Storms
S

Umbrella

More rain likely for flood-hit Christchurch, New Zealand

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Debris remains on Canterbury Street, Lyttleton after torrential rain caused flooding overnight
Lyttelton residents will be on edge tomorrow as another bout of heavy rain threatens homes in the flood-hit region.

Quick action had to be taken in Lyttelton this morning after dozens of homes were threatened by flooding following a night of torrential rain.

MetService has re-issued a severe weather warning for Canterbury and eastern parts of Otago as further rain is expected.

The slow moving weather system that produced heavy rain across parts of New Zealand over the weekend is expected to give one last burst before easing by Wednesday.

Cloud Lightning

Lightning Strikes to Increase as Sun Completes Solar Cycle, Says Physicist

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Cases of lightning strikes in Uganda and world over will increase as the sun completes its solar cycle in 2013, a Makerere university physicist says. StoryCases of lightning in Uganda and world over will increase as the sun completes its solar cycle in 2013, a Makerere university physicist says.

Over ten people have so far been struck dead by lightning in the districts of Mitooma, Buikwe, Alebtong, Jinja, Kaliro, Agago, Amuru, Kabarole among others and the cases of lightning seem to be rampant today compared to past years.

In an interview with Uganda Radio Network, Benon Fred Twinamatsiko, a physicist at Makerere University department of physics says that lightning is rampant today because the sun is maximizing its 11th year solar cycle.

He explains that in the process of completing the cycle, the sun emits gases into the earth, which cause enormous electrical discharge. He adds that the discharge causes imbalances between positive and negative charges on earth and clouds leading to lightning.

Twinamatsiko says that the solar cycle which takes 11 years will end in 2013 and when it's about to end natural calamites like floods, lightning and earthquakes frequently happen.

He explained that lightning strikes target unprotected buildings with no lightning conductors, trees, stepless grounds and when a person is found in such places at a time of rainfall it becomes easier for their body to work as a channel of lightning and are easily struck dead or paralyzed.

Comment: This solar maximum has been dismal - the sun is far quieter than usual. So something else must be responsible for he increased electrical storm activity:

From Chemtrails, Disinformation and the Sixth Extinction, we read:
Put that together with the really sad performance of the sun during this solar maximum, the puzzling decrease of the Earth's magnetic field, the increase in electrical activity, including the now well-known "mysterious sounds" phenomena, and you get the impression that something outside the solar system or at least at the edges of it, is "grounding the current flow" through all the planets and things are definitely getting interesting.



Cloud Lightning

Alabama Teenager Dies from Lightning Strike

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An Alabama teenager who was struck by lightning on a Florida beach earlier this week has died.

14 year old Tristan Barger of Chelsea, AL, died Wednesday night at about midnight at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola from injuries suffered from a lightning strike.

Barger and his step father were struck by lightning Monday as they were trying to get back to their boat at Shell Island near Panama City Beach. The family was walking on the beach on the last day of their vacation when the storm hit.

Cloud Lightning

Lightning Storm Kills 13 People, Injures 20 in Bangladesh Makeshift Mosque

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At least 13 people were killed and 20 wounded when lightning struck a makeshift mosque in a remote village in northeast Bangladesh on Friday, police said.

The lightning strike occurred as people gathered for a special evening prayer known as taraweeh that is conducted during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"Multiple lightning strikes occurred during a storm when nearly 35 people gathered at a house in the village of Saraswati where they turned a tin roof shed into a makeshift mosque for the month of Ramadan as a regular mosque was far away," Dharmapasha police chief Bayes Alam told CNN.

The village Saraswati is some 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the capital of Dhaka.

Cloud Lightning

Unusual Summer Storm Blasts the Arctic

storm
A rare summer storm blasted the Arctic this week, beginning off the coast of Alaska, and moving over much of the Arctic Sea for several days before dissipating.

Although the storm itself was uncommon - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., estimates that there have only been about eight similarly strong August storms in the last 34 years - the real news behind the meteorological event is the stunning Aug. 6 photo taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite. The cyclone is spinning toward the North Pole, with Greenland visible in the bottom-left of the image. Scientists are left speculating what the impact of such a storm could be.

From NASA:
Arctic storms such as this one can have a large impact on the sea ice, causing it to melt rapidly through many mechanisms, such as tearing off large swaths of ice and pushing them to warmer sites, churning the ice and making it slushier, or lifting warmer waters from the depths of the Arctic Ocean.

