Tag Archives: extreme weather

2013 Heat Records

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By: Dr. Jeff Masters, 2:43 PM GMT on January 20, 2014 +23

It was another notable year for all-time heat records in 2013, with six nations and three territories tying or setting records for hottest temperature on record. No nations set an all-time cold record in 2013. For comparison, five countries and two territories set all-time hottest temperature records in 2012, and the most all-time national heat records in a year was twenty nations and one territory in 2010. Since 2010, 45 nations or territories have set or tied all-time heat records, but only one nation has set an all-time cold temperature record. Since each of those years ranked as one of the top eleven warmest years in Earth’s history, and 2010 was the warmest year on record, this sort of disparity in national heat and cold records is to be expected. Most nations do not maintain official databases of extreme temperature records, the national temperature records I report here are in many cases not official. I use as my source for international weather records Maximiliano Herrera, one of the world’s top climatologists, who maintains a comprehensive list of extreme temperature records for every nation in the world on his website. If you reproduce this list of extremes, please cite Maximiliano Herrera as the primary source of the weather records. Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt maintains a database of these national heat and cold records, for 235 nations and territories, on wunderground.com’s extremes page.


Figure 1. A moose takes a dip to cool off in a backyard pool in this photo taken in Big Lake, Alaska on June 17, 2013, by Lonea Moore McGowen (Courtesy KTUU-TV.) Bentalit Lodge, Alaska hit 36.7°C (98°F) on June 17, tying the mark set in Richardson on 15 June 1969 for hottest undisputed temperature in Alaska history. The official heat record for Alaska remains the 100°F registered at Fort Yukon on June 27, 1915. However, there are questions concerning this figure as outlined by our weather historian, Christopher C. Burt.

New all-time national heat records set in 2013

Heard and McDonald Islands (uninhabited territory of Australia) set a new all-time heat record of 26.1°C (79°F) at Split Bay on 1 March. Previous record: 21.6°C set at the same station in April 1992.

Ghana tied its all time highest temperature record with 43.0°C (109.4°F) at Navrongo on 6 March; the same value had also been recorded on 25 February 2010 and 19 April 2010 at the same location.

The United States tied its highest undisputed temperature at the Furnace Creek Visitors Center, Death Valley California, with 53.9°C (129°F) on 30 June. The only higher temperatures ever recorded on the planet occurred in Death Valley on July 10, 12, and 13, 1913, when readings of 134°F, 130°F, and 131°F were recorded. These 100-year-old official hottest temperatures in Earth’s history have many doubters, though, including Mr. Burt, who noted in a 2010 blog post that “The record has been scrutinized perhaps more than any other in the United States. I don’t have much more to add to the debate aside from my belief it is most likely not a valid reading when one looks at all the evidence.

St. Pierre et Miquelon, a French territory off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, set its all time highest temperature record with 28.3°C (82.9°F) at the St. Pierre Airport on 6 July. Previous record: 28.0°C at St. Pierre town in August 1876 and August 1935.

Greenland, a territory of Denmark, set a new all time highest temperature with 25.9°C (78.6°F) at Maniitsoq Airport on 30 July. Previous record: 25.5°C at Kangerlussuaq on 27 July 1990. There is a claimed 30.1°C measurement at Ivigtut on 23 June 1915, but this is almost certainly a mistake, since the reading doesn’t fit at all with the hourly data of that day, and the station in over a century has never recorded any temperature above 24°C.

Austria set a new national record of highest temperature with 39.9°C (103.8°F) at Dellach im Drautal on 3 August, which beat the old record of 39.7°C set at the same location on 27 July 1983. The 3 August 2013 record was beaten again on 8 August 2013, with a 40.5°C (104.9°F) reading recorded at Bad Deutsch-Altenburg.

Slovenia also set a new all time heat record on 8 August, with 40.8°C at Cerklje Ob krki. Previous record: 40.6°C set at Crnomelj on 5 July 1950.

Japan set a new all-time heat record with 41.0°C (105.8°F) at Shimanto on 12 August. Previous record: 40.9°C at Tajimi and at Kumagaya on 16 August 2007.

Comoros tied its national record of highest temperature at the Hahaya Int. Airport with 35.6°C (96.1°F) on 19 November; the same value was recorded at the former Moroni Airport (its location looks to have been very close of the current international airport) on 31 December 1960.


