Storms
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills 4 family members in South Africa

lightning
The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) is on high alert after a warning of flash floods was issued by the South African Weather Services.

Heavy rains fell on Thursday and is expected to continue in most parts of the province into the weekend.

The inclement has already claimed the lives of a mother and her three children when lightning struck their home in eNgonyameni in the Jozini local municipality in the northern part of the province. The father was injured and taken to the nearest hospital and is in a critical condition.

Reacting to the incident, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, Cogta MEC, expressed her dismay at this occurrence as yet another family has lost its loved ones due to bad weather.

Cloud Precipitation

Storm and floods leave 3 dead and 1,000 displaced in São Paulo, Brazil

Flooding in São Paulo
Flooding in São Paulo
A heavy rainstorm in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, 20 to 21 March 2018, left 3 people dead, dozens of homes destroyed and more than 1,000 people displaced.

The storm began during the afternoon of 20 March and brought lightning strikes and strong winds, as well as heavy rain.

Brazil's Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia (INMET) says that around 50 mm of rain was recorded in Sao Paulo's Mirante de Santana weather station between 20 and 21 March 2018.

The storm downed more than 80 trees across the city. São Paulo Civil Defense reported over 50 incidents of flooding. Levels of the Pinheiros river that runs through the city remain high after the storm.

Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes kill 5 across Cambodia

LIGHTNING
Five people were killed and one was injured by lightning in four difference provinces this week while many houses were affected by rainstorms as well.

According to a National Police report, four men and a four-year-old girl were struck and killed by lightning in Prey Veng, Koh Kong, Battambang and Kratie province on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The report said Doung Sarath, 50, was killed on Wednesday evening in Prey Veng province's Peamchor district when he was walking to a rice field about 800 metres from his home to bring his cow in from the rain.

Comment: As reported on the 21st of March several lightning strikes have also killed 4 people in Uttar Pradesh, India:
Four persons were killed and three others injured in separate incidents of lightning strikes in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district on Wednesday, police said.

The weather suddenly changed around noon and lightning struck at many places

The weather suddenly changed around noon and lightning struck at many places, an official said.

In Rupadih village, Sonal (21) and Tunnu (22) were killed while three others were seriously injured.

The other incident occurred at Shastri Nagar where Reena Gupta had gone to the roof to pick up clothes as it was about to rain. She was struck by lightning and died on the spot.

In Tabad village, Sanjeev (35) was killed when lightning struck him in a forest where he had gone to pick up wood.



Stock Down

Lloyd's of London reports £2bn loss after natural disasters in 2017

Hurricane Irma damage
© Chris Wattie/ReutersLocal residents look inside a collapsed coastal house in the wake of Hurricane Irma in Vilano Beach, Florida.
Lloyd's of London reported a £2bn loss after a year of natural disasters

Lloyd's of London has posted its first loss in six years, after what the insurer described as "one of the costliest years for natural catastrophes in the past decade".

The iconic insurance market reported an overall pre-tax loss of £2bn for last year, down from a profit of £2.1bn the year before, despite gross written premiums climbing to £33.6bn from £29.9bn.

Major claims in 2017 were more than double the cost of the previous year, at £4.5bn, which led to an underwriting loss of £3.4bn, compared with profit of £500m in 2016.

This led the group's combined ratio to deteriorate to 114 per cent from 97.9 per cent - a combined ratio of less than 100 per cent means a firm is profitable.

A series of huge storms in the second half of 2017, including Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, left homes and businesses across the south coast of the US and the Caribbean destroyed.

Earthquakes in Mexico and wildfires in California added to the financial losses due to natural disasters, with one study putting the total cost of global disasters last year at $306bn (£218bn).

Comment: The costs of natural disasters are likely to increase in the coming years. See also: World sees rapid upsurge in extreme weather says report


Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills 2 people, injures 5 in Malawi

LIGHTNING
Two people have been killed and five others are battling for their lives after they were hit by a lightning in Mulanje district.

According to the Police Public Relations Officer for Mulanje, Gresham Ngwira, the deceased are Frank Smart and James Lipenga who both hail from Mothiwa Village in the area of senior chief Mabuka in Mulanje.

Ngwira has told Malawi24 that the incident occurred on Tuesday 20th March 2017 in the noon hours and the two were pronounced dead upon arrival at Mulanje District Hospital.

"The incident happened Tuesday at around afternoon at Lauderdale trading centre following rains accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Attention

World sees rapid upsurge in extreme weather says report

Haiti floods
A Category Four hurricane which slammed into the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 2016 triggered major floods
A world addled by climate change has seen a four-fold increase in major flooding events since 1980, and a doubling of significant storms, droughts and heat waves, Europe's national science academies jointly reported Wednesday.

