Storms
S


Cloud Lightning

Stormageddon: 5,000 cutoff by landslides in Japan as death toll rises to 22

Shingo Ito
AAP
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:33 UTC
Troops are airlifting supplies to thousands of people cut off by landslides and torrential downpours that have killed at least 24 in southwest Japan as meteorologists warned of further heavy rain. Television footage on Sunday showed soldiers loading food, water and medical supplies onto military helicopters to send them to mountainous areas in Fukuoka prefecture on Kyushu island.

Read More...
Attention

China, Japan hit by torrential rains


Moscow Time
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 05:25 UTC
China Japan floods
© EPA
Scores of people were killed in flash floods caused by torrential rains in western China earlier this week, officials said on Sunday, adding that more than two million people were affected by the disaster.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Twisters in Poland kill one, hurt nine


RIA
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 04:46 UTC
tornado
© Flickr.com/chascar/cc-by
One person died and nine were injured when hurricanes and tornadoes ripped through northern Poland on Saturday, local media report.

Hailstorms and hurricanes have been raging in various parts of the country for more than week now. The authorities are estimating the damage.

Comment: Tornado in Poland 14 July 2012:



Read More...
Umbrella

Extreme weather: Drought turns to floods as Houston goes under water

Jason Samenow
Washington Post
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:24 UTC
Image
© US National Weather ServiceFour-day rainfall in Houston
Since Tuesday, 5-15" of rain has fallen around Houston producing many instances of flooding.

Heavy rain is drenching the water-plagued area now, and a flash flood warning is in effect through 2:45 p.m. local time.

Writes the SciGuy Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle:
There has already been substantial street flooding in downtown, where three inches of rain have fallen during the last three hours.
It's strange to be talking about flooding in Houston after last summer's historic drought there. Since Tuesday, much of the area has picked up more rain than it did all of last summer.

The Chronicle's Berger pronounced Houston's drought over on Wednesday.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

April 2012 saw record number of tornadoes in Oklahoma

Bryan Painter
News OK
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 02:18 UTC
Image
© @woodwardnews on TwitpicTornado strikes Woodward, Oklahoma on 15 April , leaving five people dead.
Timing rather than a trend seems to be the key as to why Oklahoma has broken the state record for tornadoes in the month of April the past two years, according to weather officials.

In April 2011, there were 50 confirmed tornadoes in Oklahoma, breaking a record for that month previously set with 40 in 1957. This April, there were 52 tornadoes in the state. So do those 102 in two years mean April bypasses May as the month for the biggest threat of twisters in Oklahoma?

No, say the experts as they look over the official state records for tornadoes that date to 1950.

Gary McManus, of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, said that to see if there is a change in our primary tornado season, you really have to look at the changes in the ingredients that form tornadoes. The weather patterns that have to come together are complex.
Read More...
Snowflake

Snow and rain causes chaos across South Africa


IOL News
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:56 UTC
Several serious incidents have been reported as the rain and snowfall gripped some parts of the country, the Road Traffic Management Centre (RTMC) said on Saturday.

RTMC spokesman Ashraf Ismail said three people were killed and two others injured in an accident on the N6 between Jamestown and Queenstown.

In the Western Cape, a search party for an ambulanc
Image
© Bongiwe Mchunu
e that had gone missing was launched.

"The ambulance left Beaufort West earlier today and was on route to Loxton. It's unclear what became of it," said Ismail.

Rescue workers were also trying to get to a bus that was stuck in the snow in the Three Sisters area. The bus was carrying 60 passengers.

The RTMC has called on motorists to exercise caution on the roads and delay their trips until the troubling weather subsides.
Read More...
Snowflake

Snowfall in South Africa blocks main highways


The Voice of Russia
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 13:07 UTC
snow south africa
© EPA
Heavy snow in South Africa has triggered the closure of two of its main highways which link the capital Pretoria and nearby Johannesburg in the country's north to Cape Town in the south, the local Road Traffic Management reports.

According to the officials, there are no alternative bypass routes.

Forecasters have warned that the snowfall is likely to continue throughout the day.

Source: Agence France-Presse
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Torrential rains kill 20 and displace 3 million in China


Indian Express
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 10:58 UTC
Heavy storms battered many parts of China over the last two days, killing 20 people and affecting more than 3 million others, officials have said. The storms swept across 15 counties and cities, causing floods and landslides. In eastern province of Shandong, four people have died, and more than 100,000 forced to evacuate from low lying areas, Xinhua reported. More than 3 million people have been affected in the province.

Floods have inundated crops, damaged houses and killed livestock. The disaster has caused an economic loss of more than 1.5 billion yuan (around USD 240 million). Eight people were killed on Friday after rainstorms triggered landslides in the city of Liupanshui in southwest China's Guizhou Province, the city government said.

Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Search resumes for 4 missing in massive landslide in southeastern British Columbia - hope languishing


CBC
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 10:55 UTC

Canada - The search for four people assumed caught in Thursday's landslide in southeastern B.C. resumed Friday afternoon and was to continue until dark, and then resume at first light Saturday morning, officials say.

More landslides earlier Friday had delayed the ground search for a father, his two adult daughters and a German woman believed to be trapped by a landslide that roared down a mountainside in southeastern B.C.

RCMP said there had been further slides in the area, and because of that searchers had to wait for geotechnicians to assess the safety of the terrain before they went in.

Bill Macpherson, spokesman for the Central Kootenay Regional District, said engineers gave the go-ahead, although there was no certainty the danger had passed.

"In spite of ongoing debris movement and continued slope instability, the search of the landslide at Johnsons Landing has resumed this afternoon at approximately14:15 hours [PT]," Macpherson said in a statement Friday afternoon.
Read More...
Umbrella

5-mile-long landslide in Alaska national park

Miguel Llanos
MSNBC
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:05 UTC
Image
© Glacier Bay National ParkRock and debris from a landslide lie along five miles of what had been an ice-white glacier inside Glacier Bay National Park.
A massive landslide sent tons of rock and debris tumbling more than five miles down a glacier in Alaska, the National Park Service reported in an event that could be yet another sign of a warming world.

Located in a remote area of Glacier Bay National Park, the slide was so big it registered on earthquake monitors as a magnitude 3.4 event.

Officials noticed the monitor blip on June 11 but it wasn't until July 2 that a pilot passing over the site took photos that showed just how large it was, Glacier Bay National Park announced on its Facebook page.

Larger landslides have happened over geologic history, Marten Geertsema, a natural hazards researcher for the Forest Service in nearby British Columbia, told msnbc.com, but it certainly was "one of the longest runout landslides on a glacier in Alaska and Canada in recent times."
Read More...