Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

US: Climatologist warns of potential floods

Brenda Gazzar
Whittier Daily News
Tue, 24 May 2011 19:48 UTC
A rogue jet stream is responsible for causing severe weather since the fall - including Sunday's devastating tornado in Joplin, Mo. - and could trigger severe flooding in the West, a JPL climatologist warned Monday.

Bill Patzert of the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Ca ada Flintridge said he is "extremely anxious" about the possibility of floods that could arrive in late spring and early summer in the West.

"Especially on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers" and the upper Colorado River, he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Fears of repeat disaster as fires rage in Russian east


BBC News
Tue, 24 May 2011 06:25 UTC
Image
© ReutersSo far the fires are confined to eastern Russia
Russia has reported 421 wildfires burning in forests and peat bogs over the past 24 hours, covering an area of 116,098 hectares (450 sq miles).

The fires were mainly confined to remote parts of Siberia and the Urals, with no blazes reported near Moscow and other central Russian cities.

But the area on fire is twice the size of that for the same period last year.

Drought, fires and smog left dozens dead and ruined crops in 2010, and there are fears of a repeat disaster.

The emergencies ministry said in a report on its website that the biggest fires were in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), the Amur region and the Krasnoyarsk territory.

More than 6,000 personnel equipped with more than 1,140 units of fire-fighting equipment were deployed against the fires, backed by 42 aircraft.

Of the 421 fires reported on Monday, 241 were extinguished, the ministry said.

Western Russia, the centre of the country's grain production, remains largely unaffected by fire, but officials say the situation may deteriorate if dry weather persists.

Russia's official forecast for this year's wheat crop is 85-90m tonnes compared to some 61m in 2010, 97m in 2009 and 108m in 2008.

Meanwhile, drought conditions have been hitting grain crops in northern Europe, with some forecasters predicting above-average temperatures for the summer months.
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Attention

US: Heavy Rains Cause Mudslide in Maple Grove; Minnesota


Associated Press
Mon, 23 May 2011 17:22 UTC
A mudslide has closed a road in Maple Grove in the northwestern Twin Cities.

Hennepin County officials say an emergency closure is in place on Bottineau Boulevard from 93rd Avenue North to Fernbrook Lane.

Heavy rains and storms over the weekend caused the mudslide.

Crews are working to remove the mudslide so one lane in each direction will be open by Monday evening. Residents are encouraged to find alternate routes.
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Cloud Lightning

US: National Weather Service warns more rain could bring floods to western Montana

Jenna Cederberg
Missoulian
Tue, 24 May 2011 06:36 UTC
Officials are keeping a close eye on both the rivers and the sky this week, as they track several weather systems predicted to bring rain and more flood worries to western Montana.

The National Weather Service issued flood watches for Missoula and Ravalli counties Monday afternoon in anticipation of overnight rainshowers.

Severe flooding in eastern Montana caused road closures and evacuations as the week began, prompting Gov. Brian Schweitzer to issue a statewide flood emergency declaration. Missoula, Ravalli, Sanders, Lincoln, Glacier and Lake counties were all included in the declaration.

The Weather Service issued a flood warning for the Clark Fork River above Missoula as well. The river rose to 9.3 feet Monday and is forecast to reach its 10-foot flood stage by Tuesday morning.

"The area that looks like it will go to flood probably quicker than anything is the Clark Fork River in Missoula. How fast and how much it rises will depend on how much precipitation falls. This forecast could change as we go into the week," said Ray Nickless, hydrologist for the Weather Service.
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Cloud Lightning

Canada: Lake Manitoba residents the latest to fear floods

Melissa Martin
Global Winnipeg
Tue, 24 May 2011 15:05 UTC
Image
© Reuters, The StarphoenixSandbags surround farm buildings as water from a deliberate breach of a dike on the Assiniboine River approaches near Newton, Man. Swollen with water from the Portage Diversion and driven by a gale, Lake Manitoba reared up on Monday and slammed against the shores in cabin country.
Delta Beach, Manitoba - Swollen with water from the Portage Diversion and driven by a gale, Lake Manitoba reared up on Monday and slammed against the shores in cabin country.

