World weather news
World weather news, December 2009
- The UK Met Office has said last month was the wettest November on record, with an average of 217.4mm of rain across the UK. The previous recorded average of 193.6mm dates back to 1951. Meanwhile, for Scotland alone, average monthly rainfall was a record-breaking 256.7mm, passing the 244.8mm reached in November 1938.
- A few thunderstorms moved off the Red Sea and across Jeddah. Data from the King Abdulaziz Airport showed a rainfall of 28mm -- a big storm, but less than the flooding outbursts of one week ago when over 100 people died.
- A storm packing blustery winds and driving rain knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses in the Northeast USA before giving way to sunny skies and record high temperatures - all in the same morning.
Utility officials reported sporadic power outages from Maine to New Jersey after wind knocked down trees and power lines. In Boston, the temperature hit 69F, breaking the old record of 65F set in 1932. In Portland, the temperature climbed to 68F - crushing the old high of 55F for the date.
Heavy rain across the southern half of Brazil triggered flooding and mudslides, killing 20. Many of those affected live in shanty towns in the country's second city of Sao Paulo, where floodwaters reached a metre in depth.
- The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by WMO. The global combined sea-surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (January-October) is currently estimated at 0.44C ± 0.11C above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00C. The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year. The decade from 2000 to 2009 was warmer than the decade from 1990 to 1999, which in turn was warmer than from 1980 to 1989. More complete data for the remainder of 2009 will be analyzed at the beginning of 2010 to update the current assessment.
A powerful winter storm is sweeping across the United States, bringing with it icy weather and strong winds.
After blowing through western states earlier in the week, giving a dusting of snow even to hills along the Pacific coast that rarely see the white stuff, it is now affecting the Upper Midwest, where some areas could see over 30cm of snow.
The storm dumped over 50cm of snow on Flagstaff in Arizona on Monday, more than four times the previous of record of 12.5cm set in 1959.
Hundreds of flights at Chicago's O'Hare airport and the airports in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines were delayed or cancelled due to the poor conditions.
- A rare surfing competition has been held in Hawaii as waves of 12m (40ft) pounded Oahu's famous North Shore.
It was only the eighth time in 25 years that the Eddie Aikau competition, named in honour of a celebrated Hawaiian surfer and lifeguard, was held.
The contest is only staged in the most extreme surf conditions and last took place in 2004.
- Sunday marked the coldest 13 December in Edmonton's history.
Environment Canada recorded a frigid -46.1C, or -58.4C with wind chill, at the Edmonton International Airport at 5 a.m., Environment Canada meteorologist Pierre Lessard said.
The old record of -36.1C was set last year, he said.
A ridge of frigid Arctic air has hit all the prairie provinces this weekend, causing record-low temperatures in many parts of northern Alberta, Lessard said.
Temperatures are very low over Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
- At least three people were believed dead after Cyclone Mick swept over Fiji's main island of Viti Levu, causing widespread flooding and damage.
The cyclone was still causing gale-force winds in Fiji's Lau group of islands on Tuesday, a day after sweeping over Viti Levu, where extensive flooding was affecting many parts of the island.
- Heavy rains pounded the already-soggy Southern USA, flooding roads and homes and forcing school closures in parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia.
More than an inch of rain an hour was falling in south Louisiana, and the New Orleans airport recorded more than 7 inches of rain in a 24-hour period that ended Tuesday morning. As of 6 p.m., the airport in suburban New Orleans had received 25.73 inches of rain for the month, said meteorologist Phil Grigsby of the National Weather Service.
- The Northeast USA began digging out on Sunday from a massive snowstorm that buried cities from Washington to Boston under as much as 2 feet of snow, creating travel chaos and hampering Christmas shopping.
Nearly 2 feet of snow piled up in the Baltimore-Washington area on Saturday in the largest snowstorm to hit the region since February 2003, while New York City saw totals of up to a foot before the monster storm churned into New England.
Boston, Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts areas saw as much as 2 feet of snow before the storm moved out to sea. Areas of eastern Long Island had blizzard-like conditions and nearly 2 feet of precipitation.
The storm gave Washington its snowiest December on record.
Washington-area airports were hit with significant delays and cancellations, as were New York's three metropolitan airports, which remained opened. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, with few planes either arriving or departing.
The storm also took a bite out of retail sales on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year as Christmas looms.
The storm halted transportation in the Boston area, with dozens of flights canceled at Logan Airport, which had only one runway open.
- Much of Europe continues to face severe transport upheaval as a cold snap sweeps the continent.
More than 80 people have died across Europe, including at least 42 in Poland and another 27 in Ukraine who have frozen to death.
Another 13 people died in car accidents in Austria, Finland and Germany, where temperatures dropped well below 0C.
Air, rail and road transport has been severely disrupted across northern Europe and more snow is expected.
But after three days of cancelled services, Eurostar trains began running between Brussels, Paris and London.
The backlog of thousands of stranded travellers was expected to take several days to clear.
Frankfurt airport, Europe's third largest, re-opened on Tuesday morning after closing on Monday because of icy conditions.
In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, airport operators cleared runways after thick snowfall caused major disruption to flight patterns.
In Poland, police appealed for people to help if they came across homeless or drunk people lying outside, as temperatures dropped towards -20C in some areas.
Most of the 42 people who froze to death in the country over the weekend were homeless, police said.
Cold-related deaths were also reported in France, where two homeless people died.
Fifty people were injured when a train hit a buffer in the Croatian city of Zagreb, while 36 were injured when a passenger train derailed in Paris after a car slipped on ice and knocked concrete on to the tracks.
- The Northeast USA began digging out from a massive snowstorm that buried cities from Washington to Boston under as much as 2 feet of snow, creating travel chaos and hampering Christmas shopping.
Nearly 2 feet of snow piled up in the Baltimore-Washington area on Saturday in the largest snowstorm to hit the region since February 2003, while New York City saw totals of up to a foot before the storm churned into New England.
Boston, Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts areas saw as much as 2 feet of snow before the storm moved out to sea. Areas of eastern Long Island had blizzard-like conditions and nearly 2 feet of precipitation.
The storm gave Washington its snowiest December on record, said Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel.
- A strong winter storm wreaked havoc in Arizona, leaving at least three people dead and six injured in a series of fiery crashes caused by thick, blowing dust on Interstate 10 and shutting down I-40 for hours with icy conditions.
In all, 22 vehicles were involved in the crashes, including nine commercial trucks.
- On mainland Europe the cold weather eased off a little. An arctic outbreak chilled Finland, Scandinavia and the Russian heartland. Helsinki, Finland, was as cold as -22C, 17C below normal for the date, on the 18th. A low of -16C at Stockholm was about as significant. Gardermoen, near Oslo, Norway, came in at -20C on the coldest day. Windswept snow and cold to -5C chilled Copenhagen conference goers during last weekend. In Russia, Moscow had its harshest cold - down to at least -26C on the 15th and 16th of the month - since 2006.
Farther south, calm winds, often over fresh snow, made for some bitter overnight cold in Germany, the Low Countries, France and Scotland, to name a few. France had -19C at Dijon. So, too, with Augsburg, Germany. Katowice, Poland saw -20C on the 18th and the 19th. Readings below -15C were reached into eastern Netherlands and eastern Belgium.
Snowfall was widespread and locally heavy. Lombardia in northern Italy had deep snow early this week in such cities as Milano and Piacenza. Deep snow also accumulated over high ground from Spain to central and eastern France, northern England and southern Scotland. The Balkan Peninsula got snowfall locally to half a metre or more. Marked warming at mid to late week has since melted much of the snow.
Iberia and the Maghrib of northwest Africa have born the brunt of waves of Atlantic storms during the last fortnight. Torrential rains over four days in the heights above the Strait of Gibraltar inundated Chechaouene, Morocco, with something like 350mm of rainfall.
- A Ryanair plane slid off the runway after landing at a Scottish airport and two people were killed in a coach crash in western England as snow and ice made travelling hazardous.
Cross-Channel rail operator Eurostar said its trains running from London were all full after a three-day stoppage and appealed to passengers not to join the hundreds of people queuing at St Pancras International station.
Ryanair, the Irish budget airline, said all the 123 passengers and six crew on the flight from Dublin to Prestwick airport, close to Glasgow, were safe after the incident.
Several major roads were closed in southern England after rain fell on to frozen surfaces, causing a series of accidents. Snow caused delays and cancellations at Edinburgh airport in eastern Scotland.
- A fierce Christmas blizzard forced scores of US churches to cancel services Friday as snow and freezing rain brought a holiday headache to millions across a huge swath of the country.
At least 24 deaths were attributed to the nasty storm system that blanketed the central United States beginning on Wednesday, closing several interstate highways, stranding thousands of motorists in whiteout conditions and coating roads with a glaze of ice during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled at airports from Minneapolis to Dallas.
The storm, the second brutal winter blast to sock much of the United States in the past week, was not expected to clear before Saturday.
The system dumped 35cm of snow on Oklahoma City, an all-time record for the state.
Normally balmy Dallas, Texas was covered in 7.5cm of snow, the first time the southern city had more than a trace of the white stuff on Christmas Day since 1926.
At least seven people died on Nebraska roads.
Flood and tornado warnings were issued further south with roads in the state of Alabama underwater, and freezing rain and ice storms hit the states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Washington capital region, with more ice forecast for New England states, the NWS said.
The storm was also blamed for at least four deaths in Oklahoma, five in Kansas, three in Arizona, three in New Mexico, and one in Minnesota, local media and officials reported.
- South Korea's weather service Friday issued a warning against airborne pollution known as "yellow dust", advising residents in western areas to avoid outdoor activities.
"Yellow dust which originated in Mongolia reached South Korea, blanketing most of the western parts of the country," the National Meteorological Administration said in a statement.
Weather officials quoted by Yonhap news agency said it was the first time yellow dust had been spotted on Christmas Day in South Korea. The dust storms usually hit the country in spring.
- Persistent heavy rain has left hundreds more homes flooded around Andalucia.