Figure 2. The official Furnace Creek, Death Valley maximum recording thermometer for the maximum temperature measured on June 30th, 2013. The 129.2°F (54.0°C) reading was the highest June temperature ever measured on Earth. Photo courtesy of Death Valley National Park and NWS-Las Vegas. Note, though, since only whole Fahrenheit figures are official in the U.S., the value was registered as 129°F.

Notable global heat and cold records set in 2013
Hottest temperature in the world in 2013: 53.9°C (129°F) at Death Valley, California, June 30
Coldest temperature in the world in 2013: -81.7°C (-115°F) at Dome A, Antarctica, July 31
Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 49.6°C (121.3°F) at Moomba Aero, Australia, January 12
Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -64.2°C (-83.6°F) at Summit GEO, Greenland, March 4

Number of major world stations which set their all time highest temperature in 2013: 389
Number of major world stations which set their all time lowest temperature in 2013: 12

On 27 February, 2013, a new February all-time heat record for the Northern Hemisphere was set with 44.5°C (112.1°F) at Abu Na’ Ama (Sudan). Previous record: 44.4°C with two former record holders: Kayes in Mali, and Kiffa in Mauritania.

A day for the history books: European heat wave of 8 August 2013
An incredible heat wave over Central Europe on 8 August 2013 was a day for the history books of world climatology, with two nations and three world capitals setting all-time heat records on the same day. Dozens of stations in six European countries also set all-time heat records that day. The three capitals that set new all-time heat records on 8 August:

Vienna, Austria reached 39.5°C (103.1°F), beating the previous city record of 38.9°C which was recorded in July 1957.

Bratislava, Slovakia reached 39.4°C (102.9°F), beating the previous city record of 38.9°C set in July 2007.

Ljubljana, Slovenia reached as high as 40.2°C (104.4°F), beating for the FIFTH TIME IN SIX DAYS the old record of 38.0°C set in June 1935. This is particularly amazing, since the city has about 150 years of data. This is the sequence:

3 August 38.3°C
4 August 38.4°C
6 August 38.6°C
7 August 39.5°C
8 August 40.2°C

One other world capital set an all-time heat record in 2013: Bangkok, Thailand, which reached 40.1°C (104.2°F) in the Metropolis Station on 26 March, beating the previous record of 40.0°C set in April 1979 and April 2012.

A big thanks goes to Maximiliano Herrera for providing the information in this post.

from:    http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

Climate Change & the Oklahoma Tornado

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Is Climate Change to Blame for the Oklahoma Tornado?

The six least active and four most active tornado seasons have been felt over the past decade–which could show the influence of climate change.

—By

Tue May. 21, 2013

tornado damage moore oklahomaDestroyed buildings and overturned cars left in the wake of the huge tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, near Oklahoma City, on May 20, 2013. Gene Blevins/LADailyNewsZuma

The story first appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Global climate change and politics are linked to each other—for better or worse. No clearer was that the case than when Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island gave an impassioned speech on global warming in the aftermath of Monday’s deadly Oklahoma tornado, and the conservative media ripped him. Whitehouse implied that at least part of the blame for the deadly tornado should be laid at the feet of climate change.

Is Whitehouse correct? It’s difficult to assign any one storm’s outcome to the possible effects of global climate change, and the science of tornadoes in particular makes it pretty much impossible to know whether Whitehouse is right.

Let’s start with the basics of what causes a tornado. A piece from my friend (and sometimes co-chatter) Andrew Freedman two years ago sets out the basics well.

First, you need warm, humid air for moisture. The past few days in Moore have featured temperatures in the upper 70s to low 80s, with relative humidity levels regularly hitting between 90 percent and 100 percent and rarely dropping below 70 percent.

Second, you need strong jet stream winds to provide lift. As this map from Weather Underground indicates, there were definitely some very strong jet stream winds on Monday in the Oklahoma region.

jet stream

Image: Weather Underground

Third, you need strong wind shear (changing wind directions and/or speeds at different heights) to allow for full instability and lift. This mid-level wind shear map from the University of Wisconsin shows that there were 45 to 50 knot winds, right at the top of the scale, over Oklahoma on Monday.

wind shear

Image: University of Wisconsin

Fourth, you need something to ignite the storm. In this case, a frontal boundary, as seen in this Weather Channel map, draped across central Oklahoma, did the trick.

front boundary

Image: Weather Channel

The point is that all the normal ingredients were there that allowed an EF-4 tornado to spawn and strike. (Examination of the storm site may cause an upgrading to EF-5.) It happened in tornado alley, where warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico often meets dry air from the north and Rocky Mountains for maximum instability. There wasn’t anything shocking about this from a meteorological perspective. It was, as a well-informed friend said, a “classic” look.

