Full Version: Rain / Floods / Slides & Heat / Fire / Drought
It is time to rattle that Russian Bear cage.
The bars can bend but only God can break them! 
As long as this Bear supports the Mad Man, these bars are better not broken.
Amen, Amen....
GREECE - The Peloponnese was rocked by three quakes on Saturday, the strongest of which measured 5.9 on the Richter scale, striking at about 2.30 p.m. The epicenter of the quake was in the sea, south of Methoni. No injuries or damage were reported. The other two quakes measured 5.4 and 5 Richter. Two people were injured and dozens of homes destroyed when a 6.5-magnitude quake struck the northern Peloponnese on June 8.
CHINA - The number of people missing from China's massive earthquake has risen abruptly by more than 1,000. The overall toll reached 18,522 on Sunday, an increase of 1,125 from the day before. The reason for the steep rise was that migrant workers have started reporting their relatives missing to authorities, after gradually returning to their homes in Sichuan province from elsewhere in China. The latest confirmed death toll from the devastating May 12 earthquake was 69,181 on Sunday, unchanged from the day before.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm FENGSHEN was 265 nmi SSE of Hong Kong.
PHILIPPINES - 598 people are dead or missing after Typhoon Fengshen roared through the Philippines, the Red Cross and civil defence said today, dramatically raising the number unaccounted for. Landslides, severe flooding and the loss of dozens of fishing boats had left at least 224 dead and 374 missing, mostly in central areas which bore the brunt of the storm. The figures do not include passengers and crew from a ferry which sank carrying more than 800 people. So far, only 32 survivors have been found. More than 200 people were still missing in the central island of Negros, while 63,000 people are still in evacuation centres after flash floods and landslides forced them to flee their homes. Flooding had not yet receded in many parts of Bulacan province, just outside the capital of Manila. Power was restored in Manila but had not yet returned in some areas outside the capital where lines had been toppled. Typhoon Fengshen slammed into the central Philippines late on Saturday before changing course and moving north across much of the archipelago. It left through the northwest side of the main island of Luzon before dawn today, moving northwest at 15km/h towards southern China. As of 10am (midday AEST) today, the typhoon was charted 300km northwest of the country, packing maximum winds of 110km/h near the centre.
Hopes faded today that more survivors would be found in what could be one of the worst Philippine sea disasters as rescuers failed to find signs of life inside the capsized ferry. Rescue officials said only 38 people had been rescued, including 28 passengers and crew members who came ashore today after drifting at sea since Saturday. A total of 13 bodies believed to be from the ferry Princess of the Stars have been recovered, including 9 that washed ashore today. Divers who beat against the hull of ferry Monday in search of survivors heard nothing that indicated life. Elsewhere, officials tried to assess the losses from the typhoon. Iloilo, a central Philippine province, was the worst hit, with fatalities approaching 100 as of today. It was too early to determine damage to agriculture and infrastructure, but officials said it could run up to millions of dollars. Another concern was the welfare of the nearly 70,000 people throughout the country who were displaced by the typhoon and are now living in evacuation centers. Coast guard officials said that they had cleared the ferry to leave Manila for Cebu, a city in the central Philippines, on Friday night because the initial forecast for Fengshen showed that the storm would only hit the eastern part of the country, away from the ferry's route. But the typhoon changed direction Saturday, moving toward the center of the country, running right into the ferry's path. Coast guard officials said they had advised the ferry to seek shelter, but that the boat's engine had failed after the ship was battered by strong winds and waves, thus leaving it even more vulnerable to the intensifying storm.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CANADA - Officials in a remote Baffin Island community said Saturday conditions appear to have stabilized after a flash flood looked as though it might wash the community away from underneath. Core sampling done Friday showed water from the swollen Duvall River is no longer eroding away at the ground under homes near the town's edge. Heavy rain and UNUSUALLY WARM 13-degree temperatures produced rapid snow melt in the surrounding mountains and hills and led to a flood last weekend. So much water blasted down the Duvall that it carved a 10-metre channel through the permafrost, right down to bedrock. It damaged both of the town's bridges sufficiently that a majority of the community's 1,600 residents were cut off from the water reservoir, sewage lagoon and garbage dump. Fears of subterranean erosion were then raised as large cracks and sinkholes began to appear between the town and the river. "More large cracks (were) appearing, more sinkholes. We had a telephone pole that literally, before our eyes, dropped 15 feet into the ground." With more rain and warm temperatures forecast, Mongeau is unsure whether the current stability will last. The town administrator believes the root cause of this occurrence, and many other in the eastern Arctic, is global warming. He said ice patterns have been shifting and locals are noticing the arrival of new species to the area, like capeline - a small fish used to catch cod. "Fishermen have been fishing these waters for 40 years and they've never seen one. We're pulling them out in large numbers right now."
U.S. -
Floodwaters breed hidden health dangers - West Nile, E. coli among deadly concerns in swamped Midwest. Now that the waters are beginning to recede after this month's devastating floods in the Midwest, state and federal officials are warning of a widespread secondary risk from dangerous bacteria and disease-bearing mosquitoes. They expect this season's mosquito population to be especially big, nurtured by hot summer temperatures and large pools of standing water that make an ideal breeding ground. "We know we have mosquitoes right now in the state that are testing positive for the West Nile virus." Stagnant water carries numerous other risks, health officials said. For any number of dangerous bacteria and parasites, hot, fetid pools left over by swamped septic systems are the perfect home. The raging waters also seeped into countless wells, affecting drinking water for thousands of homes and businesses across the region.
The worst of the flooding that has ravaged the midwestern United States is nearly over, but it will be weeks before the murky water recedes in many areas. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana due to the heavy rains and deadly storms which swept through the region in recent weeks. Early estimates place the damage in the billions as roads were washed out, rail and barge traffic shut down and millions of acres of crops were swamped. Scores of levees collapsed or were overtopped by the rushing waters which swallowed entire towns. The extreme weather which began May 25 and included a series of deadly tornadoes claimed the lives of 22 people, 17 of whom were in Iowa. More than 11 million people in nine midwestern states were affected by the flooding and extreme weather. All the tributary rivers of the Mississippi above St. Louis, Missouri have now crested, but it will take three more days before the towns down river know whether their levies will hold. The river is expected to rise by about another six inches (15 centimeters) in areas up to 150 miles (240 kilometers) downstream. "A lot of these rivers won't go back below flood stage until mid-July."
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
CALIFORNIA - Hundreds of wildfires have blazed across northern California, threatening thousands of homes as the region bakes under a ferocious heatwave.
CHINA - The number of people missing from China's massive earthquake has risen abruptly by more than 1,000. The overall toll reached 18,522 on Sunday, an increase of 1,125 from the day before. The reason for the steep rise was that migrant workers have started reporting their relatives missing to authorities, after gradually returning to their homes in Sichuan province from elsewhere in China. The latest confirmed death toll from the devastating May 12 earthquake was 69,181 on Sunday, unchanged from the day before.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm FENGSHEN was 265 nmi SSE of Hong Kong.
PHILIPPINES - 598 people are dead or missing after Typhoon Fengshen roared through the Philippines, the Red Cross and civil defence said today, dramatically raising the number unaccounted for. Landslides, severe flooding and the loss of dozens of fishing boats had left at least 224 dead and 374 missing, mostly in central areas which bore the brunt of the storm. The figures do not include passengers and crew from a ferry which sank carrying more than 800 people. So far, only 32 survivors have been found. More than 200 people were still missing in the central island of Negros, while 63,000 people are still in evacuation centres after flash floods and landslides forced them to flee their homes. Flooding had not yet receded in many parts of Bulacan province, just outside the capital of Manila. Power was restored in Manila but had not yet returned in some areas outside the capital where lines had been toppled. Typhoon Fengshen slammed into the central Philippines late on Saturday before changing course and moving north across much of the archipelago. It left through the northwest side of the main island of Luzon before dawn today, moving northwest at 15km/h towards southern China. As of 10am (midday AEST) today, the typhoon was charted 300km northwest of the country, packing maximum winds of 110km/h near the centre.
Hopes faded today that more survivors would be found in what could be one of the worst Philippine sea disasters as rescuers failed to find signs of life inside the capsized ferry. Rescue officials said only 38 people had been rescued, including 28 passengers and crew members who came ashore today after drifting at sea since Saturday. A total of 13 bodies believed to be from the ferry Princess of the Stars have been recovered, including 9 that washed ashore today. Divers who beat against the hull of ferry Monday in search of survivors heard nothing that indicated life. Elsewhere, officials tried to assess the losses from the typhoon. Iloilo, a central Philippine province, was the worst hit, with fatalities approaching 100 as of today. It was too early to determine damage to agriculture and infrastructure, but officials said it could run up to millions of dollars. Another concern was the welfare of the nearly 70,000 people throughout the country who were displaced by the typhoon and are now living in evacuation centers. Coast guard officials said that they had cleared the ferry to leave Manila for Cebu, a city in the central Philippines, on Friday night because the initial forecast for Fengshen showed that the storm would only hit the eastern part of the country, away from the ferry's route. But the typhoon changed direction Saturday, moving toward the center of the country, running right into the ferry's path. Coast guard officials said they had advised the ferry to seek shelter, but that the boat's engine had failed after the ship was battered by strong winds and waves, thus leaving it even more vulnerable to the intensifying storm.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CANADA - Officials in a remote Baffin Island community said Saturday conditions appear to have stabilized after a flash flood looked as though it might wash the community away from underneath. Core sampling done Friday showed water from the swollen Duvall River is no longer eroding away at the ground under homes near the town's edge. Heavy rain and UNUSUALLY WARM 13-degree temperatures produced rapid snow melt in the surrounding mountains and hills and led to a flood last weekend. So much water blasted down the Duvall that it carved a 10-metre channel through the permafrost, right down to bedrock. It damaged both of the town's bridges sufficiently that a majority of the community's 1,600 residents were cut off from the water reservoir, sewage lagoon and garbage dump. Fears of subterranean erosion were then raised as large cracks and sinkholes began to appear between the town and the river. "More large cracks (were) appearing, more sinkholes. We had a telephone pole that literally, before our eyes, dropped 15 feet into the ground." With more rain and warm temperatures forecast, Mongeau is unsure whether the current stability will last. The town administrator believes the root cause of this occurrence, and many other in the eastern Arctic, is global warming. He said ice patterns have been shifting and locals are noticing the arrival of new species to the area, like capeline - a small fish used to catch cod. "Fishermen have been fishing these waters for 40 years and they've never seen one. We're pulling them out in large numbers right now."
U.S. -
Floodwaters breed hidden health dangers - West Nile, E. coli among deadly concerns in swamped Midwest. Now that the waters are beginning to recede after this month's devastating floods in the Midwest, state and federal officials are warning of a widespread secondary risk from dangerous bacteria and disease-bearing mosquitoes. They expect this season's mosquito population to be especially big, nurtured by hot summer temperatures and large pools of standing water that make an ideal breeding ground. "We know we have mosquitoes right now in the state that are testing positive for the West Nile virus." Stagnant water carries numerous other risks, health officials said. For any number of dangerous bacteria and parasites, hot, fetid pools left over by swamped septic systems are the perfect home. The raging waters also seeped into countless wells, affecting drinking water for thousands of homes and businesses across the region.
The worst of the flooding that has ravaged the midwestern United States is nearly over, but it will be weeks before the murky water recedes in many areas. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana due to the heavy rains and deadly storms which swept through the region in recent weeks. Early estimates place the damage in the billions as roads were washed out, rail and barge traffic shut down and millions of acres of crops were swamped. Scores of levees collapsed or were overtopped by the rushing waters which swallowed entire towns. The extreme weather which began May 25 and included a series of deadly tornadoes claimed the lives of 22 people, 17 of whom were in Iowa. More than 11 million people in nine midwestern states were affected by the flooding and extreme weather. All the tributary rivers of the Mississippi above St. Louis, Missouri have now crested, but it will take three more days before the towns down river know whether their levies will hold. The river is expected to rise by about another six inches (15 centimeters) in areas up to 150 miles (240 kilometers) downstream. "A lot of these rivers won't go back below flood stage until mid-July."
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
CALIFORNIA - Hundreds of wildfires have blazed across northern California, threatening thousands of homes as the region bakes under a ferocious heatwave.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/23/08 -
5.7 KURIL ISLANDS
CHINA - Pandas living in an earthquake-hit part of southwestern China have been evacuated to temporary shelters due to the continuing threat of landslides and other hazards. The area's annual rainy season starts in June, and rivers routinely overflow their banks. Landslides are a particular concern because the quake caused steep hillsides to shear away and crash into valleys below. Many of the slopes remain unstable and at risk of being washed away by rainstorms. It's not clear if all the pandas will eventually be relocated. Along with Wolong Nature Reserve, the quake damaged 48 other reserves created in the province to protect the pandas and other endangered species. Officials at Wolong have said they want to find a new home for the reserve but cannot do so until geologists have completely assessed the damage. It was not known how many wild pandas died in the quake.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm FENGSHEN was 137 nmi SSE of Hong Kong.
Tropical Storm 'Frank' (international codename: Fengshen) is expected to strike southeast China on Wednesday. Both southeastern China and Taiwan will see heavy rain and thunderstorms due to the tropical storm. Japan will experience some lighter rain as a result of this system.
PHILIPPINES - Typhoon "Frank" hit Metro Manila and the Central Luzon region by surprise early last Sunday morning. It was expected to smash into the Bicol region after slamming Samar Island on Saturday and exit to the Pacific. CNN's early weather updates showed that Frank would not make a landfall there but move along their Pacific shores. But it suddenly cut across to Iloilo province from the Eastern Visayas region and then swerved upward to the islands of Romblon and Mindoro all the way to Central Luzon, exiting through the province of Pangasinan. A lot of blame is now being heaped on the Philippine Coast Guard and Sulpicio Lines for the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars off Romblon, but it's clear that last Friday the ship was given the go-ahead by the PCG because only Signal No. 1 was hoisted over the Central Visayas region, for which a ship of that size was cleared. Nobody knew that Frank would be so unpredictable. The weather bureau chief on Monday noted Frank's MOST UNUSUAL PATTERN. He said that normally upon hitting land a storm would weaken, but Frank gained strength. Moreover, typhoons don't normally hit Luzon in June.
"The Philippines joins many places recently visited by natural calamities, such as the Mississippi area in the United States, Burma, many provinces of China, including the recent earthquake zone in Sichuan province, India, Australia and parts of Europe. Yet, in other parts of the world, such as California and New York, a heat wave was taking its toll. All these developments are part of a world climate gone berserk due to global warming. But what I really worry about are the terrible effects these disasters will wreak on the global food situation, which was already precarious even before these calamities struck."
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
UNITED KINGDOM - RECORD WINDS battered the Fylde coast - Unseasonal gale force winds swept in across much of the UK from the Atlantic Sunday bringing trees down and causing disruption to road and rail travellers. A gust of 63mph was recorded at Blackpool airport, with winds of up to 55mph on the Lleyn Peninsula in north Wales and gusts of 50mph in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Trees were damaged in Shropshire and Derbyshire. The strongest winds - force 10 - have been reported on Irish Sea coasts. Weather forecasters say such strong winds are RARE in summer. The south of Scotland had been warned to expect bad weather but escaped the worst of the storms. However, in the north gusts of 54mph were recorded at Stornoway.
NIGERIA - No fewer than 300 families have been cut off from the rest of Amakor, Nanka community in Orumba North local government area of Anambra State following a landslide that occurred in the area at the weekend. The area is one of the communities that have been ravaged by gully erosion over the years in Anambra State, with several lives and property worth millions of naira already lost. Though no life was lost during the landslide that happened on the weekend, a Catholic priest escaped the disaster by whiskers as the incident occurred barely seconds after he drove pass the erosion site. An eyewitness said that seconds after the priest drove past the spot where there was a gully by the side of the road for over 20 years, he heard a loud noise and behold, the land behind him caved in creating a gully that was more than 20 feet deep. Bamboo and other economic trees in the area fell into the gully and families living on one side of the village have been cut off from the rest of the community. The traditional ruler of Nanka said the latest incident has led credence to his earlier statement that if serious attention was not paid to control the erosion menace, the entire community might be wiped out in no distant time. He called on the state and federal governments to do something urgently to save his people, adding that with the rainy season coming to its peak, the community is at a great risk of being submerged by gully erosion.
CANADA - More violent weather hits GTA - It is hard to remember a time when there have been so many violent thunderstorms in the GTA in such quick succession. But it happened again Sunday afternoon, as forked lightning and the sound of loud thunder mixed with a deluge that brought heavy rain and hail to some parts of the city. It's the latest in a long series of similar storms over the past few weeks. Last Monday, parts of the GTA were pelted by extreme conditions, including high winds, flooding rains and golf ball sized hail so fierce, it stopped traffic in some areas. In what's been a difficult and unsettled transition from spring to summer, there has been precious little real warmth and an UNUSUAL amount of precipitation. And it's not over yet.
U.S. -
FLORIDA - The Tampa Bay area received RECORD RAINFALL over the weekend, with some areas reporting as much as 7 inches of rain.
WISCONSIN - Waukesha county had another RECORD-BREAKING EVENT in the midst of the heavy rains when a RECORD hailstone fell just west of Pewaukee Lake on June 7. The National Weather Service initially reported it was the third largest in history, but another picture of the hailstone indicates it might be bigger than 5 inches in diameter and may be closer to 5.5 inches, rivaling those currently in first and second places. The state's largest hailstone measured 5.7 inches in diameter and fell on May 21, 1921, on the north side of Wausau in Marathon County. The second-largest fell last year, also on June 7, in Port Edwards in Wood County and measured 5.5 inches. The National Weather Service is analyzing the hailstone pictures with other severe weather authorities to determine the exact measurement of this year's hailstone.
IOWA - Recalling 1988's drought disaster, farmers say this year's deluge is not as bad - Five summers ago the worst drought in half a century left the fields around Iowa as dry as bleached bones, stunting corn, killing soybeans and driving farmers out of business. Farmers are recalling that dry summer with some measure of longing this week as the Middle West continues to be pelted by the heavy rain that has flooded the upper Mississippi River. But the fond memories stopped there. The 1988 drought destroyed 45% of the nation's corn crop, causing losses of more than $10 billion and forcing thousands of farmers out of business. No one is predicting those kinds of losses from this year's flood, despite weeks of heavy rains this spring and summer that have cut the production of corn and soybeans in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and northern Illinois by 10% to 20% from what had been expected. Moreover, experts say that while the flooding is pushing up the prices that farmers are paid for their commodities, it should not significantly increase consumer prices for food, if the agricultural damage does not grow worse.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
NORTHERN EUROPE - Heatwave - On the calendar, Scandinavian summer starts on June 21 in 2008, but summer temperatures had already settled over much of northern Europe by early June. The image at this link shows land surface temperatures — how hot the ground is to the touch, a measure that is different than the air temperatures reported in the news. The image compares the average temperature between June 2 and June 8, 2008, to average temperatures recorded during the same period in June 2000 through 2007. The heat that dominated the weather in northern Europe in early June is evident in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and parts of Germany and Poland. Southern Europe experienced cooler than average temperatures during the period. The intense heat and dry weather led to dangerous fire conditions in Scandinavia. Both Norway and Sweden were plagued with several forest fires in early June. A fire that burned for several days in southern Norway was THE LARGEST IN THE COUNTRY'S HISTORY, causing an estimated ten million dollars worth of damage.
ITALY - A heat wave continues to roast Italy. Eight Italian cities are baking under temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius.
CYPRUS - New heat wave this week - Temperatures are forecast to rise again this week following a brief respite over the weekend.
CHINA - Scorching sun replaced pouring rain at the weekend, as a heat wave hit southern parts of the country.
CALIFORNIA - UNUSUAL lightning storm started series of wildfires Friday - Fire crews already spread thin fighting blazes across California were dealing with a flurry of new fires on the North Coast caused from an unusual and powerful lightning storm that struck on Friday. As of Saturday evening, CAL FIRE reported that approximately 37 lightning-caused fires were started during 24 hours in widely scattered areas of its Humboldt-Del Norte Unit. Meteorologists called Friday's thunderstorm "a huge event and VERY UNCHARACTERISTIC for this area. These episodes usually occur in late July when the monsoon moisture arrives." The unusual North Coast's lightning storm was a result of a combination of moisture funneled from the tropics and an upper-air disturbance of colder air. There were approximately 2,000 cloud-to-ground lighting strikes that were first recorded in the opening shots of the storm at 4:22 p.m. on Friday. On Saturday the California National Guard was ordered to assist in combating the wildfires burning in Northern California - an estimated 400 fires were sparked from lightning from Monterey and Fresno counties to the Oregon-California border. FREAK thunderstorm outbreaks like Friday's usually only occur in July and August - and then only because of their association with monsoon season.
Firefighters battled fires throughout Northern California on Tuesday, from Mendocino County south to the Big Sur area in Monterey County, after an "UNPRECEDENTED" lightning storm sparked more than 800 wildfires. Thousands of firefighters battled the blazes on the ground and from the air and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday that he was alarmed by the number of fires that kept erupting. "This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes." The governor declared a state of emergency in Monterey and Trinity Counties on Monday.
NASA expert wants climate change liars tried - The heads of major fossil fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be "tried for high crimes against humanity and nature," according to a leading climate scientist. He sounded the alarm about global warming in testimony before a US Senate subcommittee exactly 20 years ago. "Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming...In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature." He said urgent action was needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the globe and are already causing arctic ice to melt. He said world leaders had only one or two years to act before the Earth reaches a "tipping point" with major consequences to the global climate and species survival. "We have reached an emergency situation." He said the US Government should not keep the proceeds from any carbon tax they may levy, but refund the money to taxpayers to help them pay for more fuel efficient technology.
6/23/08 -
5.7 KURIL ISLANDS
CHINA - Pandas living in an earthquake-hit part of southwestern China have been evacuated to temporary shelters due to the continuing threat of landslides and other hazards. The area's annual rainy season starts in June, and rivers routinely overflow their banks. Landslides are a particular concern because the quake caused steep hillsides to shear away and crash into valleys below. Many of the slopes remain unstable and at risk of being washed away by rainstorms. It's not clear if all the pandas will eventually be relocated. Along with Wolong Nature Reserve, the quake damaged 48 other reserves created in the province to protect the pandas and other endangered species. Officials at Wolong have said they want to find a new home for the reserve but cannot do so until geologists have completely assessed the damage. It was not known how many wild pandas died in the quake.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm FENGSHEN was 137 nmi SSE of Hong Kong.
