Tag Archives: Extreme Weather

Storms Bring 100 mph Winds to Pacific Northwest, More on the Way

A storm that hit the Pacific Northwest reportedly featured wind gusts that topped 100 mph.

The Weather Channel reported gusts of 107 mph in Squaw Peak, Oregon, and Mt. Lincoln, California, on Thursday. Sustained winds topped 70 mph in both locations, the report indicated.

There weren’t many reports of major damage, though The Weather Channel report indicated that the storm is believed to have caused a semi truck to flip over just outside of Reno, Nevada.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported there were about 5,000 power outages during the high winds, though those numbers were reportedly down to fewer than 200 two hours later.

KIRO, a television station in Washington, reported a few scattered power outages but added the local power company said fewer than 800 customers were affected by Thursday night.

The storm came ahead of another that’s expected to dump rain and snow on the region this weekend. The National Weather Service has issued storm warnings in areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California, and the storm is expected to continue east.

The Weather Channel forecasts have the heaviest rainfall along the coast of Washington and northern Oregon. It also said that snow is possible in those regions with higher elevations.

The incoming storm is just one of several currently lined up in the northern Pacific, according to AccuWeather forecasts. They indicate a new storm is expected to make landfall every 1-3 days through the middle of the month, though they will all vary in strength and exact trajectory.

The AccuWeather models indicate that two feet of rain could fall on parts of Washington’s coastline through early next week, but most places are not expected to see nearly that amount.

A meteorologist told AccuWeather that the pattern of storms looks to be the work of El Nino, a weather pattern that is marked by part of the Pacific Ocean being warmer than usual. The change has a far-reaching ripple effect that brings atypical weather throughout the world.

A United Nations group has warned this year’s El Nino is looking to be one of the three strongest in the past 65 years and may interact with climate change to create unprecedented effects.

100-year rains displace 200,000 in India

At least 200,000 people in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu were driven from their homes after the heaviest rainfall in more than 100 years led to major flooding, according to published reports.

It’s the latest extreme weather to hit the region, which has been hammered by heavy rainfall. The BBC reported that floods have killed at least 188 people in Tamil Nadu in the past month.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported 200,000 people have been displaced by the floods, and meteorologists expected more than 40 inches of additional rainfall in the next 48 hours.

According to Reuters, weather experts say El Nino is partly at fault for the historic rainfall and widespread flooding, as the weather pattern caused India’s monsoon season to intensify. The United Nations has warned that this year’s El Nino looks be one of the three strongest in the past 65 years and could have significant impact on the world’s economy and food supplies.

The flooding has been particularly bad in the coastal capital city of Chennai, one of India’s most populous areas and a major player in its automobile industry. The Times of India reported the city’s flooded airport will be closed through Sunday and at least a dozen trains were cancelled.

One Chennai resident told the BBC that the latest deluge began Monday and hasn’t let up, producing two to three feet of water in some parts of the city.

The BBC reported that about 60 percent of the city’s neighborhoods lacked power on Wednesday. Reuters reported a hospital was running short on fuel for its generators and oxygen for its patients.

According to The Times of India, some residents who still had electricity and Internet were using social media to invite those affected by the floods into their homes as relief efforts continued.

Record snows and storms to affect holiday travels

The first snowfall brought amounts amounts of snow ranging from a few inches to 20 inches from South Dakota through Michigan over the weekend as temperatures plunged southward.

Chicago recorded its second-heaviest snowfall during a single storm in November  causing hundreds of flights to be cancelled and others to be delayed.

According to the National Weather Service, Saturday’s snowfall of 11.2 inches recorded Friday and Saturday was beat only by a snowstorm ending on November 26 in 1895 that saw 12 inches of snow.

For Thanksgiving, a storm system will have a mix of soaking rain, snow, cold winds and possible ice on the central part of the United States.

According to Accuweather, the Thanksgiving Day storm will center itself between warmer air in the Eastern U.S. and brisk cold air in the west as it plunges southward.  Rain and snow with a potential for a narrow zone of ice threatens the central states.

Heavy rain across Oklahoma, Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri lie within this storm zone.  Freezing rain and sleet could develop from portions of southeastern Nebraska to southwestern Kansas and southeastern Colorado on Thanksgiving Day.

Stay tuned to weather reports as you make your plans for the Thanksgiving week and check with your airline for any delays.