The long-term weather question is whether or not we’ll see more or less of these “classic” looks in our changing meteorological environment. It turns out that of all the weather phenomena, from droughts to hurricanes, tornadoes are the most complex to answer from a broader atmospheric trends point of view. The reason is that a warming world affects the factors that lead to tornadoes in different ways.

Climate change is supposed, among other things, to bring warmer and moister air to Earth. That, of course, would lead to more severe thunderstorms and probably more tornadoes. The issue is that global warming is also forecast to bring about less wind shear. This would allow hurricanes to form more easily, but it also would make it much harder for tornadoes to get the full about lift and instability that allow for your usual thunderstorm to grow in height and become a fully fledged tornado. Statistics over the past 50 years bear this out, as we’ve seen warmer and more moist air as well as less wind shear.

Meteorological studies differ on whether or not the warmer and moister air can overcome a lack of wind shear in creating more tornadoes in the far future. In the immediate past, the jet stream, possibly because of climate change, has been quite volatile. Some years it has dug south to allow maximum tornado activity in the middle of the country, while other years it has stayed to the north.

Although tornado reporting has in prior decades been not as reliable as today because of a lack of equipment and manpower, it’s still not by accident that the six least active and four most active tornado seasons have been felt over the past decade. Another statistic that points to the irregular patterns is that the three earliest and four latest starts to the tornado season have all occurred in the past 15 years.

Basically, we’ve had this push and pull in recent history. Some years the number of tornadoes is quite high, and some years it is quite low. We’re not seeing “average” seasons as much any more, though the average of the extremes has led to no meaningful change to the average number of tornadoes per year. Expect this variation to continue into the future as less wind shear and warmer moister air fight it out.

The overall result could very well be fewer days of tornadoes per Harold Brooks of the National Storm Center, but more and stronger tornadoes when they do occur. Nothing about the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, or tornadoes over the past few decades break with this theory.

None of it proves or disproves Whitehouse’s beliefs, either. Indeed, we’ll never know whether larger global warming factors were at play in Monday’s storms. All we can do at this moment is react to them and give the people of Oklahoma all the help they need.

from:     http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/05/climate-change-oklahoma-tornado

And Nemo Arrives in the Northeast

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Snows begin in Northeast U.S. as historic Nor’easter strengthens
Published: 3:17 PM GMT on February 08, 2013

Snow has begun falling from New York City to Massachusetts, where blizzard warnings are flying in anticipation of the arrival of one of the most severe and dangerous Nor’easters in U.S. history. The great storm, dubbed “Nemo”, has just emerged into the waters off the coast of Virginia, and is predicted to “bomb” to a central pressure of 975 – 980 mb by Saturday afternoon. Cold, Arctic air spilling southwards behind a strong 1038 mb high over Canada will collide with warm, moist air over the Atlantic, where ocean temperatures are unusually warm–about 5°F warmer than average over a large swath from New Jersey to Nantucket, Massachusetts. The contrast between the cold and warm air will help intensify the storm, and the unusually warm waters will pump large quantities of moisture into the air, which will be capable of feeding record-breaking snows over New England. The latest NWS forecast for Boston calls for 22 – 30″ of snow by Saturday morning, with additional snows though Saturday afternoon. Since Boston’s all-time heaviest snow storm is 27.5″ (February 17-18, 2003), Winter Storm Nemo has a chance of exceeding that. According to NWS, here are the top snowstorms since 1936 for Logan Airport:

1. February 17-18, 2003 27.5″
2. February 6-7, 1978 27.1″
3. February 24-27, 1969 26.3″
4. March 31-April 1, 1997 25.4″
5. January 22-24, 1945 22.8″
6. January 22-23, 2005 22.5″
7. January 20-21, 1978 21.4″
8. March 3-5, 1960 19.8″
9. February 16-17, 1958 19.4″
10. February 8-10, 1994 18.7″
11. January 7-8, 1996 18.2″
11. December 20-22, 1975 18.2″
11. December 26-27, 2010 18.2″

The weight of all that heavy snow on rooftops will create the danger of roof collapses. In addition to the heavy snow, the storm will bring coastal wind gusts over hurricane force, and moderate to major coastal flooding. During the peak of the storm, Friday night into Saturday morning, snowfall rates of 2 – 3″ per hour can be expected. These intense bursts of snow may be accompanied by lightning and thunder. The cites of Hartford, Providence, and Portland are all likely to get more than a foot of snow, and two feet of snow will probably fall along a swath from South Central Connecticut to Southwest Maine, with isolated amounts of 3′. Ferocious sustained winds near 50 mph will occur at the coast, with wind gusts in excess of hurricane force–74 mph. The combination of heavy snow and high winds will make travel extremely dangerous or impossible, with near-zero visibility in white-out conditions. The snow and high winds are likely to cause many power outages.


