Residents of Irricana, are cleaning up after a monster thunderstorm rolled through town July 6, leaving more than a foot of hail in its wake.
Life-long residents are stunned as photos and stories emerge of the devastation of the storm.
"Never in all my years," David Butters, resident of Irricana since 1974 said, while showing off the flooding and destruction along First Street. "I've never seen anything like this."
He's not the only one.
Storms
'Very anomalous weather pattern' - Heat wave building into the Ohio Valley and eastern United States
A very anomalous weather pattern is in place over the U.S. for mid-July. Trapped between an upper level ridge centered over the Ohio Valley and the closed upper level low over the Texas/Oklahoma border, atypical hot, muggy air is stifling a broad swath of the eastern U.S. The closed low is expected to drift west toward New Mexico bringing heavy, localized rain to some areas and temperatures running 10-20 degrees below mid-July averages. Across the east, temperatures will warm well into the 90's and stay there through the week. This image was taken by the GOES East satellite at 12:45 p.m. EDT on July 15, 2013.
© NOAA/NASA
A low pressure system that started in the Eastern United States has retrograded under a ridge of high pressure to the north over the last couple of days. This system is moving from east to west, which is extremely unusual for this hemisphere. We've seen these move east to west for a short period of time, but this one will make it to Southern California by the time it weakens.
The upper level system is known as an easterly wave, however I'd like to call it a super easterly wave based on the distance it is going to travel. This particular system will have traveled from one side of the country to the other once it has stopped moving west, diving from there into Mexico, gathering up monsoonal moisture to be put into Nevada and Southern California later in the week into next week.
Rainfall estimations across parts of Central Texas could be over 2-4″ of rain, with more rain (above 6+" possible in parts of South-Central Texas. Severe storms, including tornadoes, hail, and damaging winds will be possible from Texas, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona through the next few days.
Rainfall estimations across parts of Central Texas could be over 2-4″ of rain, with more rain (above 6+" possible in parts of South-Central Texas. Severe storms, including tornadoes, hail, and damaging winds will be possible from Texas, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona through the next few days.
India officially declared on Monday that nearly 6,000 people were missing a month after flash floods ravaged large parts of its northern state of Uttarakhand, but stopped short of saying they were presumed dead.
The figure of 5,748, based on tallies of missing persons from around the country, was the first official estimate following weeks in which the numbers of dead and missing fluctuated wildly from a few hundred to several thousand.
Their families will now be eligible for financial relief, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna told a news conference, adding that his government would pay 150,000 rupees ($2,500) to families in the state, besides compensation from the federal government.
"We are not getting into the controversy whether the missing persons are dead or not," said Bahuguna. "We are abiding by what the families of the victims say, and if they think that they haven't come back and have no hope as well, (then) we are providing them monetary relief."
The official death toll still stands at 580, an official of the National Disaster Management Authority told Reuters. More than 4,600 of the missing in Uttarakhand had come from elsewhere in India, said the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The figure of 5,748, based on tallies of missing persons from around the country, was the first official estimate following weeks in which the numbers of dead and missing fluctuated wildly from a few hundred to several thousand.
Their families will now be eligible for financial relief, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna told a news conference, adding that his government would pay 150,000 rupees ($2,500) to families in the state, besides compensation from the federal government.
© REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Posters of missing people, caused by the flash floods and landslides, are placed on a gate as an Indian Air Force helicopter lands at a base in Dehradun, in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand June 26, 2013.
Posters of missing people, caused by the flash floods and landslides, are placed on a gate as an Indian Air Force helicopter lands at a base in Dehradun, in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand June 26, 2013.
The official death toll still stands at 580, an official of the National Disaster Management Authority told Reuters. More than 4,600 of the missing in Uttarakhand had come from elsewhere in India, said the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Flood waters entered over 100 villages in Bihar in the past 24 hours, forcing people to abandon their homes, as many rivers in the state rose and posed a threat to other villages too, officials said Thursday. All the inundated villages are in the flood-prone districts of Purnea, Araria, Kishanganj, Muzaffarpur and Katihar. "Flood waters entered more than 100 villages of Amaur block in Purnea, Forbesganj and Sikti in Araria and Kochadham in Kishanganj. In Muzaffarpur, dozens of villages were inundated in Aurai and Katra blocks," an official of the state disaster management department said.
The department officials told IANS that fear of floods is gripping villages again in Bihar, with water levels rising in several rivers following heavy rain in the state and in the catchment areas in neighbouring Nepal. "Water levels in the Mahananda, Bagmati, Kamla Balan, Gandak, Bodhi Gandak and Kosi rivers are showing rising trend over the past two days, threatening hundreds of villages in over half a dozen districts," the official said. An unconfirmed report said that at least eight people, including three schoolgirls, have drowned in the flood water.
Shane Dunstan shot video of an apparent tornado in the Mansfield/Storrs area on Wednesday afternoon.
The National Weather Service determined that an EF-1 tornado came through Andover and Coventry and into Mansfield, last night, but the storm that came through Tolland was a microburst.
This was the fourth tornado to hit Connecticut since last Monday.
The storm touched down in the area of East Street in Andover around 5:19 p.m., and caused damage for 11.2 miles, before diminishing around 5:51 p.m.
Winds of 90 miles per hour traveled north and east, into Coventry and the tornado ended near Clover Hill Road in Mansfield, according to the National Weather Service.