Tropical Storm 'Frank' (international codename: Fengshen) is expected to strike southeast China on Wednesday. Both southeastern China and Taiwan will see heavy rain and thunderstorms due to the tropical storm. Japan will experience some lighter rain as a result of this system.
PHILIPPINES - Typhoon "Frank" hit Metro Manila and the Central Luzon region by surprise early last Sunday morning. It was expected to smash into the Bicol region after slamming Samar Island on Saturday and exit to the Pacific. CNN's early weather updates showed that Frank would not make a landfall there but move along their Pacific shores. But it suddenly cut across to Iloilo province from the Eastern Visayas region and then swerved upward to the islands of Romblon and Mindoro all the way to Central Luzon, exiting through the province of Pangasinan. A lot of blame is now being heaped on the Philippine Coast Guard and Sulpicio Lines for the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars off Romblon, but it's clear that last Friday the ship was given the go-ahead by the PCG because only Signal No. 1 was hoisted over the Central Visayas region, for which a ship of that size was cleared. Nobody knew that Frank would be so unpredictable. The weather bureau chief on Monday noted Frank's MOST UNUSUAL PATTERN. He said that normally upon hitting land a storm would weaken, but Frank gained strength. Moreover, typhoons don't normally hit Luzon in June.
"The Philippines joins many places recently visited by natural calamities, such as the Mississippi area in the United States, Burma, many provinces of China, including the recent earthquake zone in Sichuan province, India, Australia and parts of Europe. Yet, in other parts of the world, such as California and New York, a heat wave was taking its toll. All these developments are part of a world climate gone berserk due to global warming. But what I really worry about are the terrible effects these disasters will wreak on the global food situation, which was already precarious even before these calamities struck."
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
UNITED KINGDOM - RECORD WINDS battered the Fylde coast - Unseasonal gale force winds swept in across much of the UK from the Atlantic Sunday bringing trees down and causing disruption to road and rail travellers. A gust of 63mph was recorded at Blackpool airport, with winds of up to 55mph on the Lleyn Peninsula in north Wales and gusts of 50mph in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Trees were damaged in Shropshire and Derbyshire. The strongest winds - force 10 - have been reported on Irish Sea coasts. Weather forecasters say such strong winds are RARE in summer. The south of Scotland had been warned to expect bad weather but escaped the worst of the storms. However, in the north gusts of 54mph were recorded at Stornoway.
NIGERIA - No fewer than 300 families have been cut off from the rest of Amakor, Nanka community in Orumba North local government area of Anambra State following a landslide that occurred in the area at the weekend. The area is one of the communities that have been ravaged by gully erosion over the years in Anambra State, with several lives and property worth millions of naira already lost. Though no life was lost during the landslide that happened on the weekend, a Catholic priest escaped the disaster by whiskers as the incident occurred barely seconds after he drove pass the erosion site. An eyewitness said that seconds after the priest drove past the spot where there was a gully by the side of the road for over 20 years, he heard a loud noise and behold, the land behind him caved in creating a gully that was more than 20 feet deep. Bamboo and other economic trees in the area fell into the gully and families living on one side of the village have been cut off from the rest of the community. The traditional ruler of Nanka said the latest incident has led credence to his earlier statement that if serious attention was not paid to control the erosion menace, the entire community might be wiped out in no distant time. He called on the state and federal governments to do something urgently to save his people, adding that with the rainy season coming to its peak, the community is at a great risk of being submerged by gully erosion.
CANADA - More violent weather hits GTA - It is hard to remember a time when there have been so many violent thunderstorms in the GTA in such quick succession. But it happened again Sunday afternoon, as forked lightning and the sound of loud thunder mixed with a deluge that brought heavy rain and hail to some parts of the city. It's the latest in a long series of similar storms over the past few weeks. Last Monday, parts of the GTA were pelted by extreme conditions, including high winds, flooding rains and golf ball sized hail so fierce, it stopped traffic in some areas. In what's been a difficult and unsettled transition from spring to summer, there has been precious little real warmth and an UNUSUAL amount of precipitation. And it's not over yet.
U.S. -
FLORIDA - The Tampa Bay area received RECORD RAINFALL over the weekend, with some areas reporting as much as 7 inches of rain.
WISCONSIN - Waukesha county had another RECORD-BREAKING EVENT in the midst of the heavy rains when a RECORD hailstone fell just west of Pewaukee Lake on June 7. The National Weather Service initially reported it was the third largest in history, but another picture of the hailstone indicates it might be bigger than 5 inches in diameter and may be closer to 5.5 inches, rivaling those currently in first and second places. The state's largest hailstone measured 5.7 inches in diameter and fell on May 21, 1921, on the north side of Wausau in Marathon County. The second-largest fell last year, also on June 7, in Port Edwards in Wood County and measured 5.5 inches. The National Weather Service is analyzing the hailstone pictures with other severe weather authorities to determine the exact measurement of this year's hailstone.
IOWA - Recalling 1988's drought disaster, farmers say this year's deluge is not as bad - Five summers ago the worst drought in half a century left the fields around Iowa as dry as bleached bones, stunting corn, killing soybeans and driving farmers out of business. Farmers are recalling that dry summer with some measure of longing this week as the Middle West continues to be pelted by the heavy rain that has flooded the upper Mississippi River. But the fond memories stopped there. The 1988 drought destroyed 45% of the nation's corn crop, causing losses of more than $10 billion and forcing thousands of farmers out of business. No one is predicting those kinds of losses from this year's flood, despite weeks of heavy rains this spring and summer that have cut the production of corn and soybeans in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and northern Illinois by 10% to 20% from what had been expected. Moreover, experts say that while the flooding is pushing up the prices that farmers are paid for their commodities, it should not significantly increase consumer prices for food, if the agricultural damage does not grow worse.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
NORTHERN EUROPE - Heatwave - On the calendar, Scandinavian summer starts on June 21 in 2008, but summer temperatures had already settled over much of northern Europe by early June. The image at this link shows land surface temperatures — how hot the ground is to the touch, a measure that is different than the air temperatures reported in the news. The image compares the average temperature between June 2 and June 8, 2008, to average temperatures recorded during the same period in June 2000 through 2007. The heat that dominated the weather in northern Europe in early June is evident in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and parts of Germany and Poland. Southern Europe experienced cooler than average temperatures during the period. The intense heat and dry weather led to dangerous fire conditions in Scandinavia. Both Norway and Sweden were plagued with several forest fires in early June. A fire that burned for several days in southern Norway was THE LARGEST IN THE COUNTRY'S HISTORY, causing an estimated ten million dollars worth of damage.
ITALY - A heat wave continues to roast Italy. Eight Italian cities are baking under temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius.
CYPRUS - New heat wave this week - Temperatures are forecast to rise again this week following a brief respite over the weekend.
CHINA - Scorching sun replaced pouring rain at the weekend, as a heat wave hit southern parts of the country.
CALIFORNIA - UNUSUAL lightning storm started series of wildfires Friday - Fire crews already spread thin fighting blazes across California were dealing with a flurry of new fires on the North Coast caused from an unusual and powerful lightning storm that struck on Friday. As of Saturday evening, CAL FIRE reported that approximately 37 lightning-caused fires were started during 24 hours in widely scattered areas of its Humboldt-Del Norte Unit. Meteorologists called Friday's thunderstorm "a huge event and VERY UNCHARACTERISTIC for this area. These episodes usually occur in late July when the monsoon moisture arrives." The unusual North Coast's lightning storm was a result of a combination of moisture funneled from the tropics and an upper-air disturbance of colder air. There were approximately 2,000 cloud-to-ground lighting strikes that were first recorded in the opening shots of the storm at 4:22 p.m. on Friday. On Saturday the California National Guard was ordered to assist in combating the wildfires burning in Northern California - an estimated 400 fires were sparked from lightning from Monterey and Fresno counties to the Oregon-California border. FREAK thunderstorm outbreaks like Friday's usually only occur in July and August - and then only because of their association with monsoon season.
Firefighters battled fires throughout Northern California on Tuesday, from Mendocino County south to the Big Sur area in Monterey County, after an "UNPRECEDENTED" lightning storm sparked more than 800 wildfires. Thousands of firefighters battled the blazes on the ground and from the air and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday that he was alarmed by the number of fires that kept erupting. "This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes." The governor declared a state of emergency in Monterey and Trinity Counties on Monday.
NASA expert wants climate change liars tried - The heads of major fossil fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be "tried for high crimes against humanity and nature," according to a leading climate scientist. He sounded the alarm about global warming in testimony before a US Senate subcommittee exactly 20 years ago. "Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming...In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature." He said urgent action was needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the globe and are already causing arctic ice to melt. He said world leaders had only one or two years to act before the Earth reaches a "tipping point" with major consequences to the global climate and species survival. "We have reached an emergency situation." He said the US Government should not keep the proceeds from any carbon tax they may levy, but refund the money to taxpayers to help them pay for more fuel efficient technology.
Thanks for the updates, Justice... wow, everything is happening so fast. My head is spinnin!
JAPAN - A rift extending for about 15 kilometers has appeared on the surface of the ground in five districts following the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck Japan's Tohoku region on June 14, it has emerged. In the Mochikorogashi district of Koromogawa-ku in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture, a zigzag fault has appeared in the surface through two rice paddies, with the land on the west side about 45 centimeters higher. Across four of the five points, a rift extending for about 10 kilometers has appeared along an old fault on the border between Iwate and Miyagi prefectures. "There's a possibility that this fault caused the earthquake, but with an earthquake of this size it wouldn't be unusual for a step of about 2 meters to appear on the surface. There is also a possibility that another fault caused the earthquake and the effects of that caused this rift to appear on the surface." (photo)
The temperature of a hot spring near the epicenter of the Iwate and Miyagi earthquake sharply changed before the temblor struck. A similar phenomenon was observed with other earthquakes, including one that struck Hokkaido in 1993. Seismologists are paying close attention to the phenomenon as it could help predict earthquakes. The temperature of the hot spring water at the Kamikura Hot Spring Inn in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, which had been 42 degrees Celsius, began to rise in mid-May - about a month before the quake, its owner said. It reached 47 degrees one week before the temblor. The Kamikura inn is situated about five kilometers away from the epicenter of the earthquake that struck on Saturday last week. Furthermore, the temperature of hot spring water at an inn in the Akinomiya area of Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, declined from 70 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees in mid-May. The hot spring area is located about 30 kilometers from the epicenter. The water temperature at five hot spa areas in southern Wakayama Prefecture declined 0.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius about a month before a quake hit the area in 2004. Furthermore, the temperature of hot spring water on Okushiri Island, Hokkaido, rose 10 degrees about a month before a powerful quake jolted Hokkaido in 1993. Some scientists believe that underground rocks hit each other before a powerful earthquake, creating huge pressure. The pressure causes the level of subterranean water to rise, which changes the temperature of hot spring water.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
CANADA - a weekend drowning in southern Alberta occurred during a family camping trip to Payne Lake on Saturday evening when a FREAK wind storm that produced two- to three-foot waves that capsized a small boat, causing a 60-year-old man to fall overboard and drown. A sudden and powerful wind storm such as occurred Saturday is UNUSUAL for the area. "Two- to three-foot waves is not normal for this area at all. It was a real freaky thing he got caught out there at that time."
BANGLADESH is set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century. There is spreading misery and destruction as the ocean reclaims the land on which 150 million people depend. Ten years ago, the village of Munshigonj began to die. First, many of the trees turned a strange brownish-yellow colour and rotted. Then the rice paddies stopped growing and festered in the water. Then the fish floated to the surface of the rivers, gasping. Then many of the animals began to die. Then many of the children began to die. The waters flowing through Munshigonj had turned salty and dead. Bangladesh is a flat, low-lying land made of silt, squeezed in between the melting mountains of the Himalayas and the rising seas of the Bay of Bengal. As the world warms, the sea is swelling – and wiping Bangladesh off the map. Deep below the ground of Munshigonj and thousands of villages like it, salt water is swelling up. This salt water will keep rising and rising, until everything here is ocean. "We are facing a catastrophe in this country. We are talking about an absolutely massive displacement of human beings." The seas are rising, so land is being claimed from the outside. (The largest island in the country, Bhola, has lost half its land in the past decade.) The rivers are super-charged, becoming wider and wider, so land is being claimed from within. (Erosion is up by 40 per cent). Cyclones are becoming more intense and more violent (2007 was the worst year on record for intense hurricanes here). And salt water is rendering the land barren. (The rate of saline inundation has trebled in the past 20 years.) "My best understanding of the evidence is that this will probably happen towards the end of the lifetime of babies born today."
KIRIBATI - After years of fruitless appeals for decisive action on climate change, the tiny South Pacific nation of Kiribati has concluded that it is doomed. Its President has requested international help to evacuate his country before it disappears. Water supplies are being contaminated by the encroaching salt water and crops destroyed. Beachside communities have been moved inland. But Kiribati – 33 coral atolls sprinkled across two million square miles of ocean – has limited scope to adapt. Its highest land is barely 6 feet above sea level. Along with other low-lying Pacific island nations such as Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Vanuatu, it is regarded as one of the places most vulnerable to climate change. Even the coconut trees are dying – casualties of an UNPRECEDENTED drought. The country has had next to no rain for the past three years and meanwhile the freshwater table is being poisoned by salt. New Zealand already has a substantial population of Pacific Islanders, but absorbing another 97,000 would strain its generosity. New Zealand is already experiencing significantly increased levels of migration from affected countries. The worst case scenario suggests that Kiribati will become uninhabitable within 50 to 60 years.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm FENGSHEN was 45 nmi NW of Hong Kong.
Tropical storm Fengshen struck south China on Wednesday, after tearing through the Philippines last week, bringing driving rain, uprooting trees and closing schools, markets and businesses in Hong Kong.
PHILIPPINES - The number of fatalities from Typhoon Fengshen has reached 291 in the Philippines.
Philippine investigators opened an inquiry Wednesday into the ferry disaster believed to have killed 800, as rescuers ended slim hopes of finding survivors in the stricken vessel.
Tropical wave may bring more rain to Central Florida more wet weather by midweek. The tropical wave was near the Dominican Republic on Tuesday. "It's going to get spun up into the Florida Straits and the Gulf of Mexico, and with it comes the tropical moisture." The system is not expected to strengthen into a depression or storm, but forecasters said it should help Central Florida's ongoing drought. Orlando is about 3 inches above the yearly rainfall average, Daytona Beach reports a 9-inch rainfall deficit, and Melbourne is almost 5 inches below normal.
BURMA - After the fury of Cyclone Nargis, a new disaster looms in Burma: packs of rats that swarm through the hills once every 50 years have consumed everything in their path, reducing thousands of poor farmers to the verge of starvation. Burma's latest human disaster is unfolding almost unseen by the outside world in the jungle-covered mountains of Chin State, far to the north of the Irrawaddy Delta where 134,000 people died last month. The plague of rats happens twice a century when bamboo forests produce flowers and seeds, then wither and die for five years in a phenomenom locally known as mautam or bamboo death. Villagers believe the bamboo seeds are a kind of aphrodisiac for the rodents, whose numbers explode until all the seeds have been eaten. Then they turn on villagers' rice stocks, stripping ripening corn and paddy in the fields and even digging up seeds at night after farmers plant them. Villagers roast rats they catch on sticks, but that food source rapidly disappears when the rodents have eaten everything in the village and move on. In Mizoram State in India and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, similar rat plagues in the last few months have also stripped fields bare after the flowering of the Melocanna Baccifera bamboo.
BELIZE - Damage caused by torrential rainfall from tropical storm Arthur has prompted the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to issue a warning about travelling in Belize. The FCO advises holidaymakers to "exercise caution" when travelling in the south of Belize - particularly in the districts of Stann Creek and Toledo. A number of bridges have been washed-out and some places may only be accessible via temporary bridges. Flooding has led to villages being evacuated. Seven people have been reported dead and around 10,000 affected by the storm, which lashed the country in early June and saw up to ten inches of rain fall across Belize within a 36 hour period.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CHINA - Continuous rain is driving up the water level in East China's lakes posing a threat to the economic powerhouse in the Yangtze River Delta region. The water level in Taihu Lake in Jiangsu province reached 3.88 meters, 0.38 meters above the danger level, Tuesday. Water, however, is expected to rise slowly during the next couple of days because no heavy rain has been forecast till Friday and efforts to drain out the lake's excess water are on. It is feared, though, that a couple of heavy showers can raise the water level in Taihu, the country's third largest freshwater lake, very fast. More heavy rain could cause more misery to the millions of people in the region, which was hit by thunderstorms and heavy downpours only last week. The threat to dams cannot be ruled out either if the area between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers and Taihu get more heavy rain in the next few days. Water in Anhui province's Chaohu Lake has risen above the danger level too. The flood season is not over but the lakes and rivers are already full because of the heavy downpours. Fengshen, a severe tropical storm, has hit Zhejiang, bringing more rain to a province already threatened by rising waters.
SOUTH AFRICA - More than 5000 people have been left homeless or had to be given emergency assistance after heavy rain lashed their shacks in Cape Town.
CANADA - A lazy cold low system squatting over northern Ontario "spinning around like a roulette wheel" is spitting out UNUSUAL weather. Normally at this time of year, the system would have moved further north, making way for sunny, humid conditions. Instead, it continues churning out cool weather tinged with shafts of sunshine. "This one has been sitting out there. It's just been very persistent, it's just stuck. It's like summer re-runs all the time. It's spinning around there, bringing the same weather day-after-day-after-day." Toronto had another taste of the unstable weather Monday, as a severe thunderstorm pelted the city with rain and pea- and nickel-sized hail early Monday afternoon. Several funnel clouds were reported in the Markham area, though there were no confirmed reports of touch down. A storm-gazing teenager was bowled over by the pressure wave from a bolt of lightening that struck the North York park where she and a friend took cover during the thunderstorm that swamped Toronto Monday afternoon. The day's sudden outburst was the latest in the mixed bag of weather. And experts are predicting even fickler than normal skies ahead. "It's frustrating. You can't plan your day based on the kind of weather we've had. On the same day it's the whole suite of rain, thunderstorm, some coolish temperatures, lots of sun, clean air. You throw a dart and anything can happen." Already this June, Toronto has seen 11 rainy days – double the month's usual amount. But every day has had sunny bursts, too. Sunny skies were forecast for Tuesday, with temperatures expected to hit 26 degrees. But the tempestuous weather is expected to come back, with thunderstorms predicted for the rest of the week.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
NEVADA - Health officials declared the air quality "unhealthful" for the Reno-Sparks area on Tuesday due to thick smoke in the region from hundreds of wildfires.
CALIFORNIA - Wildfires raging across California are being blamed for unhealthy air quality throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Saturday, an UNUSUAL weather pattern sent dry lightning flashing to the ground - at least 8000 strikes hit the ground.
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
Biofuel use 'increasing poverty' - The rush to use biofuels in rich countries has dragged more than 30 million people worldwide into poverty, an aid agency says.
Soaring steel costs will force consumers worldwide to pay higher prices for automobiles in the coming years, Nissan Motor Company's chief executive has warned.
WISCONSIN - TART CHERRIES - Extreme weather has virtually wiped out Door County's cherry crop for this year. This will reduce the total U.S. crop output by about 30%.
HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
Poor people in the United States are increasingly at risk from tropical diseases such as dengue fever and Chagas disease, says a new report. Researchers blame climate change and increasing poverty for the increased spread of these infectious illnesses. The study warns that while these diseases are not always fatal, they are severely debilitating. Consequently, they perpetuate poverty, affecting child development and worker productivity. 36 million people in the US who live below the poverty line are most at risk from these parasitic and bacterial diseases. Most vulnerable are minority groups such as the African American community living along the delta of the Mississippi River, but also disadvantaged white people who live in the Appalachian mountains and immigrants who live along the US-Mexico border. While the US spends more than a billion dollars a year preparing for outbreaks of diseases that have yet to occur such as small pox, avian influenza and anthrax, these other diseases continue to affect millions with little or no attention paid to them.
Lifesaving equipment in hospitals may be switched off by radio-frequency devices used to track people and machines, Dutch scientists claim. Radio frequency identification devices are on the rise in healthcare, helping identify patients, and reveal the location of equipment. But they could interfere with machines. In some tests, RFIDs either switched off or changed the settings on mechanical ventilators, completely stopped the working of syringe pumps, caused external pacemakers to malfunction, and halted dialysis machines. The device did not have to be held right up to the machine to make this happen - some "hazardous" incidents happened when the RFID was more than 10 inches away.
The temperature of a hot spring near the epicenter of the Iwate and Miyagi earthquake sharply changed before the temblor struck. A similar phenomenon was observed with other earthquakes, including one that struck Hokkaido in 1993. Seismologists are paying close attention to the phenomenon as it could help predict earthquakes. The temperature of the hot spring water at the Kamikura Hot Spring Inn in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, which had been 42 degrees Celsius, began to rise in mid-May - about a month before the quake, its owner said. It reached 47 degrees one week before the temblor. The Kamikura inn is situated about five kilometers away from the epicenter of the earthquake that struck on Saturday last week. Furthermore, the temperature of hot spring water at an inn in the Akinomiya area of Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, declined from 70 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees in mid-May. The hot spring area is located about 30 kilometers from the epicenter. The water temperature at five hot spa areas in southern Wakayama Prefecture declined 0.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius about a month before a quake hit the area in 2004. Furthermore, the temperature of hot spring water on Okushiri Island, Hokkaido, rose 10 degrees about a month before a powerful quake jolted Hokkaido in 1993. Some scientists believe that underground rocks hit each other before a powerful earthquake, creating huge pressure. The pressure causes the level of subterranean water to rise, which changes the temperature of hot spring water.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
CANADA - a weekend drowning in southern Alberta occurred during a family camping trip to Payne Lake on Saturday evening when a FREAK wind storm that produced two- to three-foot waves that capsized a small boat, causing a 60-year-old man to fall overboard and drown. A sudden and powerful wind storm such as occurred Saturday is UNUSUAL for the area. "Two- to three-foot waves is not normal for this area at all. It was a real freaky thing he got caught out there at that time."