The record rainfall, which has seen over 400 mm falling in many areas in under a week, caused dozens of rivers to burst their banks.
The highest rainfall fell in Grazalema, where the town saw 709mm fall since December 21.
Since September 1,200mm has fallen in Spain´s wettest town, which is 60 per cent higher than the average for this time of year.
Algeciras saw 400mm of rain, while Torremolinos saw 322mm in under a week.
In total over 2 cubic kilometres of water have entered the reservoirs in Andalucia over the last ten days.
This is 20 per cent of the total capacity for the region.
Some of the worst flooding was in Jerez where the Guadalete river burst its banks leaving 2000 homes flooded and dozens of families cut off.
The La Ina area was worst affected, while 26 houses were affected in Las Pachecas.
The water authority confirmed that the river was at its highest level for 'over 100 years'.
In Granada two houses were swept away by floods in Guadix, while two electricity lines were blown over in Cadiz.
There was 'incalculable' damage to farming land in Almeria, while 18 000 homes in Jerez were cut off from water.
World weather news, November 2009
- Hundreds of people across Scotland and Wales were sheltering in temporary accommodation on Monday after a weekend of storms and rain brought the mild autumn weather came to an abrupt end.
Eastern Scotland bore the brunt of the storms, with Grampian Fire and Rescue reporting more than 350 calls after rivers burst their banks and sent flood waters pouring into at least two towns in the region.
Rescuers evacuated around 100 people, many of them from a nursing home, after the River Deveron burst its banks and flooded the town of Huntly, 40 miles northwest of Aberdeen.
Officials at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency said the river had risen by eight feet, hitting the highest level since records began in 1959.
Stonehaven, which lies some 15 miles south of Aberdeen, was also engulfed as the River Carron burst its banks, sending floodwaters pouring into the town centre.
Fire crews in Wales were also called out to rescue people caught out by flooding and torrential rains.
At least 13 people were evacuated from their homes and cars, including five adults and baby who were rescued from two homes in Meidrim, some 30 miles west of Swansea.
- A tornado is suspected to have brought down trees which damaged cars and the roofs of homes in Hampshire.
Hampshire police said it received 25 reports of damage caused by trees in the New Forest, Romsey and rural areas around Winchester on Tuesday from 1204GMT.
A Met Office spokesman said: "The strong localised winds could have been up to 100mph and evidence suggests it may have been a tornado."
One of the more serious incidents was where a couple just managed to get out of their home in Warren Road in Liss, when four trees fell on their house.
- Hurricane Ida swept onto Nicaragua's Atlantic coast, destroying homes, damaging schools and downing bridges before losing steam and becoming a tropical depression as it moved inland.
Ida's winds swirled at 75mph when the storm struck land around sunrise in Tasbapauni.
The battering wrecked all but 20 of the 100 or so flimsy, wooden shacks in nearby Karawala, a fishing village near the mouth of the Rio Grande de Matagalpa.
The fast-developing storm grew into a tropical depression and then a hurricane within little more than a day, then lost power as it stalled over eastern Nicaragua. It weakened back into a depressiion by late Thursday, with winds slowing to 35 mph.
Ida could dump as much as 500mm of rain on the swampy mainland, with the risk of floods and mudslides, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
- 12-year-old girl had to be rescued from her home in County Tyrone after it flooded during heavy rainfall.
A number of properties in Wallace Heights in Magheramason were damaged when a nearby stream overflowed.
In Londonderry, residents in Old City Close stopped traffic on the main Letterkenny Road in order to protect 14 homes from flooding.
- The number of people killed by floods in central Vietnam rose to 98, as rescuers ferried emergency aid by helicopter to coastal regions battered by Tropical Storm Mirinae.
A further 20 people were listed as missing after the storm struck on Monday bringing the worst floods in decades to some areas.
Most of the dead were from the country's easternmost province of Phu Yen, with fatalities also reported in three other coastal provinces and the inland province of Gia Lai.
- A landslide triggered by torrential seasonal rains swept through a hilly region in southern India, killing at least 42 people.
The landslide demolished nearly 300 tin-roofed mud huts in the Ooty and Coonoor region of Tamil Nadu state.
- October ended with a serious dearth of rain over southern India, most of all over that part normally watered by the North East Monsoon. In Chennai, the lack of the usual October cloudbursts left rainfall at only 16 percent of normal. Virtually all of that 4cm fell during the last week of October.
Rains burst forth in a big way at the middle of last week along the southern east coast of India. Most hit Tamil Nadu, but a little did reach into southern Andhra Pradesh. The area was hit with heavy falls of rain daily through the end of the week, even into Monday. At Chennai, daily rainfall of 6-12 cm brought the monthly tally to about 45cm as of Monday (the climatological normnal for the month is 30cm in November.
Tropical depression 11 (eventually strengthened to become Hurricane Ida) off Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast and tropical disturbance 96E off El Salvador's Pacific coast interacted on November 4th through 6th, causing torrential rainfall in El Salvador. The counter-clockwise flow of air around the disturbances pulled large quantities of moist, Pacific air over the coastal mountains, dumping up to 442 mm of rainfall. At least 150 were killed by the flooding and landslides. The small town of Verapaz was particularly hard hit with 300 homes destroyed.
- Tropical Storm Ida came ashore with rain and gusty winds Tuesday before weakening to a depression, causing little damage along the US Gulf Coast but bringing more rain to the already-soaked Southeast.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Ida's center first touched land on Dauphin Island, Ala., before heading across Mobile Bay toward the Alabama mainland and on to Florida.
The storm shut down nearly a third of oil and natural gas production in the Gulf as companies moved workers ahead of Ida, but demand was so low due to the economic downturn that energy prices barely budged.
- A landslide has killed at least 20 people in Tanzania after a torrential downpour triggered a flash flood.
Rescuers are digging out bodies in the village of Goha, Kilimanjaro province, which was swamped when the side of a mountain collapsed on Tuesday night.
Until the four days of rain came, eastern Africa has been battling a drought for the past two years.
- A severe storm has been blamed for widespread power cuts in Brazil which lasted more than five hours, the Brazilian government said.
The strong winds, heavy rain and lightning brought down a power line in Brazil, cutting two other lines and ultimately shutting Itaipu dam.
In the worst blackout to hit Brazil in years, up to a fifth of the population was left without power.
Neighbouring Paraguay was also briefly left in the dark.
At least 10 Brazilian states were partially or totally affected with problems spread over a wide geographical area, from Recife in the north-east to Rio Grande do Sul in the far south.
- The remains of hurricane Ida dumped 9.8 inches of rain on Opelika (Alabama) for the period ending 7 a.m. today. That's the greatest rainfall amount reported so far in Alabama and seven other states from the storm. Foley received 6.6 inches of rain near the coast in Baldwin County, and Clanton received 6.3 inches in central Alabama.
- Rain from Tropical Storm Ida further slowed the cotton, soybean and sweet potato harvest in Mississippi, where crop losses were devastating even before the storm hit.
At the start of the month, state economists estimated Mississippi's crop losses at $485 million. The southern U.S. state expected to lose two-thirds of its sweet potato crop, half its cotton and 44 percent of its soybeans.
Spring rains delayed planting, while record rainfall in September and October cut yields and quality, the agriculture department said.
Mississippi's sweet potatoes, a tradition at Thanksgiving holiday meals, were heavily damaged.
- People in Norfolk (UK) with respiratory problems are to be sent reports on weather conditions which may affect their health.
The Healthy Outlook service telephones weather-related warnings to patients in Norwich with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
National Health Service (NHS) Norfolk said the pilot is aimed at reducing hospital admissions.
COPD patients can find their condition affected by humidity, air pollution and changes in temperature.
The service works by making an automated telephone phone call to registered patients in advance of changing weather patterns, NHS Norfolk said.
- Heavy snowfall affected portions of northern China on the 11th and 12th. Impacts from the storm killed at least 38 people, including four children who were killed from a collapsing school building. According to the Chinese Central Meteorological Observatory, the Hebei Province experienced the heaviest snowfall in 55 years and the Shaanxi Province had its heaviest snowfall in history. Light snow was also observed in Beijing. The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs reported more than 9,000 buildings have collapsed and about 190,400 hectares of crops were affected, causing direct economic losses of about $659 million U.S. dollars.
- A powerful storm born from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida began moving out to sea after raking the East Coast of the USA for three days, leaving behind it a trail of flooding, damaged buildings, eroded beaches and at least six deaths.
The nor'easter caused widespread problems in Virginia and the Carolinas before hitting the Jersey shore. Several shops were evacuated in Washington, D.C., because of the threat of a building collapse possibly related to heavy rains. Construction work was under way at a row of buildings when the walls started to crack and separate.
- Adelaide has experienced the first spring heatwave ever recorded across the entire Adelaide temperature record back to 1887 with 8 consecutive days in excess of 35C from the 8th to the 15th.
The criteria for heatwaves in Adelaide is: 5 consecutive days with maximum temperatures of 35C or more, or 3 days of 40C or more'.
The average maximum temperature for Adelaide over the first 15 days of November was 33.6C. This is more than 8C higher than the November maximum temperature average for Adelaide of 24.9C.
Maximum temperatures across South Australia for the first half of November have generally been 6 to 8 degrees above the monthly average, with overnight minimum temperatures generally 3 to 5 degrees above the November monthly average.
The extreme heat event was the result of a near stationary weather pattern with a high pressure cell in the Tasman Sea directing hot dry continental winds across the state. El Nino events, such as the one currently in the Pacific, usually result in increased temperatures over Australia, so this, as well as the observed long term increases in mean temperatures across South Australia in recent decades, are contributing to the record heat in this event.
- The heatwave affecting southern and western parts of New South Wales will extend eastward and peak over the next few days as hot northerly winds persist over southeast Australia.
New daily maximum temperature records for November have already been set at Wilcannia (45.2C) and Broken Hill (43.4C) on the 16th. Many stations across NSW are likely to set new November daily maximum temperature records over the next two days, Griffith and Cobar are both forecast to exceed their record temperatures on Thursday with temperatures of 45C.