Figure 1. Predicted snowfall for Winter Storm Nemo from Friday’s 00Z run of the European (ECMWF) model. The highest snowfall amounts (> 24″) are predicted for Long Island, Southern Connecticut, and Eastern Massachusetts, including Boston. This forecast assumes that the ratio between liquid water equivalent and snow depth will be 10:1. In some areas away from the coast, this ratio may be closer to 15:1, leading to snow amounts near 36″.


Figure 2. Predicted wind speeds in knots at 7 am EST Saturday, February 9, 2013, from the 00Z February 8, 2013 run of the European (ECMWF) model. The model is predicting sustained winds of 50 knots (57.5 mph) will be just offshore of Cape Cod and Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Multiply by 1.15 to convert knots to mph.

Serious coastal flooding expected in Massachusetts
The high winds from the storm will drive a damaging storm surge of 2 – 4′ along the coast of Eastern Massachusetts Friday night and Saturday morning. High tide Friday night will occur between 9:30 – 10 pm EST, and minor to moderate coastal flooding is expected along east and north-facing shores, when the storm surge of 2 – 3′ rides in on top of the tide. Battering waves of 8 – 17′ will hit the coast south of Boston in Cape Cod Bay, causing severe beach erosion. Of greater concern is the flooding that will occur during the Saturday morning high tide cycle, as that is the time of the new moon, which will bring the highest tide of the month. The ocean’s height near Boston varies naturally by about ten feet between low tide and high tide, so it matters greatly when the storm surge arrives, relative to the tidal cycle. Thus we speak of the “storm tide”–how high the water gets above the high tide mark, due to the combination of the storm surge and the tide. During Hurricane Sandy, on October 29, 2012, a potentially very damaging storm surge of 4.57′ hit Boston, but arrived near low tide, so the water level during the peak surge did not rise above the normal high tide mark. Fortunately, it appears that the peak storm surge from Nemo will arrive at the time of low tide early Saturday morning, and the surge will have fallen about a foot by the time the high tide arrives near 10 am EST Saturday. As of 9am EST on February 8, 2013, the latest storm surge forecast from the GFS model was calling for a storm tide of about 3.4′ above high tide (MHHW, Mean Higher High Water) in Boston on Saturday morning. This would cause minor to moderate flooding in the city, and would be approximately the 10th highest water level on record. The official top 5 storm tides since 1921 at the Boston tide gauge, relative to MHHW, are:

1. 4.82′ – February 7, 1978 (Blizzard of 1978)
2. 3.92′ – January 2, 1987
3. 3.86′ – October 30, 1991 (Perfect Storm)
4. 3.76′ – January 28, 1979
5. 3.75′ – December 12, 1992

More serious flooding is expected in Cape Cod Bay to the southeast of Boston, where the northeast winds from the storm will pile up a higher storm surge. A storm surge of 3 – 4′ is predicted from Scituate to Sandwich Harbor Saturday morning. The surge will be accompanied by battering waves 18 – 26′ feet high, and major flooding and significant coastal erosion is expected. Major coastal flooding is also expected on the east end of Nantucket Island.

Severe beach erosion is also expected along the north and northeast facing shores of Long Island, NY, where a storm surge of 3 – 5′ will combine with 4 – 8′ breaking waves. Minor to moderate coastal flooding is expected along western Long Island Sound. New York City is expecting a 2 – 4′ storm surge, which will cause mostly minor flooding, with a few areas of moderate flooding.


Figure 3. Coastal flooding hazards during the high tide cycle on Saturday morning, February 9, 2013, as predicted at 5 am EDT Friday, February 8, 2013, by the NWS Boston.

from:    http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html

Gaia’s Reacts!

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Gaia Begins to Reclaim Herself

18th July 2012

By Chris Bourne

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Have you been following the ‘freak’ weather recently?