BANGLADESH is set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century. There is spreading misery and destruction as the ocean reclaims the land on which 150 million people depend. Ten years ago, the village of Munshigonj began to die. First, many of the trees turned a strange brownish-yellow colour and rotted. Then the rice paddies stopped growing and festered in the water. Then the fish floated to the surface of the rivers, gasping. Then many of the animals began to die. Then many of the children began to die. The waters flowing through Munshigonj had turned salty and dead. Bangladesh is a flat, low-lying land made of silt, squeezed in between the melting mountains of the Himalayas and the rising seas of the Bay of Bengal. As the world warms, the sea is swelling – and wiping Bangladesh off the map. Deep below the ground of Munshigonj and thousands of villages like it, salt water is swelling up. This salt water will keep rising and rising, until everything here is ocean. "We are facing a catastrophe in this country. We are talking about an absolutely massive displacement of human beings." The seas are rising, so land is being claimed from the outside. (The largest island in the country, Bhola, has lost half its land in the past decade.) The rivers are super-charged, becoming wider and wider, so land is being claimed from within. (Erosion is up by 40 per cent). Cyclones are becoming more intense and more violent (2007 was the worst year on record for intense hurricanes here). And salt water is rendering the land barren. (The rate of saline inundation has trebled in the past 20 years.) "My best understanding of the evidence is that this will probably happen towards the end of the lifetime of babies born today."
KIRIBATI - After years of fruitless appeals for decisive action on climate change, the tiny South Pacific nation of Kiribati has concluded that it is doomed. Its President has requested international help to evacuate his country before it disappears. Water supplies are being contaminated by the encroaching salt water and crops destroyed. Beachside communities have been moved inland. But Kiribati – 33 coral atolls sprinkled across two million square miles of ocean – has limited scope to adapt. Its highest land is barely 6 feet above sea level. Along with other low-lying Pacific island nations such as Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Vanuatu, it is regarded as one of the places most vulnerable to climate change. Even the coconut trees are dying – casualties of an UNPRECEDENTED drought. The country has had next to no rain for the past three years and meanwhile the freshwater table is being poisoned by salt. New Zealand already has a substantial population of Pacific Islanders, but absorbing another 97,000 would strain its generosity. New Zealand is already experiencing significantly increased levels of migration from affected countries. The worst case scenario suggests that Kiribati will become uninhabitable within 50 to 60 years.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm FENGSHEN was 45 nmi NW of Hong Kong.
Tropical storm Fengshen struck south China on Wednesday, after tearing through the Philippines last week, bringing driving rain, uprooting trees and closing schools, markets and businesses in Hong Kong.
PHILIPPINES - The number of fatalities from Typhoon Fengshen has reached 291 in the Philippines.
Philippine investigators opened an inquiry Wednesday into the ferry disaster believed to have killed 800, as rescuers ended slim hopes of finding survivors in the stricken vessel.
Tropical wave may bring more rain to Central Florida more wet weather by midweek. The tropical wave was near the Dominican Republic on Tuesday. "It's going to get spun up into the Florida Straits and the Gulf of Mexico, and with it comes the tropical moisture." The system is not expected to strengthen into a depression or storm, but forecasters said it should help Central Florida's ongoing drought. Orlando is about 3 inches above the yearly rainfall average, Daytona Beach reports a 9-inch rainfall deficit, and Melbourne is almost 5 inches below normal.
BURMA - After the fury of Cyclone Nargis, a new disaster looms in Burma: packs of rats that swarm through the hills once every 50 years have consumed everything in their path, reducing thousands of poor farmers to the verge of starvation. Burma's latest human disaster is unfolding almost unseen by the outside world in the jungle-covered mountains of Chin State, far to the north of the Irrawaddy Delta where 134,000 people died last month. The plague of rats happens twice a century when bamboo forests produce flowers and seeds, then wither and die for five years in a phenomenom locally known as mautam or bamboo death. Villagers believe the bamboo seeds are a kind of aphrodisiac for the rodents, whose numbers explode until all the seeds have been eaten. Then they turn on villagers' rice stocks, stripping ripening corn and paddy in the fields and even digging up seeds at night after farmers plant them. Villagers roast rats they catch on sticks, but that food source rapidly disappears when the rodents have eaten everything in the village and move on. In Mizoram State in India and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, similar rat plagues in the last few months have also stripped fields bare after the flowering of the Melocanna Baccifera bamboo.
BELIZE - Damage caused by torrential rainfall from tropical storm Arthur has prompted the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to issue a warning about travelling in Belize. The FCO advises holidaymakers to "exercise caution" when travelling in the south of Belize - particularly in the districts of Stann Creek and Toledo. A number of bridges have been washed-out and some places may only be accessible via temporary bridges. Flooding has led to villages being evacuated. Seven people have been reported dead and around 10,000 affected by the storm, which lashed the country in early June and saw up to ten inches of rain fall across Belize within a 36 hour period.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CHINA - Continuous rain is driving up the water level in East China's lakes posing a threat to the economic powerhouse in the Yangtze River Delta region. The water level in Taihu Lake in Jiangsu province reached 3.88 meters, 0.38 meters above the danger level, Tuesday. Water, however, is expected to rise slowly during the next couple of days because no heavy rain has been forecast till Friday and efforts to drain out the lake's excess water are on. It is feared, though, that a couple of heavy showers can raise the water level in Taihu, the country's third largest freshwater lake, very fast. More heavy rain could cause more misery to the millions of people in the region, which was hit by thunderstorms and heavy downpours only last week. The threat to dams cannot be ruled out either if the area between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers and Taihu get more heavy rain in the next few days. Water in Anhui province's Chaohu Lake has risen above the danger level too. The flood season is not over but the lakes and rivers are already full because of the heavy downpours. Fengshen, a severe tropical storm, has hit Zhejiang, bringing more rain to a province already threatened by rising waters.
SOUTH AFRICA - More than 5000 people have been left homeless or had to be given emergency assistance after heavy rain lashed their shacks in Cape Town.
CANADA - A lazy cold low system squatting over northern Ontario "spinning around like a roulette wheel" is spitting out UNUSUAL weather. Normally at this time of year, the system would have moved further north, making way for sunny, humid conditions. Instead, it continues churning out cool weather tinged with shafts of sunshine. "This one has been sitting out there. It's just been very persistent, it's just stuck. It's like summer re-runs all the time. It's spinning around there, bringing the same weather day-after-day-after-day." Toronto had another taste of the unstable weather Monday, as a severe thunderstorm pelted the city with rain and pea- and nickel-sized hail early Monday afternoon. Several funnel clouds were reported in the Markham area, though there were no confirmed reports of touch down. A storm-gazing teenager was bowled over by the pressure wave from a bolt of lightening that struck the North York park where she and a friend took cover during the thunderstorm that swamped Toronto Monday afternoon. The day's sudden outburst was the latest in the mixed bag of weather. And experts are predicting even fickler than normal skies ahead. "It's frustrating. You can't plan your day based on the kind of weather we've had. On the same day it's the whole suite of rain, thunderstorm, some coolish temperatures, lots of sun, clean air. You throw a dart and anything can happen." Already this June, Toronto has seen 11 rainy days – double the month's usual amount. But every day has had sunny bursts, too. Sunny skies were forecast for Tuesday, with temperatures expected to hit 26 degrees. But the tempestuous weather is expected to come back, with thunderstorms predicted for the rest of the week.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
NEVADA - Health officials declared the air quality "unhealthful" for the Reno-Sparks area on Tuesday due to thick smoke in the region from hundreds of wildfires.
CALIFORNIA - Wildfires raging across California are being blamed for unhealthy air quality throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Saturday, an UNUSUAL weather pattern sent dry lightning flashing to the ground - at least 8000 strikes hit the ground.
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
Biofuel use 'increasing poverty' - The rush to use biofuels in rich countries has dragged more than 30 million people worldwide into poverty, an aid agency says.
Soaring steel costs will force consumers worldwide to pay higher prices for automobiles in the coming years, Nissan Motor Company's chief executive has warned.
WISCONSIN - TART CHERRIES - Extreme weather has virtually wiped out Door County's cherry crop for this year. This will reduce the total U.S. crop output by about 30%.
HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
Poor people in the United States are increasingly at risk from tropical diseases such as dengue fever and Chagas disease, says a new report. Researchers blame climate change and increasing poverty for the increased spread of these infectious illnesses. The study warns that while these diseases are not always fatal, they are severely debilitating. Consequently, they perpetuate poverty, affecting child development and worker productivity. 36 million people in the US who live below the poverty line are most at risk from these parasitic and bacterial diseases. Most vulnerable are minority groups such as the African American community living along the delta of the Mississippi River, but also disadvantaged white people who live in the Appalachian mountains and immigrants who live along the US-Mexico border. While the US spends more than a billion dollars a year preparing for outbreaks of diseases that have yet to occur such as small pox, avian influenza and anthrax, these other diseases continue to affect millions with little or no attention paid to them.
Lifesaving equipment in hospitals may be switched off by radio-frequency devices used to track people and machines, Dutch scientists claim. Radio frequency identification devices are on the rise in healthcare, helping identify patients, and reveal the location of equipment. But they could interfere with machines. In some tests, RFIDs either switched off or changed the settings on mechanical ventilators, completely stopped the working of syringe pumps, caused external pacemakers to malfunction, and halted dialysis machines. The device did not have to be held right up to the machine to make this happen - some "hazardous" incidents happened when the RFID was more than 10 inches away.
Ok here goes.... bump this thread A.S.A.P. as you can, for you want to hide it from younr eyes, so here goes...
=============
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/25/08 -
5.6 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.3 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.3 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
5.3 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 MOLUCCA SEA
5.3 SAMAR, PHILIPPINES
VOLCANOES -
NEW ZEALAND - Despite massive media coverage and a climber losing his leg, only a half of Ruapehu's visitors are aware of the mountain's eruption last year. And only 45 per cent were aware of the correct action to take in the event of an eruption or lahar. "Ruapehu is a fantastic place to climb, ski, hike and photograph but it's also a very active volcano where even small eruptions can be hazardous." The unpredictable nature of small eruptions mean anyone within the two-kilometre summit hazard zone near the crater is vulnerable. An estimated 100,000 people visit each winter.
HAWAII - A new vent that erupted to life in mid-March 2008 atop Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island shows no signs of shutting down. At times a billowing white steam plume has blasted thousands of feet into the air, so high it has been picked up on satellite imagery. Other times the vent has glowed a ghostly bright orange or shot out a sooty rusty cloud of ash, hurtled rocks out of its throat and several small explosive eruptions, THE FIRST OF THOSE TYPE IN OVER 80 YEARS, have occurred. (photo)
It's nature's one-two punch - Halemaumau crater's explosion and Kilauea's leaking of lava give the Big Island not one, but two outlets for venting sulfur dioxide. "Experts told a House vog task force that over time the toxic gas could wreak havoc with all sorts of things. One of the possibilities is prolonged activity at Halemaumau." The longer vog particulates are injected into the air, the greater the chance for less rainfall. "No individual droplet is able to accumulate enough mass to actually precipitate." That's bad news for Big Island farmers. They are already seeing crop damage from the toxic air. Less rainfall would be devastating. Another concern is breathing problems. Doctors at Kau Hospital are seeing more respiratory infections that may be linked to vog. On the south side of the Big Island you can't escape it. "One of the emergency room physicians told me he has come into the hospital on high vog days and actually seen a layer of vog down the hallway." "The eruption rate of lava is on the average of a half a million cubic meters per day. That's a lot of lava." And it's not going to stop anytime soon. With Halemaumau also venting toxic gas, scientists and medical experts say it's time to do more than watch and wonder.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical depression FENGSHEN was 65 nmi NW of Hong Kong.
BURMA - Nearly three quarters of those who survived Burma's devastating cyclone lack enough food to last more than a week and remain in desperate need of help, according to the United Nations.
CHINA - Tropical storm Fengshen hit the southeast coast of China early on Wednesday, bringing about heavy rains and strong winds. The storm made landfall in the coastal area of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, at 5:30 a.m. with winds of up to 83 kilometers per hour. One crewman was injured and another is missing after falling into the sea as their container ship made an emergency mooring off Shanwei City, Guangdong, at around 4 a.m. on Wednesday. More than 13,000 ships in Guangdong returned to harbor ahead of the storm's arrival. Heavy rains and gales have already hit central and southern parts of the province. The storm will continue to move north at a speed of 15 km per hour and lose strength. Within an hour of landfall, monitoring stations in Shenzhen had reported rainfall of up to 38 millimeters. The Shenzhen meteorological station forecast downpours of up to 200 mm would hit the city Wednesday and today. The storm was forecast to hit Ganzhou City, in Jiangxi, late on Wednesday and was expected to affect the province for 36 hours. A flood prevention emergency plan was activated on Wednesday in eastern Jiangxi Province. Heavy rains of 80 mm to 200 mm were forecast in the province's eastern and southern areas from Wednesday through to Saturday.
HONG KONG - Schools were closed, ferries tied up and dozens of flights cancelled or delayed Wednesday as Hong Kong was sideswiped by its first severe tropical storm of the year. Tropical storm Fengshen, downgraded from a typhoon after crossing from the Philippines where it caused heavy loss of life, brought Hong Kong to a virtual standstill early Wednesday. Heavy rains and gale-force winds lashed the territory and there were 23 reports of flooding but no serious injuries as a result of the storm. Hong Kong's typhoon season runs from June to September but it is RARE for a typhoon to score a direct hit on the wealthy high-rise city, with storms usually taking their greatest toll elsewhere in China.
PHILIPPINES - Egg prices were expected to increase as Typhoon "Frank" destroyed around 70% of poultry farms on Bantayan Island. Bantayan Island, the 'egg basket' of the Visayas and Mindanao, is the major supplier of eggs in Cebu, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Mindanao and even the National Capital Region.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
COLUMBIA - a landslide has killed at least 10 people from one family. Strong rains have triggered the landslide near the town of Hacari in northeastern Colombia. Colombia's rainy season began in the middle of March. The seasonal rains already have claimed at least 48 lives and injured another 68 people.
U.S. -
A new round of storms dumped a half foot (15 cm) or more of rain across parts of the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, dealing fresh trouble to a region already struggling with billions of dollars in flood damage. The bad news came as a key farm group estimated U.S. crop damage this year had hit $8 billion nationwide, most of it in the key Midwest growing areas of the world's biggest grain and food exporter amid the worst flooding in 15 years. The new storms that soaked Missouri on Wednesday closed roads and sent smaller streams out of their banks, pushing more water into the basin that feeds both the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, just as the Mississippi was cresting, or about to, in areas upstream from St. Louis. A new flood warning was issued for parts of the Missouri River in parts of Missouri from Jefferson City east to St. Louis. Lack of flood waters on the Missouri has been one of the key reasons this month's flooding was rated not as bad yet as the record flooding levels seen in 1993. A railroad bridge near Columbus Junction, Iowa, collapsed late on Tuesday, injuring one rail worker. A locomotive and two rail cars fell into the still-flooded Iowa River. The cars had been placed on the bridge to stabilize it during flooding. Fears about the short supplies of basic food and feedstuffs have ignited more alarms about rising world food inflation even as oil and energy prices also set records. Since late May when heavy rains hit Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin, about three dozen levees have failed along the Mississippi River, covering rich and valuable bottom land and emerging crops with muddy water. More than 13 million sandbags have been handed out in the region, a quantity that if placed end-to-end would stretch from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
TIBET - At least six Sikh pilgrims were killed and 10 others injured when an avalanche struck Ghangharia area near Hemkund Sahib shrine in Chamoli district Tuesday evening. The avalanche washed away the road on which they were trekking to reach Hemkund Sahib, situated at the dizzying heights of the Garhwal Himalayas.
WASHINGTON - The bodies of three snowboarders who have been missing since early December were found Saturday northeast of Mount Ranier in Washington State by friends of the missing men. Friends of the snowboarders went to the area on an intermittent basis hoping to find them. With the snow beginning to melt last week, they decided to try again. That's when one of them spotted the top of a tent. Inside were the three bodies. They are believed to have died after being smothered by an avalanche. Last winter's avalanches hit particularly hard as heavy snow fall quickly accumulated. In avalanche deaths, 95 percent of those buried by avalanches die within two hours, with half perishing within the first 25 minutes. Three-quarters die from asphyxiation, caused by breathing their own carbon dioxide. Others die from trauma on the way down a mountain if they are swept away by the avalanche. Two percent die from hypothermia.
CANADA - Chilliwack, British Columbia - "It's been so cold. Right from December it's been ODD. And not getting above 12C in (early) June is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL. I can't remember a spring like this." It's been tough on berry farmers throughout the Fraser Valley. Not only has the abysmal weather delayed growth but honey bees, essential for pollination, have been equally devastated by the cold as well as succumbing to the varroa mite and the Nosema fungus. Over last winter, Fraser Valley beekeepers lost about 26 per cent of their beehive stock. This is one of the latest start dates for strawberry picking. The season will be correspondingly short. "We were delayed this spring. April was cold. May picked up and the flowering period for strawberries and blueberries was reasonably good. But June has been so cold and the delay in growth is huge." Temperatures in early June were consistently 3C to 8C below what they should be. Sunshine was virtually absent. "In the first nine days of June you had 20 hours of sun compared to the normal 70 hours. Precipitation was 43 mm while the normal amount is 16 mm. That's three times the (usual) amount of rain." This year has been one of very stubborn, cool overhanging cloud, drizzle, and cold air. This stuff is expected to blow out with a high pressure from the south. Typically the weather turns around somewhere in the first week of July and the long range forecast is for a hot summer as the cooling influence of the cyclic La Nina current is dead. "La Nina was strong in February but the latest models show that it has now gone."
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
BALKANS (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia) - Heatwave scorching the Balkans - Two people have died and hundreds have sought medical assistance as a summer heat wave grips the western Balkans. A period of extremely warm temperatures started as of this weekend and will last at least three weeks, meteorologists in the region said. They warned that temperatures – even above 40 degrees Celsius – may be set, creating TEMPERATURE HIGHS NOT SEEN IN THE LAST 100 YEARS. To make the situation even more difficult for the population, this period will also be marked by so-called "tropical nights" where temperatures will remain above 20 or even 30 degrees Celsius overnight. Medical workers warned the population to remain indoors between 11:00 and 17:00 and drink plenty of water. The heat wave in Macedonia has led the national Crisis Management Centre there to warn of possible wildfires due to the tinder dry conditions.
CALIFORNIA - In less than a day, an electrical storm unleashed nearly 8,000 lightning strikes that set more than 800 wildfires across Northern California — a RARE example of "dry lightning" that brought little or no rain but plenty of sparks to the state's parched forests and grasslands. The weekend storm was UNUSUAL not only because it generated so many lightning strikes over a large geographical area, but also because it struck so early in the season and moved in from the Pacific Ocean. Such storms usually don't arrive until late July or August and typically from southeast of California. "You're looking at a pattern that's CLIMATOLOGICALLY RARE. We typically don't see this happen at this time of summer. To see 8,000, that's way up there on the scale." Despite the many lightning strikes that hit the ground on Saturday alone, the weekend thunderstorm brought little precipitation because the rain evaporated in hot, dry layers of the atmosphere before it hit the ground. The lightning storm struck California when the state was experiencing one of its driest years on record. From San Francisco to Los Angeles, cities have only seen a tiny fraction of the rainfall they normally receive in a typical year. In the Central Valley, the cities of Sacramento, Modesto, Stockton and Red Bluff have recorded their driest March-to-May periods since at least the 19th century. Even before the lightning struck, California had already seen an UNUSUALLY large number of wildfires, although the fire season typically does not start until July and does not peak until late summer or early fall. "This doesn't bode well for the fire season. We're not even into the meat of the fire season at this point, and the brush is extremely dry. It's not going to get any better, it's going to get worse." The weekend's lighting storm combined with extremely dry conditions to spark about 840 separate blazes. By contrast, 574 lightning-sparked fires blackened about 55,000 acres in Northern California in all of 2007. The weather service has said more dry thunderstorms could strike Northern California later this week. The weather pattern "could happen again across Central and Northern California."
HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
Aids epidemic a 'global disaster' - The Aids epidemic is so severe that it should be classified as a disaster, the Red Cross and Red Crescent warns. The crisis fits the UN definition of a disaster as an event beyond the scope of any single society to cope with. The IFRC's annual report on world disasters usually focuses on specific natural disasters such as earthquakes. This year, it is departing from tradition with its world disasters report, to focus on what it says is one of the most long term and complex problems facing the world: the HIV/Aids epidemic. By any standard, the epidemic is a global disaster: 25 million deaths, 33 million people living with HIV/Aids, 7,000 new infections every day.
=============
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/25/08 -
5.6 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.3 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.3 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
5.3 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 MOLUCCA SEA
5.3 SAMAR, PHILIPPINES
VOLCANOES -
NEW ZEALAND - Despite massive media coverage and a climber losing his leg, only a half of Ruapehu's visitors are aware of the mountain's eruption last year. And only 45 per cent were aware of the correct action to take in the event of an eruption or lahar. "Ruapehu is a fantastic place to climb, ski, hike and photograph but it's also a very active volcano where even small eruptions can be hazardous." The unpredictable nature of small eruptions mean anyone within the two-kilometre summit hazard zone near the crater is vulnerable. An estimated 100,000 people visit each winter.