- People in north-west England and south-west Scotland face a high risk of their homes being damaged by flooding, the Environment Agency is warning.
There are 37 flood warnings in place across Britain, but BBC forecasters said Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway were at greatest risk on Thursday.
The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings, with up to 250mm of rain possible on higher ground.
Cumbria Police said on Wednesday night there was a large flood on the A69 at Warwick Bridge, in Carlisle, which was approximately 65m long, but that the road was passable with care.
Roads in Todmorden were shut because of flooding, and homeowners in Chatterton and Strongstry have been warned they could be at risk.
- In Ireland, rainfall stations at Sherkin Island and Claremorris have already had more rain than in any previous full November. This is in records going back to 1972 and 1950 respectively. It seems likely that other stations will also exceed previous records before the month is over.
Valentia Observatory has already seen 263.4mm this month. Highest ever November value is 312mm in 1931, while 2003 had 291mm and 2002 had 290mm. Indeed, at Valentia, the total rainfall for 2009 currently stands at 1879mm with the previous wettest year at 1923mm in 2002. It seems likely that 2009 will be the wettest ever.
The 19th was, in many places (but not all) the wettest day with Valentia Observatory recording 57.4mm, Cork Airport recording 51.2mm and many other places receiving in excess of 30mm.
- Residents in the flood-hit northwest England began returning to their homes but police warned it could take years to recover from the devastation left by the heaviest rainfall on record.
Eighteen schools were closed as local authorities struggled to restore basic services across the county of Cumbria, where many areas were cut off at the weekend after swollen rivers brought down bridges and turned roads into canals.
All Cumbria's 1,800 bridges had to be checked after several collapsed.
The insurance bill for the floods in Cumbria and southern Scotland was estimated at between 50 million to 100 million pounds by the Association of British Insurers.
Part of the cause of the floods was 314mm of rain at Seathwaite that fell in 24 hours - a new 24-hour rainfall record for the UK. The old record was that of 279mm at Martinstown, Dorset, on 18 July 1955.
- More than 100 icebergs moved towards the New Zealand coastline from the Southern Ocean and threatened shipping interests in the region. Some of the floating ice measured more than 200m across. The same bergs passed by Australia's Macquarie Island, 1,500km southeast of Tasmania, on the 16th - it is very uncommon for icebergs to make it this far north. In 2006, icebergs floated to within 25 km of the New Zealand coast, and this was the first such sighting since 1931. These bergs are traveling a similar route to the ones in 2006, but scientists are not sure if they will remain intact all the way to the Auckland Islands. The Antarctic sea ice reaches its annual maximum extent each September and spring temperatures bring melting, often causing large chunks to break off the ice shelf and float northward. This September, the Antarctic sea ice reached its third largest extent since records began in 1979.
- Ireland has also seen some of its worst floods in decades, and Prime Minister Brian Cowen was due to visit some of the worst-hit areas in the south, Midlands and west of the country.
About 18,000 homes and businesses in Cork, Ireland's second largest city, are expected to be without a water supply all week after one of the main pumping stations was engulfed by flood water.
Many schools in the city remained closed, the university has cancelled all lectures and the local council was driven out of their offices by flooding.
- Officials say flooding from heavy rains has killed 12 people in three South American nations and forced more than 20,000 to flee their homes.
Most of the dead are in southern Brazil - including eight in Rio Grande do Sul, according to the state's Civil Defence Department.
Sustained stormy weather has saturated the region and caused the river between Uruguay and Argentina to overflow its banks.
Government agencies report that 10,000 people have been evacuated in Brazil, along with 8,000 in northeastern Argentina and 4,000 in Uruguay.
- At least 48 people have died in the heaviest flooding to hit Saudi Arabia in years.
The continued torrential rain has coincided with the start of the annual Hajj - the pilgrimage of nearly 2 million Muslims to Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest cities.
But the worst floods were in the port city of Jeddah, where 76mm of rain have fallen.
The annual average rainfall in Jeddah is only about 55mm, with 12mm being the November average.
Most of those who died were drowned, or they were killed by collapsing bridges or in car crashes.
Authorities say at least 900 people had to be rescued after being stranded in the floodwaters.
The floods also forced the closure of a highway to Mecca, stranding many pilgrims who were unable to reach the holy city.
- Toronto (Canada) has just experienced its first snow-free November in 162 years. Although it was initially reported that such a happening could only be confirmed as far back as 1937, David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, revealed that the records of a University of Toronto weather station chart a much longer interval.
- The Atlantic hurricane season ended with barely a whimper: Not a single hurricane came ashore in the United States.
Since June, when the season began, just nine named storms developed. Only three of them became hurricanes, and those stayed out at sea or weakened before passing over land.
Two tropical storms made landfall in the U.S., causing little more than rain and some beach erosion.
World weather news, October 2009
- At least 21 died and 30 are still missing after a mudslide in Sicily caused by torrential rains.
Some 250mm of rain fell on northeastern Sicily in the space of a few hours on Thursday, triggering mudslides at Scaletta Zanclea (Messina) that collapsed buildings, carried off cars and cut off roads throughout the region.
- Severe winds led to a major clean-up operation in north east Scotland at the weekend. Aberdeen City Council's specialist tree squad was called in to deal with many incident of trees being blown down and branches littering streets and roads. There was also damage to roofs and aerials across the city and into Aberdeenshire. Grampian Fire and Rescue Service said it had scores of calls from people reporting damage.
- A dust storm in the US state of Washington caused low visibility and the closure of a major highway. The Washington State Department of Transportation shut a 64km stretch of Interstate 90 after a number of multi-vehicle accidents.
- Flooding, which has left 2.5 million people homeless, is described by officials as the worst in many decades in south India; it has killed some 250 people, mostly in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. At least five million people are crammed in temporary government shelters.
Following a week of heavy rain, floodwaters swamped millions of acres of cropland, including sugarcane plantations, prompting worries of a fall in sugar output in Karnataka, the country's third-biggest producer.
Traders also estimated the flooding would hit corn output by at least one million tonnes in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which account for about 35 percent of India's total corn production.
- Super Typhoon Melor is churning in a north-westerly direction in the Pacific towards the eastern tip of Japan. The storm is packing sustained wind speeds of 160mph with gusts to 195mph, but is expected to weaken before making landfall on Thursday. Melor has already tracked past the Northern Mariana Islands, where it dumped over two inches of rain in six hours. It is also responsible for keeping Tropical Storm Parma virtually stationary to the north-west of the Philippines, where it is continuing to batter the northernmost island with heavy rain and strong winds.
- Typhoon Parma weakened into a tropical storm but lingered off the northern Philippine coast, causing widespread flooding and landslides that have killed 16 in the country and churning up rough seas that sank a cargo ship off Taiwan.
The Taiwanese coast guard said 10 crew members of a Panamanian cargo ship are missing after the vessel sank in the Taiwan Strait near the Bashi channel, which separates the island from the Philippines.
Chief Philippine government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said Parma headed northwest into the South China Sea after blowing across the country's north, which is still reeling from an earlier storm that killed almost 300 people. Parma was now almost still because Typhoon Melor, which blew into Philippine waters Monday from the west, was pulling it back toward the coast.
- Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 34 people in western Nepal.
At least 18 people died in the nearby Achham district. Officials said heavy rains were hampering rescue work.
Floods and landslides are common in Nepal during the monsoon season. More than 50 people have died since June.
- Typhoon Melor came ashore on Japan's main island, tearing roofs off houses, disrupting flights and trains and closing some factories, but the storm was weakening and heading into the Pacific.
Television showed a road bridge that had collapsed in floods in Aichi, west of Tokyo, and cars half submerged in the nearby industrial city of Nagoya. Two people were killed, 46 injured and more than 2,400 across the country were forced from their homes.
The typhoon, with winds gusting up to 100mph, was about 180km north of Tokyo at 0300GMT.
- Driving rain on the heels of back-to-back storms triggered dozens of landslides across the northern Philippines, burying more than 160 people, washing away villages and leaving almost an entire province under water.
The latest deluge brought the death toll to nearly 500 from the Philippines' worst flooding in 40 years after storms started pounding the country's north on 26 September.
- Austrian mountains have seen up to 45cm of snow as Arctic weather has swept through the country. The weather station at Rudolfshütte in Salzburg, which is at 2000 metres above sea level, had received the most snow - 45cm - last night (Mon/Tues). High wind had accompanied the snow, with gusts of up to 150km/h reported on the Schneeberg in Lower Austria and gusts of more than 100km/h in many areas.
Such high winds, the agency said, were recorded on average only once every 25 years. It warned that Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland would have high winds of up to 80km/h on Thursday.
The snow in the mountains is a taste of things to come for some provincial capitals, which are expected to see their earliest snowfalls in history this week.
Josef Haselhofer from ZAMG said yesterday the cold weather would probably result in the first snow cover in provincial capitals before 20 October in history and added Innsbruck, Salzburg and St. Pölten were likely to see snow.
The record for early snow in provincial capitals was set in 2007, when snow remained on the ground in some of them from 20 to 24 October.
The snow warnings come after weather records tumbled last week, with a number of places seeing records for the highest October temperature in many years, according to ZAMG.
It said records had been set on 7 October in Vienna-Donaufeld, with a high of 28.6C, the highest in 50 years, and in Großenzersdorf, Lower Austria, with a high of 28.5C, the warmest October day there in history.
- A bout of extraordinary bad weather, including winds of up to 90km/h, hit Rome bringing down in excess of 50 trees, causing inevitable chaos, traffic gridlock, killing a 21-year-old and injuring a total of five persons (one of whom in critical condition). The phenomenon, classified as a small tornado, is described by meteorologists as having 'struck ground' just a few miles east of the capital's ring road, in Via di Lunghezzina.
- Over 900 cargo ships were stranded at a section of the Xijang River with low water levels in the southern province of Guangxi, China. According to reports, severe drought in the region began in early August and the average water level in Changzhou ship lock fell nearly 3m since that time. The dry season for the region typically begins in December.