So the mainstream media have hooked on to the fact that ‘freak’ weather is taking place in various parts of the globe.

From the record droughts right across America to the flash floods sweeping away cars, roads and houses in Japan. Here in Southern England where I live, it has not stopped raining for weeks.

So what’s going on? Is it unusual? Yes indeed! I can feel it in my consciousness. I can feel shifts beginning to happen right around the world.

A new timeline has begun…

According to a report on Yahoo:

“The United States Department of Agriculture has declared natural disaster areas in more than 1,000 counties and 26 drought-stricken states, making it the largest natural disaster in America ever. The declaration—which covers roughly half of the country—gives farmers and ranchers devastated by drought access to federal aid, including low-interest emergency loans. ‘Agriculture remains a bright spot in our nation’s economy’, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday while announcing the assistance program. ‘We need to be cognizant of the fact that drought and weather conditions have severely impacted farmers around the country.”

‘Can they not see it yet? It is this kind of industrial agriculture that is killing the surface of our planet and Gaia is responding in the way only she can. Corn, which is the greatest affected, is used to make corn syrup, which appears in most highly processed foods and probably one of the most damaging to the human body causing cancer, diabetes and heart-disease. We don’t need it and neither does the planet.

These things don’t happen by chance. It’s time we started listening. A wake up call is being given and it will keep happening now in the years ahead with increasing vigor.

Here’s a map of the record high temperatures across America…

We need to realise that Gaia is reclaiming herself, accept it, and realign with the natural organising energy of the universe. We need to stop seeing ourselves as separate from the all that is, as if somehow events are random and haphazard – as if ‘God’ is abandoning us or taking some kind of retribution. ‘She’ is not. She speaks through synchronicity. One way or another, humanity will come back into alignment, preferably though, not dragging our feet kicking and screaming! And did you watch the incredible power of the flash floods in Japan?…

According to MSNBC over a months rain fell in under 12 hours.

Only a few days ago I heard that the Atomic Energy company responsible for the stricken nuclear plants at Fukushima were restarting some of the unaffected reactors. Well I’d say here is a very vocal response!

Gaia is beginning to cleanse herself. It’s a process that I feel could take a couple of human generations to complete (or sooner). We’re all being invited to stop now and surrender to the truth as it unfolds before us. As the harshness on the outside increases during this realignment process, we need to find increasing softness on the inside.

We will not fight this. Struggle will be fruitless. We need to connect our hearts and reach out to people across the world. We need to help open eyes to the truth of what’s taking place. We need to find self forgiveness, peace with the universe and unfold through the physical into the eternal nature of our spirit. As the mirror of the outer world changes and takes new form, we’re going to be given constant opportunities to surrender and realign. The time is now. There is no other time.

Heart to heart

Chris
PS: and here’s a personal Openhander sharing from Eastern USA…Unusual weather

About the Author

At the age of 40 Chris was involved in a life threatening car crash in which he thought he would certainly die. This precipitated total inner surrender and a rapid reconnection with the conscious life force through all things.

He found himself suddenly able to experience and contemplate through multiple dimensions of reality to see the deeper purpose of life itself. He began to remember his true reason for being here.

He explains…

“During the crash, time seemed to slow right down and I was guided back through key moments of my life. I was realising that every moment in our lives has but one underlying purpose – to reveal an aspect of truth about ourselves to ourselves. I was beginning to dissolve every belief and value our society had conditioned within me.”

“This was my initial awakening to the magical unifying consciousness of the soul. Over the eight years that followed, I was guided through four other inner ‘Gateways’ of consciousness. I have since come to know the process as the five key expansions on our journey of Enlightenment and ultimate Ascension into multi dimensional living – our divine birthright”.

Prior to the crash, Chris had a rich an varied professional career in industry, in teaching, as an Officer in the Army and finally as a web development entrepreneur before being initiated on his spiritual path. With a Masters Degree in Natural Sciences from Oxford University, participants in the work are finding his integration of grounded scientific understanding and profound spiritual realisation deeply engaging and transformative.