HAWAII - A new vent that erupted to life in mid-March 2008 atop Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island shows no signs of shutting down. At times a billowing white steam plume has blasted thousands of feet into the air, so high it has been picked up on satellite imagery. Other times the vent has glowed a ghostly bright orange or shot out a sooty rusty cloud of ash, hurtled rocks out of its throat and several small explosive eruptions, THE FIRST OF THOSE TYPE IN OVER 80 YEARS, have occurred. (photo)
It's nature's one-two punch - Halemaumau crater's explosion and Kilauea's leaking of lava give the Big Island not one, but two outlets for venting sulfur dioxide. "Experts told a House vog task force that over time the toxic gas could wreak havoc with all sorts of things. One of the possibilities is prolonged activity at Halemaumau." The longer vog particulates are injected into the air, the greater the chance for less rainfall. "No individual droplet is able to accumulate enough mass to actually precipitate." That's bad news for Big Island farmers. They are already seeing crop damage from the toxic air. Less rainfall would be devastating. Another concern is breathing problems. Doctors at Kau Hospital are seeing more respiratory infections that may be linked to vog. On the south side of the Big Island you can't escape it. "One of the emergency room physicians told me he has come into the hospital on high vog days and actually seen a layer of vog down the hallway." "The eruption rate of lava is on the average of a half a million cubic meters per day. That's a lot of lava." And it's not going to stop anytime soon. With Halemaumau also venting toxic gas, scientists and medical experts say it's time to do more than watch and wonder.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical depression FENGSHEN was 65 nmi NW of Hong Kong.
BURMA - Nearly three quarters of those who survived Burma's devastating cyclone lack enough food to last more than a week and remain in desperate need of help, according to the United Nations.
CHINA - Tropical storm Fengshen hit the southeast coast of China early on Wednesday, bringing about heavy rains and strong winds. The storm made landfall in the coastal area of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, at 5:30 a.m. with winds of up to 83 kilometers per hour. One crewman was injured and another is missing after falling into the sea as their container ship made an emergency mooring off Shanwei City, Guangdong, at around 4 a.m. on Wednesday. More than 13,000 ships in Guangdong returned to harbor ahead of the storm's arrival. Heavy rains and gales have already hit central and southern parts of the province. The storm will continue to move north at a speed of 15 km per hour and lose strength. Within an hour of landfall, monitoring stations in Shenzhen had reported rainfall of up to 38 millimeters. The Shenzhen meteorological station forecast downpours of up to 200 mm would hit the city Wednesday and today. The storm was forecast to hit Ganzhou City, in Jiangxi, late on Wednesday and was expected to affect the province for 36 hours. A flood prevention emergency plan was activated on Wednesday in eastern Jiangxi Province. Heavy rains of 80 mm to 200 mm were forecast in the province's eastern and southern areas from Wednesday through to Saturday.
HONG KONG - Schools were closed, ferries tied up and dozens of flights cancelled or delayed Wednesday as Hong Kong was sideswiped by its first severe tropical storm of the year. Tropical storm Fengshen, downgraded from a typhoon after crossing from the Philippines where it caused heavy loss of life, brought Hong Kong to a virtual standstill early Wednesday. Heavy rains and gale-force winds lashed the territory and there were 23 reports of flooding but no serious injuries as a result of the storm. Hong Kong's typhoon season runs from June to September but it is RARE for a typhoon to score a direct hit on the wealthy high-rise city, with storms usually taking their greatest toll elsewhere in China.
PHILIPPINES - Egg prices were expected to increase as Typhoon "Frank" destroyed around 70% of poultry farms on Bantayan Island. Bantayan Island, the 'egg basket' of the Visayas and Mindanao, is the major supplier of eggs in Cebu, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Mindanao and even the National Capital Region.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
COLUMBIA - a landslide has killed at least 10 people from one family. Strong rains have triggered the landslide near the town of Hacari in northeastern Colombia. Colombia's rainy season began in the middle of March. The seasonal rains already have claimed at least 48 lives and injured another 68 people.
U.S. -
A new round of storms dumped a half foot (15 cm) or more of rain across parts of the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, dealing fresh trouble to a region already struggling with billions of dollars in flood damage. The bad news came as a key farm group estimated U.S. crop damage this year had hit $8 billion nationwide, most of it in the key Midwest growing areas of the world's biggest grain and food exporter amid the worst flooding in 15 years. The new storms that soaked Missouri on Wednesday closed roads and sent smaller streams out of their banks, pushing more water into the basin that feeds both the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, just as the Mississippi was cresting, or about to, in areas upstream from St. Louis. A new flood warning was issued for parts of the Missouri River in parts of Missouri from Jefferson City east to St. Louis. Lack of flood waters on the Missouri has been one of the key reasons this month's flooding was rated not as bad yet as the record flooding levels seen in 1993. A railroad bridge near Columbus Junction, Iowa, collapsed late on Tuesday, injuring one rail worker. A locomotive and two rail cars fell into the still-flooded Iowa River. The cars had been placed on the bridge to stabilize it during flooding. Fears about the short supplies of basic food and feedstuffs have ignited more alarms about rising world food inflation even as oil and energy prices also set records. Since late May when heavy rains hit Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin, about three dozen levees have failed along the Mississippi River, covering rich and valuable bottom land and emerging crops with muddy water. More than 13 million sandbags have been handed out in the region, a quantity that if placed end-to-end would stretch from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
TIBET - At least six Sikh pilgrims were killed and 10 others injured when an avalanche struck Ghangharia area near Hemkund Sahib shrine in Chamoli district Tuesday evening. The avalanche washed away the road on which they were trekking to reach Hemkund Sahib, situated at the dizzying heights of the Garhwal Himalayas.
WASHINGTON - The bodies of three snowboarders who have been missing since early December were found Saturday northeast of Mount Ranier in Washington State by friends of the missing men. Friends of the snowboarders went to the area on an intermittent basis hoping to find them. With the snow beginning to melt last week, they decided to try again. That's when one of them spotted the top of a tent. Inside were the three bodies. They are believed to have died after being smothered by an avalanche. Last winter's avalanches hit particularly hard as heavy snow fall quickly accumulated. In avalanche deaths, 95 percent of those buried by avalanches die within two hours, with half perishing within the first 25 minutes. Three-quarters die from asphyxiation, caused by breathing their own carbon dioxide. Others die from trauma on the way down a mountain if they are swept away by the avalanche. Two percent die from hypothermia.
CANADA - Chilliwack, British Columbia - "It's been so cold. Right from December it's been ODD. And not getting above 12C in (early) June is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL. I can't remember a spring like this." It's been tough on berry farmers throughout the Fraser Valley. Not only has the abysmal weather delayed growth but honey bees, essential for pollination, have been equally devastated by the cold as well as succumbing to the varroa mite and the Nosema fungus. Over last winter, Fraser Valley beekeepers lost about 26 per cent of their beehive stock. This is one of the latest start dates for strawberry picking. The season will be correspondingly short. "We were delayed this spring. April was cold. May picked up and the flowering period for strawberries and blueberries was reasonably good. But June has been so cold and the delay in growth is huge." Temperatures in early June were consistently 3C to 8C below what they should be. Sunshine was virtually absent. "In the first nine days of June you had 20 hours of sun compared to the normal 70 hours. Precipitation was 43 mm while the normal amount is 16 mm. That's three times the (usual) amount of rain." This year has been one of very stubborn, cool overhanging cloud, drizzle, and cold air. This stuff is expected to blow out with a high pressure from the south. Typically the weather turns around somewhere in the first week of July and the long range forecast is for a hot summer as the cooling influence of the cyclic La Nina current is dead. "La Nina was strong in February but the latest models show that it has now gone."
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
BALKANS (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia) - Heatwave scorching the Balkans - Two people have died and hundreds have sought medical assistance as a summer heat wave grips the western Balkans. A period of extremely warm temperatures started as of this weekend and will last at least three weeks, meteorologists in the region said. They warned that temperatures – even above 40 degrees Celsius – may be set, creating TEMPERATURE HIGHS NOT SEEN IN THE LAST 100 YEARS. To make the situation even more difficult for the population, this period will also be marked by so-called "tropical nights" where temperatures will remain above 20 or even 30 degrees Celsius overnight. Medical workers warned the population to remain indoors between 11:00 and 17:00 and drink plenty of water. The heat wave in Macedonia has led the national Crisis Management Centre there to warn of possible wildfires due to the tinder dry conditions.
CALIFORNIA - In less than a day, an electrical storm unleashed nearly 8,000 lightning strikes that set more than 800 wildfires across Northern California — a RARE example of "dry lightning" that brought little or no rain but plenty of sparks to the state's parched forests and grasslands. The weekend storm was UNUSUAL not only because it generated so many lightning strikes over a large geographical area, but also because it struck so early in the season and moved in from the Pacific Ocean. Such storms usually don't arrive until late July or August and typically from southeast of California. "You're looking at a pattern that's CLIMATOLOGICALLY RARE. We typically don't see this happen at this time of summer. To see 8,000, that's way up there on the scale." Despite the many lightning strikes that hit the ground on Saturday alone, the weekend thunderstorm brought little precipitation because the rain evaporated in hot, dry layers of the atmosphere before it hit the ground. The lightning storm struck California when the state was experiencing one of its driest years on record. From San Francisco to Los Angeles, cities have only seen a tiny fraction of the rainfall they normally receive in a typical year. In the Central Valley, the cities of Sacramento, Modesto, Stockton and Red Bluff have recorded their driest March-to-May periods since at least the 19th century. Even before the lightning struck, California had already seen an UNUSUALLY large number of wildfires, although the fire season typically does not start until July and does not peak until late summer or early fall. "This doesn't bode well for the fire season. We're not even into the meat of the fire season at this point, and the brush is extremely dry. It's not going to get any better, it's going to get worse." The weekend's lighting storm combined with extremely dry conditions to spark about 840 separate blazes. By contrast, 574 lightning-sparked fires blackened about 55,000 acres in Northern California in all of 2007. The weather service has said more dry thunderstorms could strike Northern California later this week. The weather pattern "could happen again across Central and Northern California."
HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
Aids epidemic a 'global disaster' - The Aids epidemic is so severe that it should be classified as a disaster, the Red Cross and Red Crescent warns. The crisis fits the UN definition of a disaster as an event beyond the scope of any single society to cope with. The IFRC's annual report on world disasters usually focuses on specific natural disasters such as earthquakes. This year, it is departing from tradition with its world disasters report, to focus on what it says is one of the most long term and complex problems facing the world: the HIV/Aids epidemic. By any standard, the epidemic is a global disaster: 25 million deaths, 33 million people living with HIV/Aids, 7,000 new infections every day.
Wow, Justice, that is scary!
I am praying for all those who are affected by weather these days... from extreme cold to extreme hot... and all the ones trying to still hang on in China, in Burma, and now Hong Kong and China looking at more storms...
I heard Tonga had 2 pretty good size EQ's yesterday too, that's not the same region, but it is in the Pacific Ring of Fire.
My goodness, what a read!
I am praying for all those who are affected by weather these days... from extreme cold to extreme hot... and all the ones trying to still hang on in China, in Burma, and now Hong Kong and China looking at more storms...
I heard Tonga had 2 pretty good size EQ's yesterday too, that's not the same region, but it is in the Pacific Ring of Fire.
My goodness, what a read!
Yes, I am praying too! I know it is going to be so rough on people and it makes me sad, but I hope they finally turn from their sins and seek the true Lord. It's their only Hope! It's our only Hope!!
Hi Rose! Love you sweetie! If you're ever up this way..let's go have an icecream and praise the Lord for always protecting us!! =)
Thank you Justice for keeping us up to date...you are a wealth of info and I read this every day!!!
Love you too!!!
Lisa
Hi Rose! Love you sweetie! If you're ever up this way..let's go have an icecream and praise the Lord for always protecting us!! =)
Thank you Justice for keeping us up to date...you are a wealth of info and I read this every day!!!
Love you too!!!
Lisa
Hi LISA!!!! How are you??? I always pray for you! I don't know when the next time I'll be up that way, but I'll remember the offer!
I'm good, kids are out of school, but dang, I still can't wake later than 7! Must be programmed!
Yes, Justice, thanks for the info every day. I read the two war threads and now this one, and then look throught he prayer requests, even if I don't comment, I know the Lord has given me the desire to pray.
I love you too, Lisa... ice cream.. this time in the morning it doesn't sound so great, but later on the thought will be in my mind and I won't be able to get it out! Yum, I remember when I was a kid my dad always took us to Carvel. Do they still have Carvels?? Or Mr. Frosty?? Oy, I AM getting old!
xoxox Rose
I'm good, kids are out of school, but dang, I still can't wake later than 7! Must be programmed!
Yes, Justice, thanks for the info every day. I read the two war threads and now this one, and then look throught he prayer requests, even if I don't comment, I know the Lord has given me the desire to pray.
I love you too, Lisa... ice cream.. this time in the morning it doesn't sound so great, but later on the thought will be in my mind and I won't be able to get it out! Yum, I remember when I was a kid my dad always took us to Carvel. Do they still have Carvels?? Or Mr. Frosty?? Oy, I AM getting old!
xoxox Rose
I'm doing great honey! Yeah, summer is in full swing here too! I know..doesn't matter how late I go to sleep, I'm still up by 6...ugh! lol
What!? You don't like icecream for breakfast!!?? lol... My kids would looooove me if I let that fly! ha ha. And yes, they still have Carvel. My favorite birthday cakes!! I always ask for a Carvel ice cream cake for my birthday..I don't care if I get a card or a present..just plllllleeeeaaassse get my favorite icecream cake!! lol and it's only 50000 fat calories per teaspoon! lol
I really wish we could get a little weekend planned to get together with a bunch of us. It would be so wonderful...ahhh but I can dream! =)
Love you sweetie!!
And sorry Justice for stealing your thread for a moment..=) Love you too!!
What!? You don't like icecream for breakfast!!?? lol... My kids would looooove me if I let that fly! ha ha. And yes, they still have Carvel. My favorite birthday cakes!! I always ask for a Carvel ice cream cake for my birthday..I don't care if I get a card or a present..just plllllleeeeaaassse get my favorite icecream cake!! lol and it's only 50000 fat calories per teaspoon! lol
I really wish we could get a little weekend planned to get together with a bunch of us. It would be so wonderful...ahhh but I can dream! =)
Love you sweetie!!
And sorry Justice for stealing your thread for a moment..=) Love you too!!
It is ok, Lisa you can steal "my" thread anytime, for it is not mine, it is ours. =)
Oh hi Rose!!
People, I want to give a warning. Earendel dreamt about a mayor hurricane on the rise, I had one about being shot, and Miki and Larry keep talking about a squeeze play... Something is brewing...
I think we should gather everyone we can to pray.
Oh hi Rose!!
People, I want to give a warning. Earendel dreamt about a mayor hurricane on the rise, I had one about being shot, and Miki and Larry keep talking about a squeeze play... Something is brewing...
I think we should gather everyone we can to pray.
Justice, wow.. well, I'm in for the praying... just tell me when we are gathering! Can we gather at Lisa's and have Carvel??
I loved those cakes too, we always had them as kids. I remember my grandmother from the Bronx coming to our birthday parties and she brought the cake, it had to be in a cooler as she had to travel north about 40 minutes! And all our birthdays were in the summer! OY! We loved it though, soupy Carvel cakes!
Yes, my kids would love ice cream in the morning, they have gummy worms sometimes, I just make a gaggy face at them!
I do pray someday we all can meet, that would be totally the BEST EVER!!!! Ice cream cakes on me, forget the calories? What's a calorie?? LOL
BTW, just got notification another EQ in Indonesia. Seems they just keep a comin! Something IS brewing.. and it ain't coffee. Bleh.
Love and hugs you two! Keep smiling while I go keep a doc appt.
I loved those cakes too, we always had them as kids. I remember my grandmother from the Bronx coming to our birthday parties and she brought the cake, it had to be in a cooler as she had to travel north about 40 minutes! And all our birthdays were in the summer! OY! We loved it though, soupy Carvel cakes!
Yes, my kids would love ice cream in the morning, they have gummy worms sometimes, I just make a gaggy face at them!
I do pray someday we all can meet, that would be totally the BEST EVER!!!! Ice cream cakes on me, forget the calories? What's a calorie?? LOL
BTW, just got notification another EQ in Indonesia. Seems they just keep a comin! Something IS brewing.. and it ain't coffee. Bleh.
Love and hugs you two! Keep smiling while I go keep a doc appt.
I soooo look forward to meeting you all!! High YAYness level!
Rose, I have the funny feeling we soon WILL meet. Nothing scary though, for in God's Presence there is no fear.
Rose, I have the funny feeling we soon WILL meet. Nothing scary though, for in God's Presence there is no fear.
Justice,
Yes, no fear at all! My kids love that term, NO FEAR. It used to be all over people's car windows, bumpers, etc. I think it was a slogan for something, but it's so true!!!
Got to run, doc appt. (the dreaded mammogram) oy! And it looks like rain here all weekend. Bleh... well, hey at least it'll be cooled off! Florida is not fun in the summer!
Hugs you two! xo
Yes, no fear at all! My kids love that term, NO FEAR. It used to be all over people's car windows, bumpers, etc. I think it was a slogan for something, but it's so true!!!
Got to run, doc appt. (the dreaded mammogram) oy! And it looks like rain here all weekend. Bleh... well, hey at least it'll be cooled off!
Florida is not fun in the summer!Hugs you two! xo
QUOTE
CALIFORNIA - In less than a day, an electrical storm unleashed nearly 8,000 lightning strikes that set more than 800 wildfires across Northern California — a RARE example of "dry lightning" that brought little or no rain but plenty of sparks to the state's parched forests and grasslands.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the strange happening in the atmosphere before the China quakes, the rainbow clouds.
What causes lightning? Rainbow lightning! That's what it is! Probably the HAARP thing. They will make a movie next week titled 'HAARP's Gone Wild.'
Earthquake here, landslide there, fish-kill here . . .
Hey guys, looks like I am not going anywhere due to flooding my area:
http://www.wbns10tv.com/wwwexportcontent/s.../70closed08.jpg
http://www.wbns10tv.com/live/content/local...ed.html?sid=102
NEWARK, Ohio — The eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 are closed at the Buckeye Lake exit because of high water on Friday morning.
The Licking County Sheriff's Office told 10TV.com that they were also working on a three-vehicle crash in the I-70 westbound lanes at the Buckeye Lake exit. One of the westbound lanes remained open.
The interstate has closed in the past when there is high water in the area.
The Ohio Department of Transportation said they hope to have one lane of eastbound traffic open by rush hour.
Stay with 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for additional information.
http://www.wbns10tv.com/wwwexportcontent/s.../70closed08.jpg
http://www.wbns10tv.com/live/content/local...ed.html?sid=102
NEWARK, Ohio — The eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 are closed at the Buckeye Lake exit because of high water on Friday morning.
The Licking County Sheriff's Office told 10TV.com that they were also working on a three-vehicle crash in the I-70 westbound lanes at the Buckeye Lake exit. One of the westbound lanes remained open.
The interstate has closed in the past when there is high water in the area.
The Ohio Department of Transportation said they hope to have one lane of eastbound traffic open by rush hour.
Stay with 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for additional information.
This morning there has been a 6.7 quake in the ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/26/08 -
6.1 TONGA
5.2 CENTRAL PERU
5.0 KEP. TANIMBAR REGION, INDONESIA
5.2 CENTRAL PERU
VOLCANOES -
ARCTIC - Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. "Explosive volcanic eruptions on land are nothing unusual and pose a great threat for whole areas. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and buried thriving Pompeii under a layer of ash and pumice. Far away in the Arctic Ocean, at 85° N 85° E, a similarly violent volcanic eruption happened almost undetected in 1999 - in this case, however, under a water layer of 4,000 m thickness." Previously researchers had assumed that explosive volcanism cannot happen in water depths exceeding 3 kilometres because of high ambient pressure. "These are the first pyroclastic deposits we've ever found in such deep water, at oppressive pressures that inhibit the formation of steam, and many people thought this was not possible." The Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean spreads so slowly at 6-14 mm/year, that current theories considered volcanism unlikely - until a series of 300 strong earthquakes over a period of eight months indicated the eruption. It was the largest swarm of earthquakes ever to occur along the planet's system of mid-ocean ridges.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
No current tropical cyclones.
The death toll from Typhoon Fengshen, the storm that battered the Philippines last week, could go as high as 1300 if the missing passengers and crew of the capsized ferry are included. Rescue divers continued to search the overturned ferry Thursday but failed to retrieve any new survivors, raising the possibility that as many as 809 of the 865 passengers and crew had perished in the disaster. Since the ship capsized Saturday near Sibuyan Island, only 56 survivors have been found. The Philippine Coast Guard said 124 bodies had either washed ashore on nearby islands or had been found floating in the sea. Adding to the uncertainty of the situation was the way in which some of the recovered bodies were being handled. On some of the islands where bodies had washed up, television footage showed corpses being dumped from a truck into mass graves. Many of the bodies had not been examined by forensic experts for possible identification. Officials on Thursday raised the overall death toll from the storm to 498, excluding those still missing. The typhoon affected more than 2.4 million Filipinos in 42 of the country's 81 provinces. Estimated damage to property is at more than 5.5 billion pesos, or about $125 million.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
IRELAND - Limerick hit by torrential downpours - Commuters experienced monsoon-like conditions en route to work this Thursday morning as the heavens opened on top of them. The city streets were submerged during the downpour leaving pedestrians side-stepping large puddles which appeared suddenly on footpaths. The weather is in "a broken mood at the moment because of an Atlantic depression which can affect us at any time of the year, but it is dominating our weather pattern at the moment".
SWITZERLAND - On Wednesday night, hurricane-force winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour (87 mph) and a massive major storm hit the region, power was lost. "This is not normal summer weather for central Europe. It was exceptional."
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
PORTUGAL - The National meteorological institute has revealed that this summer is expected to be ONE OF THE HOTTEST IN THE LAST 25 YEARS. Temperatures for June, July and August are expected to be 0.5 degrees above average, with the highest likely to be recorded in central and southern Portugal. "If the predictions are correct then we could have a very serious situation, similar to that of 2003 when 1,953 people died because of the heat." As well as high temperatures, the meteorological institute also alerts to high levels of ultra violet (UV) radiation, which is measured on a scale from the lowest level of one to the highest level of 11. The UV levels for the Algarve are expected to remain at a minimum of Very High (between eight and 10) this summer.
