Heavy rains in Saudi Arabia's coastal city of Jeddah on Thursday delayed flights, forced school closures and shut the road to Mecca, Islam's holiest city, state media reported.
Jeddah, a city of roughly four million people located close to the Red Sea, is often referred to as the "gateway to Mecca", where millions perform the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages each year.
Images posted to social media on Thursday showed cars being swept along streets through raging torrents of water.
Severe flash flooding struck in western parts of Saudi Arabia after torrential rain on 24 November 2022. The city of Jeddah in Mecca Province recorded 179 mm of rain in 6 hours. At least 2 fatalities have been reported as a result of floods in the city.
Flooded streets caused havoc in the city of Jeddah in Mecca Province on 24 November. Police and Civil Protection were called to rescue drivers and remove stranded vehicles. Flights were delayed at King Abdulaziz International Airport and several homes were left without electricity. Authorities closed schools and universities in affected areas of the Province.
In a statement, the government of Mecca Province said 2 people had died in the floods in Jeddah and urged residents to remain indoors unless for urgent needs.
Saudi Arabia's National Center for Meteorology said the city of Jeddah recorded 179 mm of rain between 08:00 and 14:00 on 24 November. The total exceeded the amount of rainfall registered in 2009 when over 120 people died in flash floods in the city. Around 90 mm of rain fell in a 4 hour period on 25 November 2009.
According to figures from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the mean total rainfall for November in the city is 23 mm. The annual mean total rainfall is 55.6 mm.
Heavy rain also affected areas of the neighbouring Medina Province. Saudi Civil Defense said emergency teams rescued 5 people after a vehicle was swept away by flood waters in a rural area of Medina.
Ntuthuko Zinondo Zimlive.com Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:40 UTC
Lightning deaths ... Zimbabwe has one of the world's highest lightning deaths blamed on granite outcrops which produce an electrical charge
Two people died after being struck by lightning in Harare on Tuesday - a rare occurrence in an urban area, police said.
Leonard Matipano, 33, was planting a maize crop in a field in an open space near Ridgeview, Belvedere, when he met his death.
National police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said two brothers, Phillip Chiundudzi ,43, and Prosper Chiundudzi, 27, were struck by lightning while hiding from rain under a shed at Habakkuk Church at Retreat Park in Waterfalls.
Philip succumbed to his injuries upon admission at a local hospital while Prosper was admitted at the same hospital in a serious condition.
A wave of severe weather swept across Italy from 22 November 2022, including strong winds, high waves, storm surge and heavy rain. Emergency services carried out 2,500 interventions in 8 regions.
Italy's fire service Vigili del Fuoco reported a total of 2,500 interventions due to severe weather in 24 hours to 23 November 2022, including 715 in Lazio Region; 480 in Campania; 470 in Sardinia; 200 in Sicily; 300 in Veneto; 210 in Emilia Romagna and 180 in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Local media said the severe weather was brought by Storm Denise, which also affected the French island of Corsica. Many of the interventions were in response to damage caused by strong winds, including roofs ripped off buildings, and downed trees, branches and power lines. Vigili del Fuoco reported winds of more than 100 km/h in Trieste in Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. Stormy weather and roughs seas also affected areas in Sicily where ferry services were disrupted from the port at Milazzo.
Richard Davies Floodlist Thu, 24 Nov 2022 11:48 UTC
Authorities in the municipality of Esposende in Braga District of northern Portugal report that 2 people have died after a landslide following heavy rainfall.
Civil Protection in Portugal said a landslide and large rocks destroyed part of a single-family home in Palmeira de Faro in Esposende early on 23 November 2022. Two people died and 4 people were rescued unharmed.
A team of over 40 personnel from various emergency services worked for 16 hours to find the bodies of the deceased. Five engineers from the University of Minho were also at the scene.
The landslide also damaged neighbouring homes and residents of 3 houses were evacuated for safety concerns.
