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Cloud Precipitation

Flooding in Singapore due to unusually heavy rainfall

A flash flood in Upper Changi Road on Jan 8.
© ALVIN HO
A flash flood in Upper Changi Road on Jan 8.
Heavy rain fell across Singapore early on Monday morning (Jan 8), causing flash floods in at least nine areas in the eastern part of the island which stranded cars and stopped traffic.

National water agency PUB attributed the floods to intense rainfall from the prevailing north-east monsoon.

The rain was exacerbated by a Sumatra squall - lines of thunderstorms characterised by a sudden onset of strong gusty surface winds and heavy rain lasting one to two hours - that developed over the Strait of Malacca and moved eastwards, affecting Singapore.


Cloud Precipitation

Heavy rain, floods and landslides leave at least 37 dead in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Flooding in Kinshasa

Flooding in Kinshasa
Heavy rain from 03 January has caused flooding and landslides in and around the city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At least 37 people are thought to have died, and it is feared that this figure could rise as further assessments are carried out.

Local media said that the fatalities occurred in several areas around the city, including in Ngaliema, Selembao, Bandalungwa, Limete and Barumbu.

The provincial minister for health and social affairs, Dominique Weloli, told AFP that the district of Ngaliema, a poor hillside community, was particularly hit. Other affected areas include Kingabwa, Mombele and Ndjili.


Newspaper

Strongest earthquake in five years hits Groningen, Netherlands

Ministry of Economic Affairs in The Hague
© @milieudefensie / Twitter
Milieudefensie and Groningen residents dump fracking earthquake rubble in front of the Ministry of Economic Affairs in The Hague, 26 Oct 2017.
A 3.4-magnitude earthquake rattled the province of Groningen on Monday afternoon. There were no immediate damage reports of note following Monday 3 p.m. quake, which had an epicenter near Zeerijp and could be felt at least 10 kilometers away, the KNMI meteorology agency said.

Broadcaster RTV Noord said those in its Europapark, Groningen offices 20 kilometers away could also feel the ground shake.

Cloud Precipitation

Cyclone Ava causes floods and landslides in Madagascar, 6 dead and 15,000 displaced

On Jan. 4 at 5:42 a.m. EST (10:42 UTC) NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured this visible image of Tropical Cyclone Ava just off shore of northeastern Madagascar.
© NOAA/NASA Goddard Rapid Response Team
On Jan. 4 at 5:42 a.m. EST (10:42 UTC) NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured this visible image of Tropical Cyclone Ava just off shore of northeastern Madagascar.
Tropical Cyclone Ava swept across Madagascar from 05 January 2018, bringing with it strong winds and heavy rainfall that has caused flooding and landslides.

According to reports from the Bureau National de Gestion des Risques et des Catastrophes (BNGRC) in Madagascar, at least 6 people have died and over 15,000 displaced.

Among the worst hit areas are the capital Antananarivo, where at the peak of the storm over 3,200 people were forced from their homes to safer locations. Many areas of Antananarivo are at risk of landslides after heavy rain. As of 08 January, Red Alerts were in place for landslides in several districts of the city.


Attention

Thousands of flying foxes killed by record-breaking heatwave near Sydney, Australia

The head count of dead bats could reach their thousands as Sunday's heatwave took a deathly toll on a critical portion of Campbelltown's flying fox colony

The head count of dead bats could reach their thousands as Sunday's heatwave took a deathly toll on a critical portion of Campbelltown's flying fox colony
As record breaking heat swept across Western Sydney on Sunday, it took with it 'thousands' of bats who melted in the sweltering conditions.

A critical portion of Campbelltown's flying fox colony died from the heat, as surging temperatures left many dead on the ground and still suspended among the trees.

Heartbreaking photos of the death toll were shared online by volunteer groups Wires and Help Save the Wildlife and Bushlands, who tried desperately to save as many lives as they could.

As parts of the state became the hottest place on earth Sunday, rescuers from North Western Sydney Wires worked tirelessly alongside Sydney Wildlife volunteers.

But unfortunately for hundreds - potentially thousands - of bats, their help came a little too late.