CALIFORNIA - Expert says drought to continue 9 more years - From measurements of the height of the Pacific from space, it tells him the climate here is in trouble. The scientist has gone beyond the annual fluctuations of El Nino and La Nina. He measures the changing height of the ocean over a five- to 20-year range and sees what he calls a Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Over about a 10-year period, the elevation of vast tracts of the ocean will change and where it was higher and warmer becomes lower and cooler and vice versa. This oscillation has a powerful bearing on global warming and can dramatically reinforce the behavior of El Nino and La Nina, dampening or reinforcing their behavior. The last nine years are consecutively THE NINE DRIEST IN A CENTURY, and that can be traced to the oscillation. "We haven't had a big El Nino in a decade." He predicted temperatures will continue to rise in the region. Even in cooler years such as the one they are in now, temperatures will spike for a few days, resulting in dangerous triple-digit temperatures and heavy water use. He says a crisis is looming, and the only solution is for all of us to reduce water consumption by 50%. Golf courses are a major culprit. They absorb heat rather than reflect it back into space. Global warming has pushed the jet stream farther north, and there is less snow pack. He hopes we can control our thirst, but he has reservations. "The world is getting dumber."
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
A lack of suitable flowers may be forcing bumblebees to seek out aphids to feed on their sugary secretions. The secretions offer a substitute for nectar, but do not contain the protein the insects need to stay healthy. It is a behaviour that appears to be becoming increasingly common in the United Kingdom. Images captured by the BBC Scotland news website show the bees visiting tree leaves covered with aphids. There have been warnings that bumblebee and wild bee populations around the UK are experiencing "catastrophic declines". Bees are important pollinators of flowers and crops. The bumblebees' behaviour of feeding on secretions from aphids could be a further sign of the problems facing the insects. "Although the aphid secretions provide them with a sugary solution, a substitute for nectar, they provide no protein. Bumblebees can only get their protein from pollen, which they feed to their growing young, so it is essential for a healthy population." Flowers from the pea and mint families seem to be particularly beneficial.
HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
RECALLS & ALERTS:
- Matterhorn Group Inc. Announces Voluntary Recall of Astro Pops and Missile Pops 3.5 oz Cherry Pineapple Frozen Novelty Pops in Arizona, Nevada and California due to Safety Hazard - they may contain pieces of hard plastic.
- Recall of the one-gallon Nestle Pure Life Purified Drinking Water sold ONLY in Shop-Rite stores in the five Northeast states of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/26/08 -
6.1 TONGA
5.2 CENTRAL PERU
5.0 KEP. TANIMBAR REGION, INDONESIA
5.2 CENTRAL PERU
VOLCANOES -
ARCTIC - Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. "Explosive volcanic eruptions on land are nothing unusual and pose a great threat for whole areas. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and buried thriving Pompeii under a layer of ash and pumice. Far away in the Arctic Ocean, at 85° N 85° E, a similarly violent volcanic eruption happened almost undetected in 1999 - in this case, however, under a water layer of 4,000 m thickness." Previously researchers had assumed that explosive volcanism cannot happen in water depths exceeding 3 kilometres because of high ambient pressure. "These are the first pyroclastic deposits we've ever found in such deep water, at oppressive pressures that inhibit the formation of steam, and many people thought this was not possible." The Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean spreads so slowly at 6-14 mm/year, that current theories considered volcanism unlikely - until a series of 300 strong earthquakes over a period of eight months indicated the eruption. It was the largest swarm of earthquakes ever to occur along the planet's system of mid-ocean ridges.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
No current tropical cyclones.
The death toll from Typhoon Fengshen, the storm that battered the Philippines last week, could go as high as 1300 if the missing passengers and crew of the capsized ferry are included. Rescue divers continued to search the overturned ferry Thursday but failed to retrieve any new survivors, raising the possibility that as many as 809 of the 865 passengers and crew had perished in the disaster. Since the ship capsized Saturday near Sibuyan Island, only 56 survivors have been found. The Philippine Coast Guard said 124 bodies had either washed ashore on nearby islands or had been found floating in the sea. Adding to the uncertainty of the situation was the way in which some of the recovered bodies were being handled. On some of the islands where bodies had washed up, television footage showed corpses being dumped from a truck into mass graves. Many of the bodies had not been examined by forensic experts for possible identification. Officials on Thursday raised the overall death toll from the storm to 498, excluding those still missing. The typhoon affected more than 2.4 million Filipinos in 42 of the country's 81 provinces. Estimated damage to property is at more than 5.5 billion pesos, or about $125 million.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
IRELAND - Limerick hit by torrential downpours - Commuters experienced monsoon-like conditions en route to work this Thursday morning as the heavens opened on top of them. The city streets were submerged during the downpour leaving pedestrians side-stepping large puddles which appeared suddenly on footpaths. The weather is in "a broken mood at the moment because of an Atlantic depression which can affect us at any time of the year, but it is dominating our weather pattern at the moment".
SWITZERLAND - On Wednesday night, hurricane-force winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour (87 mph) and a massive major storm hit the region, power was lost. "This is not normal summer weather for central Europe. It was exceptional."
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
PORTUGAL - The National meteorological institute has revealed that this summer is expected to be ONE OF THE HOTTEST IN THE LAST 25 YEARS. Temperatures for June, July and August are expected to be 0.5 degrees above average, with the highest likely to be recorded in central and southern Portugal. "If the predictions are correct then we could have a very serious situation, similar to that of 2003 when 1,953 people died because of the heat." As well as high temperatures, the meteorological institute also alerts to high levels of ultra violet (UV) radiation, which is measured on a scale from the lowest level of one to the highest level of 11. The UV levels for the Algarve are expected to remain at a minimum of Very High (between eight and 10) this summer.
CALIFORNIA - Expert says drought to continue 9 more years - From measurements of the height of the Pacific from space, it tells him the climate here is in trouble. The scientist has gone beyond the annual fluctuations of El Nino and La Nina. He measures the changing height of the ocean over a five- to 20-year range and sees what he calls a Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Over about a 10-year period, the elevation of vast tracts of the ocean will change and where it was higher and warmer becomes lower and cooler and vice versa. This oscillation has a powerful bearing on global warming and can dramatically reinforce the behavior of El Nino and La Nina, dampening or reinforcing their behavior. The last nine years are consecutively THE NINE DRIEST IN A CENTURY, and that can be traced to the oscillation. "We haven't had a big El Nino in a decade." He predicted temperatures will continue to rise in the region. Even in cooler years such as the one they are in now, temperatures will spike for a few days, resulting in dangerous triple-digit temperatures and heavy water use. He says a crisis is looming, and the only solution is for all of us to reduce water consumption by 50%. Golf courses are a major culprit. They absorb heat rather than reflect it back into space. Global warming has pushed the jet stream farther north, and there is less snow pack. He hopes we can control our thirst, but he has reservations. "The world is getting dumber."
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
A lack of suitable flowers may be forcing bumblebees to seek out aphids to feed on their sugary secretions. The secretions offer a substitute for nectar, but do not contain the protein the insects need to stay healthy. It is a behaviour that appears to be becoming increasingly common in the United Kingdom. Images captured by the BBC Scotland news website show the bees visiting tree leaves covered with aphids. There have been warnings that bumblebee and wild bee populations around the UK are experiencing "catastrophic declines". Bees are important pollinators of flowers and crops. The bumblebees' behaviour of feeding on secretions from aphids could be a further sign of the problems facing the insects. "Although the aphid secretions provide them with a sugary solution, a substitute for nectar, they provide no protein. Bumblebees can only get their protein from pollen, which they feed to their growing young, so it is essential for a healthy population." Flowers from the pea and mint families seem to be particularly beneficial.
HEALTH THREATS -
Latest bird flu news from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy.
Global Bird Flu Breaking News - updated every 10 minutes.
RECALLS & ALERTS:
- Matterhorn Group Inc. Announces Voluntary Recall of Astro Pops and Missile Pops 3.5 oz Cherry Pineapple Frozen Novelty Pops in Arizona, Nevada and California due to Safety Hazard - they may contain pieces of hard plastic.
- Recall of the one-gallon Nestle Pure Life Purified Drinking Water sold ONLY in Shop-Rite stores in the five Northeast states of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
QUOTE (gregg @ Jun 10 2008, 07:51 PM) 
Is there anything else that would confirm that the axis is in the process of an actual physical shift?
1 of 5 parts
http://uncutvideo.aol.com/tags/nibiru/cdd8...21e1b64?index=7
I,m loading the video now. What I have always thought is taking all of the evidence that has been found pertaining to there being an extra planet in our solar system is that there was an early collision. And evidence is growing that the collision occured when the planets were either in-line or close together. Some scientists think that our moon was created by a collision and the moon is actually the earth because the moon does not spin faster than the earth; it spins once in 24 hours.
I just got past the first 37.5% of the thing and the computer is slow, but it tells me no more than I already know. But, what I did not know is 'they found it.'
48.9% and nothing yet. 51.7%, let's go. . .
Oh, I forgot; this is 5 parts.
Toward the end, the phrase 'painted rust structures' is right on the money!
The same thing with the shuttle Discovery; we definitely discovered something and we did nothing about it. I guess it is the same thing with Planet X, where are you gonna run? Run for you li. . .
Part 2 gets a little warmer.
Part 3, Jeremiah 25:32 & 48:8, Jeremiah is said to warn of a 'Destroyer.' But, the name 'Destroyer' is actually the name given to whatever it was in 48:8.
It is translated 'spoiler.' I have so much more on this 'Destroyer,' but not yet. Let me watch the rest.
Oh alright. That's what it is then, The Kolbrin; yeah, that's what I have. I was waiting for the biblical explanation, even though the Kolbrin was a collection of manuscripts brought over to Britian from the Middle Eastern area of Israel by Joseph of Arimathaea, the one who buried Jesus and they were stored in Glastonbury Abbey in Scotland until a great fire in 1181. But, these manuscripts were stored in bronze and they were known as 'The Bronzebook of Britian.'
Now, to make Planet X a selling point for this Kolbrin is wrong, in my view. There is so much much more to the sayings found in the Kolbrin and the sayings are not 'conjecture' as Planet X is.
I just got past the first 37.5% of the thing and the computer is slow, but it tells me no more than I already know. But, what I did not know is 'they found it.'
48.9% and nothing yet. 51.7%, let's go. . .
Oh, I forgot; this is 5 parts.
Toward the end, the phrase 'painted rust structures' is right on the money!
The same thing with the shuttle Discovery; we definitely discovered something and we did nothing about it. I guess it is the same thing with Planet X, where are you gonna run? Run for you li. . .
Part 2 gets a little warmer.
Part 3, Jeremiah 25:32 & 48:8, Jeremiah is said to warn of a 'Destroyer.' But, the name 'Destroyer' is actually the name given to whatever it was in 48:8.
It is translated 'spoiler.' I have so much more on this 'Destroyer,' but not yet. Let me watch the rest.
Oh alright. That's what it is then, The Kolbrin; yeah, that's what I have. I was waiting for the biblical explanation, even though the Kolbrin was a collection of manuscripts brought over to Britian from the Middle Eastern area of Israel by Joseph of Arimathaea, the one who buried Jesus and they were stored in Glastonbury Abbey in Scotland until a great fire in 1181. But, these manuscripts were stored in bronze and they were known as 'The Bronzebook of Britian.'
Now, to make Planet X a selling point for this Kolbrin is wrong, in my view. There is so much much more to the sayings found in the Kolbrin and the sayings are not 'conjecture' as Planet X is.
Take this to your own threads.
Sunday, June 29, 2008 -
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/28/08 -
5.4 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.3 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.2 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.0 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.1 KEP. TANIMBAR REGION, INDONESIA
5.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.4 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
6/27/08 -
5.1 TONGA
5.2 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.1 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.7 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.1 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 OFFSHORE SUCRE, VENEZUELA
INDIA - The Andaman and Nicobar Islands were again jolted by three successive tremors on Saturday, just a day after three other quakes shook the islands. The latest was 6.3 at 6.26 p.m [there has been a 5.4 since then] with the epicentre of the quake located 132 km south-west of Port Blair, 35 km beneath the sea. Two earthquakes of moderate intensity measuring 5.1 and 5.3 on the Richter scale shook the islands earlier at 8.56 a.m. and 10 a.m. respectively. No damage to property or loss of life was reported. This was the 6th tremor felt since Friday after the islands were hit by three earthquakes measuring 6.7, 6.1 and 6.6 on the Richter scale. The successive quakes have triggered panic among the people on the islands which were ravaged by the December 26, 2004 killer tsunami. [Site note - the magnitudes of these quakes change as seismologists examine the data.]
IRAN - four consecutive tremors measuring 3.2, 4.4, 3.2 and 3.2 shook Kerman province, Southeastern Iran Friday night. The city of Jiroft on Friday was hit at 19:26 hours local time (1456 GMT) for the first time and it was struck on Saturday at 06:03 hours local time (0133 GMT) for the last. The Office for Natural Disasters had informed people of the likely quake, calling for preparations to deal with it. The four consecutive tremors scared the people of the province who stayed outdoors in the streets and parks overnight.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm BORIS was 566 nmi SW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical storm CRISTINA was 1079 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical Storm Boris has formed off Mexico's Pacific coast, but is not threatening land. Tropical Storm Boris and a depression were out at sea far from Mexico in the east Pacific on Saturday and moving away from land. Boris had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was about 630 miles (1,015 kilometers) south-southwest of Baja California's southern tip. Tropical Depression Three-E had winds of 35 mph (56 kph) and was about 1,080 miles (1,740 kilometers) west-southwest of Baja California's southern tip. The depression became tropical storm Cristina later on Saturday.
Another broad area of disturbed weather is located several hundred miles south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec (southeast of the two tropical storms). Slow development of this system is possible over the next couple of days as it moves West-Northwestward.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CHINA - Non-stop rain takes its toll in flood-hit south China - "It's been raining almost continuously for about two months, much longer than last year, and it's a lot of trouble." Inhabitants of the capital of Guangdong province - used to bad weather at this time of year - say they have had enough of the FREAK downpours that have caused deadly floods in nearby towns and hit business. They are the lucky ones, however, as the city was largely spared from the deadly floods that hit other towns in Guangdong this month. But the amount of rain, and the length of time the downpours have lasted, have taken their toll on locals here. The tropical storm that hit the city on Wednesday - the remainder of the typhoon that killed more than 1,000 people in the Philippines - sent yet more sheets of rain and caused chaos in the city. It forced the evacuation of more than 600 people from the southern district of Nansha, as landslides were reported in 14 different places and traffic slowed to a snail's pace. On Thursday, the rain had subsided from its tropical storm force, but was still pouring down on a sea of umbrellas in the city. The rain has also hit food prices. The bad weather could continue until the beginning of next week.
U.S. -
Iowa was one of 17 states whacked this year by an UNUSUALLY severe outbreak of storms, with financial, public safety, infrastructure and environmental repercussions that could take state officials years to resolve. Hurricane season started June 1, so more states could face disasters. But already 2008 has been UNUSUAL, meteorologists say, because of the frequency of fast-moving storms that have occurred at night in populated areas. About 60 people a year die in tornadoes, but this year 118 have been killed, the most in 10 years. The burst of violent weather began on Feb. 5 when 87 tornadoes swept across Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, killing 56 people. Since then, tornadoes have struck Georgia, Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. Multiple heavy thunderstorms have pelted Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, leading to flooding.
A new 182 page administration report on extreme weather warns that human-induced climate change is making heavy downpours more intense, with storms that used to occur every 20 years projected to occur every six by the end of the century. One of clearest trends in observed records is an increase in the number and intensity of heavy precipitation events. Over the last century, for example, days where it has rained more than four inches in the upper Midwest have jumped 50 percent. "That rise in global temperature has led to an increase in water vapor. That increase in water vapor is absolutely necessary for the production of heavy and extreme precipitation events." The report also says abnormally hot days and nights are likely to become more frequent, and there will be fewer colder days. "A day so hot that it is currently experienced only once every 20 years would occur every three years by the middle of the century over much of the continental U.S. and every five years over most of Canada." Droughts are likely to become more severe in the southwestern part of the U.S. as rainfall totals drop in winter. Warmer air also will help evaporate moisture from the ground, making droughts worse. "There is no safe haven. There is no place you can live that won't suffer the consequences of global warming."
COLD -
CANADA - unsettled weather conditions are prevailing throughout eastern Canada. That's because the jet stream is way below where it should be. It is south of New Brunswick, when it should be in northern Quebec. "It has been frustrating the last while because temperatures have been running about five degrees (Celsius) below normal and there have been showers or a chance of showers almost every day." Because of this unusual positioning of the jet stream, southeastern New Brunswick can expect showers and thunderstorms, along with below normal temperatures, from now to next Wednesday. The jet stream is expected to finally move north later in the week, resulting in sunny, mild, clear conditions on both Thursday and Friday. But the break in the weather pattern will be short-lived, because the jet stream is forecast to swing back south of New Brunswick again next Saturday, bringing a return next weekend to more dreary weather.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
Warming world sends plants uphill - Climate change has resulted in many plant species moving an average of 29 metres uphill every decade. Climate change has caused plants to seek cooler conditions at higher altitudes. Smaller species such as ferns, which have shorter reproduction cycles, were the quickest to relocate. This suggests that long living woody plant species, such as trees, are likely to be more threatened by climate change than herb species like grasses. "This may imply profound changes in the composition and structure of plant communities and animal species that depend upon them."
CALIFORNIA - An UNPRECEDENTED outbreak of lightning strikes ignited more than 800 wildfires in a single day across Northern California. A RECORD-DRY SPRING followed by early summer heat and FREAK electrical storms were responsible for ONE OF THE WORST DAYS FOR WILDFIRES IN THE STATE'S HISTORY. A pall of thick smoke obscured the sky and reduced visibility to less than 3 kilometres in San Francisco and other cities of Northern California. The huge clouds of smoke were THE WORST IN LIVING MEMORY. Even with out-of-state firefighters brought in, the sheer number of blazes mean that many of them are left to burn out of control. Smoke from the fires also are creating unhealthful air quality.
Salmonella source still a mystery as cases top 800 - no tomatoes have tested positive as the source of the outbreak.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/28/08 -
5.4 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.3 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.2 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.0 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.1 KEP. TANIMBAR REGION, INDONESIA
5.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.4 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
6/27/08 -
5.1 TONGA
5.2 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.1 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.7 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.1 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 OFFSHORE SUCRE, VENEZUELA
INDIA - The Andaman and Nicobar Islands were again jolted by three successive tremors on Saturday, just a day after three other quakes shook the islands. The latest was 6.3 at 6.26 p.m [there has been a 5.4 since then] with the epicentre of the quake located 132 km south-west of Port Blair, 35 km beneath the sea. Two earthquakes of moderate intensity measuring 5.1 and 5.3 on the Richter scale shook the islands earlier at 8.56 a.m. and 10 a.m. respectively. No damage to property or loss of life was reported. This was the 6th tremor felt since Friday after the islands were hit by three earthquakes measuring 6.7, 6.1 and 6.6 on the Richter scale. The successive quakes have triggered panic among the people on the islands which were ravaged by the December 26, 2004 killer tsunami. [Site note - the magnitudes of these quakes change as seismologists examine the data.]
IRAN - four consecutive tremors measuring 3.2, 4.4, 3.2 and 3.2 shook Kerman province, Southeastern Iran Friday night. The city of Jiroft on Friday was hit at 19:26 hours local time (1456 GMT) for the first time and it was struck on Saturday at 06:03 hours local time (0133 GMT) for the last. The Office for Natural Disasters had informed people of the likely quake, calling for preparations to deal with it. The four consecutive tremors scared the people of the province who stayed outdoors in the streets and parks overnight.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm BORIS was 566 nmi SW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical storm CRISTINA was 1079 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical Storm Boris has formed off Mexico's Pacific coast, but is not threatening land. Tropical Storm Boris and a depression were out at sea far from Mexico in the east Pacific on Saturday and moving away from land. Boris had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was about 630 miles (1,015 kilometers) south-southwest of Baja California's southern tip. Tropical Depression Three-E had winds of 35 mph (56 kph) and was about 1,080 miles (1,740 kilometers) west-southwest of Baja California's southern tip. The depression became tropical storm Cristina later on Saturday.
Another broad area of disturbed weather is located several hundred miles south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec (southeast of the two tropical storms). Slow development of this system is possible over the next couple of days as it moves West-Northwestward.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CHINA - Non-stop rain takes its toll in flood-hit south China - "It's been raining almost continuously for about two months, much longer than last year, and it's a lot of trouble." Inhabitants of the capital of Guangdong province - used to bad weather at this time of year - say they have had enough of the FREAK downpours that have caused deadly floods in nearby towns and hit business. They are the lucky ones, however, as the city was largely spared from the deadly floods that hit other towns in Guangdong this month. But the amount of rain, and the length of time the downpours have lasted, have taken their toll on locals here. The tropical storm that hit the city on Wednesday - the remainder of the typhoon that killed more than 1,000 people in the Philippines - sent yet more sheets of rain and caused chaos in the city. It forced the evacuation of more than 600 people from the southern district of Nansha, as landslides were reported in 14 different places and traffic slowed to a snail's pace. On Thursday, the rain had subsided from its tropical storm force, but was still pouring down on a sea of umbrellas in the city. The rain has also hit food prices. The bad weather could continue until the beginning of next week.
U.S. -
Iowa was one of 17 states whacked this year by an UNUSUALLY severe outbreak of storms, with financial, public safety, infrastructure and environmental repercussions that could take state officials years to resolve. Hurricane season started June 1, so more states could face disasters. But already 2008 has been UNUSUAL, meteorologists say, because of the frequency of fast-moving storms that have occurred at night in populated areas. About 60 people a year die in tornadoes, but this year 118 have been killed, the most in 10 years. The burst of violent weather began on Feb. 5 when 87 tornadoes swept across Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, killing 56 people. Since then, tornadoes have struck Georgia, Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. Multiple heavy thunderstorms have pelted Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, leading to flooding.
A new 182 page administration report on extreme weather warns that human-induced climate change is making heavy downpours more intense, with storms that used to occur every 20 years projected to occur every six by the end of the century. One of clearest trends in observed records is an increase in the number and intensity of heavy precipitation events. Over the last century, for example, days where it has rained more than four inches in the upper Midwest have jumped 50 percent. "That rise in global temperature has led to an increase in water vapor. That increase in water vapor is absolutely necessary for the production of heavy and extreme precipitation events." The report also says abnormally hot days and nights are likely to become more frequent, and there will be fewer colder days. "A day so hot that it is currently experienced only once every 20 years would occur every three years by the middle of the century over much of the continental U.S. and every five years over most of Canada." Droughts are likely to become more severe in the southwestern part of the U.S. as rainfall totals drop in winter. Warmer air also will help evaporate moisture from the ground, making droughts worse. "There is no safe haven. There is no place you can live that won't suffer the consequences of global warming."
