Storms
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Snowman

Wisconsin, US: Slush and Snow Sticking Around into Wednesday

Lyssa Beyer
Port Washington-Saukville Patch
Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Lyssa BeyerSnow fell on Port Washington despite the fact that April is almost over, covering cars in white and forcing drivers to bust out their scrapers.
Port Washington and Saukville are covered in white again after a wintry storm Tuesday.

The National Weather Service predicts a 100 percent chance of precipation in Port Washington and Saukville as we look into the overnight hours.

Tonight, residents can expect "rain showers, possibly mixed with snow and sleet before 10 p.m.; then rain, possibly mixed with snow showers between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.; then periods of snow after 1 a.m," according to the National Weather Service. Thunder is also possible tonight, and has already been heard throughout the area this afternoon.

Will it be over by Wednesday? Well, maybe.
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Snowman

Canada: Record breaking snow for Calgary

Jill Colton
The Weather Network
Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:54 UTC
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© unknown
Calgary smashed a one-day snowfall record on Thursday -- breaking a record that's been holding strong for 110 years.

Does April snow bring May flowers?

Calgary residents are probably wondering what happened to spring after 23 cm was noted at Calgary International Airport on Thursday -- breaking the record for the most snowfall on April 14. The last time the city saw that much of a wallop on the same day was back in 1901 (17.8 cm).

Other areas throughout the city actually saw upwards of 30 cm pile up.

According to Environment Canada, a weather disturbance from BC moved into southern Alberta on Wednesday evening, bringing heavy snow into the foothills.

Despite the fact the calendar says April, other parts of Alberta also reported accumulations including: Edmonton International Airport (8 cm), Red Deer (11 cm), Lethbridge (6-17 cm), Cochrane (10-12 cm) and Stony Plain (16 cm).

Although it's spring, this type of weather isn't unusual for Alberta. "Some of the highest snow totals for Calgary happen in April and May, which is why this isn't a shock for residents," says Rob Davis, another meteorologist here at The Weather Network.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Tornadoes, flash floods, hail tear through six states; 39 people dead

Meredith Kolodner
New York Daily News
Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:56 UTC
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© Jim R. Bounds/APEmergency personnel work around a Lowes Home Improvement store after it was hit by a tornado in Sanford, N.C., Saturday.
The massive storm system ripping through the South had killed 39 people in six states as of Sunday morning, and the death toll was expected to rise.

The wave of tornadoes, flash floods and chunks of hail began in Oklahoma on Thursday, killing people there before it claimed lives in Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and North Carolina.

North Carolina's governor declared a state of emergency after 62 tornadoes touched down, the most in two decades.

Ten people were already confirmed dead in Bertie County, a hamlet of 21,000 people about 130 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina, county manager Zee Lamb said.

The tornado crashed through at about 7 p.m. on Saturday, destroying homes and sending cars flying through the air as they drove along the county's small rural roads.
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Bizarro Earth

US: After Storms, a Path of Death and Damage

Kim Ssverson
The New York Times
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:00 UTC
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© James Robinson/The Fayetteville Observer, via Associated PressA tornado ripped apart a home in Fayetteville, N.C. At least 23 people were reported dead throughout the state.
The reality of the devastation of a storm that sent more than 200 tornadoes ripping across the South, killing at least 45 people and causing millions of dollars in damage, began to sink in Monday morning.

In North Carolina, where the storm killed at least 23 people and put hundreds in the hospital, federal and local emergency workers were fanning out to the areas hardest hit and residents were scrambling to figure out how to help their neighbors or, for the dozens who lost their homes, how to start over.

In the Raleigh area, the police kept residents from a mobile home park with about 200 homes where three young siblings were killed. In sections of this city of about 400,000, several major buildings were damaged and several schools and government offices were closed for the day. Traffic into downtown Raleigh was snarled.

In rural areas, downed cellphone towers and severed utility lines were likely to hamper clean-up efforts.

The storm, which began Wednesday in Oklahoma and charged east for the rest of the week, brought winds as high as 165 miles per hour and spread challenging weather from New York to South Carolina.
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Bizarro Earth

Can a Tornado Have More Than One Funnel?

Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:33 UTC


A deadly three-day storm spawned a reported 267 tornadoes over the weekend, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. But not all of these were single funnel clouds - some were what you might call tornado twins and triplets.

Storm chasers following the course of the raging storm captured spectacular footage of a phenomenon called a multivortex tornado as the storm barreled through Oklahoma. In these twisters, multiple funnel clouds rotate around each other in a single storm.

The multivortex twister - one of five confirmed tornadoes that hit Oklahoma on April 14 - was the largest, an EF-3 tornado on the Enhanced-Fujita tornado damage scale. It had winds of up to 165 mph (266 kph) and killed two people near the towns of Tushka and Atoka.

Oklahoma is in the heart of Tornado Alley, where textbook tornadoes form when warm, moist Gulf of Mexico air collides with cool, northern air, creating massive storms. The warm air rises and hits wind shear, a layer of the atmosphere where the winds change direction over a short height and create rotation - think of a pinwheel with air pushing in opposite directions on the top and bottom.
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Bad Guys

Storm Dumped Record Rainfall On Philly


Myfoxphilly.com
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:01 UTC
Storm Dumped Record Rainfall On Philly: MyFoxPHILLY.com

Philadelphia - The same storm system that spawned more than 240 tornadoes to the South brought record rainfall to Philadelphia and other areas.

The rain caused widespread flooding and power outages, and spawning high winds and prompted tornado warnings.
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Bizarro Earth

Camp Lejeune housing community ravaged by storm

Hope Hodge
Jdnews.com
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:55 UTC
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© John Althouse/The Daily NewsA home along Hagaru Drive aboard Tarawa Terrace II, stands damaged after a tornado passed through the area late Saturday night.
North Carolina - Following a Saturday night tornado that tore through Camp Lejeune's Tarawa Terrace, residents of the base family housing area wandered around in the sunlight Sunday morning examining the devastation.

The storm's aftermath was astonishing: Roofs were ripped cleanly off of brand-new base houses while other adjoining homes were left unscathed. Gaping holes in apartments left dining rooms and breakfast nooks exposed, and in one cul-de-sac, three cars were stacked against each other like fallen dominoes, with another flipped on its side only yards away.

According to Lejeune officials, upwards of 130 homes aboard Tarawa Terrace I and II were affected, between 40 and 60 of them heavily damaged in the storm and at least 10 effectively destroyed.
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Igloo

US: Winter storm watch issued for northern Wisconsin

Meg Jones
Journal Sentinel
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:54 UTC
While southeast Wisconsin saw a few flakes Monday, central Wisconsin could see a shovel-worthy winter storm Tuesday.

Forecasters don't have a clear picture of where the storm will go, but if the system targets central Wisconsin, it could bring 6 to 10 inches of snow to the area, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service forecast calls for possible snow at the beginning of Tuesday in the south. The precipitation should turn to rain in southeast Wisconsin later in the day and could switch back to snow at the end of the system.That storm system, which is organizing in the West, could reach Wisconsin by Tuesday night.

The total accumulation in southeast Wisconsin could reach 1 or 2 inches.

"We'll be dealing with a good chance of precipitation through Wednesday," weather service meteorologist Penny Zabel said.
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Camcorder

US: Gotta Watch: Surviving the storm


CNN
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:31 UTC
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© unknown
Fast-moving storms ripped through the Southeast over the weekend, spawning tornadoes that flattened parts of North Carolina. The storm killed at least 45 people in six states, including Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.

In today's Gotta Watch, we're looking at the aftermath of the devastating weather system that crippled the region.

Inside the storm - Get an inside look of the storm that killed 22 people in North Carolina and leveled parts of that state. The damage was so severe, it nearly wiped out an entire rural town.
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Cloud Lightning

17 killed, 150 injured in China hailstorm

Stephen McDonell
ABC News
Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:08 UTC
Seventeen people have been killed, more than 150 injured and many millions affected by strong storms in southern China.

Driving rain, gales and hailstorms have caused havoc in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

China Central Television has already estimated economic losses of around $8 million.

The strong storms dumped more than 50 millimetres of rain on China's industrial belt known as the "factory of the world".
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