"It seems that this storm has detached a large chunk of ice from the main sea ice pack. This could lead to a more serious decay of the summertime ice cover than would have been the case otherwise, even perhaps leading to a new Arctic sea ice minimum," said Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA Goddard. "Decades ago, a storm of the same magnitude would have been less likely to have as large an impact on the sea ice, because at that time the ice cover was thicker and more expansive."
More information on the abnormal Arctic weather this summer can be found here, courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Bizarro Earth

Typhoon Haikui Kills 4, Affects Millions

Typhoon Haikui
© China Daily/ Zhang DiA gym provides temporary accommodation for dozens of people in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Wednesday as Typhoon Haikui bears down.
Typhoon Haikui left 4 people dead and forced more than 2.14 million people to be relocated by 4 p.m. Thursday in east China's Shanghai municipality and Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, according to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

In Shanghai, the typhoon has left 2 dead and affected 361,000 people, the ministry said, adding that 50 houses were destroyed and 700 others damaged.

In Jiangsu province, Haikui left one person dead and affected 662,000 people, and it destroyed 600 houses and damaged 2,400 others.

The typhoon also affected more than 7 million people in Zhejiang province, with 1.55 million people relocated, and it left one person dead and forced 163,000 others to be evacuated in Anhui province, the ministry said.

Officials and experts have been sent to rainstorm-battered Anhui province in east China to aid in local relief efforts, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Thursday.

Haikui is the third typhoon to wallop China's eastern coast in a week, after storms Saola and Damrey hit the region over the weekend.

Cloud Lightning

Lightning Strike at Pennsylvania Raceway Kills 1, Injures 9 Others

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© cbssports.com
Long Pond, Pennsylvania - Lightning strikes at Pocono Raceway after a rain-shortened NASCAR race Sunday killed one fan and injured nine others, one critically, racetrack officials said.

Multiple lightning strikes occurred behind the racetrack's grandstands and outside one of the gates as fans were leaving, Pocono spokesman Bob Pleban said. It wasn't immediately clear how many of the fans were actually struck by the lightning itself or were injured by related jolts.

"Unfortunately, a member of our raceway family here, a fan, has passed away," Pocono President Brandon Igdalsky said in announcing the death. He provided no details about the victim but expressed condolences to his family.

Bizarro Earth

White Island: Orange Flashes Light up Sky

White Island
© GNS ScienceWhite Island from Whakatane on Thursday afternoon.
A lightning storm at least 30km away from White Island had Bay of Plenty residents thinking the volcano was erupting when flashes of orange lights were seen above it.

Residents throughout the Eastern Bay of Plenty stood outside their homes and gathered near beaches last night to catch a glimpse of the show described as orange flashes similar to lightning, which was lighting up the gloomy sky above the island.

While GNS Science confirmed yesterday afternoon that White Island, which sits 48km offshore and is one of New Zealand's most active cone volcanoes, had erupted, last night's spectacular light show was in fact a lightning storm up to 40km away from the island. Ash from the volcano has drifted as far as Tauranga's coastline, and has coated homes and cars along Papamoa beach.

Volcanologist Brad Scott told The Daily Post last night there was no seismic activity recorded from White Island, which meant the light flashes were not part of the eruption. Instead, he said there was a lightning storm recorded for about four hours until 9.30pm.

"There's a lightning storm about 30 to 40km out behind White Island,'' Mr Scott said.

GNS Science volcanologist Mike Rosenberg was reported last night as saying the crater lake on White Island was drying out, which was causing less water to be pulled into the ash cloud.

That was creating static which was being discharged as lightning.

Bizarro Earth

Weird Weather Rains Seaweed Over Gloucestershire Village

Seaweed Rain
© SWNSNaomi Sheldon with some of the seaweed deposited in the front garden of her neighbour's house in Berkeley, Gloucestershire.
They were stunned to find their homes, gardens and cars littered with the smelly marine algae after a stormy weather spout swept up the debris from a beach 20 miles away.

Weather experts believe the seaweed was picked up from Clevedon Beach in North Somerset by a twister during freak weather conditions on the coast.

It was then carried through the air - before being deposited on the quiet street in Berkeley, near Cheltenham, Glos.

Stunned engineer Dr Richard Overton, 55, and his wife Kay, collected an entire bucket full of the green slime from their front garden.

He said: "I looked out of the window after a very big storm finished and to my amazement there were lots of flakes of seaweed scattered over the garden.

"I've heard stories of fish being picked up and dumped by storms but never seaweed. I was just so surprised."

Other residents on 'The Common', an up-market lane which overlooks acres of fields, also found seaweed in their gardens.

Cloud Lightning

Two dead as storms wreck havoc in Austria and northern Italy

Storms wreaked havoc in Austria and northern Italy over the weekend, causing landslides that killed two people, authorities said Sunday.

An 84-year-old woman was killed when a landslide hit a farm in Afens, on the Italian side of the border with Austria.

In nearby Tulfer, the body of another woman who had been declared missing after her house was struck by a mud flow, was uncovered on Sunday morning.

Major storms lashed much of Austria and German-speaking northern Italy late Saturday, causing flooding and power cuts, and disrupting rail and road connections.

About 1,000 homes were without electricity Sunday morning in the Virgental valley in southern Austria.