Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Downpour continues to lash southern China


Xinhuanet
Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:05 UTC
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© Xinhua/Han ChuanhaoTwo travellers push a car on a flooded street in the seat of Changshan County in Quzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province, June 19, 2011. A fourth round of heavy downpours has battered Changshan County and its neighbouring areas since Saturday evening, bringing a rainfall of more than 150 millimeters. Days of torrential rains have saturated the mountainous county, putting the residents in danger of landslides and mud-rock flows.
Hangzhouh, June 19 -- Heavy rains and ensuing floods continue to plague southern parts of China, affecting millions of people and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.

Latest data from the flood control headquarters of east Zhejiang Province showed that by 7:00 a.m. Sunday, 2.66 million people had been affected by continuous rainstorms in 545 townships of 50 counties under nine cities in Zhejiang. A total of 171,000 hectares of crops were destroyed and 989 enterprises were shut down, incurring 4.96 billion yuan (751.5 million U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses.

Persistent downpours caused a mudslide in Changshan County on Sunday at noon, which flushed several local homes at Longtan Village of Tianma Town, killing two and leaving one missing.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Severe Weather in Central Florida


MyFox: Orlando
Sat, 18 Jun 2011 21:13 UTC
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© MyFox: Orlando
Most of Central Florida was under severe weather alerts, Saturday night.

The National Weather Service in Melbourne issued a series of severe-thunderstorms and tornado warnings covering much of Central Florida.

Firefighters in Volusia County welcomed the rains but were less happy to see the heavy lighting that came with the rain.

According to fire officials about 25 fires started, Saturday, but were quickly contained.

At Orlando International Airport, departing and arriving fights were experiencing delays of 15 minutes or less, according to an airport spokeswoman.
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Bizarro Earth

More than 5 million affected by China flooding


CBS News
Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:39 UTC
Beijing - More than 5 million people have been displaced or otherwise affected by flooding in eastern China that is also pushing up food prices, state media reported Sunday

.

Torrential rains have left huge areas of Hubei and Zhejiang provinces under water, with more than 1 million acres of farmland inundated, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Almost 1,000 businesses have been forced to suspend operations and 5.7 million people have had their lives disrupted, Xinhua said in a brief report. More than 7,000 homes collapsed or were otherwise damaged and direct financial damage was estimated at almost 6 billion yuan.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Tornado Warning Issued For Orlando Florida


Huffington Post
Sat, 18 Jun 2011 19:56 UTC
The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for parts of Florida's Orange County, including Orlando.
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© Mapquest
From the National Weather Service: ...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 800 PM EDT FOR CENTRAL ORANGE COUNTY...

AT 730 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS CONTINUED TO DETECT A TORNADO. THIS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR WEDGEFIELD...OR 7 MILES SOUTH OF BITHLO...MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 15 MPH.
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Stop

US: Perfect Storm Along Missouri River Puts Army Corps Policies in Cross Hairs

Paul Quinlan
Environment & Energy Publishing
Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Unknown
As the engorged Missouri River swamps towns and threatens to burst a backup levee in Hamburg, Mo., lawmakers are calling for a review of the Army Corps of Engineers' flood-control plans.

With record snowmelt and rainfall threatening to create the second major U.S. flood disaster in as many months, the Army Corps is scrambling to drain six massive reservoirs in Montana and the Dakotas. The corps is releasing water more than twice as fast as has ever been attempted since the reservoirs were built some 50 years ago.

The disaster is caused by record snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains, which experienced snowpack of more than 140 percent of average this year, and historic rainfall totals that are funneling more water into the Missouri River than has been seen since record-keeping began in the 1890s.

"We've described it as a perfect storm," said Jody Farhat, who oversees water management in the basin for the Army Corps' Omaha District.

For more than a century, Farhat said the system has always demonstrated the capacity to absorb what weather surprises nature dealt. Not this year.
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Hourglass

Floods, lightning kill 8 as heavy rains hit China

Louise Watt
Associated Press
Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:41 UTC
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© Associated PressA Chinese man pushes a makeshift drum raft while a child sit on it in a flooded street in Xianing city in central China's Hubei province on Wednesday, June 15, 2011.
Beijing - Floods and lightning killed at least eight people as heavy rains pounded southern China, destroying homes and blocking roads, official media said Saturday.

Flooding from this month's seasonal rains has already forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and left more than 170 dead or missing.

Two people died in the southern province of Guizhou after being struck by lightning, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Two others died after being washed away by floods Friday evening. Xinhua said four other people died but did not provide details.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said Friday that flooding and rains have killed 25 people, left 25 missing and forced about 671,200 from their homes since Monday.