- The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season has been the quietest in more than a decade, offering a reprieve for residents in the danger zone and a chance for insurance firms to refill depleted coffers.
With the peak of the season - late August to mid-October - now behind, the Atlantic-Caribbean basin has seen just two hurricanes and a total of eight tropical storms.
So far this year, only named storms Bill and Fred reached 74mph, the threshold for hurricanes. Fred fizzled in the mid-Atlantic without causing damage while Bill raced through Canada's Atlantic provinces as a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest type, causing few problems.
- The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years' time, a top polar specialist has said.
"It's like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet," said Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge.
He was speaking in central London at the launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey. The expedition trekked across 435km of ice earlier this year.
Led by explorer Pen Hadow, the team's measurements found that the ice-floes were on average 1.8m thick - typical of so-called "first year" ice formed during the past winter and most vulnerable to melting.
Professor Wadhams said: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view - based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition - that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.
"That means you'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean."
- The Philippines began evacuating thousands of people in northern areas prone to floods and landslides ahead of a powerful typhoon that has gained strength over the Pacific. Typhoon Lupit, which means "fierce" in Filipino, was expected to make landfall around the far northern tip of the Luzon region by Thursday and dump more rain on typhoon-weary provinces. The Philippines is still recovering from two recent typhoons -- Ketsana and Parma -- which brought record-high rainfall that flooded the capital Manila and large swathes of farmland in northern provinces. More than 850 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
- Highlights of 2009, according to the International Ice Charting Working Group (IICWG)
The IICWG was formed in 1999 to promote cooperation between the world's ice services on all matters concerning sea ice and icebergs and brings together the operational ice services of Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Germany, Norway, Russian Federation, Sweden, United States and the International Ice Patrol. These services are charged with monitoring sea ice and icebergs for marine safety.
- Over 1200 icebergs drifted into the trans-Atlantic shipping lanes, making the iceberg season in the North Atlantic the eleventh most severe since the tragic loss of the RMS Titanic in 1912.
- The sea ice pack in the Arctic Ocean shrank to its third-lowest extent since the beginning of quantitative satellite observations about 30 years ago. Although greater than the record lows in 2007 and 2008, the minimum ice extent was still well below normal.
- Although ice conditions in the Northwest Passage were more difficult for shipping than in each of the three previous years, a record number of pleasure craft transited the Passage.
- Marine transportation of natural resources is increasing from Russian Arctic ports to the West.
- Tropical storm Rick made landfall in northwestern Mexico having lost its punch as a former top-strength hurricane, but still threatened the region with heavy rain and flash floods. Rick's eye hit Mexico's northwestern Pacific coast at 1400GMT, some 25km north of the port of Mazatlan.
- Four people on the overnight ferry from Aberdeen to Shetland were injured after the ship encountered heavy seas off Fair Isle. The Hrossey took a sudden roll to port at about 0330GMT. The injuries were not serious. A number of cars were also slightly damaged, and a glass panel was broken by a sofa.
The ship carried on to Lerwick, arriving just after 0600GMT.
- One man died and another was missing on Sunday, after storms washed away roads and flooded homes and farms across Greece.
The body of a 41-year-old man was recovered by the coast guard near the central Greek city of Volos. He drowned after strong winds overturned his vessel, the coast guard said.
Fire fighters rescued 10 people trapped in their homes in northern and central Greece. Dozens of animals drowned, as farms and crops were damaged by the heavy rains.
The national road between Athens and the Peloponnese was blocked due to mudslides.
- Torrential rain and high winds lashed Australia's most populated state, leaving one person dead and hundreds of homes without power.
Sydney commuters were warned to drive carefully as storms dumped more than 100mm of rain on parts of New South Wales. One man was killed when his car struck a tree in heavy rainfall overnight.
Parts of the city were hit by flooding as the storms hit on Sunday.
- A map designed to show the predicted effects of a 4C rise in global average temperature has been unveiled by the UK government.
It shows a selection of the impacts of climate change on human activity.
These include extreme temperatures, drought, effects on water availability, agricultural productivity, the risk of forest fire and sea level rise.
The map is based on peer-reviewed science from the Met Office's Hadley Centre and other scientific groups.
It was launched at the Science Museum by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the UK's chief scientist Professor John Beddington.
According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, agricultural yields would be expected to decrease for all major cereal crops in all major regions of production.
In addition, half of all Himalayan glaciers will be significantly reduced by 2050, leading to 23% of the population of China being deprived of the vital dry season glacial meltwater.
The impacts are those expected to result following a global average temperature rises of 4C above the pre-industrial climate average.
See http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091022.html for the map.
- Flash floods caused by four days of torrential rains have displaced more than 15,000 people in the southwestern Somali town of El-Waq.
"Most of the town is under water, with people moving to higher ground around the town," Alaso Gurhan, a resident of El-Waq.
A lot of livestock have reportedly died due to the ongoing rains; hundreds of goats and sheep weakened by the drought have succumbed to the rains and the cold weather.
El-Waq, like the rest of Somalia, was waiting for the rain but it was "too much in too short a time".
- Argentina has been experiencing a mid-spring heatwave over the last few days. Buenos Aires central observatory recorded it's highest ever October temperature at 34.5C on the 29th. Severe isolated thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes have been reported in other parts of the province of Buenos Aires.
Over much of central northern Argentina temperatures exceeded 40C. Tucumán recorded a maximum temperature of 44.0C. The heatwave is set to continue; temperatures are forecast to reach or exceed 45C again in central northern Argentina on the 30th.
- With one day to go, Darwin Airport (Australia) has recorded the hottest ever month of daytime temperatures since it opened in 1941. The average maximum temperature in October was 34.8C. The previous record for the month of October and for any month of the year was 34.4C, most recently in October 2008. This October, the daily maximum temperature during the month reached 35.0C on 13 days, the highest on record for any month, and there were another 4 days with 34.9C.
The 38.0C recorded on the 18th was the second highest daily maximum temperature on record at Darwin Airport, while the 37.8C the previous day ranks equal third. The highest maximum temperature ever recorded at Darwin Airport occurred on the 18 October 1982 - 38.9C.
- Schools were closed and domestic ferry services in the capital Manila were suspended as Philippine authorities braced for a third strong typhoon in five weeks. Mirinae, a category 2 typhoon with maximum center winds of 150km/h and gusts of up to 185km/h, was expected to make landfall on Saturday, dumping rains on major rice-producing provinces north of the capital.
- Typhoon Mirinae smashed through the Philippines overnight, killing eleven people and worsening floods in areas that were struggling to recover from recent deadly storms.
The typhoon, packing winds of up to 115mph, was the third major storm to hit the Philippines' main island of Luzon in just five weeks, with the previous two claiming more than 1,100 lives.
In Manila, areas that have been flooded since Tropical Storm Ketsana struck in late September were hit with more heavy rain, while residents in other districts were forced onto their roofs to escape rising waters.
World weather news, September 2009
- Officials say that torrential rains have killed at least five people in Burkina Faso's capital city and forced nearly 110,000 from their homes.
The rains, which began early Tuesday morning, are among the worst to have hit the capital in recent memory. Two years ago, heavy rains caused flooding throughout the country, killing 84 people and displacing 146,000.
According to the Burkina Faso Meteorological Department, 26.3cm of rain fell in a 12-hour period, breaking a record last set 90 years ago.
- Heavy rains have flooded hundreds of homes in the Mexico City metropolitan area and turned streets into rivers that dragged cars in their currents.
Officials say the downpour briefly closed Mexico City's airport and swamped four subway stations that were out of operation on Monday.
Drought-plagued Mexico City has been begging for rain. Officials say up to 84mm fell on Sunday, but it was not enough to fill dams and allow an end to water rationing.
- A violent storm that spawned a tornado and mudslides killed at least 15 people across northern Argentina and southern Brazil. Dozens were injured in the winds and hail as their homes were destroyed.
The worst damage was in the small Argentine towns of Santa Rosa and El Progreso, where officials said houses and even a city health centre were blown away early Tuesday. Trees fell on cars, blown down by winds of more than 60mph.
In Paraguay's capital city of Asuncion, the temperature reportedly dropped from 35C to 12C during the storm.
- Flash floods killed 31 people in northwest Turkey, sweeping through the city of Istanbul, swamping houses, turning highways into fast-flowing rivers and drowning seven women in a minibus that was taking them to work.
Twenty-six died in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city with 14 million inhabitants.
In Istanbul rescue workers, some on boats, put out planks and ladders to help drivers, stranded in fast-flowing waters, reach the safety of bridges and high land. Military helicopters also assisted bringing stranded people to safety.
Witnesses said waves of muddy waters pulling cars, trees and debris crashed into homes and buildings early Wednesday as people were getting up to break their fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
Insurance company Axa Sigorta Deputy General Manager Ali Erlat said damage from the floods could total $70 million-$80 million.
the worst hit areas, said there was "huge damage to infrastructure."
Ali Erdem, chief analyst at the Istanbul Meteorology Department, said Tuesday's rainfall was the heaviest recorded in the last 80 years.
- The president of Guatemala declared a "state of calamity" as an ongoing drought threatened 400,000 families in the country. The drought decreased harvests of primary staples, such as maize and beans, by up to 50 percent. Food aid was expected to be delivered to the affected residents.
- Torrential rains have lashed Africa's western coast for the past three months, killing 159 people and flooding the homes and businesses of over 600,000 others.
They include the patients of one of Burkina Faso's largest hospitals who had to be carried out on gurneys after water invaded the wards. They include those living on the banks of a river in northern Niger, whose homes were swept away when a dike burst under the weight of the rain. And they also include tens of thousands of people like Dione whose homes took on a foot or less of water and whose ordeals are not a priority for the country's overwhelmed emergency response teams.
Among the six countries where the flooding has been most severe - Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Ghana - the neighborhoods most affected are the poor ones.