Washington State Storm Kills 2 and Leaves Hundreds of Thousands Without Power

A storm in Washington state brought high winds of up to 49 miles per hour, downing trees and triggering mudslides on Tuesday. The storm has so far killed 2 people and has left over hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the Seattle-area without power.

The National Weather Service told Reuters that the majority of the Puget Sound region was under flood watches and warnings through Wednesday afternoon. A windstorm warning has also been issued for Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho since Tuesday at noon according to ABC News.

At least two people have been officially reported dead, with some news agencies reporting a third death. In all incidents, downed trees landed on all the victims. Their identities have not been officially released.

The local power companies have told various news sources that almost 178,000 customers are without power in the Puget Sound region due to power lines being downed by trees and landslides. Fox News reports that a power failure at a Tacoma sewer treatment plant has led to sewage water being released into the Puyallup River. Additionally, 136,000 homes and businesses were without power in Spokane and Northern Idaho. Flights leaving or entering the Spokane International Airport had to be cancelled or delayed due to the storm.

Fallen trees and high winds have also led various roads and interstates being closed, including Interstate 84, Highway 2, and Interstate 90.

In other parts of the country, another storm system dumped heavy snow on Colorado and brought tornado threats to millions in the central and southern states, according to Fox News. Northwest Kansas is forecasted to receive up to 15 inches of snow. Two weak tornadoes touched down in Texas early Tuesday and no injuries were reported.

Big November Storm Brings Tornadoes and Snow to the Central United States

A second powerful storm system in a week is causing weather havoc, bringing blizzard conditions to Colorado and the potential for strong storms and tornadoes as the system charges east.  Currently there are severe storm and tornado watches for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana.  

This afternoon and evening we expect a line of storms to intensify with a threat of damaging wind gusts and a few embedded tornadoes. There could also be supercells ahead of the line that may also acquire rotation and spawn tornadoes as the day continues. For this reason, severe weather expert Dr. Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel has raised the TOR:CON to 5 for Tuesday afternoon and evening in portions of northeast Louisiana, southeast Arkansas and western Mississippi. This means there is a 50 percent chance of a tornado within 50 miles of any location in that area.

The system was expected to track east through Tuesday and Wednesday, with rain, damaging winds and possible tornadoes from Texas to Mississippi on Tuesday, and a possible lingering severe threat as far east as Florida on Wednesday, according to The Weather Channel.

These thunderstorms will produce torrential rainfall which will raise the risk of flash flooding from the southern Plains to the Mississippi Valley

Strongest El Niño in 18 Years

The National Weather Service’s Climate prediction Center has announced that  El Niño is already is strong and mature and is forecasted to gain strength.  This El Niño is expected to be among the three strongest on record since 1950.

For drought ravaged California, that is very good news.  This strong  El Niño in the Pacific Ocean is becoming even more powerful, setting the stage for an unusually wet winter in California that could bring heavy rains by January,

El Niño is an anomalous, yet periodic, warming of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. For reasons still not well understood, every two to seven years, this patch of ocean warms for six to 18 months according to Weather.com.  

Generally, El Niño doesn’t peak in California until January, February and March, Bill Patzert, climatologist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge said. That’s when Californians should expect “mudslides, heavy rainfall, one storm after another like a conveyor belt.”

Forecasters predict warmer temperatures in the North over the winter due to El Niño with more precipitation of snow and ice as well as possible tornadoes in the South and Midwest.   

Wind, Snow and Possible Tornadoes in the Midwest Wednesday

A winter storm warning or blizzard warning was in effect for parts of Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas through Wednesday afternoon and evening in some places. Tornadoes and high winds could rake parts of the Midwest on Wednesday afternoon as well. Sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph were expected, with gust up to 55 or even 60 mph.

The National Weather Service issued tornado watches for most of the day in parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.

Wet, heavy snow fell in Nevada on Tuesday morning, closing schools in Reno and knocking out power to thousands before moving eastward. Northeastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska expected 6 inches of snow and wind gusts up to 60 mph overnight — a combination that can cause white-out conditions.

“November has a history of producing some significant weather events. We will have to keep an eye on things,” said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center.

The Storm Prediction Center cautioned 54 million people to be alert for severe weather.

Historic Heat Hits Northern States and Colorado

On Sunday October 11th the normally cool autumn took to late season heat and went to the extreme with record setting temperatures. What makes this so unusual is that this heat was in  parts of Colorado, Nebraska and the Dakotas. For much of the region, temperatures were higher than any on record for so late in the year.  These places are typically now being lulled into winter by a good chill in the air and fall breezes.  