Thirty homes in Delta Beach were placed under voluntary evacuation, hours after a blustery north wind sent water crashing against homes, surging over some of the community's roads and swamping three cabins on its southern edge.

The Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie was monitoring the situation "hour by hour," an official on the scene said, in case a mandatory evacuation order was needed.

But while some cottagers and full-time residents were spotted driving away, cars packed with clothes, other residents along a mucky stretch road stayed, betting that the roads out would stay passable.

With most sandbags in place, all they could do was watch the waves break and wonder what might happen next to the lake that is, suddenly, a threat.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Joplin, Missouri Survivor: Tornado 'Just One Big Wall'

Enjoli Francis
ABC News
Tue, 24 May 2011 16:55 UTC
Joplin tornado
© Mike Gullett/AP PhotoMary Womack, right, reacts to the news that a renter who lived in her house had been found and taken to the hospital, May 23, 2011.
Rance Junge had the surprise of his life when he opened the back door of his Pronto pharmacy in Joplin, Mo., Sunday evening, exposing a scene from another world.

"It was just one big wall," he said of the nearly mile-wide tornado. "You couldn't see a funnel. It was just so massive."

His story of survival is just one of many beginning to emerge after the twister cut a six-mile-wide path through Joplin on Sunday, causing widespread destruction and killing 117 people -- the most from one storm in 60 years.
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Better Earth

US: Flooding Cuts Off Montana Town, More Rain Forecast

Matthew Brown
Seattle PI
Tue, 24 May 2011 05:05 UTC
Image
© Billings Gazette, Paul Ruhter/APA man walks across South Canal Road in Huntley, Mont. on Sunday, May 22, 2011 as flood water from Pryor Creek inundates a neighborhood and spills over into a canal. Widespead flooding also closed Interstate 90 from Hardin, Mont. to Ranchester, Wyo.
Billings - More rain is on tap this week for Montana communities besieged with flooding that has isolated a town near the Wyoming border, claimed at least one life and left another person missing, state and local authorities said Monday.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer declared a statewide emergency as broad areas of southeastern Montana remained underwater.

Rural communities in southeastern Montana, including the Crow Reservation, were hardest hit, authorities said.

In Carbon County, 84-year-old Betty Kebschull was killed after she was caught in rising waters from an unnamed creek.

Kebschull was swept a short distance downstream from her house near Boyd, where authorities found her body Saturday, Deputy Coroner Ben Mahoney said. A Monday autopsy confirmed she drowned.

In Yellowstone County, authorities were searching for a man reported missing after a backhoe he was operating tipped into Pryor Creek.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Historic Severe Weather to Affect 80 Million in Metro Areas


AccuWeather
Tue, 24 May 2011 16:40 UTC
US severe weather map
© AccuWeather
If you tried to draw a severe weather threat map over most of the population of the Eastern U.S., you couldn't do much better than this government forecast. One worry everyone seems to have this year (and for good reason in a Spring with record tornado deaths) is: Will my city be hit by a tornado? (It seems to be happening a lot lately).
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Attention

Summer? What Summer? Scotland Battered by 100mph Winds


Daily Record
Mon, 23 May 2011 16:31 UTC
Scotland wind blown lorry
High winds brought chaos to Scotland's transport network today as falling trees blocked main routes.

Roads, rail, air and ferry services were all affected as winds gusting 100mph were recorded in central Scotland.
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Sun

US Drought record: El Paso hits 110 days without rain

Alex Hinojosa
El Paso Times
Mon, 23 May 2011 16:24 UTC
Lower Valley farmer Kevin Ivey
© Vanessa Monsisvais / El Paso TimesLower Valley farmer Kevin Ivey pulls on a broken branch of a pecan tree
The sight of lush alfalfa fields, pecan trees and white cotton fields may diminish next year if this year's drought doesn't let up soon.

As of today, soon just stretched out a little further.

The Greater El Paso area today will hit a record-breaking 110 consecutive days without a trace of rain. According to the National Weather Service office in Santa Teresa, the old record was 109 days in 2002.
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