- A state of emergency was declared on the island of Evvoia in Greece after flash flooding resulting from heavy rains flooded dozens of homes and businesses and killed at least one person. The mayor of one of the island's town told local news that water depth had reached 1.5 metres. According to local officials, tens of buildings were flooded, and considerable damage was done to main roads, some of which were cut off. A bridge also collapsed due to the torrential rains.
- Continuing drought in East Africa affected millions of people across nations. The drought led to massive food shortages, leaving 6.2 million people in Ethiopia and 3.8 million in Kenya in need of relief aid. In Tanzania, the rainy seaon produced an inadequate amount of rain, leading to reports of famine in the northern portion of the country. In Uganda, more than a million people were receiving food aid, as livestock started dying off.
- Heavy rains in Southern Spain have claimed the lives of six people this week, including a British mother and daughter who were living in L'Olleria.
A women in Torre Pacheco also perished when her car was swept away on Wednesday. In Ibros, thunderstorms brought heavy rain and hail. A wall of mud devastated the city and residents have began the slow process of cleaning up their homes and businesses. Click here for incredible video of the flood?s aftermath.
- Nine people died and nine others were missing after Typhoon Koppu slammed into south China, causing torrential rain, mudslides and an oil spill.
All nine missing had been swept by flash floods, while the other nine had been killed by typhoon-triggered mud-rock flows, landslides, house collapses and flooding.
More than 100,000 residents had to be evacuated and direct economic losses totalled two billion yuan (300 million dollars).
Koppu is the 15th typhoon to hit China this year. Before reaching the mainland, it ripped through Hong Kong, forcing financial markets to shut down for the morning trading session on Tuesday.
- Super Typhoon Choi-wan has intensified further to become a strong category 5 storm. It is the 15th and strongest typhoon of the Pacific season so far. It is currently generating sustained wind speeds of 150mph with gusts of 185mph. The Super Typhoon is more than 2,000km across with a clearly defined eye and is moving in a northerly direction. It is not expected to make landfall in Japan but its eye is set to track near to the remote Bonin islands south of Tokyo through Thursday.
- The summer melt of Arctic sea ice was not quite as bad this year as the last two years. But it still ranked as the third-biggest melt on record.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that the Arctic sea ice reached its annual low last week. Ice extended just shy of 2 million square miles. That is 620,000 square miles less than the 30-year average.
But there was more ice this September than the record low set in 2007 - about one-third of a million square miles more. Last year ranked No. 2.
Arctic sea ice is important because it helps moderate warmer temperatures elsewhere. Experts blame global warming for the increased melting of sea ice.
- In the United States, several days of heavy rain led to severe flooding in Georgia, Alabama, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina. Hundreds of roads and bridges were under water or washed away and some major interstates were closed around the metro Atlanta area. A small town called Dallas northwest of Atlanta, received 41cm of rain in a 48-hour period. The Georgia state climatologist said that many areas in northern Georgia exceeded the 100-year rainfall total for a 24-hour period - statistically, the amount of rain that would be expected one time in a 24-hour period every 100 years - which is about eight inches in this region. Eleven people were killed in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, primarily due to being swept away by floodwaters, and damages were estimated at more than $250 million dollars.
- The east coast of Australia including Sydney was hit by a vast red sand and dust storm originating from interior Australia. A cold front in New South Wales caused severe thunderstorms and gale-force winds, whipping up the dust from a drought stricken part of Australia, bringing air traffic to a halt and obscuring the famous Sydney opera house from view. The storm also disrupted ferry and automobile transport and caused a large increase in incidences of asthma and other respiratory problems. It also stripped soil from agricultural areas inland and deposited it in the coastal ocean.
The reported level of suspended particulate mass (PM10) in highly populated Sydney was around 1000 times higher than on a clear day, said WMO Expert Len Barrie. 'It is fifty times higher than the well established level beyond which impacts on human health are known to occur. Sand and dust storms of such intensity are often seen in other parts of the world, particularly in Asia and Northern Africa. The dust is transported well beyond the continental source regions across oceans to other continents, and plays an important role in weather, climate, ocean ecosystems and human health.'
- Tropical Storm Ketsana - the third deadliest tropical cyclone in the world this year - struck the Philippines, bringing strong winds of up to 60mph and dumping copious amounts of rain to areas in and around the capital city of Manila. Approximately 80 percent of the city was submerged as the city experienced its worst flooding in 40 years. The heaviest precipitation - 42.4cm - fell in a 12-hour period, breaking a 24-hour record (33.5cm) last set in 1967 and surpassing the average September monthly rainfall for the area (39cm). Of that rainfall, 24.0cm fell in a six-hour period. About 1.9 million people were affected by the storm and 375,000 were forced to flee their homes. At least 246 fatalities due to flash flooding were reported, with 38 others missing. The government declared "a state of calamity" in Manila and 25 provinces hit by the storm. Damage to crops and infrastructure was estimated to be about 100 million U.S. dollars. The storm moved over the island and regained strength as it headed across the South China Sea, slamming into central Vietnam on the 29th as a category 2 typhoon with winds of 105mph. Towns and villages were flooded and 32 people were reportedly killed in seven provinces.
- Six motorists trapped in floodwaters have been rescued and a day care was evacuated after thunderstorms dumped several inches of rain in southern Texas.
Laredo Fire Department said the storms caused flooding at 12 intersections that trapped the motorists. They had no reports of casualties or damage in the city, which is 150 miles south of San Antonio. The town of Encinal, located 40 miles north of Laredo, received the heaviest rain at 7 inches.
- India suffered its weakest monsoon for nearly 40 years, the country's meteorological department says. Rainfall nationwide is 23% below average at the end of the monsoon season, making it the worst drought since 1972, officials said. India is the world's second biggest producer of rice, wheat and sugar and millions of farmers in rural India rely on the monsoon to grow their crops. Officials admit the weak monsoon will have a negative impact on the economy. The four-month monsoon season officially ended on Wednesday. There are regional differences - the north-west had the worst rainfall deficit at 36% while the southern part of the country was just 7% below average.
World weather news, August 2009
- By the beginning of August, much of Mexico was in the midst of its worst drought in 70 years, particularly in the northwest and the central region surrounding Mexico City. In the countryside, drought affected about 3.5 million farmers. The worst-hit regions were the central and eastern central states of Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and Hidalgo. Mexico typically experiences a rainy season from June to October, but experts indicate that El Niño conditions contributed to the dry spell.
- Some passengers were snoozing while others snacked when the first turbulence rattled Continental Flight 128 over the Atlantic. Suddenly, the jetliner began to plunge and shake violently, hurling passengers over seatbacks and slamming them against luggage bins. The Boeing 767 made an emergency landing in Miami early Monday so at least 26 injured, four seriously, could receive medical help. Aviation officials say air turbulence is rarely more than a nuisancE, Turbulence was responsible for 22 percent of all U.S. airline accidents and 49 percent of serious-injury accidents between 1996 and 2005, the National Transportation Safety Board reported in an annual safety review in March 2009.
- A flight attendant and a passenger were injured aboard a Northwest Airlines plane when it hit turbulence during a flight from Knoxville, Tenn. Pinnacle Airlines, which operated Flight 2871, said the regional jet took off at 4:25 p.m. and encountered turbulence 35 miles southwest of Louisville, Ky., at 30,000 feet. It was forced to land at Louisville International Airport about an hour later.
- A massive cleanup is under way in Louisville, Kentucky, a day after torrential rain swamped the city with destructive flash flooding. Parts of the city were inundated with about 150mm of rain within a couple of hours as a strong thunderstorm stalled over Louisville on Tuesday morning.
- The Lower Colorado River Authority Wednesday said Lake Travis has receded to its third lowest recorded level because of the drought gripping Central Texas. At 8 a.m., Lake Travis was at 636.49 feet above mean sea level. The previous third lowest level was 636.58 feet, set in October 1984. The LCRA may ask municipal and industrial customers to put mandatory water restrictions in place later in August, although some have already taken steps. The lowest recorded level at Lake Travis was set in August 1951, during the so-called Drought of Record, at 614.18 feet.
- Monsoon downpours in the northern Philippines caused flash floods and landslides, killing 12 people, including three Europeans and two tour guides who were swept away as they visited Mt. Pinatubo. In the foothills below the volcano, about 12,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the town of Botolan.
- Authorities say two people were not seriously injured by lightning strikes in Volusia County, Florida. A man was outside his home in the afternoon when lightning struck a nearby tree. Officials say about 15 minutes later, a woman outside her apartment was talking on the phone when she was injured.
- Thunderstorms downed power lines and caused damage in central Iowa with some minor injuries reported. Some areas reported winds up to 70 mph and large hail.
- More than 700 people are trapped, possibly dead, in two southern Taiwan villages engulfed by mudslides after typhoon Morakot swamped the island.
More than 90 people, including 50 in Taiwan, have been confirmed dead since Morakot and tropical storm Etau cut a swathe through the region. Media reports said another three were killed in the crash of a helicopter, the only means of ferrying victims out of districts where all roads had been washed out.
Heavy rain in China toppled more than 10,000 dwellings.
Torrential rain set off landslides across Taiwan, causing rivers to burst their banks and flooding farmland. A six-storey hotel was washed away as were many homes.
Morakot left 23 dead in the Philippines and eight in China. Thirteen people have died in Japan from the effects of Etau. The storms have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
The typhoon has started to weaken over China's coastal regions after battering Taiwan. It caused floods in Taiwan's densely-populated south and farm-related losses on the island were estimated at more than T$7 billion ($213 million).
In China, rains caused damage estimated at 9.7 billion yuan ($1.42 billion).
In Japan, Etau approached the island's central area and Tokyo, hours after a 6.5 magnitude earthquake tossed food and bottles from store shelves, disrupted transport and shut down a nuclear power plant for safety checks.
- More than a quarter of India's districts have been affected by drought.
Officials say that 161 of out of approximately 600 districts in India have been declared drought-affected.
Lower monsoon rainfall than normal is responsible for the drought.