Fargo, North Dakota was one of the places where Sunday was hotter than any other day in 2015, surpassing the city’s high of 96 from Aug. 14. The mercury hit an astonishing 97, establishing several records:Even more impressively, it appears to be hottest temperature ever recorded in the entire state of North Dakota on or after Oct. 11, beating a 95-degree reading taken in Buford on Oct. 11, 1911.

Unusual late-season heat gripped most of the area east of the Rockies in Colorado Sunday. The cooperative observer at Burlington, near the Kansas border, reported a high of 99 degrees, which  was hotter than any other location in Colorado.

But it wasn’t just the North being hit by the unbelievable heat, From Friday to Sunday, downtown Los Angeles hit 100 degrees.  The oppressive 100-degree stretch was the longest  in 25 years and matched the longest ever recorded in October.

The year 1989 was when Los Angeles’ last experienced four straight days at or above 100. Its longest 100-degree stretch on record occurred in 1955 when the mercury topped the century mark for 8 straight days August 31 to September 7.

The heat stressed electricity generators and at least 6,000 customers were without power Friday and Saturday.

El Nino to Bring Blessing but Possible Disaster for the Pacific

The El Nino weather pattern is taking shape and according to scientists there is no way this El Nino is going to fail from giving rain to some areas in California and elsewhere that are desperate for rain.  

“There’s no longer a possibility that El Niño wimps out at this point. It’s too big to fail,” said Bill Patzert, climatologist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, Los Angeles Times reported. “And the winter over North America is definitely not going to be normal.”

Rainfall opportunities this week across the Southwest may be the beginning of more substantial drought relief heading into the winter as an El Niño-fueled weather pattern takes shape in the region.

While most are calling this unusual and very strong El Nino an answered prayer there are countries who are suffering already with lack of food and crops dying off.  Papua New Guinea’s drought has already claimed two dozen lives, and the looming El Niño weather pattern could be as severe as in 1997-98, when over 23,000 people died.  

Forecasters say that this El Nino could leave 4 million people in the Pacific without food or drinking water.

“El Niño has the potential to trigger a regional humanitarian emergency and we estimate as many as 4.1 million people are at risk from water shortages, food insecurity and disease across the Pacific,” Sune Gudnitz, head of the Pacific region office of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Latest Study Warns “Day After Tomorrow” Ice Age Closer Than We Think

When the apocalyptic film first released, critics from both the entertainment and science communities ridiculed the movie over the possibility of climate change having such an extreme affect on the world. However, a recent study by researchers from the University of Southampton has found that we are closer to a “Day After Tomorrow” scenario than we thought.

In the film, climate warming results in the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – a major current in the Atlantic Ocean that has a northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers of the Atlantic and a southward flow of colder water in the deep Atlantic. This leads to New York being flooded, tornadoes in Los Angeles, and finally the north hemisphere freezing and experiencing an Ice Age.

Researchers discovered that if global warming and the collapse of the AMOC occur at the same time, the Earth will cool for a period of 20 years. After the 20 years, global warming would continue as if the AMOC never collapsed and the global average temperature would offset by approximately 0.8 degrees Celsius. They used an advanced climate model at Germany’s Max-Planck Institute to simulate the conditions.

“The planet earth recovers from the AMOC collapse in about 40 years when global warming continues at present-day rates, but near the eastern boundary of the North Atlantic (including the British Isles) it takes more than a century before temperature is back to normal,” Professor Sybren Drijfhout, from Ocean and Earth Science Department at the University of Southampton, said in the release.

The AMOC depends on a connect of the warm north waters and the cool southern waters that flow deep in the North Atlantic. Due to global warming, the Greenland ice sheet has begun to melt into the AMOC, affecting the balance of the warm and cold waters. Currently, it is causing the AMOC to slow down, but it will eventually collapse.

While the climate sequence in the movie is sped up and exaggerated, the researchers still noted that the consequences from the AMOC collapse would be no less cause for worry.

The simulation showed that Western Europe would be hit the hardest by cold temperatures but America would have to contend with floods. Sea levels on the U.S. East Coast would rise more than three feet, and the UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands would see a 35-degree temperature drop.

“This would affect hundreds of millions of people,” Drijfhout said, “At least temporarily, Europe would suffer conditions that would look like the Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages.”

“When it comes to climate change, we are playing a dangerous game,” he added.