Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

US: Floods keep call centers busy

Tim Johnson
World-Herald News Service
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:57 UTC
Calls to the United Way of the Midlands' 211 Call Center include many southwest Iowans looking for help on flood-related problems, a United Way report shows.

The 211 call center is a clearinghouse for community service information for people in Nebraska and southwest Iowa.

Overall call volume for June was up 77 percent from last year because of all the flood calls, said Kathy O'Hara, a United Way spokeswoman.

From June 1 to July 5, the call center received 2,656 flood-related calls. Almost 60 percent of those calls - 1,558 - came from Pottawattamie County.

Other metro-area counties also logged plenty of flood-related calls: In Nebraska, there were 482 in Douglas County, 138 in Sarpy and 25 in Washington; in Iowa, 82 in Mills, 47 in Harrison and 39 in Fremont.

The Iowa Concern Hotline also has received a number of flood-related calls, said coordinator Margaret Van Ginkel.
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Cloud Lightning

Pakistan: Floods and rains play havoc in Balochistan


Nation
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 03:48 UTC
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Three persons including two women were killed and dozens others injured in rain related incidents in different localities of Balochistan. Rains adversely disrupted the power supply and communication links in several areas of the province.

According to sources heavy monsoon showers were received in several districts of Balochistan including provincial capital Quetta, Zhob, Barkhan, Loralai, Musa Khel and others.

In Barkhan streams flooded due to heavy rainfall, swept away a vehicle resultantly two women including mother and a daughter were drowned. The locals and relatives on self assistance basis recovered the bodies of both.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Experts expect more Missouri River levee failures

Josh Funk
Associated Press
Sat, 09 Jul 2011 19:22 UTC
Several hundred thousand acres of rich Midwestern farmland and even some urban areas near the Missouri River are at risk of flooding this summer during months of historically high water that experts fear will overwhelm some levees, especially older ones.

Engineers who have studied past floods say the earthen levees in rural areas are at greater risk.

"Most of the levees are agricultural levees. They're not engineered. They're just dirt piled up," said David Rogers, an engineering professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

So far, most levees have held along the 811 miles the Missouri travels from the last dam at Gavins Point in South Dakota to its confluence with the Mississippi River near St. Louis. The flooding thus far has covered more than 560,000 acres of mostly rural land, including nearly 447,000 acres of farmland. The water has forced some evacuations, but the extent of the damage to may not be clear until it recedes.

That's not expected to happen until the fall as the Army Corps of Engineers says it needs to continue releasing substantial amounts of water from upstream reservoirs inundated with heavy spring rains and melt from an above average Rocky Mountain snowpack.
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Arrow Up

US: Floods this summer could break records

Marc Christopherson
Live Insurance News
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:17 UTC
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Forecasters have predicted that this summer could be accompanied by the worst flooding the United States has seen in its history, as rivers continue to run higher than flood levels and the soil is still saturated from the spring's rising waters.

The last record-breaking floods were in 1993, when $25 billion in damages occurred between the months of April and August within nine states.

According to the National Weather Service, this year, the water levels haven't receded much and the soil remains soaked so that it would take only a little bit of rain to send regions back into a state of flooding that would break the records that have already been set in 2011.

The high-risk factors for flooding are predicted to continue throughout the summer months and may break the flooding records that have been set over the last twenty years.
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Cloud Lightning

Heavy Downpours Leave 12 Dead, 4 Missing in South Korea

Zhangjin
CRIENGLISH
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:22 UTC
Heavy downpours drenched South Korea 's southern and central areas over the weekend, leaving at least 12 people dead and four others missing, said the disaster control center on Sunday.

The latest round of seasonal rains started on Friday. According to Seoul's weather agency, more than 400 millimeters of rain pounded South Jeolla Province, especially the Qunsan area, with 300 millimeters rainfall on Sunday alone.

Several rain-triggered landslides took place in South Jeolla, North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang Provinces, leaving four elders and two children dead.

A 68-year-old woman and two of her grandchildren were killed on Sunday when a landslide destroyed their home in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province. The landslide also killed two other old women, aged 92 and 86, who lived in a mountain hermitage.
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Cloud Lightning

British Columbia, Canada: Flood warning issued in Peace Region


CTV News
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:39 UTC
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A flood warning has been issued for B.C.'s Central and Southern Peace Region as persistent rainfall causes the area's rivers to rise steadily.
A flood warning has been issued for B.C.'s Central and Southern Peace Region as persistent rainfall causes the area's rivers to rise steadily.