Northern Bihar and Haryana are the worst affected states, reports say.
The deficient rainfall is likely to result in a 20% drop in the sowing of summer crops.
- Heavy rain across Tasmania has set records in some areas but has not quite broken the drought. The east coast town of St Marys has recorded its wettest August day in 50 years, 143mm fell in the 24 hours to 9:00am. As well as heavy rain at St Marys, Lake Leake in the Northern Midlands has also had a significant fall, recording 81 millimetres.
- Hurricane Bill - the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2009 season - formed on the 15th and became a powerful category 4 storm far from land on the 19th. Bill slowly lost strength as it moved up the eastern Atlantic seaboard, never making landfall. However, the hurricane created a strong storm surge along the U.S. coast and two people were killed in Florida and Maine (USA).
- Alice Springs residents have sweated through their hottest August night on record. The daytime temperature on Saturday was 32.9C, which was just under the record. But the overnight temperature on Sunday morning was 23C - 17C above the August average minimum of 6C. It was the highest overnight minimum to have ever occurred in August, July, June or May. Alice Springs has also had its longest run of 30-degree days in 68 years of August records, a total of seven.
- A severe thunderstorm with winds reaching 80mph tore down hundreds of 100-year old trees in New York City's Central Park. Several cars parked nearby were crushed by fallen trees and limbs. The storm caused more damage in the park than seen in the last 30 years, according to the Parks Commissioner.
- More than 40 percent of India's districts were declared to be drought affected, according to India's farm minister. Rainfall was more than 80 percent below normal in the districts of Chitrakoot, Etah, and Rampur. Agriculture in the region was expected to be majorly affected, with less than 50-percent yields of rice and maize projected, compared with 2008. In the Bunkelhand region of Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of locals were forced to migrate to other parts of the country in search of food. On average, the entire country was experiencing 25-percent below-normal precipitation for the monsoon season, where deficits increased in all but small sections of the east and northeast.
- In August, Iraq was in the midst of its fourth consecutive year of drought, according to a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization official. Wheat — the country's most important crop — was expected to produce harvests about 60 percent below normal, due in large part to 50 - percent below-normal rainfall in the area.
- Ferocious winds ripped through four states in the Midwest - Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois - shattering windows and downing power lines. In Minneapolis, winds tore off part of a metal church steeple; about 120 people were inside the church but no injuries were reported. Further to the east that same day, a tornado reportedly tore thorugh a day camp near Durham in southern Ontario, Canada, destroying buildings and killing an 11 year old boy who was struck by flying debris.
- Northern parts of New South Wales (Australia) have experienced extreme temperatures, with some records broken by more than 3C. These high temperatures have occurred as part of an Australia wide event which has seen record high temperatures across every state and territory. In northern NSW temperatures peaked on Sunday with 36.3C recorded at Mungindi Post Office. This is the highest temperature recorded anywhere in NSW for August beating the previous record of 36.1C from Yamba in 1946.
- The northeastern province of Liaoning (China) is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years, affecting about two million hectares of arable land in the region. With dwindling water supplies, three million people and more than 200,000 livestock were impacted by the drought. Moderate to severe drought was also present in western Jilin, northestern Hunan, and southeastern Inner Mongolia.
- As the heat continued in northern parts of New South Wales more records were broken. Temperatures peaked on Monday with 37.8C recorded at Mungindi Post Office. This is the highest temperature recorded anywhere in NSW in winter.
In contrast to the unseasonal heat in the north of the state, a series of fronts are passing across the southern half of NSW causing gale force winds. The highest wind gust of 126km/h was recorded at Cabramurra with many other locations including Mt Ginini, Wagga Wagga and Kiama recording over 100 km/h gusts early on Tuesday morning.
- Two firefighters have died in California as they battled intense wildfires to the north of Los Angeles. The fires, fuelled by high temperatures, are now threatening over 12,000 buildings. Residents of 10,000 homes have been told to evacuate. State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger described the blazes as "still totally out of control". On Sunday, the wildfires rained ash on cars and homes as far away as central Los Angeles.
- Japan's weather agency issued storm and flood warnings as a typhoon approached the east of the country bringing heavy rain and strong winds to Tokyo and the Pacific coast. Typhoon Krovanh was expected to move closer to the mainland during the day before tracking north. The agency says the typhoon dumped heavy rain in Tokyo and its environs on Monday. The typhoon disrupted train and flight schedules. Aviation officials say it grounded at least 59 flights at Tokyo's main international airport at Narita as well as the largely domestic Haneda airport.
- Residents stocked up on food and authorities set up shelters as a strengthening Hurricane Jimena pushed toward Mexico's resort-studded Baja California peninsula. Mexico issued a hurricane watch for the southern portion of Baja, meaning hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours. Jimena, a dangerous Category 4 storm, could rake southern Baja California by Tuesday evening, forecasters said.
World weather news, July 2009
- The Texas heat wave scorching state since early June is shattering numerous long-held temperature and rainfall-deficit records. Houston, Austin, San Antonio are just a few of the major cities reporting records.
The following records have been reported by the local Texas National Weather Service offices and most are based on readings through to June 28, 2009.
In Houston June 2009 is the second warmest June in history.
May 1-June 28, 2009 is driest period in Houston history. Only 0.65 inches of rain fell (normal: 9.91 inches).
In San Antonio the 22-month period from September, 2007 through June, 2009 is driest 22-month period since 1885. The temperature reached at least 100F a dozen times in June, a new monthly record.
- During the beginning of July, Britain continued to experience its warmest heat wave in three years, with a level three heat wave alert (the second highest alert) issued for the first time since 2006. Britain's health service reported more than 300 calls for heat-related illnesses. The heat wave also affected Belgium, Germany, and France (Source: AP).
- Current weather activity in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria is producing a major dust event.
- Torrential rains triggered landslides and flash floods killing six people and stranding half a million in their homes in Bangladesh.
The landslides occurred near Habiganj district town, some 200km northeast of the capital Dhaka.
Officials said the situation had worsened at three other nearby districts, with some 500,000 people stranded at their homes as the rivers Surma and Khusiara, flowing into Bangladesh from northeastern India, burst their banks following incessant rains over the last four days.
- Heavy rains triggering floods and landslides in mountainous northern regions of Vietnam have killed at least 15 people, destroyed houses and damaged roads. Landslides killed 13 people in Bac Kan province and another 11 were missing.
- Fourth of July festivities proved to be deadly across the United States. Lightning strikes killed three people across different parts of the country - Florida, New Mexico, and Montana.
- Since beginning near the middle of the week the monsoon has left rainfall of over 60cm between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea from Kerala to Maharashtra. In Ratnagiri, Mahashtra, rainfall of 26cm within 24 hours ended on Friday has underpinned an outpouring of over 63cm since Tuesday.
Mumbai got its biggest fall of 2009 during Saturday, and it is ongoing as of Saturday night, local time. As of 1500UTC, recent rainfall was more than 28cm, most of it falling on Saturday.
- Flooding and heavy rain in southern China have forced 550,000 people to evacuate their homes and killed at least 15.
The heavy rains that have raged for four days across southern provinces have destroyed houses, flooded crops, cut power, damaged roads and caused rivers to overflow.
Worst hit was Guangxi, where 285,800 people were moved out of their homes. Parts of the region were experiencing the worst flooding since 1996.
Workers dug sluices to relieve pressure on the Kama reservoir dam in Guangxi's Luocheng county, where a 13.5 metre section gave way under the weight of the water on Saturday.
- In South Central Texas, drought conditions continued to deteriorate through the first two weeks in July, with most of the region experiencing exceptional drought intensity. Average temperatures were generally above-to-well above normal during this period, with many areas reaching the triple digits on consecutive days, including a record high temperature of 109F (43C) set at Poteet, Texas on 6th July. Conditions were severely impacting crops and livestock production, as crops wilted and farmers were forced to sell off their cattle. According to reports, over 60 percent of beef cows in the state are located in counties in extreme to exceptional drought. Experts at Texas A&M University estimate that agricultural economic losses could surpass the $4.1 billion mark set during the last drought in 2006.
- The rainy season in Central and West Africa brought torrential rains and caused widespread damage in the Central African Republic, Ghana, and Benin. On 7th July, heavy rains forced Benin to declare a state of emergency after 2,000 families were displaced due to flooding. Government officials warned that the situation was expected to worsen as the rainy season continues.
- Snow ploughs removed up to two inches of dime-sized hail and sleet from an overnight storm that occurred on July 7th-8th in Yonkers, New York. Strong winds gusting to 60mph and heavy rains toppled trees and downed power lines, causing electricity outages to about 21,000 customers. At least two homes were reported to be damaged from falling debris. The violent storms moved northeastward through much of Massachusetts. In Hopkinton, a super-cell with golf-ball sized hail and 80mph winds, ripped off tree limbs and blew debris through the air on the 8th. The storm advanced from Hopkinton to Taunton, and finally headed east out to sea. No serious injuries were reported.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today the arrival of El Niño, a climate phenomenon with a significant influence on global weather, ocean conditions and marine fisheries. El Niño, the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters, occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months. NOAA expects this El Niño to continue developing during the next several months, with further strengthening possible. The event is expected to last through the northern hemisphere winter 2009/2010.
- A tornado tore through a tourist resort in Ontario, killing two people and leaving one missing. Heavy rains on the same day in Winnipeg, Canada, flooded streets and knocked down power lines - bringing power outages to about 2,000 homes. Rain seeped in through the ceiling of post-surgery recovery unit at a local hospital and four patients had to be relocated to another part of the hospital.
- Some 250 children under the age of five are reported to have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru, only half way through the winter, which normally starts in June but this year began in March. Children die from pneumonia and other respiratory infections every year during the winter months in Peru, particularly in the southern Andes. This year, however, the number of children killed by the extreme cold, with snow, hail, freezing temperatures and strong winds, is higher than in any of the preceding four years.
- A tornado cut a miles-long path through rural northeastern Wyoming, destroying two homes and several barns and spawning damaging hail.
