Storms
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Better Earth

US: Flooding Cuts Off Montana Town, More Rain Forecast

Matthew Brown
Seattle PI
Tue, 24 May 2011 05:05 UTC
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© Billings Gazette, Paul Ruhter/APA man walks across South Canal Road in Huntley, Mont. on Sunday, May 22, 2011 as flood water from Pryor Creek inundates a neighborhood and spills over into a canal. Widespead flooding also closed Interstate 90 from Hardin, Mont. to Ranchester, Wyo.
Billings - More rain is on tap this week for Montana communities besieged with flooding that has isolated a town near the Wyoming border, claimed at least one life and left another person missing, state and local authorities said Monday.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer declared a statewide emergency as broad areas of southeastern Montana remained underwater.

Rural communities in southeastern Montana, including the Crow Reservation, were hardest hit, authorities said.

In Carbon County, 84-year-old Betty Kebschull was killed after she was caught in rising waters from an unnamed creek.

Kebschull was swept a short distance downstream from her house near Boyd, where authorities found her body Saturday, Deputy Coroner Ben Mahoney said. A Monday autopsy confirmed she drowned.

In Yellowstone County, authorities were searching for a man reported missing after a backhoe he was operating tipped into Pryor Creek.
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Attention

Summer? What Summer? Scotland Battered by 100mph Winds


Daily Record
Mon, 23 May 2011 16:31 UTC
Scotland wind blown lorry
High winds brought chaos to Scotland's transport network today as falling trees blocked main routes.

Roads, rail, air and ferry services were all affected as winds gusting 100mph were recorded in central Scotland.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes kill 40 in Bangladesh


IOL News
Tue, 24 May 2011 14:42 UTC
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Dhaka - Lightning strikes during a heavy rainstorm in Bangladesh killed at least 40 people and injured more than 150, most of them harvesting rice in fields or fishing, police and officials said on Tuesday.

The deaths, the largest number of casualties from lightning in a single day, occurred on Monday. Ten people died in northwestern Chapainawabganj district.

Rainstorms ahead of the monsoon season starting in May or June often bring electric storms that kill residents and damage crops.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Nursing Home Lost At Least 11 in Joplin Twister


MSNBC
Tue, 24 May 2011 14:00 UTC
As death toll in tornado-ripped city hits 117, people brace for possible second punch from new storm system. Searches continue ahead of new storms; 1,500 people unaccounted for

Joplin, Missouri - As rescue crews in this city made their way through the debris of thousands of homes and concrete slabs where large stores once stood, the death toll crept higher and a nursing home operator reported that at least 11 of the fatalities were at its premises.

"What used to be a building was nothing more than a pile of rubble," said Bill Mitchell, who operated Greenbriar on the city's south side. Ten victims were residents and the 11th was a staff member, he added. One person remains unaccounted for.


"One of the little old men from the nursing home was standing in the middle of the street when we came out of the house," neighbor Sandy Conlee told the Joplin Globe in describing the aftermath. "He had blood all over his head. He was in shock."
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Bizarro Earth

US: 2011 Tornado Death Toll Is Worst Since 1953

Andrea Mustain
OurAmazingPlanet
Tue, 24 May 2011 11:06 UTC
Tornado
© NOAATornadoes have killed hundreds of people so far this year.
2011 has a grim new place in the record books: the deadliest year for tornadoes in more than five decades, with 482 people killed by the storms as of this writing.

It's the highest number of fatalities from tornadoes since 1953, when twisters killed 519 people, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the home agency of the National Weather Service.

As of Tuesday morning, the death toll from the devastating tornado that smashed through Joplin, Mo. on Sunday (May 22) had risen to 117, and could continue to rise as officials sort through the wreckage of the town, home to almost 50,000 people.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Joplin survivors recall '15 minutes of hell'


boston.com
Tue, 24 May 2011 11:05 UTC
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© Eric Thayer/ ReutersRyan Harper paused while looking for a missing friend after a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Mo. yesterday.
Rod Pace, manager of the medical helicopter service at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin had just finished payroll paperwork Sunday evening when he decided to stay an extra 15 to 20 minutes to let the menacing weather pass.

From the second floor, he watched the storm approach. The swirling rain began to form about a mile away.

