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Cloud Precipitation

Flood death toll climbs to 89 in Bihar, India; 3,300,000 people hit


The Indian Express
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 19:52 UTC
Gopalganj: Villagers move to a safe place from floods in Gopalganj in Bihar on Saturday.
© PTI Gopalganj: Villagers move to a safe place from floods in Gopalganj in Bihar on Saturday.
The flood-related death toll in Bihar rose to 89 with 25 casualties being reported today as 33 lakh people in 14 districts remain affected. The Disaster Management Department said in a statement that Saran is the latest district to be hit by the deluge.

Purnia district has reported maximum number of deaths (26), followed by 21 in Araria, 15 in Katihar, eight in Supaul and five in Kishanganj, it said. Four persons have died each in Madhepura and Gopalganj, three in Darbhanga, and one each in Saharsa, Muzaffarpur and Saran, the statement said.

Rivers like Mahananda, Bakhra, Kankai, Parmar, Koshi and others have primarily caused inundation in Purnia, Kishanganj, Araria, Darbhanga, Madhepura, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Saharsa, Supaul, Gopalganj, East Champaran, West Champaran and Muzaffarpur districts.

According to latest reports, the Ganga is flowing above the danger mark in Kahalgaon (Bhagalpur), while Ghaghra river is flowing above the danger mark at some places in Siwan district.


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Cloud Precipitation

Rain pounds metro Phoenix, Arizona; flooding streets, freeway ramps


KTAR.com
Fri, 05 Aug 2016 19:29 UTC
Phoenix floods
© ADOTPhoenix floods
Heavy rains dropped on metro Phoenix on Friday morning, flooding streets freeways, soaking yards and anyone getting into or out of their cars.

The thunderous downpour covered the northwest Valley over Interstate 17 and scooted to Loop 101 in Scottsdale. Power was out to at least 17,000 households.

The ramp at Interstate 17 and Thomas Road was flooded and the area around Thunderbird Road and Seventh Street was swamped.

A flood advisory went into effect for a large chunk of the Valley, particularly Scottsdale, north Phoenix, Cave Creek and Carefree. The weather service tweeted out a warning to Scottsdale residents to move to higher ground.

A rain gauge at Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale had recorded over little over 2½ inches of rain by 10 a.m. and traffic signals were out all over the city, police said.


Floodwater
© John Sirlin
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Cloud Precipitation

Floods in Sudan kill 76, destroy thousands of houses; the Nile is at its highest levels in more than a century


Reuters (UK)
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 10:37 UTC
Sudan flooding
© YouTube/Al Jazeera English (screen capture)
Floods and heavy rain in Sudan have killed 76 people and destroyed thousands of homes in recent days, the interior minister said on Thursday.

Ismat Abdelrahman said 13 of Sudan's 18 provinces had been affected by flooding.

The Nile is at its highest levels in more than a century, swollen by heavy rain in many parts of the East African country, according to the water and irrigation ministry.

Interior ministry statistics showed downpours and flooding had completely destroyed 3,206 houses, and damaged 3,048 others in the eastern province of Kassala, one of the worst hit areas.

Sudan suffers from an underdeveloped infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, which makes it harder to cope with heavy rain and natural disasters.

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Info

Evidence found for a great flood that marks the beginning of China's civilization

JoAnna Wendel
Earth & Space Science News
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 18:01 UTC
New geological findings suggest that an ancient flood in a popular legend about the birth of China's civilization might have actually occurred, but some 150 years later than historians thought.
Jishi Gorge
© Wu QinglongThis photo shows Jishi Gorge upstream from the landslide dam. Gray silt deposits reveal an ancient, massive lake held by the dam.
In Chinese mythology, the tale of a great flood marks the beginning of the ancient civilization and the debut of China's first-ever, but possibly fictional, dynasty—the Xia Dynasty. Today, researchers published a paper in Science laying out geological evidence for a huge flood on the Yellow River almost 4000 years ago that may have inspired the origin story.

"The scientific evidence of this flood would lend support to parts of the legendary history," said Li Liu, an archaeologist at Stanford University in California and coauthor on the new paper. Specifically, the findings could lend credibility to arguments that the Xia Dynasty actually existed.

Yu the Great

The story of the Xia Dynasty starts with a flood that supposedly lasted 20 years. In ancient times, a man called Yu recruited villagers in the Yellow River valley to divert the waters that had been raging untamed for almost a decade. Over another decade, Yu and the villagers dug channels and tributaries that led the water to the sea.

Grateful countrymen crowned Yu the Great as their ruler. He started the dynastic tradition when he eventually passed his throne to his son. Modern scholars suggest that Yu's reign started in 2070 B.C.E.—if it existed at all.

Because Chinese texts made no mention of this story for the next millennium, some scholars reject the existence of the dynasty itself, said Wu Qinglong, a geologist at Peking University in Beijing and lead author of the paper.
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Cloud Precipitation

Localized flooding hits Fort McMurray, less than two months after devastating fires


Huffington Post Canada
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 05:20 UTC
Fort McMurray flooding
© Vincent McDermott / Postmedia NetworkA parking lot along Parent Way near Gregoire floods during heavy rainfall on Sunday, July 31, 2016
Less than two months after Fort McMurray, Alta., residents were allowed to return to the city after a devastating fire, the municipality has activated its emergency operations centre to deal with flooding.