The twister touched down Monday night and demolished a ranch house and a mobile home and damaged a third residence near the community of Farrall, about 12 miles northeast of Sundance.
- Not only has an early Indian monsoon season shortfall of rain been erased, but rainfall has now shot well ahead of normal. At Santacruz, one of two climatological sites in the city of Mumbai, rainfall for the day ended Wednesday morning, local time, was 27cm. The seasonal rainfall now stands at 1116.4mm, or about 15% above normal (as of 15 July). Elsewhere in western India, extreme falls of rain have hammered the Ghats, with a 24-hour total of 49cm at Tamini. Mahabaleshwar got 41cm.
- The outlook of the Kenya Meteorological Department for July predicts that the cold season is likely to continue throughout the month with no rains, which would signify a poor harvest. Farmers have been grappling with irregular rainfall patterns and several million people already face starvation. Crop losses have been reported in several parts of the country, especially the North Rift, following a prolonged dry spell.
- At least 16 people, including four children, were killed and 27 others were injured after the first torrential rains of the monsoon lashed Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi. The heavy monsoon rain, which started early Saturday, brought much of the city to a standstill as power and communication systems were badly affected and hundreds of people were forced from their homes. The rainfall happened in the 3 hour period according to the meteoroligical department - total rainfall was 235mm for the 24-hour period, on the western edge of the city, while the airport recieved 143mm in the 3-hour period, and recieved around 205mm in the 24 hour period. At Karachi Airport the annual average rainfall is 218mm.
- Torrential rain battered North Korea's capital and other regions over the weekend, amid concerns that flooding may aggravate the country's food shortages. The official Korean Central News Agency said up to 287mm of rain fell in Pyongyang and the provinces of South Phyongan and South Hamgyong between Friday and Saturday.
- It was hot in Morocco. On Monday, maximum temperatures included 48C at Agadir. Nouasser, near Casablanca/Dar el Beida, had 47C. On Tuesday, 45C was recorded at Rabat. This heat came from a southerly to southeasterly wind flow strong enough to stave off the usual cooling sea breeze.
- Hundreds of troops joined the search in western Japan for 10 people missing a day after torrential rains triggered floods and landslides that killed at least six people. Emergency services staff were digging through mud and the debris of broken furniture inside a mud-filled nursing home in Hofu, Yamaguchi prefecture, 750km west of Tokyo. The Meteorological Agency said the peak of the rain has passed in southern Japan, where more than 250mm of rainfall was reported in 24 hours through Tuesday evening, but it warned of a possibility of more landslides.
- After the thunderstorms and rain, a wave of cold air swept across Argentina. The cold front lowered drastically the temperature across the country, so much that several cities in Buenos Aires, Cordoba, San Luis, San Juan and La Pampa registered intense snowfalls. There was a report of a wind chill of -18C in Bahía Blanca, on the coast (actual temperature +0.2C). At Buenos Aires, the Ezeiza airport had more rain (85 mm) within 24 hours than it had in the least three months. Snow, 12 cm of it as of 1200GMT on Tuesday, blanketed Bahia Blanca.
- Four firefighters were killed while trying to tackle forest fires in north-eastern Spain. Another two were badly burned in the same incident, when the wind changed direction and the firefighters were suddenly overwhelmed by the flames. The firemen were trying to contain a fire in the Els Ports national park near Tarragona in the Catalonia region. Temperatures of around 40C have helped fan fires, not only in the north but also near Madrid in central Spain.
- Heavy storms have killed at least eight people in Poland and injured 36 others. Trees were uprooted in many areas and power lines toppled, with 17 people suffering electrical burns. The Czech Republic and parts of Germany also suffered storms with falling trees and local flooding.
Two barns were struck by lightning over night in the Mazurian Lake District, northeastern Poland, and burned to the ground.
Poland is experiencing extreme weather, generally, as the country sees some of the hottest days of the year, with temperatures expected to rise to 34C.
The highest recorded temperature in Poland stands at 40.2C, which was noted in Prószków near the southern town of Opole on the 29 July 1921.
- A two-week spell of northwesterly winds and high temperatures in Qatar is expected to continue for another two days, according to the Department of Meteorology. Temperatures this week reached a high of 46C. The highest temperature so far this summer was 48C in June. The highest temperature recorded in the recent past was 49.7C in July 2000.
- Flooding and landslides brought on by two days of heavy monsoon rains in Nepal have left 22 people dead and several more missing.
- The Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka received its biggest rainfall in a single July day for 60 years. In the six hours after 1800GMT, 290mm of rain fell. "It's the highest single day of rain in July since 1949," said Dhaka meteorologist Ayesha Khatun. Six people were killed after standing on powerlines that were under the water. Flooding brought the city to a standstill, with schools and offices unable to open and many of its 12 million residents stranded in their homes.
- Parts of Greece and Spain continue to suffer from wildfires caused by high temperatures and strong winds. In Athens, a fire which broke out in forest brush came dangerously close to warehouses to the west of the city. Meanwhile firefighters in Spain continued their week-long battle with wildfires in the northeastern Aragon region.
- This was the hottest day ever recorded in Vancouver. At 5 p.m. PT, Environment Canada recorded a high of 33.8C, breaking the previous record of 33.3C set in 1960. Temperatures have been soaring across the province all week, hitting the low 40s (in degrees Celsius) in hot spots such as Lytton in the Fraser Canyon, setting records and driving thousands to lakes, pools and beaches. The massive high-pressure ridge currently sitting across most of the province extends unusually high up into the atmosphere. The US National Weather Service in Seattle recorded 102F by midday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, breaking a previous record of 100F, set in downtown Seattle in 1941 and repeated at the airport in 1994; it's the hottest it has been in Seattle since records dating to 1891.
- Another all-time temperature record has fallen in Vancouver's heat wave as the mercury hit 34.4C, beating the old mark set just the day before.
- The "heaviest rains in 70 years" lashed Shanghai, flooding 3,000 homes and leaving nearly 2,000 travellers stranded at the city's airports, state media reported. Between 80mm and 140mm fell in most areas of Shanghai.
The weather delayed scores of flights to and from Shanghai's Pudong and Hongqiao airports. Torrential downpours have struck various parts of China during the annual summer rainy season.
World weather news, June 2009
- Soaring temperatures may have buckled a section of rail track in Cumbria (UK), causing a passenger train to derail, officials have said.
None of the 15 passengers and two crew were hurt when the Northern Rail Whitehaven to Carlisle service came off the tracks at Low Mill.
Temperatures in the area reached 27.5C at the time of the accident.
But Network Rail said the temperature of the track itself could be 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding air.
The company said investigators would be looking into whether track buckled in the heat.
- A heatwave in the North China Plain gave Beijing its hottest day since June, 2005. The high was 38.1C. Hotter still was Shijiazhuang, where 39.9C was reached.
- -Stockholm, Sweden, after reaching a summery 26C on Sunday, become sharply cooler early in the week as a strong, warm anticyclone yielded to a Baltic Sea storm. Tuesday`s high was only 10C. On Wednesday, snow fell over highlands along the Norway border.
- A cloudspotter from Somerset believes he has identified a new type of cloud.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney, from Somerton, who also founded the Cloud Appreciation Society, wants recognition for what he has named the asperatus cloud.
He said: "It looks quite violent - as if you are looking up from underneath the turbulent surface of the sea."
Weather forecaster Michael Fish said he thinks it is caused by a mixing of two air masses or the underneath of a storm cloud.
Mr Pretor-Pinney, who wrote the Cloudspotter's Guide says
"Asperatus comes from the Latin verb aspero meaning 'to roughen up' or 'agitate'".
- Severe thunderstorms blanketed portions of West Texas, dropping baseball- and golf ball-sized hail and prompting the issuance of some tornado warnings.
- A storm with gale-force winds killed 20 people and seriously injured 117 in central China. Heavy rain and winds of up to 67mph swept through Shangqiu and Kaifeng in Henan province Wednesday night, ripping up trees and sending them crashing into homes.
Local officials blamed the deaths and injuries on flying debris. The storm destroyed about 9,800 homes and cut water and electricity to more than 3 million people.
- Parts of Suffolk (UK) have been mopping up after a severe storm swept across the county. An amateur video was filmed at Leavenheath, near Colchester. It shows a small tornado moving across the village and the ground being turned white by an intense hail storm. Firefighters were called to a house which had been struck by lightning causing a fire on the ground floor. In Dorset a blaze swept through a campsite overnight after lightning struck an electrical pole and set fire to caravans and other buildings. More than 40 firefighters were called to Norden Farm near Corfe Castle shortly after midnight. A Dorset fire service spokesman said the fire spread to several caravans, the trees above them and other buildings, which were destroyed. Only one of the caravans was occupied and those inside escaped unhurt.
- At least five tornadoes touched down in Colorado (USA), with one overturning benches and a car outside a mall in a Denver suburb and injuring a man who tried to take pictures of a twister.
Firefighters reported moderate damage and gas leaks at the Southlands Mall, which was forced to close.
The National Weather Service said the tornado that damaged the mall touched down south of Buckley Air Force Base just before 2 p.m. and may have been on the ground for about 30 minutes, taking an 8- to 10-mile path across southeast Aurora.
- As of Tuesday afternoon, local time, rains are underway over interior southern Africa, especially over Botswana. Rainfall at Gabarone, for the 24 hours through to 0600GMT, was 71mm, which would be about 9 times greater than normal rainfall for the whole month of June. There were other amounts of 30-60 mm observed elsewhere in Botswana along with a part of nearby northern South Africa.
The trigger for the abnormal rain is an upper-atmospheric low that broke away from the Westerlies (jet stream) and burrowed its way northward to the Kalahari Desert.
- Heavy downpours in the Sheffield area of the UK have blocked roads and caused at least two school closures. Flood warnings remain in force for parts of northern England after torrential rain poured into homes and caused gridlock on the roads. The downpours in Sheffield and parts of Derbyshire closed roads and a railway line, causing havoc for commuters and the emergency services.