Xinhua did not say whether the most recent fatalities were included in the 25.

The torrential rains are forecast to continue through the weekend.

Landslides crushed parts of a railway line in southwestern China on Thursday evening, stranding 5,000 passengers on four trains, railway officials said.

About 1,200 workers are continuing to clear tracks and make repairs along the Chengdu-Kunming railway line, which links the capitals of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, Xinhua said.
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Better Earth

US: Platte River floods still threaten; half of record snow pack has yet to melt

Algis Laukaitis
Journal Star
Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:00 UTC
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© Christine Peterson/Casper Star-TribuneRecord snowfall in the mountains above the Missouri and Platte rivers has contributed to flooding along both rivers. With the official start of summer only days away, much of the snow has yet to melt. Highway 130 in the Snowy Range between Laramie and Saratoga in southern Wyoming didn't open until June 10, two weeks later than scheduled. This photo was taken Monday, June 13, 2011.
While most attention remains on the Missouri River, the Platte River -- even though it's been dropping lately -- still is a flood threat in Nebraska.

Half of the record snowpack in the upper basin of the Colorado and Wyoming mountains has melted and flowed into Seminoe Reservoir, said John Lawson, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's manager for the Wyoming area.

Seminoe is the first of seven bureau reservoirs that capture and store runoff from the mountains, mainly for irrigation. That water eventually flows into Nebraska, via the North Platte River, and is stored at Lake McConaughy near Ogallala.

Lawson said the snowpack hasn't been this heavy since 1909 and 1917. The bureau believes this year's runoff will match or exceed those two years, Lawson said.
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Bizarro Earth

Chile volcano ash circles globe, returns home


Associated Press
Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:30 UTC
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© Federico Grosso/APA boat covered by volcanic ash sits docked on the bank of Nahuel Lake on Thursday in southern Argentina.
Santiago, Chile - The ash cloud from a Chilean volcano that has been erupting for nearly two weeks has circled the globe and come home again.

The cloud - which has disrupted flights in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand on its around-the-world trip - on Friday forced Chilean officials to cancel domestic flights for the first time since the Cordon Caulle volcano began erupting June 4.

LAN airlines suspended flights to the cities of Puerto Montt, Coyhaique and Punta Arenas in the far south of the South American country. While ash from Cordon Caulle has wreaked havoc with air travel abroad, it had left Chile's internal flights largely untouched until Friday.

"The tip of the cloud that has traveled around the world is more or less in front of Coyhaique," said Civil Aviation Office chief Pablo Ortega. Coyhaique is 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of the volcano.
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Cloud Lightning

Alabama, US: 4 Tornado Tracks Added in Marshall County by Weather Service

Paul Gattis
AL.com/The Huntsville Times
Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:37 UTC
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© The Huntsville Times/Paul GattisAlred Marina on Lake Guntersville was damaged in an April 27 tornado track added Thursday by the National Weather Service.
Huntsville - The historic wave of tornadoes that struck the state on April 27 grew in number yet again on Thursday.

The National Weather Service office in Huntsville added four new tornado tracks, all in Marshall County, to raise the total to 37 separate tornadoes in North Alabama.

The Huntsville office on Friday also upgraded the deadly EF-4 that struck DeKalb County, raising the estimates to an EF-5. That's the most powerful level on the Enhanced Fujita scale, indicating winds exceeding 200 mph. The only other EF-5 on April 27 ran along the ground from Hackleburg to Madison County.

The National Weather Service office in Birmingham has also identified 30 tornadoes on April 27. Six of those tornadoes continued into North Alabama and were surveyed by both offices.
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Cloud Lightning

North Carolina, US: Strong Storm in Cape Fear Region Stirs Tornado Fears


The Fayetteville Observer
Sun, 19 Jun 2011 06:29 UTC
Residents grew nervous Saturday evening when strong winds blew through the region, bringing bad memories of the April 16 tornado.

The National Weather Service in Raleigh said the storms contained no rotational activity, just heavy winds gusting between 21 and 59 miles per hour.

No serious damage was reported, but at least 1,574 residents in Cumberland County lost power, according to Progress Energy's website.

The dark skies and swaying trees frightened many residents still shaken from the April 16 tornado.

That storm killed one person, wrecked 945 homes and caused more than $100 million in damage in the county.

On the Fayetteville Observer's Facebook page, some residents in neighborhoods heavily damaged by the tornado expressed their fear.
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