In Europe, where precise data reaches back decades, the number of severe floods has jumped five fold since 1995, according to the report, which updates a 2013 assessment.

"There has been, and continues to be, a significant increase in the frequency of extreme weather events," said Michael Norton, environmental programme director for the European Academies' Science Advisory Council.

"They underline the importance of avoiding greenhouse gases, which are fundamentally responsible for driving these changes," he told AFP.


For impacts that cannot be avoided, he added, "this makes climate proofing all the more urgent."

In Europe, efforts to shore up defences against river flooding have proven effective: despite an increase in frequency of such events, economic loses on the continent have remained static.

"Rather than just coping with disasters after they strike, we need to shift to proactive management of all drivers of risks," commented Munich Climate Insurance Initiative director Soenke Kreft, who did not contribute to the report.

In the United States, however, the damage wrought by storms doubled, on average, from $10 billion in 1980 to $20 billion in 2015, adjusted for inflation, according to the report, based in part on data from insurance giant Munich Re's NatCatSERVICE.

The update also assessed new findings on possible changes in the Gulf Stream, powerful ocean currents running between the Arctic region and the Caribbean that warm the air in northwestern Europe and the US eastern seaboard.

Comment: For more information on extreme weather from around the world, check out our Earth Changes Summaries. The latest video: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - February 2018: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs

To understand how and why these extreme weather events are occurring read Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.


Cloud Lightning

Electric storm at 30,000ft: Passenger captures astounding pyrotechnics through airplane window

Electric storm
© REUTERS/Gene Blevins (UNITED STATES)
Alabama was subjected to hurricane-force winds and tornados as an extremely powerful weather system descended on the state. One resident managed to capture some spectacular atmospheric pyrotechnics through her plane window.

Martha Hart Mulligan was traveling home from North Carolina on Monday as the tempest hit. The pilot of American Airlines pilot flight 5566 reportedly took the long way around to avoid the storm system but it proved too big to escape as the footage shows. No-one on board was injured and the flight landed safely that evening.

"We were trying to fly south of the storm to avoid some turbulence. This is the impressive lightning we encountered, and we're happy to report that it did not 'encounter' us," Hart Mulligan wrote on Facebook.

Cloud Precipitation

Huge hailstones pummel Cullman, Alabama (VIDEOS, PHOTOS)

Huge hailstones smashed Cullman, Alabama
Huge hailstones smashed Cullman, Alabama
There's a lot of storm damage in Cullman County. The Cullman County School district announced classes would be canceled on Tuesday, due to the extent of the damage.

Hail battered hundreds of cars on the lot of Mitch Smith Chevrolet. Jerry Hayes confirmed that nearly all of the windshields have busted and the vehicle bodies have sustained heavy damage. The same thing happened 23-years ago to the same dealership.

Mitch Smith salesman Clint Chapman estimated the damage could exceed $4 million.


Comment: This was the same storm that produced this extreme lightning show over the Carolinas:

Electric storm at 30,000ft: Passenger captures astounding pyrotechnics through airplane window

Just a day earlier there was a similar event elsewhere in the US:

Extreme hailstorm pounds Brazos Valley, Texas (VIDEOS, PHOTOS)


Snowflake

Incredible images after trio of nor'easters batter New Brunswick, Canada (VIDEO,PHOTOS)

snowdrift in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada
© Ashley RicardUnreal snowdrift in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, after 3 Nor’Easters in a row.
Canada's New Brunswick province was slammed this month by a triple trio of nor'easters, and photos emerging from the area have been incredible.

More than 5,500 residents in the province found themselves without power Wednesday after the third nor'easter, Winter Storm Skylar, targeted eastern Canada and dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the region, according to the Canada Broadcast Corporation.

Like many in the northeastern United States, residents in Canada are as eager as their southern neighbors for spring to arrive after these back-to-back storms. However, a fourth nor'easter in 14 days now looks possible.

Ashely Ricard captured these stunning photos of her Bathurst neighborhood as they attempted to dig out from the snow.


Comment: For more information on extreme weather from around the world, check out our Earth Changes Summaries. The latest video: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - February 2018: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs


Cloud Precipitation

Extreme hailstorm pounds Brazos Valley, Texas (VIDEOS, PHOTOS)

Hailstones
An aggressive hail storm hit parts of the Brazos Valley Sunday afternoon leaving some golf ball and baseball size hail behind.

KBTX received reports and photographs of dented cars and broken windows on vehicles across the Brazos Valley.

Caldwell and northern Walker County were especially hit hard, with many residents seeing larger than baseball sized hail in their yards.

The storms that blew through packed a ton of wind, too. Emergency management in northern and northeastern Walker County reported several trees down, some of which had fallen on homes. Wind gusted near 80 mph, but it is unclear if a tornado caused the damage.