COLD -
CANADA - unsettled weather conditions are prevailing throughout eastern Canada. That's because the jet stream is way below where it should be. It is south of New Brunswick, when it should be in northern Quebec. "It has been frustrating the last while because temperatures have been running about five degrees (Celsius) below normal and there have been showers or a chance of showers almost every day." Because of this unusual positioning of the jet stream, southeastern New Brunswick can expect showers and thunderstorms, along with below normal temperatures, from now to next Wednesday. The jet stream is expected to finally move north later in the week, resulting in sunny, mild, clear conditions on both Thursday and Friday. But the break in the weather pattern will be short-lived, because the jet stream is forecast to swing back south of New Brunswick again next Saturday, bringing a return next weekend to more dreary weather.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
Warming world sends plants uphill - Climate change has resulted in many plant species moving an average of 29 metres uphill every decade. Climate change has caused plants to seek cooler conditions at higher altitudes. Smaller species such as ferns, which have shorter reproduction cycles, were the quickest to relocate. This suggests that long living woody plant species, such as trees, are likely to be more threatened by climate change than herb species like grasses. "This may imply profound changes in the composition and structure of plant communities and animal species that depend upon them."
CALIFORNIA - An UNPRECEDENTED outbreak of lightning strikes ignited more than 800 wildfires in a single day across Northern California. A RECORD-DRY SPRING followed by early summer heat and FREAK electrical storms were responsible for ONE OF THE WORST DAYS FOR WILDFIRES IN THE STATE'S HISTORY. A pall of thick smoke obscured the sky and reduced visibility to less than 3 kilometres in San Francisco and other cities of Northern California. The huge clouds of smoke were THE WORST IN LIVING MEMORY. Even with out-of-state firefighters brought in, the sheer number of blazes mean that many of them are left to burn out of control. Smoke from the fires also are creating unhealthful air quality.
Salmonella source still a mystery as cases top 800 - no tomatoes have tested positive as the source of the outbreak.
QUOTE (Justice @ Jun 28 2008, 04:45 PM)
Take this to your own threads.
Stand down, ma'am. Nobody is trying to disrupt any thought you have going.
.
This morning there has been a 6.7 quake in the SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/29/08 -
5.0 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.9 PRIMOR'YE, RUSSIA
5.1 OFF COAST OF OREGON
5.0 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.2 WESTERN XIZANG
5.6 OFFSHORE CHIAPAS, MEXICO
VOLCANOES -
NEW ZEALAND - Lake temperatures and gas levels remain high on Mt Ruapehu. The mountain last erupted in September last year. GNS Science says the temperatures and levels usually return to normal after an eruption but they are still high, nine months later. The agency says another eruption is unlikely anytime soon but skiers and snowboarders should be aware of exit strategies in place. It says emergency management agencies met last week, to brush up on their eruption response plans.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
DUBAI - FREAK weather could endanger the lives of anyone swimming in the sea or trekking in the desert, Dubai Police have warned. The Ports Police Station issued a �cautionary advisory� informing residents and visitors about potential weather changes and urged people to be careful when going to the beach or visiting the desert or hilly areas. They also warned people not to swim at night when the sea becomes rougher. People were advised not to go to remote, unsupervised beaches, which may have hidden dangers such as strong currents or whirlpools. Weather conditions are expected to change constantly over the coming days, meaning anyone going sailing should first inform the operations room at Dubai Police. �This will make it easier for the police to find them in case of any accident.�
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm BORIS was 660 nmi SW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical storm CRISTINA was 1185 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
PHILIPPINES - Fishing industry suffers after ferry tragedy - The government suspended all diving operations to recover bodies inside the passenger ferry which capsized during Typhoon Fengshen on June 21 with more than 850 people on board and banned fishing around the island on Friday after it was revealed the ferry was carrying a highly toxic pesticide. The crescent-shaped island has one of the country's most diverse marine eco systems. Should the chemicals leak into its pristine waters the impact on local marine life would be devastating. With their houses devastated by the typhoon and their livelihoods on the line, people are being forced to beg for food from relatives to feed their families. "We have no rice, no money. Now we can't even go out to sea to fish. That's all we have got. We are a poor people." Health officials are now conducting tests on samples taken from the area, and while initial results showed no contamination, experts are taking no chances. But in the meantime, already poor fishermen are wondering what will happen to them.
CHINA - The death toll in the last week's tropical storm Fengshen which struck south China's Guangdong province has mounted to 14 even as heavy rains continued to lash the city, triggering landslides and forcing cancellation of flights. At least 14 people have died till now and another nine are missing. Fengshen, which means "God of Wind", had brought downpours and caused the rivers to swell in most parts of the country's industrial powerhouse, Guangdong, after hitting the province's economic boom city of Shenzen on Wednesday last. Although the tropical storm had left Shenzen, strong rain continued to pound the city Saturday, triggering landslides and forcing cancellation of flights and stranding passengers. The rains affected 340,000 people, destroyed more than 1,200 houses and inundated more than 640,000 hectares of crops.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
PHILIPPINES - heavy rains have triggered a landslide that killed at least four people and injured 26 others in the central Philippines. The houses of six families were buried late Sunday in mountainous Samboan township, in Cebu province. Many of the people were sleeping when the earth crashed down. It had been raining heavily and villagers reported a squall that whipped up winds in the area before the landslide.
U.S. -
Well before record floods overwhelmed at least two dozen levees in the Mississippi River watershed, government officials at all levels have raised concern about the ability of such structures to protect property and lives. For millions of Americans living in flood-prone places, all that stands between the waters of mayhem and safety is a pile of dirt. Earthen berms, dikes and levees, identical to those overtopped and breached in dozens of places along swollen rivers in the Midwest during the past few weeks, make up the vast majority of flood protection efforts across the United States. A growing list of levees around the country are being found wanting as tougher scrutiny from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, state regulators and private engineering firms reveals defects in design and maintenance. Even where levees are well-maintained, as those in the flood zone have been in most instances, officials note that the likelihood of flood levels rising higher than the tops of the berms seems to be increasing, because of a combination of more intense storms and changes in land use. Most of the levees that have been overtopped were built lower because they defend mostly farmland rather than cities. But places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Iowa City saw rivers crest more than 10 feet higher than levels reached in the then record-setting flood of 1993 � making it impossible to pile sand bags high enough or fast enough on their levees to keep the water out. No one at any level of government knows where all the levees are, much less the condition of thousands of the structures. By some estimates, there may be 20,000 to 30,000 levees scattered across the country, but no one is sure. Maintenance of levees, even those operated by the Corps itself, is years and billions of dollars behind schedule. "The levees are already bad and they are going to get worse. This is not a joke. We know this is going to happen." (photos)
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
U.S. floods may boost food prices for years - Levees on the cresting Mississippi River held today as the worst US Midwest flooding in 15 years began to ebb, but multibillion-dollar crop losses may boost world food prices for years.
In the Philippines, a "food shortage" looms in the next one to two months after the massive floods due to typhoon "Frank" (international codename: Fengshen) devastated farm lands and livestock in the Western Visayas. One of the affected provinces, Iloilo, is one of the top three rice-producing provinces in the country. The floods destroyed 22 hectares or rice lands, equivalent to 66,000 metric tons of rice, and "almost wiped out" livestock and fisheries in the region. In Cadiz town in Negros Occidental, the storm destroyed half a billion pesos worth of fishing boats. Water systems destroyed by the storm have not been repaired.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/29/08 -
5.0 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.9 PRIMOR'YE, RUSSIA
5.1 OFF COAST OF OREGON
5.0 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.2 WESTERN XIZANG
5.6 OFFSHORE CHIAPAS, MEXICO
VOLCANOES -
NEW ZEALAND - Lake temperatures and gas levels remain high on Mt Ruapehu. The mountain last erupted in September last year. GNS Science says the temperatures and levels usually return to normal after an eruption but they are still high, nine months later. The agency says another eruption is unlikely anytime soon but skiers and snowboarders should be aware of exit strategies in place. It says emergency management agencies met last week, to brush up on their eruption response plans.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
DUBAI - FREAK weather could endanger the lives of anyone swimming in the sea or trekking in the desert, Dubai Police have warned. The Ports Police Station issued a �cautionary advisory� informing residents and visitors about potential weather changes and urged people to be careful when going to the beach or visiting the desert or hilly areas. They also warned people not to swim at night when the sea becomes rougher. People were advised not to go to remote, unsupervised beaches, which may have hidden dangers such as strong currents or whirlpools. Weather conditions are expected to change constantly over the coming days, meaning anyone going sailing should first inform the operations room at Dubai Police. �This will make it easier for the police to find them in case of any accident.�
TROPICAL STORMS -
Map.
Projected storm paths .
Tropical storm BORIS was 660 nmi SW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical storm CRISTINA was 1185 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
PHILIPPINES - Fishing industry suffers after ferry tragedy - The government suspended all diving operations to recover bodies inside the passenger ferry which capsized during Typhoon Fengshen on June 21 with more than 850 people on board and banned fishing around the island on Friday after it was revealed the ferry was carrying a highly toxic pesticide. The crescent-shaped island has one of the country's most diverse marine eco systems. Should the chemicals leak into its pristine waters the impact on local marine life would be devastating. With their houses devastated by the typhoon and their livelihoods on the line, people are being forced to beg for food from relatives to feed their families. "We have no rice, no money. Now we can't even go out to sea to fish. That's all we have got. We are a poor people." Health officials are now conducting tests on samples taken from the area, and while initial results showed no contamination, experts are taking no chances. But in the meantime, already poor fishermen are wondering what will happen to them.
CHINA - The death toll in the last week's tropical storm Fengshen which struck south China's Guangdong province has mounted to 14 even as heavy rains continued to lash the city, triggering landslides and forcing cancellation of flights. At least 14 people have died till now and another nine are missing. Fengshen, which means "God of Wind", had brought downpours and caused the rivers to swell in most parts of the country's industrial powerhouse, Guangdong, after hitting the province's economic boom city of Shenzen on Wednesday last. Although the tropical storm had left Shenzen, strong rain continued to pound the city Saturday, triggering landslides and forcing cancellation of flights and stranding passengers. The rains affected 340,000 people, destroyed more than 1,200 houses and inundated more than 640,000 hectares of crops.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
PHILIPPINES - heavy rains have triggered a landslide that killed at least four people and injured 26 others in the central Philippines. The houses of six families were buried late Sunday in mountainous Samboan township, in Cebu province. Many of the people were sleeping when the earth crashed down. It had been raining heavily and villagers reported a squall that whipped up winds in the area before the landslide.
U.S. -
Well before record floods overwhelmed at least two dozen levees in the Mississippi River watershed, government officials at all levels have raised concern about the ability of such structures to protect property and lives. For millions of Americans living in flood-prone places, all that stands between the waters of mayhem and safety is a pile of dirt. Earthen berms, dikes and levees, identical to those overtopped and breached in dozens of places along swollen rivers in the Midwest during the past few weeks, make up the vast majority of flood protection efforts across the United States. A growing list of levees around the country are being found wanting as tougher scrutiny from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, state regulators and private engineering firms reveals defects in design and maintenance. Even where levees are well-maintained, as those in the flood zone have been in most instances, officials note that the likelihood of flood levels rising higher than the tops of the berms seems to be increasing, because of a combination of more intense storms and changes in land use. Most of the levees that have been overtopped were built lower because they defend mostly farmland rather than cities. But places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Iowa City saw rivers crest more than 10 feet higher than levels reached in the then record-setting flood of 1993 � making it impossible to pile sand bags high enough or fast enough on their levees to keep the water out. No one at any level of government knows where all the levees are, much less the condition of thousands of the structures. By some estimates, there may be 20,000 to 30,000 levees scattered across the country, but no one is sure. Maintenance of levees, even those operated by the Corps itself, is years and billions of dollars behind schedule. "The levees are already bad and they are going to get worse. This is not a joke. We know this is going to happen." (photos)
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
U.S. floods may boost food prices for years - Levees on the cresting Mississippi River held today as the worst US Midwest flooding in 15 years began to ebb, but multibillion-dollar crop losses may boost world food prices for years.
In the Philippines, a "food shortage" looms in the next one to two months after the massive floods due to typhoon "Frank" (international codename: Fengshen) devastated farm lands and livestock in the Western Visayas. One of the affected provinces, Iloilo, is one of the top three rice-producing provinces in the country. The floods destroyed 22 hectares or rice lands, equivalent to 66,000 metric tons of rice, and "almost wiped out" livestock and fisheries in the region. In Cadiz town in Negros Occidental, the storm destroyed half a billion pesos worth of fishing boats. Water systems destroyed by the storm have not been repaired.
Largest quakes yesterday -
6/30/08 -
6.8 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 WEST CHILE RISE
ISRAEL - Israeli authorities warn hospitals to prepare for earthquake - A strong earthquake could soon rock Lebanon and parts of Israel, authorities said on Monday, urging health officials in northern Israel to make preparations for such an event. "The probability of an earthquake of a magnitude of up to six on the Richter scale, originating in Lebanon and being felt in Israel has increased." Since February, ABNORMAL seismic activity has been noted in southern Lebanon, which suffered some 500 minor earthquakes in a three-month period. "In May, the tremors have become more intense and were felt in northern Israel. Should an earthquake of such magnitude hit northern Israel it may cause substantial infrastructural damage in the area." Some seismological experts point out quakes historically have rocked the region every eight decades, and the last one was just about 81 years ago. About 300 people were killed in Jerusalem and nearby Jericho by the July 11, 1927 temblor. A similar quake measuring seven on the Richter scale and with an epicentre in the Hula Valley, in what today is northern Israel, devastated the town of Safed and killed some 4,000 people in 1837.
CHINA - The major earthquake that devastated China last month was a RARE type, something of a seismological oddity, seismologists report in a new analysis. The faults that caused the temblor RARELY rumble. The earthquake was also a complete surprise to scientists. MIT seismologists who had been operating an array of 25 seismograph stations in the region for more than a year had found no hints that a large temblor might hit. "Nobody was thinking there would be a major seismological event. This earthquake was quite UNUSUAL." The region is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL GEOGRAPHICALLY, because of the very steep slopes at the boundary between the Sichuan Basin to the east and the Tibetan Plateau to the west. The elevation rises by more than two miles (about 3.5 kilometers) in a span of just 30 miles (50 kilometers). The area is at the boundary between the Indian and Asian tectonic plates, which are engaged in an ongoing collision that has created the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. In the area where the earthquake occurred, the flow of the crust is obstructed by a major obstacle, the Sichuan Basin. "The crust and mantle beneath the basin appears to form a hard, cold knot," which forces the flow to "wrap around the knot." The huge elevation differences between the surface of the plateau and the Sichuan Basin provided the underlying stress that led to the quake. Similar events in the area occur only once in every 2,000 to 10,000 years on average, the researchers say, though they caution that because earthquakes can sometimes occur in clusters, residents and officials should still be wary of another possible large-scale earthquake.
JAPAN - Massive landslides triggered by the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake caused a tsunami-like wave that hit the wall of the Aratozawa Dam in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture, raising the water level by about three meters, according to researchers. The massive quake and its aftershocks caused landslides in the upper reaches of the dam, dislodging earth that fell into the dam, which can hold up to 135.1 million tons of water. Experts said that if a larger amount of earth and rocks had fallen into the water, the dam could have been breached, causing much more serious damage to the lower reaches of the dam. About 70 million cubic meters of dirt - enough to fill Tokyo Dome 56 times - was dislodged from mountains around the dam. Although most of the earth did not fall into the dam, about 1.5 million cubic meters of earth, or about 2 percent of the total amount, did, raising the level of the water surface. When the quake hit the area, the water level was 10.9 meters below the top of the dam wall, so it was not breached. Landslides frequently occur around Mt. Kurikoma. The dam wall was built to avoid areas considered vulnerable to landslides, however it had not been anticipated that a landslide would cause the water level to rise so much.
INDONESIA - The undersea earthquakes that shook the islands of Andaman and Nicobar in the last three days are due to a 'settling process' of the fault plates and need not cause any major worries, say experts. Since April this year, the islands have experienced nearly 17 earthquakes, with a large number of them in June alone. The islands have been rattled by nearly 13 earthquakes since Friday evening when a strong temblor measuring 6.6, 120 km of Port Blair shook the already ravaged island, which has been hit by earthquakes since the destructive tsunami crashed into the Indian Coast on December 26, 2004. "These earthquakes are quite common. A settling process is happening and energy is being released from one plate, which is normal." The massive 9.1 magnitude quake that caused the tsunami created a rupture in the Indian plate for nearly 1,200 km. Inhabitants of the islands are used to a large number of quakes. The islands have been hit by huge temblors ever since 1847 when a quake of magnitude 7.3 struck. There are also reports of a minor tsunami having hit the islands following a quake of 7.9 on the Richter scale on December 31, 1881.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Projected storm paths .
Hurricane BORIS was 951 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. (The first hurricane of the 2008 season in the east Pacific basin.)
Tropical depression CRISTINA was 1398 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Another low pressure system in the Pacific has the potential to become a tropical cyclone within the next 48 hours as it tracks in a general NW direction paralleling the coast of Mexico.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
IVORY COAST - A landslide triggered by heavy rains in the Ivory Coast has killed at least seven people as their wooden homes were washed away in an Abidjan shantytown. The west African nation's rainy season had been under way for several weeks already.
HONG KONG - June rainfall A NEW RECORD IN 125 YEARS - 1346.1mm - The new record broke the previous monthly rainfall record of 1241.1 millimeters set in May, 1889.
U.S. -
OHIO - June 2008 officially became THE SOGGIEST JUNE ON RECORD, courtesy of 0.66 of an inch of rain on Saturday that boosted the month's total at Port Columbus to 9.92 inches.
MISSOURI - Hot temperatures from the south and cool temperatures from the northwest have been colliding. And that's led to UNPRECEDENTED RAINFALL in Missouri. During the last six months, Missouri averaged more than 30 inches of rain and all of that water is taking its toll. "The situation has been fairly dire, its frustrating for farmers. I think what's been UNIQUE about this spring pattern is that we've had not only significant rainfall but it's been occurring frequently. And there have been very few windows of opportunity for producers to get in their field and complete planting." This July could be one of the wettest they've ever seen. The forecasts over the next few weeks will dictate whether the flooding will continue. Missouri's second wettest July on record was in 1993, when the state had its worst flooding.
MARYLAND - Storms that have hammered the Tri-State area in recent weeks continued Saturday night, this time hitting Berkeley County with winds clocked at 68 mph. In the southern Berkeley County town of Gerrardstown, winds whipped utility poles, requiring Allegheny Energy crews to replace 13 poles. It was UNUSUAL to have that many poles damaged. "Exactly what hit there, I'm not sure. It was some pretty violent weather." A National Weather Service spokesman said the area experienced a "micro downburst," which causes strong winds as a result of a cloud collapsing.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
CALIFORNIA - Firefighters in northern California are struggling to contain more than 1,000 wildfires that have been burning for more than a week.
AUSTRALIA - Last week it snowed, Sunday people wore shorts and by the end of the week it will snow again. A series of "vigorous" cold fronts will create a similar weather pattern by Wednesday. Hobart enjoyed a beautiful day of sunshine, with the temperature creeping up to a summer-like 18.1C. Out of all the capital cities in Australia, only Darwin, Sydney and Brisbane were warmer than Hobart. Sunday's warmth was an aberration. "It is REALLY UNUSUAL weather - the average for June is 11.1C and we are way above that." Last week, an icy blast closed roads, contributed to crashes, caused power blackouts and brought mountain snow.
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
CHINA - Last month's devastating earthquake in China has severely damaged the country's agricultural supply and killed millions of farm animals, resulting in $6 billion in damages. The quake also killed more than 3 million pigs — with some villages losing up to 70 percent of their livestock — caused grain stores to collapse and damaged agriculture machinery. "It will probably take three to five years to rebuild the agricultural sector in Sichuan." Vegetable crops were lost when greenhouses collapsed, rice fields dried up because of craters and irrigation systems have been interrupted. Wheat crops could not be harvested after the quake because of the deaths and injuries of farming families; most of the wheat that had been harvested before the quake was lost when grain stores collapsed. Because of the shortage of pesticides and fertilizers, future production also is in danger.
The price of salt from Myanmar has tripled since Myanmar was hit by almost two months ago by Cyclone Nargis, which damaged salt-producing areas.
6/30/08 -
6.8 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 WEST CHILE RISE
ISRAEL - Israeli authorities warn hospitals to prepare for earthquake - A strong earthquake could soon rock Lebanon and parts of Israel, authorities said on Monday, urging health officials in northern Israel to make preparations for such an event. "The probability of an earthquake of a magnitude of up to six on the Richter scale, originating in Lebanon and being felt in Israel has increased." Since February, ABNORMAL seismic activity has been noted in southern Lebanon, which suffered some 500 minor earthquakes in a three-month period. "In May, the tremors have become more intense and were felt in northern Israel. Should an earthquake of such magnitude hit northern Israel it may cause substantial infrastructural damage in the area." Some seismological experts point out quakes historically have rocked the region every eight decades, and the last one was just about 81 years ago. About 300 people were killed in Jerusalem and nearby Jericho by the July 11, 1927 temblor. A similar quake measuring seven on the Richter scale and with an epicentre in the Hula Valley, in what today is northern Israel, devastated the town of Safed and killed some 4,000 people in 1837.