The B.C. River Forecast Centre upgraded the region from a "flood watch" to a "flood warning" Saturday afternoon, after 36 hours of torrential rain pummelled the area in northeastern B.C.

A flood warning is also in effect for the Upper Fraser River at Prince George, where showers are expected again on Sunday.

Saturday's downpour caused extensive damage to parts of Peace Region, an area flanked by the Rocky Mountain foothills to the west and the Alberta plains to the east.

Several major routes in the area were washed out and eventually closed, the B.C. Transportation Ministry confirmed Saturday.
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Bizarro Earth

Iceland: Katla stirs, causing flooding


Agence France-Presse
Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:59 UTC
A massive flood of meltwater poured out of Iceland's Myrdalsjoekull glacier Saturday, raising fears of an eruption from the powerful Katla volcano underneath, but experts said a large blast was unlikely.

"At around 3:00 am (0300 GMT) ... we had a glacial meltwater runoff from underneath the glacier," Evgenia Ilyinskaya, a volcanologist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, told AFP.

The giant flood took out a bridge and part of the main road that circles Iceland and prompted evacuations, but there were no reports of injuries.

The flooding sparked fears of an eruption at Katla, known to be one of Iceland's most powerful volcanoes and located just southeast of Eyjafjoell, notorious for last year's flight-halting gigantic ash cloud.

But experts said geothermal heat, and not an eruption, might be the culprit behind the flow of meltwater.
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Roses

But what if something else is going on too? US: New lawn chemical chief suspect in mysterious deaths of trees


Detroid Free Press
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:12 UTC
In neighborhoods nationwide, millions of dollars worth of Norway spruce and white pine trees are mysteriously turning brown and dying this summer, and the chief suspect is a new lawn chemical.

State officials and lawn care professionals say they think Imprelis, an herbicide introduced last year for commercial use by DuPont, may be attacking pines and spruces as if they were weeds.

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© Martha Thierry/Detroit Free Press
DuPont has sent its own teams across the country to check out complaints and, for the moment, has recommended not spraying Imprelis near those types of trees. The company says the herbicide may not have been handled properly.

So many trees have died -- from the East Coast west to Iowa -- that the damage is projected to be in the millions of dollars, and now many states and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are investigating the possible link to Imprelis.
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Bizarro Earth

Canada, B.C. Cold summer sets 10-year record

Lauren Benn
Terrace Standard
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:40 UTC
Despite this summer's record of most rainy days, the amount of water to hit the ground so far falls on the last decade's median. The record was set in 2003 when a few downpours totaled 71.1 mm of rain.

But 2011 brought with it the most rain since 2005.

Making this year seem even worse are record temperature highs that marked the summer season in 2010 and 2009.

This day last year set a record high in Terrace since the 1970s at 32.6 C.

And although summer 2009 kicked off its first few days with showers and highs of around 16 C, July 2nd brought with it a high of 25 C - the first of a five day heat wave, ending summer's second week at 28 C.

And while there's little hope for a quick turnaround in the next few days - as forecasts show chances of rain until Monday, and mostly clouds until Wednesday - not all is lost.

Based on a 10-year trend, the hottest, driest days are yet to come.

The first heat wave that comes to stay historically starts in the middle weeks of July.
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Bizarro Earth

Cold snap in Chile puts summer citrus outlook in question

Garth Sears
The Packer
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:36 UTC
sun treat
© suntreat
A cold snap in Chile is leaving summer citrus importers unsure of what they'll be bringing to the states in upcoming weeks.

David Mixon, chief marketing officer for Seald Sweet LLC, Vero Beach, Fla., said Chile's citrus-growing areas had an unseasonable cold snap over the July Fourth weekend. Until the industry can measure the damage done to its crop, which can take a week or even 10 days, the forecast of exports to the U.S. is clouded.

Mixon said the temperatures recorded there indicate an "extremely high" likelihood of damage to the citrus, but "it's hard to predict how the fruit will react, and there's a lot of variables."

Chile's cold snap is just the latest weather hurdle for the industry. South Africa, which exported a record 1.5 million metric tons of citrus last season, dealt with a yearlong draught and hailstorms that will limit the nation's citrus exports by 5% from last year's record.
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