This was the fourth tornado to hit Connecticut since last Monday.
The storm touched down in the area of East Street in Andover around 5:19 p.m., and caused damage for 11.2 miles, before diminishing around 5:51 p.m.
Winds of 90 miles per hour traveled north and east, into Coventry and the tornado ended near Clover Hill Road in Mansfield, according to the National Weather Service.
The typhoon, packing gusts of up to 227 kilometers (140 miles) per hour, was 960 kilometers east of the island's southernmost tip as of 0300 GMT, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said. Soulik is moving west-northwest towards Taiwan at about 22 kilometers per hour and could narrowly skip or make landfall in the north of the island sometime between late Friday and Saturday morning, the bureau said. "The public must heighten their vigilance as the typhoon will certainly bring strong winds and heavy rains," a weather forecaster told AFP. Authorities on Thursday evacuated 2,300 tourists from Green Island, off the southeastern city of Taitung, and issued a warning to ships sailing north and east off Taiwan to take special precaution. The Hong Kong Observatory has classified Soulik as a "super typhoon" on its website, while Taiwan's weather bureau listed it as a "strong typhoon."
On the Chinese mainland, meteorological authorities maintained an orange alert - the second-highest level - for Soulik on Thursday, Beijing's official Xinhua news agency reported. After hitting or passing Taiwan on Saturday Soulik is expected to head towards the coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, bringing "extremely strong" winds, it cited the National Meteorological Center as saying. In August 2009 Typhoon Morakot killed about 600 people in Taiwan, most of them buried in huge landslides in the south, in one of the worst natural disasters to lash the island in recent years. -Physics
On the Chinese mainland, meteorological authorities maintained an orange alert - the second-highest level - for Soulik on Thursday, Beijing's official Xinhua news agency reported. After hitting or passing Taiwan on Saturday Soulik is expected to head towards the coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, bringing "extremely strong" winds, it cited the National Meteorological Center as saying. In August 2009 Typhoon Morakot killed about 600 people in Taiwan, most of them buried in huge landslides in the south, in one of the worst natural disasters to lash the island in recent years. -Physics
Flooding in western China, the worst in 50 years for some areas, triggered a landslide Wednesday that buried about 30 people, trapped hundreds in a highway tunnel and destroyed a high-profile memorial to a devastating 2008 earthquake. Meanwhile, to the northeast, at least 12 workers were killed when a violent rainstorm caused the collapse of an unfinished coal mine workshop they were building, said a statement from the city government of Jinzhong, where the accident occurred. The accident Tuesday night came amid heavy rain and high winds across a swath of northern China, including the capital, Beijing. There was no immediate word on the chances of survival for the 30 or so people buried in the landslide in the city of Dujiangyan in Sichuan province, but rescue workers with search dogs rushed to the area, the official Xinhua News Agency said. State-run China Central Television said hundreds of people were trapped in a highway tunnel between Dujiangyan and Wenchuan - the epicenter of the earthquake five years ago that left 90,000 people dead or missing.
Floods that caused billions of dollars in losses were the world's most expensive natural disasters so far this year, with central Europe being hit hardest, re-insurers Munich Re said on Tuesday. Altogether, natural catastrophes - also including earthquakes, tornadoes and heat waves - caused $45 billion in losses in the first half of 2013, well below the 10-year average of $85 billion. Insured losses worldwide totaled about $13 billion, said Munich Re. Inland flooding that affected parts of Europe, Asia, Canada and Australia caused about 47 percent of overall global losses and 45 percent of insured losses, said the leading reinsurance company based in Munich, Germany. The deadliest disaster out of 460 recorded "natural hazard events" worldwide was a series of flash floods in northern India and Nepal that killed more than 1,000 people in June after early and exceptionally heavy monsoon rains.
By far the most expensive natural disaster was the river flooding that hit southern and eastern Germany and neighboring countries in May and June, causing more than $16 billion in damage, most of it in Germany. "The frequency of flood events in Germany and central Europe has increased by a factor of two since 1980," said Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek. In some places, 400 liters of rain per square meter fell within a few days. With the ground already saturated from the rainiest spring in half a century, this led to rapid swelling of the Danube and Elbe river systems. Peter Hoeppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research unit, said in a statement that "it is evident that days with weather conditions that lead to such flooding are becoming more frequent."
In the case of 2013 weather, the truth is this: It has rained in near record volumes in the metro Atlanta area, according to the National Weather Service. We had more rain through July 8 this year than we had in all of 2012. Same is true for all of 2011.
Let's look at the stats, courtesy of Keith Stellman, meteorologist in charge at the Peachtree City-based weather service. Atlanta is on pace to have its wettest year ever. These records, by the way, extend back to 1879. Through July 8, the official site at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport recorded 41.28 inches of rain. At that pace, Atlanta would reach 79.72 inches by December 31, eclipsing the highest marks to date -- 71.18 in 1948 and 69.43 in 2009. The 2009 year was pushed by a "once in 500 years flood" that crippled the city for a week in September.
But of course, that's only pace and assumes rain at the same frequency and volume, which may be unlikely. Because the pace and volume have indeed been extraordinary.
"If we simply get average rainfall the remainder of the year and no more rain in July, we will get into the top 10 wettest years on record with 61 inches of rain," said Stellman. In addition, there are only seven years on record that have had more rain through July than we have had in Atlanta, and that's with 2013 records only through July 8.
