Storms

U.S. Midwest could see strong windstorms from Derecho weather pattern

Dinesh Ramde
Associated Press via Yahoo News
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:38 UTC

The National Weather Service was tracking a so-called derecho weather pattern in the Midwest on Tuesday that could spawn severe windstorms in major metropolitan areas with gusts as strong as 100 mph. Derecho windstorms occur once every year or two across the central and northeastern U.S. in a band from Texas to New England. They pack hazardous winds of at least 75 mph or more and maintain their intensity for hours as they sweep across vast distances.

In some cases a derecho will spawn tornados and accompany storms that produce hail the size of golf balls. The current pattern could affect larger metropolitan areas in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the next two days, said Bill Bunting, a meteorologist in the agency's storm prediction center in Norman, Okla.

"We tend to be careful using the D word, but yes, a derecho is possible," Bunting said.

The weather service was predicting a chance of storm activity beginning in southern Montana and northeastern Wyoming on Tuesday afternoon. It was expected to sweep eastward, with a 30 percent chance of severe wind activity in a rectangle covering parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

"Thirty percent is pretty high in the world of predicting severe weather," said Paul Collar, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sullivan, Wis.

The storms could generate straight-line wind gusts of 70 mph or more. That's enough to rip shingles off a roof, knock down trees and even tip over semi-trailers. They could also cause flights to be delayed or canceled, said Collar, who added that commercial airlines have on-board navigation that allows pilots to navigate around the worst weather.

Thousands of Germans evacuate as dam on Elbe river breaks

Martin Schlicht and Oliver Keck
Reuters
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:07 UTC

Thousands of people left their homes in eastern Germany on Sunday as a dam burst on the swollen River Elbe and swathes of farmland were flooded in an attempt to spare towns, with meteorologists forecasting more rain. In Magdeburg, one of the oldest cities in eastern Germany and a regional capital, some 23,000 people were asked to evacuate as water levels in the Elbe rose to a record 7.48 meters, around 5 meters above normal and surpassing the level reached in devastating floods in 2002.

© REUTERS/Thomas Peter
A picture shows a broken dam (foreground) built to contain the swollen Elbe river during floods near the village of Fischbeck in the federal state of Saxony Anhalt, June 10, 2013.

"We helped yesterday to carry sandbags to secure the town. The mood is very depressed and frightened because many people have to leave their homes," said resident Liane Nagen.

There have been at least a dozen deaths as a result of floods that have hit Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic over the past week.

Officials said more than 8,000 people were evacuated by bus from towns and villages around Aken, south of Magdeburg. Some took their pets or farm animals with them.

Additional images

Massive waterspout off the southern coast of France shocks residents

The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:08 UTC

A natural phenomenon more common for America, a tornado, has hit the South of France shocking locals and holidaymakers on the Côte d'Azur, the Mediterranean coastline. As thousands in Central Europe are struggling to cope with devastating floods which have already claimed the lives of at least 21 people, a tornado ripped through the French Riviera on Sunday morning. The violently rotating column of air and water formed off the coast not far from popular resort towns of Cannes and Nice. The phenomenon was observed from the Cagnes-sur-Mer commune in southeastern France, rising off to Villeneuve-Loubet and Antibes, reports Nicematin.com. So far, no damage or injury has been reported. The incident is being widely discussed on social networking services where users - some of them freaked out others rather thrilled - share videos and photos of the "tornado." "OMG there was a mini tornado in my town today. In Nice!" tweeted user nicknamed Sachamallow. "There's been a tornado in Cannes. I bet the end of the world is approaching! we're all gonna die you, will see," noted @Amaandarine. - RT

Comment: Actually, in addition to several funnel clouds, there were at least two fully-formed waterspouts seen off the French Cote d'Azur that day, along with a land-based tornado:

The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning

Chris Hedges
Truth Dig
Sun, 09 Jun 2013 11:53 UTC

© AP/Patrick Semansky
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse at Fort Meade, Md., on Wednesday after the third day of his court-martial.

The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that detail the crimes, torture and killing Manning revealed, because they are classified, have been barred from discussion in court, effectively removing the fundamental issue of war crimes from the trial. Manning is forbidden by the court to challenge the government's unverified assertion that he harmed national security. Lead defense attorney David E. Coombs said during pretrial proceedings that the judge's refusal to permit information on the lack of actual damage from the leaks would "eliminate a viable defense, and cut defense off at the knees." And this is what has happened.

Manning is also barred from presenting to the court his motives for giving the website WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, and videos. The issues of his motives and potentially harming national security can be raised only at the time of sentencing, but by then it will be too late.