Then the glass doors he was holding onto - with a 100-pound magnet to keep them locked - were suddenly pulled open. Pace was sucked outside briefly and then pushed back in like a rag doll, all the while clinging to the handles.
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Cloud Lightning

US: 116 Dead from Missouri Tornado; More Twisters Possible


CNN
Tue, 24 May 2011 03:01 UTC

While rescuers scramble to dig out any remaining survivors from a weekend tornado that killed 116, residents in Joplin, Missouri, are bracing for the possibility of more tornadoes on Tuesday.

"There's no way to figure out how to pick up the pieces as is," Sarah Hale, a lifelong Joplin resident, said Tuesday. "We have to have faith the weather will change."

The National Weather Service warned there was a 45% chance of another tornado outbreak -- with the peak time between 4 p.m. and midnight Tuesday -- over a wide swath including parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska and Missouri.

Joplin is also in the area.

But if Monday's rescue efforts are any indication, even severe weather might not hamper the search for survivors.

City Manager Mark Rohr told reporters that more than 40 agencies are on the ground in the southwest Missouri city, with two first responders struck by lightning as they braved relentless rain and high winds searching for survivors.

By Monday night, they found 17 people alive. But many, including Will Norton, remain missing.

The 18-year-old was driving home from his high school graduation Sunday when the tornado destroyed the Hummer H3 he and his father were in.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Tornado Grew with Rare Speed on Way to Joplin

Andrea Mustain
Live Science
Mon, 23 May 2011 12:19 UTC


The deadly tornado that ripped through Joplin, Mo., Sunday evening, killing at least 89 people, intensified with unprecedented speed, according to storm trackers.

The supercell thunderstorm that produced the devastating twister formed over Kansas. The National Weather Service received its first report of the tornado at 5:34 p.m. local time, from west of the Missouri-Kansas border.

Seven minutes later, there were reports of a tornado within Joplin's city limits, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) east of the first sighting.

"Every storm is a little different, but this storm went from what was just a funnel cloud to a very strong, very large and very wide and obviously very damaging tornado in a very short time," in under 10 minutes, said Andy Boxell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Mo.

"It's something that I've not seen personally, and certainly it's a rare thing to see," Boxell told OurAmazingPlanet.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Deadly tornado crashes through north Minneapolis

B. McAuliffe, R. Furst, P. Walsh & H.M. Estrada
Star Tribune
Mon, 23 May 2011 10:03 UTC
Powerful storm blew into metro, killing 1, injuring 30 and putting North Side under curfew.

Two days of threatening skies turned furious over the Twin Cities on Sunday, unleashing at least three tornado touchdowns in the metro area, killing one person in Minneapolis, injuring at least 30 others, knocking out power to thousands and leading to a curfew and school closings in north Minneapolis.

The massive, slow-moving storm also caused major damage in other metro communities, most significantly St. Louis Park and Fridley.

In the hardest-hit area, Minneapolis' Jordan neighborhood, downed trees, snapped power lines and pieces of roofs littered streets and yards. The smell of natural gas led police to call people out of some homes. Roads were blocked and residents scrambled to find loved ones; close to 200 or so people displaced by the storm made their way to an emergency shelter at the Northeast Armory, near Broadway and Central Avenue.

Mayor R.T. Rybak described the damage as "widespread and significant" after he and City Council President Barbara Johnson viewed it from a helicopter.
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Recycle

US: Governor tours La Crosse tornado damage


Chicago Tribune
Mon, 23 May 2011 13:56 UTC
La Crosse, Wis.- Gov. Scott Walker is in La Crosse to tour the damage caused by Sunday's tornado.

Walker says his heart goes out to everyone affected by the storm and says he's grateful no one was seriously injured. Walker toured damaged neighborhoods by car Monday afternoon.

At least 200 homes and businesses were damaged by the tornado, which was part of the same big storm system that spawned the deadly tornadoes around the Midwest.

National Weather Service meteorologist Glenn Lussky said preliminary assessments from field crews show the powerful storm was in fact a tornado and possibly an EF1.

Comment: Enhanced Fujita Scale: EF1 is an indicator on a scale of EF0-EF5. An EF1 scale Storm has sustained winds of 86 - 110MPH or 138 - 178km/h.

More info can be obtained here.

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