Openhand Foundation

Catalysing our Spiritual Evolution
openhandweb.org

from:     http://wakeup-world.com/2012/07/18/gaia-begins-to-reclaim-herself/

Jeff Masters on Climate Change & Extreme Weather

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Connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather
Posted by: JeffMasters, 3:15 PM GMT on May 04, 2012 +39
Connecting the dots between human-caused climate change and extreme weather events is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. One the one hand, the underlying physics is clear–the huge amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the atmosphere must be already causing significant changes to the weather. But the weather has huge natural variations on its own, without climate change. So, communicators of the links between climate change and extreme weather need to emphasize how climate change shifts the odds. We’ve loaded the dice towards some types of extreme weather events, by heating the atmosphere to add more heat and moisture. This can bring more extreme weather events like heat waves, heavy downpours, and intense droughts. What’s more, the added heat and moisture can change atmospheric circulation patterns, causing meanders in the jet stream capable of bringing longer-lasting periods of extreme weather. As I wrote in my post this January, Where is the climate headed?, “The natural weather rhythms I’ve grown to used to during my 30 years as a meteorologist have become significantly disrupted over the past few years. Many of Earth’s major atmospheric circulation patterns have seen significant shifts and unprecedented behavior; new patterns that were unknown have emerged, and extreme weather events were incredibly intense and numerous during 2010 – 2011. It boggles my mind that in 2011, the U.S. saw 14 – 17 billion-dollar weather disasters, three of which matched or exceeded some of the most iconic and destructive weather events in U.S. history.”


Figure 1. Women who work on a tea farm in Assam, India hold up a dot in honor of Climate Impacts Day (May 5, 2012), to urge people to connect the dots between climate change and the threat to their livelihood. Chai is one of the most consumed beverages in India, but a prolonged dry spell and extreme heat has affected tea plantations in Assam and Bengal with production dropping by 60% as compared to the same period in 2011. Image credit: 350.org.

May 5: Climate Impacts Day
On Saturday, May 5 (Cinco de Mayo!), the activist group 350.org, founded by Bill McKibben, is launching a new effort to “connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather.” They’ve declared May 5 Climate Impacts Day, and have coordinated an impressive global effort of nearly 1,000 events in 100 countries to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather. Their new climatedots.org website aims to get people involved to “protest, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.” Some of the events planned for Saturday: firefighters in New Mexico will hold posters with dots in a forest ravaged by wildfires; divers in the Marshall Islands take a dot underwater to their dying coral reefs; climbers on glaciers in the Alps, Andes, and Sierras will unfurl dots on melting glaciers with the simple message: “Melting”; villagers in Northeastern Kenya will create dots to show how ongoing drought is killing their crops; in San Francisco, California, aerial artist Daniel Dancer and the Center for Biological Diversity will work with hundreds of people to form a giant, moving blue dot to represent the threat of sea level rise and ocean acidification; and city-dwellers in Rio de Janeiro hold dots where mudslides from unusually heavy rains wiped out part of their neighborhood. I think its a great way to draw attention to the links between climate change and extreme weather, since the mainstream media coverage of climate change has been almost nil the past few years. A report by Media Matters for America found out that nightly news coverage about climate change on the major networks decreased 72% between 2009 and 2011. On the Sunday shows, 97% of the stories mentioning climate change were about politics in Washington D.C. or on the campaign trail, not about extreme weather or recent scientific reports. You can check out what Climate Impacts Day events may be happening in your area at the climatedots.org website.


Figure 2. Front Street Bridge on the Susquehanna River in Vestal, NY, immediately following the flood of September 8, 2011. Image credit: USGS, New York. In my post, Tropical Storm Lee’s flood in Binghamton: was global warming the final straw? I argue that during September 8, 2011 flood, the Susquehanna River rose twenty feet in 24 hours and topped the flood walls in Binghamton by 8.5 inches, so just a 6% reduction in the flood height would have led to no overtopping of the flood walls and a huge decrease in damage. Extra moisture in the air due to global warming could have easily contributed this 6% of extra flood height.

Also of interest
Anti-coal activists, led by climate scientist Dr. James Hansen of NASA, are acting on Saturday to block Warren Buffett’s coal trains in British Columbia from delivering coal to Pacific ports for shipment overseas. Dave Roberts of Grist explains how this may be an effective strategy to reduce coal use, in his post, “Fighting coal export terminals: It matters”.

The creator of wunderground’s new Climate Change Center, atmospheric scientist Angela Fritz, has a blog post on Friday’s unveiling of the new Heartland Institute billboards linking mass murderers like Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden to belief in global warming. In Heartland’s description of the billboard campaign, they say, “The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” The Heartland Institute neglected to mention that the Pope and the Dalai Lama are prominent advocates of addressing the dangers of human-caused climate change.