Propaganda

Climategate: How They failed to hide the gulf between predicted and observed warming

The indefatigable Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville is the first to declare the global temperature anomaly for December 2017. As Fig. 1 shows, in the 39 years 1 month from December 1978 to December 2017, the planet has warmed by half a Celsius degree. But that is equivalent to 1.28 C°/century, or little more than one-third of the 3.3 C°/century predicted with "substantial confidence" by IPCC in 1990 and also by the fifth-generation general-circulation models of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project in 2013.
Fig1 UAHv4 Global mean temperature changes 1997 to 2015
© Unknown
Fig. 1 The least-squares linear-regression trend on the entire UAH satellite shows monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows warming at a rate equivalent to just 1.28 C°/century from December 1978 to December 2017.

Comment: See also:


Ice Cube

The Ocean Has Frozen Over in Massachusetts

Old Silver Beach in North Falmouth frozen
While these images may look like the Arctic or Antarctica, they're actually much closer to home.

As a result of the recent 'explosive cyclogenesis' - a term used by meteorologists to describe dramatic or destructive unexpected weather events - the sea at Old Silver Beach in North Falmouth, Massachusetts has frozen over.

Persistent temperatures as low as -20F (-30C) caused the upper layers of water to freeze solid enough for locals to walk on it. The frozen mass extended about 1 mile out from the beach.

Snowflake Cold

Heavy snowfall disrupts traffic, affects life across China

snow China
The first snow of the new year, which began hitting China on Wednesday, has continued to affect life and traffic in the country.

As of Saturday afternoon, the snow had killed one person and affected more than 510,000 people in central China's Hubei Province, according to the provincial civil affairs bureau.

It said that the snow had forced relocation of 682 people, flattened 286 houses, damaged 826 houses and about 31,380 hectares of crops, causing a total economic losses of 723 million yuan (111.4 million US dollars).

In cities including Xiangyang and Suizhou,
a record 30 cm of snow was seen on Friday night.

In Jiangsu Province, 13 sections of expressways remained closed due to wet and slippery conditions, the provincial transport department said.


Wolf

Teenage girl killed by dog pack in Jharkhand, India

canine attack
© Angela Antunes / CC by 2.0
A 12-year-old girl, who had gone to answer nature's call outside her house, was killed when a bunch of dogs attacked her in a village under Markachcho police station area of Jharkhand's Koderma district on Sunday morning. Koderma is one of the five open defecation free (ODF) districts in Jharkhand.

According to the police, they got information about the girl, identified as Madhu Kumari, daughter of Umesh Singh, a resident of Bhagwatidih village in Markachcho (South) panchayat, was killed by the dogs on Sunday morning.

"The information we got was that the girl had gone to answer nature's call and was surrounded and attacked by a bunch of dogs. There were attempts by some children to shoo the dogs away, but it was too late. They raised an alarm and alerted their family members. They also shooed away the dogs. But, by then, it was too late. No official complaint has been registered. We are treating this case as an accident," said Officer-in-charge (Markachcho), Arun Kumar.

Snowflake Cold

Coldest start to January in Syracuse, New York State in 114 years

Syracuse snow
© Michael Greenlar
A tractor driver clears the sidewalk along S. Salina St. in downtown Syracuse. A blanket snow storm covers Central New York Friday morning, January 5, 2017.
If you like your winters cold and snowy, this month has been perfect.

The first week of January has been the coldest such period in Syracuse since 1904. It's also the fourth-snowiest start to the new year on record.

The average temperature for the first seven days of 2018, including today's morning low and forecast high, is 7.3 degrees. That's just 0.1 degrees warmer than the same period in 1904, which remains the coldest kickoff to January since records began in 1902.

(If today's high falls just 2 degrees shy of the forecast of 18, this week would end up even colder than 1904.)

Along the way, Syracuse set a new record low for New Year's Day of minus 15, and tied today's record low of minus 11.

The normal average temperature for the first week of January is 24.3 degrees.

This month has also been an overachiever in snowfall. By midnight Saturday, 23.4 inches of snow had fallen, making this the fourth-snowiest first week of January on record. The record is 1994, with 32.2 inches.

Comment: According to syracuse.com, for 66 straight hours, the National Weather Service's hourly logs showed snow at Hancock International Airport. Sometimes it was light snow, sometimes heavy snow, sometimes blowing snow, but always snow. All told, 19.3 inches of snow fell in three days. That's a little over half of a typical month of January. See also:

'Bomb cyclone' leaves frozen wake of destruction and kills 22 in eastern US