Extreme weather events and earth changes in May 2013

fidockave213
Youtube
Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:04 UTC

NASA satellite reveals tropical storm Andrea's towering thunderstorms

Rob Gutro
eurekalert.org
Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:10 UTC

This 3-D view from the west was derived from TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data captured when Andrea was examined by the TRMM satellite with the June 5, 2234 UTC (6:34 p.m. EDT) orbit. It clearly shows that the majority of the heavy convective rainfall was located on Andrea's eastern side. TRMM PR also showed that the tallest convective thunderstorms reached heights of about 14km (~8.7 miles). Credit: SSAI/NASA, Hal Pierce

Towering thunderstorms are a sign of a strong tropical cyclone, and NASA's TRMM satellite spotted thunderstorms reaching heights of almost 9 miles high within Tropical Storm Andrea. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared view that revealed very cold cloud top temperatures that coincided with the towering thunderstorms that TRMM saw.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the temperatures in Tropical Storm Andrea's cloud tops on June 6 at 2:41 a.m. EDT. The coldest cloud top temperatures (in excess of -63F/-52C) and heaviest precipitation was over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Florida at the time of the image.

© SSAI/NASA, Hal Pierce
On June 6, TRMM showed that Andrea had a large area of moderate to heavy rainfall in the northeast quadrant of the storm and precipitation was spreading over the state of Florida. The cloud cover extended over the northern half of Florida, but was out of range of TRMM's orbit.

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite flew directly above tropical storm Andrea on Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 0508 UTC (1:08 a.m. EDT). This orbit showed that Andrea had a large area of moderate to heavy rainfall in the northeast quadrant of the storm and precipitation was spreading over the state of Florida.

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hal Pierce of the TRMM Science Team used TRMM data create a 3-D view of Tropical Storm Andrea. The 3-D view from the west was derived from TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data captured when Andrea was examined by the TRMM satellite with the June 5, 2234 UTC (6:34 p.m. EDT) orbit. It clearly showed that the majority of the heavy convective rainfall was located on Andrea's eastern side. TRMM PR also showed that the tallest convective thunderstorms reached heights of about 14km (~8.7 miles).

Tropical Storm Andrea bearing down on Florida coast

Freida Frisaro
Associated Press
Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:06 UTC

Heavy rain was pouring across much of Florida early Thursday as the first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season headed toward the state's western coast and a new tropical storm warning was issued for a swath of the U.S. East Coast.

Tropical storm warnings were in effect for a large section of Florida's west coast from Boca Grande to Indian Pass and for the East Coast from Flagler Beach, Fla., all the way to Cape Charles Light in Virginia.

© NASA/NOAA
Andrea, the first named storm of the Atlantic season, forms over the Gulf of Mexico. The tropical storm is likely to bring wet weather to parts of Florida's west coast by the end of the week.

Tropical Storm Andrea's maximum sustained winds increased to near 60 mph (95 kph) and the storm was expected to make landfall in Florida's Big Bend area Thursday afternoon before moving across southeastern Georgia and the Carolinas. It was not expected to strengthen into a hurricane.

"The rain covers a good portion of the Florida peninsula even though the center is a couple of hundred miles off shore," said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Germany, Hungary, Austria...The floods that ravaged Central Europe - images

IndiaToday.in
Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:00 UTC

Shipping containers are partly immersed in water at the flooded harbour in Riesa in the federal state of Saxony after the Elbe river has broken its banks, June 5, 2013:

Additional images

Europe flooding - Elbe River surges into Dresden

Source
Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:53 UTC

Residents and emergency crews had worked through the night to fight the floods in Dresden. The German military and the national disaster team sent more support in a frantic effort to sandbag levees and riverbanks as floodwaters that have claimed 16 lives since last week surged north.

"Everybody's afraid but the people are simply fantastic and sticking together," said Dresden resident Silvia Fuhrmann, who had brought food and drinks to those building sandbag barriers.

The Elbe hit 28 feet, 9 inches around midday - well above its regular level of 6 1/2 feet. Still, that was not high enough to damage the city's famous opera, cathedral and other buildings in its historic city centre, which was devastated in a flood in 2002.

Germany has 60,000 local emergency personnel and aid workers, as well as 25,000 federal disaster responders and 16,000 soldiers now fighting the floods.

Further downstream, the town of Lauenburg - just southwest of Hamburg - evacuated 150 houses along the Elbe, n-tv news reported, as the floodwaters roared toward the North Sea.

Floods: Tips for preparation and survival

FEMA
Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:25 UTC

Floods are one of the most common hazards in the United States, however not all floods are alike. Some floods develop slowly, while others such a flash floods, can develop in just a few minutes and without visible signs of rain. Additionally, floods can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, affecting entire river basins and multiple states.

Flash floods can occur within a few minutes or hours of excessive rainfall, a dam or levee failure, or a sudden release of water held by an ice jam. Flash floods often have a dangerous wall of roaring water carrying rocks, mud and other debris. Overland flooding, the most common type of flooding event typically occurs when waterways such as rivers or streams overflow their banks as a result of rainwater or a possible levee breach and cause flooding in surrounding areas. It can also occur when rainfall or snowmelt exceeds the capacity of underground pipes, or the capacity of streets and drains designed to carry flood water away from urban areas.

Be aware of flood hazards no matter where you live or work, but especially if you are in low-lying areas, near water, behind a levee or downstream from a dam. Even very small streams, gullies, creeks, culverts, dry streambeds or low-lying ground that appear harmless in dry weather can flood.