CHINA - The major earthquake that devastated China last month was a RARE type, something of a seismological oddity, seismologists report in a new analysis. The faults that caused the temblor RARELY rumble. The earthquake was also a complete surprise to scientists. MIT seismologists who had been operating an array of 25 seismograph stations in the region for more than a year had found no hints that a large temblor might hit. "Nobody was thinking there would be a major seismological event. This earthquake was quite UNUSUAL." The region is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL GEOGRAPHICALLY, because of the very steep slopes at the boundary between the Sichuan Basin to the east and the Tibetan Plateau to the west. The elevation rises by more than two miles (about 3.5 kilometers) in a span of just 30 miles (50 kilometers). The area is at the boundary between the Indian and Asian tectonic plates, which are engaged in an ongoing collision that has created the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. In the area where the earthquake occurred, the flow of the crust is obstructed by a major obstacle, the Sichuan Basin. "The crust and mantle beneath the basin appears to form a hard, cold knot," which forces the flow to "wrap around the knot." The huge elevation differences between the surface of the plateau and the Sichuan Basin provided the underlying stress that led to the quake. Similar events in the area occur only once in every 2,000 to 10,000 years on average, the researchers say, though they caution that because earthquakes can sometimes occur in clusters, residents and officials should still be wary of another possible large-scale earthquake.
JAPAN - Massive landslides triggered by the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake caused a tsunami-like wave that hit the wall of the Aratozawa Dam in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture, raising the water level by about three meters, according to researchers. The massive quake and its aftershocks caused landslides in the upper reaches of the dam, dislodging earth that fell into the dam, which can hold up to 135.1 million tons of water. Experts said that if a larger amount of earth and rocks had fallen into the water, the dam could have been breached, causing much more serious damage to the lower reaches of the dam. About 70 million cubic meters of dirt - enough to fill Tokyo Dome 56 times - was dislodged from mountains around the dam. Although most of the earth did not fall into the dam, about 1.5 million cubic meters of earth, or about 2 percent of the total amount, did, raising the level of the water surface. When the quake hit the area, the water level was 10.9 meters below the top of the dam wall, so it was not breached. Landslides frequently occur around Mt. Kurikoma. The dam wall was built to avoid areas considered vulnerable to landslides, however it had not been anticipated that a landslide would cause the water level to rise so much.
INDONESIA - The undersea earthquakes that shook the islands of Andaman and Nicobar in the last three days are due to a 'settling process' of the fault plates and need not cause any major worries, say experts. Since April this year, the islands have experienced nearly 17 earthquakes, with a large number of them in June alone. The islands have been rattled by nearly 13 earthquakes since Friday evening when a strong temblor measuring 6.6, 120 km of Port Blair shook the already ravaged island, which has been hit by earthquakes since the destructive tsunami crashed into the Indian Coast on December 26, 2004. "These earthquakes are quite common. A settling process is happening and energy is being released from one plate, which is normal." The massive 9.1 magnitude quake that caused the tsunami created a rupture in the Indian plate for nearly 1,200 km. Inhabitants of the islands are used to a large number of quakes. The islands have been hit by huge temblors ever since 1847 when a quake of magnitude 7.3 struck. There are also reports of a minor tsunami having hit the islands following a quake of 7.9 on the Richter scale on December 31, 1881.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Projected storm paths .
Hurricane BORIS was 951 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. (The first hurricane of the 2008 season in the east Pacific basin.)
Tropical depression CRISTINA was 1398 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Another low pressure system in the Pacific has the potential to become a tropical cyclone within the next 48 hours as it tracks in a general NW direction paralleling the coast of Mexico.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
IVORY COAST - A landslide triggered by heavy rains in the Ivory Coast has killed at least seven people as their wooden homes were washed away in an Abidjan shantytown. The west African nation's rainy season had been under way for several weeks already.
HONG KONG - June rainfall A NEW RECORD IN 125 YEARS - 1346.1mm - The new record broke the previous monthly rainfall record of 1241.1 millimeters set in May, 1889.
U.S. -
OHIO - June 2008 officially became THE SOGGIEST JUNE ON RECORD, courtesy of 0.66 of an inch of rain on Saturday that boosted the month's total at Port Columbus to 9.92 inches.
MISSOURI - Hot temperatures from the south and cool temperatures from the northwest have been colliding. And that's led to UNPRECEDENTED RAINFALL in Missouri. During the last six months, Missouri averaged more than 30 inches of rain and all of that water is taking its toll. "The situation has been fairly dire, its frustrating for farmers. I think what's been UNIQUE about this spring pattern is that we've had not only significant rainfall but it's been occurring frequently. And there have been very few windows of opportunity for producers to get in their field and complete planting." This July could be one of the wettest they've ever seen. The forecasts over the next few weeks will dictate whether the flooding will continue. Missouri's second wettest July on record was in 1993, when the state had its worst flooding.
MARYLAND - Storms that have hammered the Tri-State area in recent weeks continued Saturday night, this time hitting Berkeley County with winds clocked at 68 mph. In the southern Berkeley County town of Gerrardstown, winds whipped utility poles, requiring Allegheny Energy crews to replace 13 poles. It was UNUSUAL to have that many poles damaged. "Exactly what hit there, I'm not sure. It was some pretty violent weather." A National Weather Service spokesman said the area experienced a "micro downburst," which causes strong winds as a result of a cloud collapsing.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
CALIFORNIA - Firefighters in northern California are struggling to contain more than 1,000 wildfires that have been burning for more than a week.
AUSTRALIA - Last week it snowed, Sunday people wore shorts and by the end of the week it will snow again. A series of "vigorous" cold fronts will create a similar weather pattern by Wednesday. Hobart enjoyed a beautiful day of sunshine, with the temperature creeping up to a summer-like 18.1C. Out of all the capital cities in Australia, only Darwin, Sydney and Brisbane were warmer than Hobart. Sunday's warmth was an aberration. "It is REALLY UNUSUAL weather - the average for June is 11.1C and we are way above that." Last week, an icy blast closed roads, contributed to crashes, caused power blackouts and brought mountain snow.
FOOD / WATER / SUPPLIES-
CHINA - Last month's devastating earthquake in China has severely damaged the country's agricultural supply and killed millions of farm animals, resulting in $6 billion in damages. The quake also killed more than 3 million pigs — with some villages losing up to 70 percent of their livestock — caused grain stores to collapse and damaged agriculture machinery. "It will probably take three to five years to rebuild the agricultural sector in Sichuan." Vegetable crops were lost when greenhouses collapsed, rice fields dried up because of craters and irrigation systems have been interrupted. Wheat crops could not be harvested after the quake because of the deaths and injuries of farming families; most of the wheat that had been harvested before the quake was lost when grain stores collapsed. Because of the shortage of pesticides and fertilizers, future production also is in danger.
The price of salt from Myanmar has tripled since Myanmar was hit by almost two months ago by Cyclone Nargis, which damaged salt-producing areas.
LEBANON's National Council for Scientific Research denied on Monday Israeli reports that a large-scale earthquake could soon rock Lebanon and parts of the Jewish state, saying that it was "impossible" to predict such seismic activity. "No new evidence suggests an impending large-scale earthquake in Lebanon, as was reported by media outlets relying on sources in Israel - in any case, attempting to predict a seismic shock is almost impossible."
VOLCANOES -
CHILE - Llaima volcano, one of South America's most active, is spewing lava in southern Chile, the government said today, ordering an evacuation just two months after the spectacular eruption of the Chaiten volcano further south. Llaima erupted violently on New Year's Day, forcing the temporary evacuation of some tourists and residents from the surrounding Conguillio National Park, and then belched ash and lava in February. Today the government ordered a 15km exclusion zone around the volcano and ordered the evacuation of 30 people in the area around the 3125m-high volcano, which lies about 700km south of Santiago. "There is renewed activity as lava is flowing towards the Calbuco River. (The lava) has reached around 800m to 1000m from the crater...The risk in this case is that there could be abrupt melting of snow because of the lava, which could produce torrents (of water and other material)." The direction of the lava flow places the towns of La Selva and Danubio at most risk, due to the fact that they are located only 10 to 12 kilometers from the crater – which is within the primary emergency radius that has been declared.
The renewed activity comes after Chaiten volcano, 1220km south of Santiago in Chilean Patagonia, started erupting on May 2 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing ash, gas and molten rock. The nearby town of Chaiten has been caked in volcanic ash and the volcano continues to emit hot gas and ash. A 50km radius around that volcano was evacuated, and the area remains off limits to thousands of evacuees. Chile's chain of some 2000 volcanoes is the world's second-largest after Indonesia's. Around 50-60 are recorded to have erupted, while a total of 500 are deemed potentially active.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Projected storm paths .
Tropical depression 04E was 246 nmi SW of Manzanillo, Mexico.
Tropical storm BORIS was 998 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
U.S. forecasters are closely tracking 'vigorous' African wave - Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center started tracking a tropical wave off Africa Tuesday, the first system of the season showing potential to develop. The wave, a mass of thunderstorms around an area of low pressure, is heading west at 15 to 20 mph. Its winds are just over 25 mph. Forecasters described the wave as "vigorous," and it already has a well-defined counterclockwise spin, a sign it could become better organized as it tracks across the Atlantic Ocean. Between 70 and 80 tropical waves emerge from Africa each season and can become the seeds of hurricanes. Most never develop into tropical storms. Still, the hurricane center has begun running forecast models on the wave. And though early runs can show wide variations, most predict the wave will curve north before reaching the Caribbean Sea. Intensity forecasts vary, with some predicting the wave will become a hurricane within five days. Most project the wave will be no stronger than a tropical storm. It is the only one of five tropical waves now moving across the Atlantic or Caribbean that shows any potential for development. One day into the season's second month is fairly early for a hurricane to develop. Tropical waves tend to develop into storms during the height of the season in August and September, when conditions in the Atlantic are more favorable. Most storms in June and early July develop in the Gulf of Mexico or western Caribbean. However, water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic have been about 1 degree higher in June than normal. Developing hurricanes feed on warm water.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
INDIA - The west coast, especially the Konkan-Mumbai-South Gujarat belt, has come in for a battering for the second time this monsoon in a pattern best attributed to a recurrent sea-based phenomenon – a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The west coast and parts of central India are witnessing what looks like a third successive surplus monsoon phase instigated by a RARE third-in-a-row positive IOD event. India Meteorological Department has now put the IOD on the same keel as the Pacific-generated El Nino/La Nina with regard to comparable influence on the monsoon. The IOD event might just help the monsoon deliver more rain than what long-range forecasts appeared to credit it with. A positive IOD occurs when the seesawing sea surface temperatures leaves a warming anomaly in the West Indian Ocean aiding convection and precipitation. In this manner, the monsoon gets an induced southwesterly 'push' that is reflected in the overall output over the landmass. It is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL that a third consecutive positive IOD has evolved this year following those in 2006 and 2007. "As far as we know, THERE IS NO SUCH OCCASION IN THE PAST 100 YEARS when we had three consecutive positive IODs."
CHINA - Landslides have blocked a highway with rubble and isolated 3000 people in a quake-hit town in southwest China.
NEW MEXICO - Repairs were under way Monday at an Elephant Butte Lake marina that was hit by a wind storm. No injuries were reported in the storm that hit about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The storm tore the wave breakers — a string of huge tires that protect the marina — loose from their anchors. Docks also separated from the anchors that hold them in place. "The marina received quite a bit of damage. We're just putting the marina back together." The storm lasted a few hours and wasn't accompanied by rain. "I HAVEN'T SEEN WINDS LIKE THIS IN THE LAST 15 YEARS. It kind of came straight down the Rio Grande corridor; it wasn't a thunderstorm." At least one boat sank and others were damaged. Weather equipment at the marina recorded wind speeds up to 74 miles per hour before electricity was shut off at the site.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
The Sun turned purple in California last week. The fantastic sight came from the smoke of hundreds of wildfires that broke out in tinder-dry conditions across the state. The tiny bits of soot that filled the air were just the right size to scatter the red colours of sunlight and let through shades of purple. Scotland witnessed its own surreal spectacle on September 26, 1950, when the Sun turned blue. "All over the city people stopped to gaze at the sapphire sphere," described The Scotsman in Edinburgh. The newspaper's switchboard was jammed with callers, some of whom thought the end of the world was coming. And later that night the country was treated to the sight of a blue Moon. An RAF jet fighter was sent up to investigate and reported that the Sun was a vivid blue up to a few miles high, where a layer of smoky brown haze was hanging. Above that the Sun looked normal. The smoke had come from massive wildfires in Alberta that turned the Sun purple or orange across much of North America. The smoke was then blown across the Atlantic. Wildfires are not that unusual, so why is the proverbial Blue Moon, or Blue Sun, not seen more often? The smoke particles from the fires have to be the same specific size and that is QUITE RARE.
CALIFORNIA - Drought-ravaged pastureland is forcing Central California ranchers to sell cattle and sheep herds. Rangelands have turned brown and springs are drying up.
Penguin populations have plummeted at a key breeding colony in Argentina, mirroring declines in many species of the marine flightless birds due to climate change, pollution and other factors, a study shows.
HEALTH THREATS -
With the number of people sickened in the nationwide salmonella outbreak now standing at 869, with 107 hospitalizations, US officials acknowledged Tuesday that they were no closer to finding the source.
Most sunscreen products are inadequate - The Environmental Working Group has found out that four out of five brand-name sunscreens are not adequate for consumers, after testing about 1000 products. They have either failed to adequately protect consumers or contain chemicals that may pose health hazards. The worst faring were sunscreen products with an SPF rating of 15 or higher. Around 85% of them included ingredients which are not tested for safety or are already considered health risks, or simply did not shield UV rays appropriately. What most people don't know is that most of these substances actually break down when exposed to sunlight, and their efficiency disappears after a short time.
QUOTE
You want to bet, Hiss-bollah?
VOLCANOES -
CHILE - Llaima volcano, one of South America's most active, is spewing lava in southern Chile, the government said today, ordering an evacuation just two months after the spectacular eruption of the Chaiten volcano further south. Llaima erupted violently on New Year's Day, forcing the temporary evacuation of some tourists and residents from the surrounding Conguillio National Park, and then belched ash and lava in February. Today the government ordered a 15km exclusion zone around the volcano and ordered the evacuation of 30 people in the area around the 3125m-high volcano, which lies about 700km south of Santiago. "There is renewed activity as lava is flowing towards the Calbuco River. (The lava) has reached around 800m to 1000m from the crater...The risk in this case is that there could be abrupt melting of snow because of the lava, which could produce torrents (of water and other material)." The direction of the lava flow places the towns of La Selva and Danubio at most risk, due to the fact that they are located only 10 to 12 kilometers from the crater – which is within the primary emergency radius that has been declared.
The renewed activity comes after Chaiten volcano, 1220km south of Santiago in Chilean Patagonia, started erupting on May 2 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing ash, gas and molten rock. The nearby town of Chaiten has been caked in volcanic ash and the volcano continues to emit hot gas and ash. A 50km radius around that volcano was evacuated, and the area remains off limits to thousands of evacuees. Chile's chain of some 2000 volcanoes is the world's second-largest after Indonesia's. Around 50-60 are recorded to have erupted, while a total of 500 are deemed potentially active.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Projected storm paths .
Tropical depression 04E was 246 nmi SW of Manzanillo, Mexico.
Tropical storm BORIS was 998 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
U.S. forecasters are closely tracking 'vigorous' African wave - Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center started tracking a tropical wave off Africa Tuesday, the first system of the season showing potential to develop. The wave, a mass of thunderstorms around an area of low pressure, is heading west at 15 to 20 mph. Its winds are just over 25 mph. Forecasters described the wave as "vigorous," and it already has a well-defined counterclockwise spin, a sign it could become better organized as it tracks across the Atlantic Ocean. Between 70 and 80 tropical waves emerge from Africa each season and can become the seeds of hurricanes. Most never develop into tropical storms. Still, the hurricane center has begun running forecast models on the wave. And though early runs can show wide variations, most predict the wave will curve north before reaching the Caribbean Sea. Intensity forecasts vary, with some predicting the wave will become a hurricane within five days. Most project the wave will be no stronger than a tropical storm. It is the only one of five tropical waves now moving across the Atlantic or Caribbean that shows any potential for development. One day into the season's second month is fairly early for a hurricane to develop. Tropical waves tend to develop into storms during the height of the season in August and September, when conditions in the Atlantic are more favorable. Most storms in June and early July develop in the Gulf of Mexico or western Caribbean. However, water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic have been about 1 degree higher in June than normal. Developing hurricanes feed on warm water.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
INDIA - The west coast, especially the Konkan-Mumbai-South Gujarat belt, has come in for a battering for the second time this monsoon in a pattern best attributed to a recurrent sea-based phenomenon – a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The west coast and parts of central India are witnessing what looks like a third successive surplus monsoon phase instigated by a RARE third-in-a-row positive IOD event. India Meteorological Department has now put the IOD on the same keel as the Pacific-generated El Nino/La Nina with regard to comparable influence on the monsoon. The IOD event might just help the monsoon deliver more rain than what long-range forecasts appeared to credit it with. A positive IOD occurs when the seesawing sea surface temperatures leaves a warming anomaly in the West Indian Ocean aiding convection and precipitation. In this manner, the monsoon gets an induced southwesterly 'push' that is reflected in the overall output over the landmass. It is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL that a third consecutive positive IOD has evolved this year following those in 2006 and 2007. "As far as we know, THERE IS NO SUCH OCCASION IN THE PAST 100 YEARS when we had three consecutive positive IODs."
CHINA - Landslides have blocked a highway with rubble and isolated 3000 people in a quake-hit town in southwest China.
NEW MEXICO - Repairs were under way Monday at an Elephant Butte Lake marina that was hit by a wind storm. No injuries were reported in the storm that hit about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The storm tore the wave breakers — a string of huge tires that protect the marina — loose from their anchors. Docks also separated from the anchors that hold them in place. "The marina received quite a bit of damage. We're just putting the marina back together." The storm lasted a few hours and wasn't accompanied by rain. "I HAVEN'T SEEN WINDS LIKE THIS IN THE LAST 15 YEARS. It kind of came straight down the Rio Grande corridor; it wasn't a thunderstorm." At least one boat sank and others were damaged. Weather equipment at the marina recorded wind speeds up to 74 miles per hour before electricity was shut off at the site.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
The Sun turned purple in California last week. The fantastic sight came from the smoke of hundreds of wildfires that broke out in tinder-dry conditions across the state. The tiny bits of soot that filled the air were just the right size to scatter the red colours of sunlight and let through shades of purple. Scotland witnessed its own surreal spectacle on September 26, 1950, when the Sun turned blue. "All over the city people stopped to gaze at the sapphire sphere," described The Scotsman in Edinburgh. The newspaper's switchboard was jammed with callers, some of whom thought the end of the world was coming. And later that night the country was treated to the sight of a blue Moon. An RAF jet fighter was sent up to investigate and reported that the Sun was a vivid blue up to a few miles high, where a layer of smoky brown haze was hanging. Above that the Sun looked normal. The smoke had come from massive wildfires in Alberta that turned the Sun purple or orange across much of North America. The smoke was then blown across the Atlantic. Wildfires are not that unusual, so why is the proverbial Blue Moon, or Blue Sun, not seen more often? The smoke particles from the fires have to be the same specific size and that is QUITE RARE.
CALIFORNIA - Drought-ravaged pastureland is forcing Central California ranchers to sell cattle and sheep herds. Rangelands have turned brown and springs are drying up.
QUOTE
Still not praying, are ya?
Penguin populations have plummeted at a key breeding colony in Argentina, mirroring declines in many species of the marine flightless birds due to climate change, pollution and other factors, a study shows.
HEALTH THREATS -
With the number of people sickened in the nationwide salmonella outbreak now standing at 869, with 107 hospitalizations, US officials acknowledged Tuesday that they were no closer to finding the source.
Most sunscreen products are inadequate - The Environmental Working Group has found out that four out of five brand-name sunscreens are not adequate for consumers, after testing about 1000 products. They have either failed to adequately protect consumers or contain chemicals that may pose health hazards. The worst faring were sunscreen products with an SPF rating of 15 or higher. Around 85% of them included ingredients which are not tested for safety or are already considered health risks, or simply did not shield UV rays appropriately. What most people don't know is that most of these substances actually break down when exposed to sunlight, and their efficiency disappears after a short time.
People, the more chaff you produce, the longer this list is.
===============================
CHINA - Expected heavy rain and the risk of aftershocks mean lakes created in southwestern China after May's massive earthquake are still at risk of flooding, despite preventative work. Landslides after the 7.9 magnitude quake, which killed about 70,000 people, created 35 so-called "quake lakes", the majority in the hard hit province of Sichuan. Though work to drain the lakes has largely been successful, there is still a threat to hundreds of thousands of people living downstream. "Although disaster relief efforts have achieved a major initial victory, the flood situation in the disaster area is much more severe than in previous years. Rainfall is expected to be much higher than in previous years during the flood season, and there may be large floods...The quake lakes which are no longer in danger have yet to go through the experience of large floods. Heavy rain and aftershocks may induce rockslides that lead to more quake lakes."
FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
UNITED KINGDOM - Newquay's famous big wave spot, the Cribbar, roared to life Wednesday as a giant swell hit the Cornish coastline. The waves towered up to three times their size at about 18ft on the biggest waves. It is HIGHLY UNUSUAL to get a swell big enough to spark the Cribbar into life at this time of year which is generally associated with calm sea conditions.
ILLINOIS - Warning issued for Chicago beaches - potential for flash flooding along the Lake Michigan Shore. The city Office of Emergency Management and Communications has been in contact with the National Weather Services regarding a special marine seiche warning and the possibility of a rapid two-foot rise in lake levels. Residents are asked to stay away from beaches, the lakefront and marina areas, and residents of those areas are warned to stay away from the edge of the water. Evacuation of docks, piers and breakwalls is also advised. According to the Weather Service, a drop of two feet in water levels has been reported at St. Joseph, Michigan, indicating that a seiche is in progress across southern Lake Michigan. A seiche is described as a "standing wave" in an enclosed body of water such as lakes, reservoirs and bays. "A rapid 2-foot drop of Lake Michigan water levels on the east side of Lake Michigan is evidence that a 2-foot rise or better is possible at the Chicago beaches. A fluctuation of water levels at these beaches will continue through the evening [Wednesday]." The warning said this is a "very dangerous event for waders" as water levels may fluctuate rapidly, "taking unsuspecting waders out to more open waters."
TROPICAL STORMS -
Tropical storm BERTHA was 1532 nmi S of Lajes, Azores.