Heavy rain during the weekend was blamed for a number of deaths in Western Balkan countries, while in some towns transportation was affected and some schools were suspended in Serbia and Albania.
In Montenegro, heavy rains caused flooding in northern and central parts and some local roads were cut off in the towns of Berane, Danilovgrad and Tuzi. On Sunday, police reported that three people drowned after their car was caught in the river near the capital, Podgorica.
Rivers overflowed in the southwest of Serbia in the Raska region. The towns of Novi Pazar, Tutin and Prijepolje were heavily flooded and a two-year-old boy drowned near Tutin in the river Vidrenjak, swollen by several hours of rain.
Primary and secondary schools in the Novi Pazar area were closed by the authorities, as large amounts of water were expected from the surrounding mountains during the night.
The multi-day snow event that blanketed most of Bruce and Grey counties left more than 120 centimetres of accumulation in the Wiarton area.
Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson says the lake effect snow event brought squall activity to most of the region, but the Bruce Peninsula was most likely the hardest hit.
The snow started falling last Thursday evening and intensified at different times over the next few days, before the heaviest stuff tapered off by Sunday evening.
Coulson says the monitoring station at the Wiarton Keppel International Airport recorded somewhere between 120-125 centimetres had fallen during the multi-day weather event.
The recent rains that continued throughout the night caused major flooding in Shkodra region.
Floods caused by heavy rains pouring at the weekend killed two men in Albania's northwestern Shkodra region, police said in a statement on Sunday.
A 50-year-old man and his 18-year-old son died after their car was swept away by a stream while they were driving on a mountain road near Shkrel, the statement added.
Locals rescued a 14-year-old girl who was travelling with her brother and father whose bodies have not been found yet, police said.
At least seven families had to be evacuated from their homes in the Shkodra region, some 140 kilometres (87 miles) north of Tirana, while many others are threatened by floods and landslides, a defence ministry statement said.
Several hundred hectares (acres) of land in the region of Shkodra and nearby Lezha were flooded while local residents described the situation as "critical" after many streams burst their banks, damaging homes and infrastructure.
New Yorkers in the western part of the state are still being slammed with a massive snowstorm that has shut down roads, triggered driving bans and canceled flights the weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday.
By Friday evening, 5.5 feet of snow had covered streets in the town of Orchard Park, New York, near Buffalo in hard-hit Erie County, according to the National Weather Service. As the snowfall intensified, two county residents died from cardiac complications related to shoveling and attempting to clear the grounds, said County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
"We send our deepest sympathies and remind all that this snow is very heavy and dangerous," Poloncarz said.
Snow totals across the Buffalo area and northern New York from lake-effect snow in November 2022
The Buffalo metro area was hit particularly hard by historic lake effect snow, with some areas south of the city receiving more than 5 feet by early Saturday.
According to the National Weather Service, the suburb of Orchard Park, home to the NFL's Buffalo Bills, reported 77 inches (196 centimeters) by early Saturday. About 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of the city, the town of Natural Bridge, near the Fort Drum Army base, reported just under 6 feet.
The top 5 snowfall locations as of early Saturday afternoon are:
ORCHARD PARK in Erie County with 77 inches
HAMBURG in Erie County with 73.7 inches
NATURAL BRIDGE in Jefferson County with 72.3 inches
After a day of thunderstorms, two massive waterspouts were spotted off Auckland's coastline near Takapuna and also Piha.
Local Aisling Doyle was shocked when she saw one of the waterspouts arching towards land on Sunday afternoon.
"Suddenly, there was a massive funnel coming to the ground between it all. We'd just finished watching a documentary on storms - so we were like, woah! There's one in real life," she said.
"It went for about four seconds after I spotted it. I was at Birkenhead point looking out towards Takapuna."
Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis for man's desire to understand. Who knows what mysteries will be solved in our lifetime, and what new riddles will become the challenge of the new generations.
- John Keel
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