The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo tweeted Sunday that people should restrict travel around Fort McMurray, and that anyone whose basements are susceptible to flooding should move their valuables to a safe place.

The tweets also pointed out that barricades have been placed on some roads, and warned that driving on flooded roads is dangerous due to the possibility of debris and slippery ground.

Darby Allen, director of emergency management for the municipality, said in an email that the region received around 85 millimetres in just two hours on Sunday.

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Cloud Precipitation

One dead, 100 rescued after flooding causes 'tremendous devastation' in Maryland

Phil Helsel, Elisha Fieldstadt and Matthew Johnson
NBC News
Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:21 UTC
One person drowned and more than 100 others had to be rescued after heavy rains caused "severe" damage in Maryland this weekend.

Six inches of rain fell in Ellicott City in three hours — causing "tremendous devastation," Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman said Sunday morning. He said in a statement that 120 people had to be rescued during the flooding.

But one woman in the city was killed when she was swept away by the flood waters, said Howard County press secretary Andy Barth. It's unclear whether she was in a car at the time.



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Cloud Precipitation

Pakistan: 27 dead as flash flood hit bus carrying wedding party

Abuzar Afridi
The Express Tribune
Sun, 31 Jul 2016 04:25 UTC
Pakistan wedding party flash flood
© AFP The fateful pickup van which was swept away in a flash flood, killing the wedding guests.
A flash flood triggered by monsoon rains swept away a pick-up truck carrying 30 wedding guests in Khyber Agency on Saturday, killing all but three of them.

Twenty-one among the dead were females with 18 of them children. Three more women and two other men died in the accident. All the victims were closely related, most of them from the same family. It was unclear whether the bride and groom were also travelling in the same wagon.

The bodies of the victims were retrieved from the stream by locals and rescuers and shifted to the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Landi Kotal. The vehicle was also recovered.

Khyber Agency Political Agent Khalid Mehmood told The Express Tribune the accident took place at around 6:30am in the Sra Shaga area of Zakakhel Bazaar, Landi Kotal.

The pickup truck was travelling on a path along a rainwater stream when a surge of water hit the vehicle. The wagon slipped into the stream and was washed away in the flash flood. "There were no warning signs as most of these nullah's have been dormant for long," Mehmood said.
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Cloud Precipitation

Yangtze river floods in China as seen from space

Richard Davies
Floodlist
Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:49 UTC
Yangtze River basin, China, 28 July 2016.
© NASAYangtze River basin, China, 28 July 2016.
NASA has released striking images showing China's Yangtze River basin floods from space.

High levels of rainfall began in June this year. By July 5, flooding and associated mudslides had affected 11 provinces, destroyed 40,000 homes, ruined more than 1.5 million hectares of crops, and killed 128 people.

Another burst of heavy rain arrived from the southeast when cyclone Nepartak made landfall in Fuijan province in mid-July. The storm destroyed tens of thousands of homes and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate. Meanwhile, weather systems arriving from the west continued to march across the Yangtze River Basin extending and exacerbating the flooding. By the end of July, provinces in northeastern China had been hit with widespread and destructive flooding.

Yangtze River basin, China, 27 March 2016.
© NASAYangtze River basin, China, 27 March 2016.
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Cloud Precipitation

Record-breaking rainfall prompts flood warnings for Tri-State counties


WCPO
Thu, 28 Jul 2016 15:00 UTC
Tri-State floods
© YouTube/Josh Purnell (screen capture)

Flood watch lasts until 8 a.m. Friday

By 9 a.m. Thursday, a 101-year-old weather record had fallen in the Queen City. The official weather station for the city at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport recorded a total of 1.46 inches of rain, breaking the previous record of 1.43 inches from 1915.

Heavier amounts fell north and east of Cincinnati, with 3.47 inches reported at Lunken Airport and 4.49 inches in Anderson Township.

Flood warnings were in effect for most of Thursday morning for parts of the Tri-State as torrential downpours moved through the area Thursday morning.

Around 5:20 a.m., the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for northern Campbell and Kenton counties in Kentucky and northern Clermont and southeastern Hamilton counties in Ohio. That warning expired at 8:15 a.m., when NWS issued a flood warning for the same areas until 11 a.m. Thursday.

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Cloud Lightning

Man hit by lightning as storm rips through Edmonton, Canada

Mack Lamoureux
cbc.ca
Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:19 UTC
A car is stranded in a flooded part of the Whitemud on Wednesday afternoon.
© Nicole TeeuwsenA car is stranded in a flooded part of the Whitemud on Wednesday afternoon.
Flooding so severe in some areas that boats had to rescue commuters from vehicles

A man was struck by lightning Wednesday as a sudden and violent thunderstorm raged through Edmonton.

Alberta Health Services confirmed the man was struck in south Edmonton at about 2:30 p.m. and was taken to hospital in stable condition.

Early in the afternoon, Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm warnings for Edmonton and the surrounding communities of Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Morinvillle, Big Lake and Villeneuve.

Those warnings have since been lifted.


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