Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

US: Flooding Cuts Off Montana Town, More Rain Forecast

Matthew Brown
Seattle PI
Tue, 24 May 2011 05:05 UTC
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© 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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Alarm Clock

Japan's 11 March mega-quake shifted the ocean floor sideways by more than 20m

chillymanjaro
The Watchers
Sun, 22 May 2011 15:23 UTC
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Japan's 11 March mega-quake shifted the ocean floor sideways by more than 20m (65ft), according one instrument placed on the seabed off the nation's coast. This direct measurement exceeds the displacement suggested by some models built only from data gathered on land.

The figure was recorded by the Japan Coast Guard which maintains underwater geodetic equipment along the fault responsible for the giant tremor. An upwards movement of 3m (10ft) was registered by the same instrument. The data underlines once again the colossal nature of the Magnitude 9.0 quake and its associated tsunami.

The scale is almost double that estimated only from the terrestrial data. Results show how important offshore data are to know where and to what extent the rupture occurred on the plate boundary.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes kill 40 in Bangladesh


IOL News
Tue, 24 May 2011 14:42 UTC
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Dhaka - Lightning strikes during a heavy rainstorm in Bangladesh killed at least 40 people and injured more than 150, most of them harvesting rice in fields or fishing, police and officials said on Tuesday.

The deaths, the largest number of casualties from lightning in a single day, occurred on Monday. Ten people died in northwestern Chapainawabganj district.

Rainstorms ahead of the monsoon season starting in May or June often bring electric storms that kill residents and damage crops.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Nursing Home Lost At Least 11 in Joplin Twister


MSNBC
Tue, 24 May 2011 14:00 UTC
As death toll in tornado-ripped city hits 117, people brace for possible second punch from new storm system. Searches continue ahead of new storms; 1,500 people unaccounted for

Joplin, Missouri - As rescue crews in this city made their way through the debris of thousands of homes and concrete slabs where large stores once stood, the death toll crept higher and a nursing home operator reported that at least 11 of the fatalities were at its premises.

"What used to be a building was nothing more than a pile of rubble," said Bill Mitchell, who operated Greenbriar on the city's south side. Ten victims were residents and the 11th was a staff member, he added. One person remains unaccounted for.


"One of the little old men from the nursing home was standing in the middle of the street when we came out of the house," neighbor Sandy Conlee told the Joplin Globe in describing the aftermath. "He had blood all over his head. He was in shock."
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Bizarro Earth

US: 2011 Tornado Death Toll Is Worst Since 1953

Andrea Mustain
OurAmazingPlanet
Tue, 24 May 2011 11:06 UTC
Tornado
© NOAATornadoes have killed hundreds of people so far this year.
2011 has a grim new place in the record books: the deadliest year for tornadoes in more than five decades, with 482 people killed by the storms as of this writing.

It's the highest number of fatalities from tornadoes since 1953, when twisters killed 519 people, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the home agency of the National Weather Service.

As of Tuesday morning, the death toll from the devastating tornado that smashed through Joplin, Mo. on Sunday (May 22) had risen to 117, and could continue to rise as officials sort through the wreckage of the town, home to almost 50,000 people.
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Cloud Lightning

Are tornadoes more common because of climate change?

Alok Jha
Guardian.co.uk
Tue, 24 May 2011 10:53 UTC
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© Associated PressThe tornado that tore through Joplin, Missouri, leaving scores dead.
As the city of Joplin deals with the devastation from Sunday's tornado, some people might wonder whether these extreme weather events are getting more common because of climate change. The answer is that no one really knows.

A tornado is a rotating column of air that stretches from the bottom of clouds to the Earth's surface. They can occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes, typically manifesting as a funnel of condensation surrounded by a cloud of dust and debris. Wind speeds in an average tornado reach more than 100mph (160km/h) and the system itself is less than 100 metres across, but extreme events can be several miles across, with wind speeds of more than 300mph.

It is difficult to relate any individual weather event to climate change and, unlike with hurricanes, there is little robust research on whether the warming planet is causing any noticeable effects. Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University, told AFP: "If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it's agreed upon by the tornado community that it's not a real increase. It's having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we're seeing them more often."

Comment: Here is another perspective on the 'Global Warming' issue:



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Cloud Lightning

US: Joplin survivors recall '15 minutes of hell'


boston.com
Tue, 24 May 2011 11:05 UTC
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© Eric Thayer/ ReutersRyan Harper paused while looking for a missing friend after a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Mo. yesterday.
Rod Pace, manager of the medical helicopter service at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin had just finished payroll paperwork Sunday evening when he decided to stay an extra 15 to 20 minutes to let the menacing weather pass.

From the second floor, he watched the storm approach. The swirling rain began to form about a mile away.

Then the glass doors he was holding onto - with a 100-pound magnet to keep them locked - were suddenly pulled open. Pace was sucked outside briefly and then pushed back in like a rag doll, all the while clinging to the handles.
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