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Best of the Web: Flash-flooding, dust-storms, hailstorms, and even snow: Entire Mid-East & North Africa regions pummeled all month long with extreme weather
Comment: The Express story on this concerns one set of events that took place in the MENA regions last week. But as you'll see in the videos below, there have actually been successive waves of extreme weather from Tunisia to Iran, all month long...
Hail carpets the desert in Saudi Arabia, April 3rd 2019
The mysterious and extreme weather has caused bizarre 'ice floods' to sweep across deserts in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. The freezing plunge in temperatures has perplexed meteorologists in a region that is typically basking in scorching sunshine at this time of year. Last week, several parts of Tunisia were hit by snow and torrential rainfall, causing fatalities.
Floods and colder temperatures were felt throughout the Levant, as rain led to severe flooding in Riyadh, and hail, thunderstorms, and flash floods struck the UAE.
At the same time, nearly one hundred villages have been evacuated in Iran due to an extreme rainfall deluge and subsequent flash floods.
Large parts of Saudi Arabia have been submerged in snowfall, sparking wonder amaze local residents and concern among scientists.
© Wikipedia Commons
Dr. Sweatman has done our planet and history a tremendous favor by writing Prehistory Decoded. By employing the hard science of probability, he has managed to demystify the world's very earliest and most mysterious art.
Prehistory Decoded begins by documenting Sweatman's initial discovery, reported worldwide in 2015, of an empirical method for decoding the world's first art using pattern matching and statistics. Guess what? The code is a memorial and date stamp for our favorite subject here: the Younger Dryas Catastrophe, and its associated Taurid meteor traumas.
Sweatman has managed to produce a synthesis explanation for the previously indecipherable succession of artistic animal figures at Gobekeli Tepe in Turkey, Chauvet Cave in France, Lascaux Cave in France, and Çatalhöyük in Turkey, among others. Unsurprisingly to the open minded, the ancient artists are communicating using a universally handy and persistent reference set: Stars. Or, more precisely, the appearance of constellations as adjusted over time according earth's precession.
(Don't you love the internet? One hyperlink and no need to explain all that!)
It seems reasonable then to the Tusk that, if there were a code, someone, somewhere, would break the code soon given the global availability and intense interest in the information. In fact, if I waited much longer without someone cracking it, the Tusk may have become convinced the oldest art is simply stunning cave paintings, and heavy carved rocks, with no relevant common narrative (other than horses are pretty, and moving rocks is cool).
These abnormal temps are pelting the Middle East with rain, floods, hail and new abundant rainfall weather patterns not seen in millennia. US potato crop delayed in NW grow zone with more snow on the way, compressing the planting season into three weeks what they usually do in 2.5 months.
Sources
"We've had the longest winter ever," said Chris Voight, director of the Washington State Potato Commission. "Normally we start planting potatoes the end of February, but this year we weren't able to start planting until April 1."
After looking at the GFS Total Snowfall 10-Day Forecast, further delays appear to be on the cards.
As much as 24 inches of snow could fall in southern Montana early next week, with Wyoming and Idaho also badly affected. The totals appear even higher in northern Colorado.
Comment: Meanwhile vast swathes of Europe has seen an unusually mild winter and spring leading to unprecedented wildfires:
- Europe's record breaking warm winter leads to unprecedented wildfires
- The UK has already had more wildfires in 2019 than any year on record
- National disaster declared as thousands flee South Korean wildfires
- Raging wildfires in Russia's Trans-Baikal region have killed thousands of animals; national parks and conservation sites threatened
- Flea infestations triple due to UK's mild winter
Sources
Near-whiteout conditions at the National Weather Service's office in Caribou, Maine in January
Old Man Winter paid a long visit to Caribou, Maine, this year, with the town measuring at least one inch of snow on the ground for 163 consecutive days, starting on Nov. 10, 2018 and ending on April 21, 2019. This is the longest streak of its kind on record, burying the previous record of 155 days set from 2002 to 2003, according to the National Weather Service.
This unusually long stretch of snowy conditions kicked off during a stormy November when the town measured nearly 30 inches of snow. Two months later, Caribou saw its snowiest January on record when 59.8 inches fell, including a snowstorm that unloaded over 16 inches in one day.
About 80 ski areas are still open in the region - mostly resorts with glaciers, high altitude snowfields or some other snowsure reputation. The majority will, however, close on Sunday.
The snowfall has been heaviest in the Western Alps, particularly along the Italian border with France and Switzerland.
The biggest accumulation has been reported in the Monterosa region where up to 60cm (two feet) of snow is reported to have fallen in 24 hours on high slopes with rain in the valley.
Intense blizzard conditions at Saint-Sorlin d'Arves (#Savoie), France yesterday, April 24. Report: @Meteo-Alpes pic.twitter.com/MxgveimFJQ
— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) April 25, 2019
© Sofia De-Janeiro @Holy_bear697 · Apr 15
While a slice of Northern and Western Europe basked in warm African air dragged up from the south, much of Eastern and Southern regions of the continent were descend upon by a brutal Arctic air mass from the north - this contrast serving as yet more evidence of the weak and wavy meridional jet stream associated with low solar activity.
For more on that, click here.
Below I've compiled a list of a few of the all-time cold records that tumbled in SW Russia over the Easter weekend (data courtesy of www.hmn.ru):
Comment: And in other parts of the world the erratic seasons and extreme weather also continues to increase:
- Large gorsefire breaks out in County Donegal, Ireland
- 2 dead, 1,800 evacuated after floods in Chaco Province, Argentina - almost a foot of rain in a few hours
- Iran facing worst locust attack in 40 years
- Floods kill one person and force 1,500 from their homes in Quebec province
Hass avocado damaged by hail hangs on tree
Sources
Comment: NASA's new aurora experiment colors the sky in Norway