Tropical storm BORIS was 1127 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical depression DOUGLAS was 165 nmi S of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Boris became a hurricane again in Pacific - Boris gained hurricane strength again early Wednesday as it continued to churn far out in the Pacific, west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. Hurricane Boris had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph. But it weakened and dropped below hurricane strength later in the day. Boris also briefly became a hurricane Tuesday, before its winds fell to about 70 mph.
As Boris winds down in the open waters of the Pacific, another tropical storm – the third in a week – has been named in the Pacific. Tropical Storm Douglas formed Wednesday off the coast of Mexico [now it is a tropical depression] and packed sustained winds of 40 mph. It is the fourth named storm in the eastern Pacific this season. Its predecessor, Boris, became the season's first hurricane. So far, only Tropical Storm Alma, which formed in late May and soaked Central America in the first days of June, has affected people on land. Boris, headed in the general direction of Hawaii, is expected to dissipate before reaching land. Tropical Storm Douglas could produce heavy rains along portions of the southwestern coast of Mexico, between Cardenas and Puerto Vallarta.
Tropical wave spawns RARE 'Cape Verde' storm in the Atlantic - A strong tropical wave [now a tropical storm] just off the west coast of Africa has the potential to become a RARE July "Cape Verde" storm, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday. It has now become Tropical Storm Bertha and marks THE EARLIEST ON RECORD THAT A TROPICAL STORM HAS FORMED THIS FAR EAST.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CHINA - Torrential rains have hit about half of China since Tuesday, leaving one dead, four injured and nearly 400,000 affected. The rain also caused blocked traffic in cities, delayed flights, destroyed homes, flooded farmland and threatened flooding in river areas, mainly south of the Yangtze River. The casualties were reported in Shanghai, where a two-story building collapsed on Wednesday afternoon at a construction site and five construction workers were buried in debris. The atrocious weather also caused an hour-long power cut on the railway linking Shanghai and neighboring Hangzhou, leaving trains from Shanghai railway station delayed. Seven counties and cities in the central Hubei Province reported more than 395,900 people affected and 35,580 hectares of crops damaged. The rainfall in Zhongxiang, Jingshan, Huangpi, Macheng, Hong'an, Xiaochang, Dawu all exceeded 100 millimeters with the maximum at 247 millimeters. Macheng City, the worst-stricken area, received an average of 164 millimeters of rain in five hours on Wednesday, THE MOST IN 17 YEARS. More rain was forecast for the next two days.
INDIA - Flooding and house collapses caused by heavy rains have killed at least 11 people in northern India over the past two days. The eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh state, where all the deaths took place, have been lashed by heavy rains since Monday and all major rivers in the region have flooded over.
WASHINGTON - Weather conditions created a FREAK 'circumhorizontal arc' over Port Townsend Bay - A cloud formation over Port Townsend Bay featured a "circumhorizontal arc" for about an hour around noon Wednesday, June 25. A cluster of five or six individual clouds made up the horizontal display that drew hundreds of people out of downtown Port Townsend buildings to look. One person described it like a scene from the motion picture "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," with people drawn outside to stare at the sky. It's not a rainbow in the normal sense - it is caused by light passing through high-altitude cirrus clouds. The phenomenon occurs only when the sun is high in the sky, and the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors. (photos)
COLD -
NORTH CAROLINA - Rock Hill hit a RECORD-LOW 56 degrees Wednesday morning, breaking the Charlotte region low set in 1885. The temperature at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport was also 56 early that morning, BREAKING THE RECORD for July 2 of 58. The normal low for this time of year is 70.
The National Weather Service recorded a low of 50 degrees at the Asheville Regional Airport after a high of 80 on Monday. The low was 11 degrees below normal and BEAT THE OLD RECORD LOW of 51 set in 1984. The cool spell is being caused by a cold front that pushed as far south as the Florida panhandle before becoming stationary. The normal high for the date is 82, while the normal low is 61.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
CALIFORNIA - Most of Big Sur evacuated after wildfire spreads - Authorities ordered the remaining residents of this scenic coastal community to leave Wednesday because an out-of-control wildfire, one of hundreds in California, had jumped a fire line and was threatening more homes. Flames raged in the hills above and ash fell from orange skies as evacuees in packed cars streamed north along Highway 1, the only major road out of Big Sur. "The fire is just a big raging animal right now." The blaze near Big Sur is one of more than 1,100 wildfires, mostly ignited by lightning, that have scorched more than 770 square miles and destroyed 64 homes and buildings across northern and central California since June 20. The new evacuation notice means that all of the roughly 850 residents who live along the Big Sur coast from Andrew Molera State Park to Limekiln State Park have been ordered to leave. About 150,000 Southern California Edison customers in Goleta and Santa Barbara were without electricity shortly after 7 p.m. when thick smoke forced the shutdown of power transmission lines. Federal fire managers predict an increase in severe wildfire activity in Northern California through October because of the UNUSUALLY HOT, DRY WEATHER and scant rain.
Firefighters near Crown King, Arizona, were hacking away at brush and trees and burning back land near the town on Wednesday to try to quell a blaze that had burned nearly 12 square miles of land.
A wildfire threatened 15 homes and a casino near Okanogan, Washington, and some residents have been evacuated. The blaze covered 1,500 acres — just over 2 square miles.
WASHINGTON - Like the Santa Ana winds notorious for fanning wildfires in California, Western Washington's east wind has been the missing ingredient for substantially destructive Western Washington wildfires in recent years. Although it's happened only once in recorded history, it has nearly been repeated in recent years during wildfires in Carnation in 2003 and SeaTac in 2006 and 2007. Officals this season fear a repeat of the infamous Yacult Burn of 1901, the worst forest fire in state history, when a wind from Eastern Washington fanned the flames in a fire so big that smoke blotted out the sun in Portland and Seattle. "When people hear of an east wind it should mean something to them." The winds blow from Eastern Washington through the mountain passes, potentially fanning wildfires there in a westerly direction toward residential areas. Firefighters here don't want to face a doomsday situation like that firefighters in California now experience, forced to pick their battles, allowing some property to burn while saving others.
The oil giant ExxonMobil has admitted that its support for lobby groups that question the science of climate change may have hindered action to tackle global warming. In its corporate citizenship report ExxonMobil says it intends to cut funds to several groups that "divert attention" from the need to find new sources of clean energy. Green campaigners accuse the company of funding a "climate denial industry" over the last decade, with $23m (£11.5m) handed over to groups that play down the risks of burning fossil fuels.
Exxon investors rejected green initiatives - an effort to foist green initiatives on ExxonMobil failed to capture wholehearted support from shareholders. Protesters wielded banners outside the meeting in Dallas with slogans such as "People before profits" and "Oil: the new Black Death". Arguing that renewables lacked technological scale, Exxon said "meaningful environmental improvements" would come from more efficient ways of delivering existing fuels. The remarks failed to satisfy environmentalists. One accused Exxon's directors of leaving their responsibilities at the door. "Exxon is acting like a dinosaur in not adapting ... ExxonMobil-asaurus will disappear." Exxon's assumptions of future energy consumption were questioned by the Rockefellers, who suggested projected growth in demand from developing countries could not materialise if those nations faced catastrophes from global warming.
Will global warming end in catastrophe or anticlimax? The more scientists study climate, the less they know. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hammered out its last assessment in 2001, scientists pulled together the latest research and made their best estimate of how much the Earth's atmosphere would warm during the next century. There was a lot they didn't know, but they were confident they'd be able to plug the gaps in time for the next report, due out in 2007. When they explored the fundamental physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, though, they found something unexpected: the way the atmosphere - and, in particular, clouds - respond to increasing levels of carbon is far more complex and difficult to predict than they had expected. "We thought we'd reduce the uncertainty, but that hasn't happened. As we delve further and further into the science and [gain] a better understanding of the true complexity [of the atmosphere], the uncertainties have gotten deeper." This doesn't mean, of course, that the world isn't warming. Only the biased or the deluded deny that temperatures have risen. The big question that scientists have struggled with is how much warming will occur over the next century? With so much still unknown in the climate equation, there's no way of telling whether warnings of catastrophe are overblown or if things are even more dire than we thought. "Whether or not we're converging on the truth, we don't know." Scientists are optimistic that they'll eventually crack the cloud problem, but "it may take seven years."
HEALTH THREATS -
Kroger Co. in Ohio will recall more ground beef now that Nebraska Beef in Omaha has been identified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the supplier of products linked to an outbreak of E. coli-related illness. Kroger issued a voluntary recall June 25 for stores in Michigan, Toledo and Columbus, after state health officials investigating the outbreak found beef patties in a Columbus-area Kroger that tested positive for E. coli.
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CHINA - Expected heavy rain and the risk of aftershocks mean lakes created in southwestern China after May's massive earthquake are still at risk of flooding, despite preventative work. Landslides after the 7.9 magnitude quake, which killed about 70,000 people, created 35 so-called "quake lakes", the majority in the hard hit province of Sichuan. Though work to drain the lakes has largely been successful, there is still a threat to hundreds of thousands of people living downstream. "Although disaster relief efforts have achieved a major initial victory, the flood situation in the disaster area is much more severe than in previous years. Rainfall is expected to be much higher than in previous years during the flood season, and there may be large floods...The quake lakes which are no longer in danger have yet to go through the experience of large floods. Heavy rain and aftershocks may induce rockslides that lead to more quake lakes."
FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
UNITED KINGDOM - Newquay's famous big wave spot, the Cribbar, roared to life Wednesday as a giant swell hit the Cornish coastline. The waves towered up to three times their size at about 18ft on the biggest waves. It is HIGHLY UNUSUAL to get a swell big enough to spark the Cribbar into life at this time of year which is generally associated with calm sea conditions.
ILLINOIS - Warning issued for Chicago beaches - potential for flash flooding along the Lake Michigan Shore. The city Office of Emergency Management and Communications has been in contact with the National Weather Services regarding a special marine seiche warning and the possibility of a rapid two-foot rise in lake levels. Residents are asked to stay away from beaches, the lakefront and marina areas, and residents of those areas are warned to stay away from the edge of the water. Evacuation of docks, piers and breakwalls is also advised. According to the Weather Service, a drop of two feet in water levels has been reported at St. Joseph, Michigan, indicating that a seiche is in progress across southern Lake Michigan. A seiche is described as a "standing wave" in an enclosed body of water such as lakes, reservoirs and bays. "A rapid 2-foot drop of Lake Michigan water levels on the east side of Lake Michigan is evidence that a 2-foot rise or better is possible at the Chicago beaches. A fluctuation of water levels at these beaches will continue through the evening [Wednesday]." The warning said this is a "very dangerous event for waders" as water levels may fluctuate rapidly, "taking unsuspecting waders out to more open waters."
TROPICAL STORMS -
Tropical storm BERTHA was 1532 nmi S of Lajes, Azores.
Tropical storm BORIS was 1127 nmi WSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Tropical depression DOUGLAS was 165 nmi S of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Boris became a hurricane again in Pacific - Boris gained hurricane strength again early Wednesday as it continued to churn far out in the Pacific, west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. Hurricane Boris had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph. But it weakened and dropped below hurricane strength later in the day. Boris also briefly became a hurricane Tuesday, before its winds fell to about 70 mph.
As Boris winds down in the open waters of the Pacific, another tropical storm – the third in a week – has been named in the Pacific. Tropical Storm Douglas formed Wednesday off the coast of Mexico [now it is a tropical depression] and packed sustained winds of 40 mph. It is the fourth named storm in the eastern Pacific this season. Its predecessor, Boris, became the season's first hurricane. So far, only Tropical Storm Alma, which formed in late May and soaked Central America in the first days of June, has affected people on land. Boris, headed in the general direction of Hawaii, is expected to dissipate before reaching land. Tropical Storm Douglas could produce heavy rains along portions of the southwestern coast of Mexico, between Cardenas and Puerto Vallarta.
Tropical wave spawns RARE 'Cape Verde' storm in the Atlantic - A strong tropical wave [now a tropical storm] just off the west coast of Africa has the potential to become a RARE July "Cape Verde" storm, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday. It has now become Tropical Storm Bertha and marks THE EARLIEST ON RECORD THAT A TROPICAL STORM HAS FORMED THIS FAR EAST.
HEAVY RAINS / FLOODING / LANDSLIDES / UNUSUAL & OUT-OF-SEASON WEATHER -
CHINA - Torrential rains have hit about half of China since Tuesday, leaving one dead, four injured and nearly 400,000 affected. The rain also caused blocked traffic in cities, delayed flights, destroyed homes, flooded farmland and threatened flooding in river areas, mainly south of the Yangtze River. The casualties were reported in Shanghai, where a two-story building collapsed on Wednesday afternoon at a construction site and five construction workers were buried in debris. The atrocious weather also caused an hour-long power cut on the railway linking Shanghai and neighboring Hangzhou, leaving trains from Shanghai railway station delayed. Seven counties and cities in the central Hubei Province reported more than 395,900 people affected and 35,580 hectares of crops damaged. The rainfall in Zhongxiang, Jingshan, Huangpi, Macheng, Hong'an, Xiaochang, Dawu all exceeded 100 millimeters with the maximum at 247 millimeters. Macheng City, the worst-stricken area, received an average of 164 millimeters of rain in five hours on Wednesday, THE MOST IN 17 YEARS. More rain was forecast for the next two days.
INDIA - Flooding and house collapses caused by heavy rains have killed at least 11 people in northern India over the past two days. The eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh state, where all the deaths took place, have been lashed by heavy rains since Monday and all major rivers in the region have flooded over.
WASHINGTON - Weather conditions created a FREAK 'circumhorizontal arc' over Port Townsend Bay - A cloud formation over Port Townsend Bay featured a "circumhorizontal arc" for about an hour around noon Wednesday, June 25. A cluster of five or six individual clouds made up the horizontal display that drew hundreds of people out of downtown Port Townsend buildings to look. One person described it like a scene from the motion picture "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," with people drawn outside to stare at the sky. It's not a rainbow in the normal sense - it is caused by light passing through high-altitude cirrus clouds. The phenomenon occurs only when the sun is high in the sky, and the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors. (photos)
COLD -
NORTH CAROLINA - Rock Hill hit a RECORD-LOW 56 degrees Wednesday morning, breaking the Charlotte region low set in 1885. The temperature at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport was also 56 early that morning, BREAKING THE RECORD for July 2 of 58. The normal low for this time of year is 70.
The National Weather Service recorded a low of 50 degrees at the Asheville Regional Airport after a high of 80 on Monday. The low was 11 degrees below normal and BEAT THE OLD RECORD LOW of 51 set in 1984. The cool spell is being caused by a cold front that pushed as far south as the Florida panhandle before becoming stationary. The normal high for the date is 82, while the normal low is 61.
EXTREME HEAT / WILDFIRES / DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE-
CALIFORNIA - Most of Big Sur evacuated after wildfire spreads - Authorities ordered the remaining residents of this scenic coastal community to leave Wednesday because an out-of-control wildfire, one of hundreds in California, had jumped a fire line and was threatening more homes. Flames raged in the hills above and ash fell from orange skies as evacuees in packed cars streamed north along Highway 1, the only major road out of Big Sur. "The fire is just a big raging animal right now." The blaze near Big Sur is one of more than 1,100 wildfires, mostly ignited by lightning, that have scorched more than 770 square miles and destroyed 64 homes and buildings across northern and central California since June 20. The new evacuation notice means that all of the roughly 850 residents who live along the Big Sur coast from Andrew Molera State Park to Limekiln State Park have been ordered to leave. About 150,000 Southern California Edison customers in Goleta and Santa Barbara were without electricity shortly after 7 p.m. when thick smoke forced the shutdown of power transmission lines. Federal fire managers predict an increase in severe wildfire activity in Northern California through October because of the UNUSUALLY HOT, DRY WEATHER and scant rain.
Firefighters near Crown King, Arizona, were hacking away at brush and trees and burning back land near the town on Wednesday to try to quell a blaze that had burned nearly 12 square miles of land.
A wildfire threatened 15 homes and a casino near Okanogan, Washington, and some residents have been evacuated. The blaze covered 1,500 acres — just over 2 square miles.
WASHINGTON - Like the Santa Ana winds notorious for fanning wildfires in California, Western Washington's east wind has been the missing ingredient for substantially destructive Western Washington wildfires in recent years. Although it's happened only once in recorded history, it has nearly been repeated in recent years during wildfires in Carnation in 2003 and SeaTac in 2006 and 2007. Officals this season fear a repeat of the infamous Yacult Burn of 1901, the worst forest fire in state history, when a wind from Eastern Washington fanned the flames in a fire so big that smoke blotted out the sun in Portland and Seattle. "When people hear of an east wind it should mean something to them." The winds blow from Eastern Washington through the mountain passes, potentially fanning wildfires there in a westerly direction toward residential areas. Firefighters here don't want to face a doomsday situation like that firefighters in California now experience, forced to pick their battles, allowing some property to burn while saving others.
The oil giant ExxonMobil has admitted that its support for lobby groups that question the science of climate change may have hindered action to tackle global warming. In its corporate citizenship report ExxonMobil says it intends to cut funds to several groups that "divert attention" from the need to find new sources of clean energy. Green campaigners accuse the company of funding a "climate denial industry" over the last decade, with $23m (£11.5m) handed over to groups that play down the risks of burning fossil fuels.
Exxon investors rejected green initiatives - an effort to foist green initiatives on ExxonMobil failed to capture wholehearted support from shareholders. Protesters wielded banners outside the meeting in Dallas with slogans such as "People before profits" and "Oil: the new Black Death". Arguing that renewables lacked technological scale, Exxon said "meaningful environmental improvements" would come from more efficient ways of delivering existing fuels. The remarks failed to satisfy environmentalists. One accused Exxon's directors of leaving their responsibilities at the door. "Exxon is acting like a dinosaur in not adapting ... ExxonMobil-asaurus will disappear." Exxon's assumptions of future energy consumption were questioned by the Rockefellers, who suggested projected growth in demand from developing countries could not materialise if those nations faced catastrophes from global warming.
Will global warming end in catastrophe or anticlimax? The more scientists study climate, the less they know. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hammered out its last assessment in 2001, scientists pulled together the latest research and made their best estimate of how much the Earth's atmosphere would warm during the next century. There was a lot they didn't know, but they were confident they'd be able to plug the gaps in time for the next report, due out in 2007. When they explored the fundamental physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, though, they found something unexpected: the way the atmosphere - and, in particular, clouds - respond to increasing levels of carbon is far more complex and difficult to predict than they had expected. "We thought we'd reduce the uncertainty, but that hasn't happened. As we delve further and further into the science and [gain] a better understanding of the true complexity [of the atmosphere], the uncertainties have gotten deeper." This doesn't mean, of course, that the world isn't warming. Only the biased or the deluded deny that temperatures have risen. The big question that scientists have struggled with is how much warming will occur over the next century? With so much still unknown in the climate equation, there's no way of telling whether warnings of catastrophe are overblown or if things are even more dire than we thought. "Whether or not we're converging on the truth, we don't know." Scientists are optimistic that they'll eventually crack the cloud problem, but "it may take seven years."
HEALTH THREATS -
Kroger Co. in Ohio will recall more ground beef now that Nebraska Beef in Omaha has been identified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the supplier of products linked to an outbreak of E. coli-related illness. Kroger issued a voluntary recall June 25 for stores in Michigan, Toledo and Columbus, after state health officials investigating the outbreak found beef patties in a Columbus-area Kroger that tested positive for E. coli.
Largest quakes yesterday -
7/5/08 -
5.0 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.1 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.3 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 SEA OF OKHOTSK
7.7 SEA OF OKHOTSK
7/4/08 -
5.1 LAPTEV SEA
7/3/08 -
5.6 TRINIDAD REGION, TRINIDAD-TOBAGO
6.2 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
VOLCANOES -
CHILE declared a red alert around the Llaima volcano on Friday, just days after it spewed lava down one of its sides. The red alert affected a lightly populated area that is home to about 40 people on the slopes of the volcano. Llaima's renewed activity, which on Thursday was quite significant, comes after the Chaiten volcano, 760 miles (1,220 km) south of Santiago, started erupting on May 2 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing out ash, gas and molten rock. (photo)
On Friday, the Llaima volcano could not be seen, due to snowmelt and heavy rainfall in the entire area of Melipeuco, Vilcún and Cherquenco. The rising water levels of the Calbuco River are currently the most daunting concern for the area.
INDONESIA - Geological experts in Indonesia Friday issued an alert, advising tourists not to climb Mount Anak Krakatau because it's spewing red-hot rocks and toxic fumes. The warning was the highest level alert possible.
SICILY - Mount Etna has been releasing continuous plumes of ash and steam since late June. (satellite photo)
FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
BANGLADESH - A sea surge blamed on monsoonal storms marooned 200,000 people in Bangladesh when a numb
7/5/08 -
5.0 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.1 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.3 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 SEA OF OKHOTSK
7.7 SEA OF OKHOTSK
7/4/08 -
5.1 LAPTEV SEA
7/3/08 -
5.6 TRINIDAD REGION, TRINIDAD-TOBAGO
6.2 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
VOLCANOES -
CHILE declared a red alert around the Llaima volcano on Friday, just days after it spewed lava down one of its sides. The red alert affected a lightly populated area that is home to about 40 people on the slopes of the volcano. Llaima's renewed activity, which on Thursday was quite significant, comes after the Chaiten volcano, 760 miles (1,220 km) south of Santiago, started erupting on May 2 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing out ash, gas and molten rock. (photo)
On Friday, the Llaima volcano could not be seen, due to snowmelt and heavy rainfall in the entire area of Melipeuco, Vilcún and Cherquenco. The rising water levels of the Calbuco River are currently the most daunting concern for the area.
INDONESIA - Geological experts in Indonesia Friday issued an alert, advising tourists not to climb Mount Anak Krakatau because it's spewing red-hot rocks and toxic fumes. The warning was the highest level alert possible.
SICILY - Mount Etna has been releasing continuous plumes of ash and steam since late June. (satellite photo)
FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
BANGLADESH - A sea surge blamed on monsoonal storms marooned 200,000 people in Bangladesh when a numb