Storms
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Cloud Lightning

Landslides, Floods Kill 76 in Southern Bangladesh

Farid Hossain
ABC News
Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
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© ReutersThe rescue operation has been hampered by the heaviness of the rainfall
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Landslides and floods caused by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 76 people in southern Bangladesh and rescuers Wednesday were searching for more missing, officials said.

Three days of rain had hit the region of small hills and forests, and huge chunks of earth and mud buried flimsy huts where families were sleeping late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Many homeless people live at the foot of the hills or close to them despite warnings from authorities.

Monsoon floods are common in Bangladesh, a delta nation of 160 million people. Many of the dead were women and children, and the death toll is likely to rise as rescuers are searching for several missing people, officials said.

Volunteers using loudspeakers had warned people about the danger of landslides during the recent monsoon rains, said Jaynul Bari, a government administrator in one of the stricken areas, Cox's Bazar district. The floods inundated dozens of villages and were disrupting communications in the region.
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Bizarro Earth

Floods cut part of main interstate highway as Debby storms over Florida - total of 2 feet of rain possible by weekend


CBS News
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:36 UTC
Parts of the main interstate highway across northern Florida were closed by flooding Tuesday as Tropical Storm Debby hung stubbornly offshore over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening up to two feet of rain in places.

After raking Florida's Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, Debby promised to bring more of the same in the coming days as it drifted on a path forecast to take it over the state and east into the Atlantic by Friday.

The National Hurricane Center said Debby was about 85 miles west of Cedar Key, Florida, and moving eastward near 3 mph. It had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph, barely tropical-storm status.

But the wind, high surf and relentless rain have made the storm's presence felt.

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Bizarro Earth

Update: Uganda tragedy: 450 people missing and believed to be buried under mountains of mud


BBC News
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:51 UTC
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© Peter Busomoke/AFP/Getty ImagesUgandan soldiers and relatives search for victims of a landslide in Bududa in 2010.
Rescue workers in Uganda have abandoned efforts to find an estimated 70 people believed to be buried in a landslide. Eighteen people have been confirmed dead after three villages were swept away on the slopes of Mount Elgon. Uganda's Red Cross told the BBC efforts were now concentrating on looking after the injured and displaced.

In March 2010, thousands were forced to flee after after a landslide killed more than 350 people in Uganda's eastern Bududa district.

'Many cracks'

Ken Kiggundu, director of disaster management for Uganda's Red Cross, told the BBC that 72 people were still missing. He added that 480 had been displaced and were now living with relatives and friends following Monday's landslide, which occurred after a number of days of heavy rain. "At 2pm, the ground trembled, followed by heavy rumbling of soil and stones which covered our home," Rachael Namwono, a villager in Bududa district, told Uganda's private Monitor newspaper.
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Cloud Lightning

80 Percent Of Lightning Strike Victims Are Male, But Why?

Eyder Peralta
NPR
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:53 UTC
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© Dr. Scott M. Lieberman/APLightning streaks across the sky in Tyler, Texas, as a powerful line of thunderstorms moved across the state in April.
This tweet from the National Weather Service caught our attention, today:
"More than 80% of lightning victims are male. Be a force of nature by knowing your risk, taking action and being an example"
Eighty percent seemed to us pretty significant, so we turned to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and asked, "Why?"

Susan Buchanan, a NOAA spokeswoman, said the agency had not conducted any formal studies, but NOAA and its partners had batted around a few theories.

- First, men take more risks than women. "If you look at the percentage of men who take part in high risk sports, that might give you an idea," said Buchanan.

- Men typically spend more time outside.

- Men, said Buchanan, don't want to be seen as "wimps." This theory, she said, was backed up by talking to the Boy Scouts, who said no one wants to be the one to say it's time to go inside.
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Bizarro Earth

Tropical Storm Debby Breaks Record with Early Debut

Andrea Mustain
OurAmazingPlanet
Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:01 UTC
Tropical Storm Debby
© NOAAA ghostly Tropical Storm Debby is drenching Florida and surrounding regions.
An unusually early spate of tropical storms has been keeping forecasters busy this year, and now Tropical Storm Debby, the fourth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, has set a record - this season marks the first time in more than 150 years that so many storms have showed up so early.

"This is first time we've had four tropical storms develop in the Atlantic basin before July 1," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

U.S. records for tropical storms and hurricanes stretch back to 1851, Feltgen told OurAmazingPlanet. And although Tropical Storm Debby has broken the century-and-a-half-long record, there is certainly a chance that four storms may have formed this early in the past, yet escaped notice simply because forecasters didn't have the tools to see them.