Jeff Masters

October Weather Extremes

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October 2011 Global Weather Extremes Summary
Published: 8:16 PM GMT on November 05, 2011
October 2011 Global Weather Extremes Summary

October was a relatively calm month so far as global weather extremes were concerned. The biggest story for the United States was the unprecedented snowstorm that struck the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on October 29-30th. Unusual warmth occurred in Europe at the beginning of the month and in southern Africa towards the end of the month. Extreme flooding affected Central America, Italy, and Southeast Asia.

Below are some of the month’s highlights.

NORTH AMERICA

The most intense October snowstorm on record left between 22 and 27 dead and 2.5 million without electricity from Virginia to Maine when a classic northeaster cyclone moved up the Atlantic Coast on October 29th and 30th. As of this writing, a week later, some 800,000 are still without power in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Amazing snow totals of over two feet affected the hardest hit portions of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (see Jeff Masters and my blog of Oct. 30). At the peak of the storm on Saturday evening, Windsor, Massachusetts received 26.0” of snow in just a six-hour period.

Unisys surface analysis map for 8 p.m. EST October 29th, around the time when the snow was falling at its heaviest in southern New England.

Concord, New Hampshire had 22.2” in a 15-hour period between 4pm Oct. 29 and 7am October 30. This was the 2nd greatest 24-hour snowfall on record for this city that has experienced many formidable snowstorms since records began there in 1871 (the record 24-hour snowfall was 25” during the famous blizzard of December 26-27, 1969).

Heavy wet snow toppled trees onto parked cars in Worcester, Massachusetts. The storm has become the 14th billion-dollar natural disaster in the U.S.A. so far this year. Photo by Adam Hunger/AP.

In spite of some significant rainfall during the month, portions of western Texas and the Texas Panhandle experienced several intense dust storms reminiscent of the 1930s ‘Dust Bowl’ era. Amarillo, and Lubbock, Texas as well as Dodge City, Kansas remained on track for their driest calendar year on record. In contrast, much of Ohio and Pennsylvania have already achieved their wettest year on record. As of Nov. 1st Williamsport, Pennsylvania has recorded 63.18” (old record 61.27” in 1972), Scranton 54.02” (old record 53.71” in 1945), Harrisburg has recorded 67.59” (old record 59.67” in 1863), Cleveland, Ohio has measured 55.81”(old record 53.83” in 1990), and Binghamton, New York 61.86” (old record 49.33” in 2006).

Hurricane Jova roared ashore on Mexico’s west coast between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta on October 12th with 100mph wind gusts and killing five.

An amazing nighttime video capture of Hurricane Jova’s winds as the storm came ashore north of Manzanillo, Mexico on October 12th. Photo/video taken by wunderground blogger Mike Theiss at Tenacatita, Mexico.

The coldest temperature measured in the northern hemisphere during October was -61.4°F (-51.9°C) at Summit, Greenland.

SOUTH AMERICA and CENTRAL AMERICA

Extreme flooding in El Salvador and Guatemala resulted in the deaths of at least 105 people the week of October 13-20. It was one of the worst natural disasters in recent history for El Salvador. One location, Huizucar, in El Salvador recorded an astonishing 59.57” (1513mm) of precipitation in the ten-day period of October 10-20.

Map of precipitation totals across El Salvador the period of October 10-20. El Salvadoran National Hydrological Service.

Winds of 75mph in mid-October whipped up fallen volcanic ash (that had accumulated as the result of the eruption of Chile’s Puyehue volcano) closing airports in Argentina and Uruguay.

EUROPE

The United Kingdom recorded its warmest October temperature on record when a reading of 85.8°F (29.9°C) was observed at Gravesend, Kent on October 1st. This surpassed the previous warmest October temperature of 84.9°F (29.4°C) set at Cambridgeshire on October 1, 1985. Wales also broke its warmest October day on record with an 82.8°F (28.2°C) reading at Hawarden, Flintshire on October 1st (previous record was 79.5°F (26.4°C) at Ruthin, Denbighshire on October 1, 1985). Stephen Burt writes me, “At least as noteworthy was the fact that 1 October became the hottest day of the year quite widely in central southern England and in western and northern England. In central southern England, within the last 100 years, the hottest day of the year has never occurred later than 8 September.” The month was the 8th warmest October on record for the U.K. since 1910.

Dublin, Ireland, reported 82.2mm of rainfall in 24 hours on October 24th, its wettest October day since 1954. Two people died in flooding as a result. The coldest temperature measured in the U.K. during October was -3.3°C at Santon Downham, Suffolk on October 20th. The highest wind gust measured was 77mph at Killowen, County Down on October 17th.

