affected by a re-formed Cyclone Carlos.
On Saturday, the Gascoyne River peaked at 7.1m, leaving one family with two small children stranded on its north side.
Fire and Emergency Services Authority media liaison officer Brian Halberg said the family had been evacuated by emergency workers and their home was undamaged by the floodwaters.
Flooding was much 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…
Queensland counts Yasi’s huge cost
By Greg Ansley
Under leaden skies and sheets of torrential rain that obscured its ranges, north Queensland was last night counting both costs and blessings as Cyclone Yasi raged far into the west, losing potency as it went.
The massive category-five cyclone – raging on to the coast between Cairns and Townsville early yesterday and cutting a 1000km-wide swathe – was the largest storm in the state’s modern history.
But while it caused huge damage, it missed the region’s biggest population centres and, as far as authorities could judge last night, left no one dead or seriously injured. However, last night, two men were missing in Innisfail.
In Cairns, three babies were born at Yasi’s peak – one a girl in an evacuation centre, helped by a midwife also sheltering there.
There may yet be some tragic shocks: Read more…
Australia Cyclone Yasi upgraded to Category 5
Ian Hitchcock / Getty Images
CAIRNS, Australia — A powerful cyclone bearing down on Australia was upgraded to a maximum-strength Category 5 storm, with the likelihood of serious damage and risk to life.
“This is the most severe, most catastrophic storm that has ever hit our coast,” Anna Bligh, premier of Queensland State, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We’ve seen a number of worst case scenarios come together.”
“This impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations,” Queensland disaster officials added in an updated warning.
Yasi is expected to make landfall overnight on the Queensland coast between Cairns and Innisfail. Read more…
South Africa: Floods kill 120 and destroy crops
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — South Africa is reeling from unusually heavy rainfall that has caused flooding in many parts of the country, wiping out crops in what is the continent’s main breadbasket.
More than 120 people have been killed in the thunderstorms and flooding since mid-December, and some 20,000 people are in need of assistance. The South African government has declared disaster areas in eight of its nine provinces.
And it’s not over yet. Above-average rainfall is forecast for South Africa and neighboring countries for the next few months.
Much of southern Africa is now on flood alert, including Mozambique, where at least 13 people have died from floods and thousands have fled their homes for higher ground. Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia are also on alert for flooding.
While this is the annual rainy season in southern Africa, the heavier than usual rainfall has been blamed on La Nina, the weather pattern behind the severe flooding in other southern hemisphere countries including Australia, Brazil and the Philippines.
In South Africa, the government has put the flood damage at $211 million, but this is an early estimate and expected to rise. At least Read more…
Australian ‘inland sea’ flood threatens towns
MELBOURNE — Australia’s flood crisis deepened Saturday with a giant “inland sea” threatening more communities in the southeast, as officials continued the grim search for bodies in worst-hit Queensland.
Sandbagging was underway in some villages in Victoria, where weeks of floods have affected as much as one-third of the state, with swollen rivers overflowing in 75 towns and flooding some 1,770 properties.
“We know that this is the most significant flooding in the north west of Victoria since records began… about 130 years ago,” a spokeswoman for the State Emergency Service told AFP.
“We are still on alert for towns in the north of the state.”
Floodwaters which national broadcaster ABC described as a moving “inland sea” covering an area 90 kilometres (56 miles) long and 40 kilometres wide, were threatening towns around Swan Hill, some 300 kilometres northwest of Melbourne.
“In the actual Swan Hill township itself, we are very confident that the levee system around the town is built to a very high grade and will protect the township,” Mayor Greg Cruickshank told ABC radio.
But rural and outlying areas “will have significant amount of inundation through them,” he said.
While thousands of people around the state have been urged to evacuate, emergency services warned that those people who choose to remain on their properties in the rural areas could be stranded by the floods.
“A number of these communities will be isolated for days as this huge amount of floodwater comes through,” SES spokesman Kevin Monk said. Read more…
Northeast Snowstorm Next Week will Pack a Big Punch
More and more signs are pointing toward a major storm along much of the Atlantic Seaboard next week, meaning a wind-whipped snow for some areas and wind-driven rain for others.
The storm could rank right up there with the Christmas Weekend Blizzard and could hit part of the same area, or different areas farther inland. No matter what, it looks like a “big deal.”
While the storm will have its nasty moments over the Rockies, Plains and part of the Midwest this weekend into early next week, it will be at its worst along the Atlantic Seaboard, where it is forecast to markedly strengthen. Arctic air building into the Northeast will also be a major factor in the big storm that will unfold.
Storm Track(s)
The key for what the weather will be in your area is the exact track of the storm.
A track along or just inland of the coast would bring rain over the eastern Carolinas and even a wintry mix into the I-95 corridor of the mid-Atlantic. This track would dump heavy snow, perhaps on the order of 1 to 2 feet, over the Appalachians. Snowfall rates would be intense with perhaps 1 to 3 inches per hour.
A track just off the coast would bring the heaviest snow to the I-95 cities and the beaches, as we have seen before, thus sparing the Appalachians the worst.
It is also possible the storm could swing out off the southern Atlantic coast, then hook back in over the Northeast with a more complex precipitation pattern.
No matter which way the storm tracks, it looks like big trouble for the Atlantic Seaboard next week, not only for the U.S., but all the way to Atlantic Canada. Read more…
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