"We figure that back in the day there could have been several storms per season that could have been missed," Feltgen said. "We didn't have satellites." Forecasters relied largely on ship reports and on firsthand observations when a storm hit land.
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Cloud Lightning

Deadly British Columbia flooding continues to prompt evacuations, highway closures


Winnipeg Free Press
Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:22 UTC
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© Andy Clark, ReutersA house is surrounded by water after the Fraser River burst its banks in Chilliwack, British Columbia June 24, 2012. Authorities have issued an evacuation order for 165 homes in Fraser Valley.
Hundreds of British Columbians are away from their homes, others are without clean drinking water and one person is dead after a weekend of heavy rain flooded homes and washed away roads in several areas of the province.

Weeks of rapid snowmelt and wet weather have caused river levels to rise in the B.C. Interior, the Kootenay region and the Fraser Valley, and a weekend of heavy rain and violent thunderstorms have pushed many rivers and creeks in those areas to the brink.

Hardest hit was Sicamous, a community of about 3,100 people north of Kelowna, where about 350 people were ordered to leave their homes due to flooding along the Sicamous and Hummingbird creeks.

At least one home was swept away, and many more homes and dozens of cars were damaged after flash floods tore through Sicamous, where the local district declared a state of emergency.

"It's total devastation and disaster," said 65-year-old Judy Latosky, who saw Sicamous Creek spill its banks before fleeing her home with her twin five-year-old granddaughters.

"Parts of the bank were just falling off in chunks. We lost all of our backyard and now it's just boulders. ... I looked in this morning and the basement is half full of mud and water. It's a total loss."

More pictures
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Bizarro Earth

Three villages buried in Uganda by landslide on slopes of Mt. Elgon- 100 feared dead

Elias Biryabarema and Jocelyn Edwards
Reuters
Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:15 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Many people were feared dead after villages were buried in a landslide on Monday in eastern Uganda on the slopes of Mt. Elgon, which straddles the Kenyan border.

Some media reports said about 10 people had been killed in the landslide while the area member of parliament, David Wakikona, told Reuters that up to 100 people could have been buried. This could not be independently verified.

"Three villages have been flattened in the Bumwalukani parish on the slopes of Mt. Elgon and the initial reports I have is that more than 100 have been buried," he said.
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Cloud Lightning

Sunshine State's Potential Debby Deluge


WeatherChannel.com
Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:19 UTC
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© WeatheChannel.com
Last week we began discussing the potential for a depression or named storm to form over the Gulf of Mexico or western Caribbean later this week or weekend.

A enhanced pulse of thunderstorms, triggered by the Madden-Julian Oscillation, has arrived in the eastern Pacific, central America and the western Caribbean Sea from off southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Out of this spun up Hurricane Carlotta, which sliced into southern Mexico last week.

Now, winds aloft over the Gulf of Mexico are forecast to become more favorable for low pressure to form and consolidate at least sufficient convection to be deemed either a tropical depression or tropical storm ("Debby" is the next named storm in the list), possibly as soon as late Friday.
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Cloud Lightning

Flood fear after rain forecast for North and Mid-Wales


BBCNews.com
Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:21 UTC
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© UnknownParts of mid Wales saw the worst flooding in generations earlier in June
Parts of mid and north Wales have been warned they may be at risk of localised flooding as more heavy rain is forecast.

Downpours are expected on Friday and are likely to continue into Saturday, Environment Agency Wales said.

It added that recent rainfall in the area means rivers may rise quickly and that it may lead to flood warnings.

Agency officers are checking flood defences and that rivers and streams are clear of blockages.

Devastating floods hit parts of mid and north Wales earlier this month after extreme localised flooding.

Environment Agency Wales said that the latest rain will be heaviest in mid and north Wales.

It said that a concentrated weather system of extremely heavy rainfall is currently forecast for the north west of England, not far from the Welsh border.

"Current predictions indicate that the heaviest rainfall will largely affect English counties, however, there is a risk that the weather system may move, bringing heavier rain into parts of north east Wales," the agency added.
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Bizarro Earth

Caribbean System May Spawn Floods From Florida to Caymans

Brian K. Sullivan and Rupert Rowling
Bloomberg Business Week
Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:17 UTC
Storm forecasters are tracking a potential tropical weather system that may spawn heavy rain and flooding from the Bahamas and Florida to the Cayman Islands.

The disturbance has a 30 percent chance of organizing and strengthening into a tropical depression or storm in the next two days as it moves northwest into the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Two days of heavy rain and local flooding may occur across western Cuba, southern Florida, the central Bahamas and Yucatan peninsula, the NHC said. The center is also monitoring Tropical Storm Chris southeast of Newfoundland, the third named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Chris was 630 miles (1,010 kilometers) from Cape Race, Newfoundland, moving east-northeast at 20 mph, the NHC said in its 5 a.m. Atlantic time advisory. Its top winds were 60 mph. Little change in strength is expected with the storm forecast to become post-tropical by the end of the week.
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