Incredible flash flooding struck much of Italy on October 26th killing at least nine and devastating towns in the Liguria region near Genoa and also in central Tuscany. An amazing 450mm (17.72”) of rain fell in just four hours at Quezzi, Liguria. The torrential rains also affected extreme southeastern France where up to 600mm (23.62”) of rain in 12 hours were reported.

A flooded street in Genoa during the intense rainfall of October 26th. Photo by Luca Zennaro/EPA

AFRICA

An extreme heat wave affected Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia during the last week of October. All-time absolute maximum temperatures were recorded in Harare (98.1°F/36.7°C) and Bulawayo (101.3°F/38.5°C), Zimbabwe; Livingston (106.3°F/41.3°C), Zambia; and Francistown, Botswana where the 107.8°F (42.1°C) was just shy of the national record for Botswana of 108.3°F (42.4°C) recorded at Gomo in January 1932.

The hottest temperature observed was 112.3°F (44.6°C) at Buffalo Range, Zimbabwe on October 25th. This was also the warmest temperature observed in the southern hemisphere during October.

ASIA

The big story in Asia during October was (and still is!) the flooding in Thailand where Bangkok remains submerged as of this writing and the situation seems to be getting worse as flood waters continue their march toward the heart of the city. For details on the Bangkok flood see my previous blog. Some 507 people have died in Thailand so far as a result of the floods.

In Burma (Myanmar), over 100 people died in the city of Pakokku, which rests on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in central Burma, on October 21-22 when a flash flood swept away 2000 homes in Pakokku and four other towns in the Magwe Division.

The main bridge of Pakokku, Burma (Myanmar) swept away by floodwaters on October 22nd. Photo taken by unidentified resident of Pakokku.

Heavy rains also pelted the South China island province of Hainan in early October as the result the passage of Tropical Storm Nalgae. The city of Haikou apparently recorded 13.13” (333.6mm) of rain in 24 hours and 20.35” (517mm) in 48 hours, the greatest accumulations on record for the site.

The warmest temperature in the northern hemisphere and the world during October was 113.7°F (45.4°C) measured at Mecca, Saudi Arabia on October 1st.

AUSTRALIA

Temperatures were close to normal in most of Australia during October and precipitation was considerably above normal (152% of normal nation-wide to be precise) making this the 17th wettest October in over 112 years of record.

The normally wet top station of Bellenden Ker, Queensland measured 58.82” (1494mm) of precipitation during the month, the highest such figure ever measured during October at any site in Australia. 17.32” (440mm) of this total fell on the singe day of Oct. 19th, the 2nd greatest calendar day measurement for October in Australian history (record is 21.70”/551.2mm at Pacific Heights, Queensland on Oct. 8, 1914).

Map of rainfall deciles for October, 2011. It was the 3rd wettest October on record for Western Australia. Map courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

The warmest temperature measured during the month was 111.2°F (44.0°C) at Wyndham Aero, Western Australia on October 12th. The coldest temperature was 18.0°F (-7.8°C) at Thredbo, New South Wales on October 3rd.

ANTARCTICA

The coldest temperature in the southern hemisphere and the world during October was -98.5°F (-72.5°C) recorded at Dome Fuji on Oct. 14th.

KUDOS Thanks to Maximiliano Herrera for global temperature extremes data and Stephen Burt for the U.K. extremes.

Christopher C. Burt
Weather Historian

US Heat Wave to Continue & Intensify

Posted on by

Martin warns of even stronger heatwave within a week for the eastern half of the country

Published on July 13, 2011 12:30 am PT
– By Dave Tole – Writer
– Article Editor and Approved – Warren Miller


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(TheWeatherSpace.com) — A monster heatwave has taken over 21 of the United States and TWS Senior Meteorologist Kevin Martin says it will get stronger.

“As this ridge breaks down another one will form over the Central Plains this weekend,” said Martin. “This ridge will center over Omaha, Nebraska, being a 600 mb high pressure system. To put into perspective, the current heatwave is a 596 at the highest. A 600 mb high is serious pressure.”

Martin predicts this to form on Friday over Kansas City and move eastward next week. The heat and humidity could bring indexes into the 120+ mark for some of the eastern half of the country, including St. Louis, Missouri.

to read more, go to:   http://theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-07_13_2011_heatwave.html