Factory workers were also rescued in Dronfield, north Derbyshire, when floodwaters cut their building off. In the Norwood area of Sheffield 48.6mm of rain fell in the 24 hours from 0500GMT. Heavy rain has also caused flash flooding in parts of Worcestershire and Herefordshire overnight into the 11th.
Severe weather led to flash flooding in parts of Wales; there was severe floding in Newtown (Powys) and in Wrexham.
- A series of powerful storms packing heavy rains and frequent lightning strikes grounded dozens of flights, left hundreds of thousands without power and caused widespread damage across portions of Texas (USA).
No deaths or injuries were reported from the storms that began whipping the Dallas-Fort Worth area Wednesday night with winds up to 70 mph. By the time the storms cleared the city, some areas of Dallas got more than 8 inches of rain.
More than 400 flights were cancelled on Thursday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport before they resumed operating later in the day.
- Severe storms that caused strong winds, hail, and tornadoes across parts the midwestern U.S. during the week of June 14 also brought heavy rain that pounded the region. Flood-weary North Dakota was drenched by heavy downpours, flooding streets and roads, and, according to reports, causing a bowling alley's roof to collapse due to the weight of water when nearly 150mm of rain fell near Bismarck. Fortunately, no one was injured; however, damage to the bowling alley were estimated to be up to $2 million. Bismarck received as much as 81mm of rain on the 15. Meanwhile, Abercrombie, North Dakota, received 190.5mm of rain on the exceeding the previous all-time rainfall daily record of 124.5mm set on 30 June 1958.
- In Nebraska, severe storms spawned EF0-EF2 tornadoes, downing power lines, overturning nearly a dozen railroad train cars, and damaging two farms.
- A dry, scorching June for much of the Southern USA is likely to persist this week with high temperatures expected to be as much as 10-15F above average and some areas near or at record highs.
As the first day of summer arrived, cities across the South and parts of the Midwest were monitoring near-record highs. Tallahassee recorded 103F on Saturday, just 1F shy of that day's record high.
In New Orleans, visits to the Audubon Zoo were down and the visitors who did show up were encouraged to cool down at misting stations and wading pools.
Monkeys were refreshed with frozen sport drinks and leopards received frozen rabbits. Lions and tigers got blood popsicles.
- Switzerland's glaciers shrank by 12 per cent over the past decade, melting at their fastest rate due to rising temperatures and lighter snowfalls, a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, making it the worst decade in 150 years.
Swiss glaciers have lost 9 cubic km of ice since 1999, the warmest period of the past 150 years, with the most dramatic decline occurring in 2003, when they shrunk by 3.5 per cent.
- 13 people died in flooding in the eastern Czech Republic, and rising river levels prompted flood warnings across central Europe following heavy rains this week.
The 10 Czechs died near the country's border with Poland and Slovakia, with most of the damage near the town of Novy Jicin.
The flooding is the central European country's worst natural disaster since heavy floods in 2002.
In Austria, the river Danube has risen this week after some of the heaviest rainfall in 50 years. The water level was expected to peak in Vienna on Thursday as rainfalls ebbed.
Vienna's Albertina Museum, home to landmark impressionist works by Monet and Renoir, started evacuating 950,000 artworks Thursday from its leaking underground depot.
Bratislava declared a second-degree alert in western Slovakia, where the Danube was expected to crest later in the day.
Hungary put first or second degree alerts in place for the upper section of the Danube. Budapest has called the highest alert for the lower section of the northwestern Raba river.
The Polish National Security Center said rivers topped warning levels in 43 places and alarm levels in another 20. Flood alarms were introduced in parts of southern Poland.
- At least eight people were reported killed and 12 others missing after tropical storm Nangka swept through the central and northern Philippines yesterday. More than 44,000 people had to leave their homes.
Nangka brought heavy rains, strong winds, hailstorms and even a tornado to various parts of the country, causing floods, landslides and power outages. Ferries were unable to sail, leaving some 10,000 people and hundreds of vehicles stranded at ports.
- Heavy rain flooded southern parts of the Czech Republic, with mudslides damaging houses and roads in the region.
Rivers have been swelling in rural areas 100km south of Prague. Army troops and firefighters are helping to restore roads in the region and authorities in Prague on Sunday afternoon were shoring up the banks of the Vltava river which caused severe damage to the historic city in 2002.
- Melbourne has had a record dry start to the year, with just 126.2 mm falling from January to June according to Bureau of Meteorology rainfall data. This is 8 mm below the previous record of 134.5mm set in 1967, and less than half the long-term average of 307mm.
The very dry start to this year extends the long drought which has affected Melbourne and most of southeastern Australia since late 1996.
Melbourne's official rainfall record began in April 1855.
- In the Siberian "pole of cold", it has been anything but cold of late. In the notorious Verkhoyansk, one of two coldest permanent settlements on Earth, four-straight days (including today) had highs of 31-32C. The heat wave helped to boost June monthly mean temperature to 14.1C, or 3.4C above normal.
The other "twin: in the cold pair, Oymyakon, was not as hot during this heat wave, but the month ended exceptionally warm at 4.9C above normal.
World weather news, May 2009
- An avalanche has killed six people near the ski resort of Soelden in the Austrian Alps.
Five of the victims were from the Czech Republic - one from Slovakia. They were attempting to scale a nearby mountain.
The climbers had been ascending the 3,500m Schalfkogel peak, made up of snow-covered glaciers and situated in a remote region near the Italian border. Avalanches have been frequent in the Alps this year after heavy winter snowfalls.
- The first two tropical cyclones this year, Kujira and Chan-hom, have developed concurrently in the western North Pacific and the South China Sea, respectively. Kujira reached typhoon intensity today and will intensify to reach maximum wind speed near the centre of 40m/s within 24 hours, tracking eastward and then northeastward. Chan-hom is forecast to move slowly northeast and then eastward.
- Devastating tropical storms have struck Nepal, West Bengal (India) and the Philippines over the past few days. As well as causing serious material damage, at least 15 people were reported killed and more than 170 were injured in southern and western Nepal and at least 11 people killed and 25 injured in West Bengal, India. Flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rains left 20 people dead in the eastern Philippines and nearly 50 000 displaced.
- Chan-hom reached the western shore of Luzon Island, Philippines, still packing hurricane strength winds. Landfall near the mouth of the Lingayen Gulf happened near 1200GMT.
Shortly before landfall, the JTWC reckoned highest sustained winds to be 75kn within about 50km to the northwest of Baguio.
- 218,000 people across a swath of northern Brazil three times the size of Alaska have fled the worst rainfall and flooding in decades, braving newly formed rivers teeming with anacondas, alligators and legless reptiles known as "worm lizards" whose bite is excruciating.
Already, 36 people have been killed in the flooding, sparked by unusually heavy rains that have been falling for two months on 10 of Brazil's 26 states.
Alligators swam through the city of Santarem, civil defense official Walkiria Coelho said. Scorpions congregated on the same high ground as people escaping the rising water. No injuries were reported.
Rivers were still rising as much as 30cm a day in Maranhao.
The mighty Rio Negro River that feeds the Amazon was just one metre below a record set in 1953 near the jungle city of Manaus, and experts said the record could be broken by June. In the jungle city of Altamira, more rain fell in three hours than normally falls in two months.
- Torrential rains and flooding likely killed one person in central Alabama, and lawmakers had to evacuate the statehouse after the basement filled with four feet of water and collapsed a wall.
Officials also confirmed that on Wednesday a tornado caused damage across two counties in north Alabama.
More than 100 homes and businesses were damaged in the South on Wednesday by strong winds, heavy rains and golf ball-sized hail. Strong winds damaged homes in Arkansas and North Carolina, and debris blocked roads and damaged houses in north Mississippi. No serious injuries were reported.
- The ice jam on the Yukon River has broken near Eagle (Alaska), a small community that has suffered its worst flooding in recorded history.
There was a dramatic rise in water level, about 4 feet, late on Wednesday evening, taking water to its highest level of the flood.
The surge drove ice well above a steel retaining wall designed to protect Front Street. Tremendous force jacked buildings from foundations and uprooted stout pine trees before the ice busted apart.
About midnight, the water started to recede.
Bergs the size of small boats drifted by in the current.
- Strong winds are pushing a fierce wildfire above the California coastal city of Santa Barbara closer to populated areas and have forced thousands more to flee their homes.
The fire's increasing strength prompted officials to order 6,000 more people to evacuate late on Thursday, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said. That pushed the total number of evacuated residents to about 18,000.
The blaze was approaching homes in the city's more populated, flat area below its steep canyons. Santa Barbara city fire spokesman Gary Pitney said flames jumped a road dividing the hilly terrain from the flatlands below and ignited spot fires in brush surrounding houses.
- The National Guard is helping residents in West Virginia's (USA) southern coalfields recover from weekend flooding that destroyed at least 300 buildings, knocked out power and caused mudslides that flushed trash, debris and at least one mobile home downstream.
- A drought over much of Argentina and Uruguay eased thanks to outbursts of heavy rain. Rosario, on the edge of the sprawling breadbasket of the Pampas, was one such site. Now the the Southern summer has ended, drought has once again clamped down hard over a wide area of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil.
Since the start of the year, 2009, rainfall has been only 50 to 75 percent of normal over a wide of Argentina's central and southern Pampas. At Ezeiza, near Buenos Aires, rainfall has been about two-thirds of the roughly 400mm that would normally fall here. In Brazil a shortfall of 300mm at Porto Alegre represents two-thirds of what should have fallen since the end of 2008. Indeed, rainfall since the end of summer is only 4 percent of the normal amount (6mm versus 169mm).
- Violent storms tore through four Midwestern states (USA), killing three people in northern Missouri, damaging hundreds of homes and leaving thousands without power. At least two tornadoes touched down in Missouri's Adair County on Wednesday night. One twister destroyed 10 homes in the town of Kirksville, and more than 200 buildings across the county were damaged.
- Possibly the hottest day of the year thus far on the Indian Subcontinent. At Jacobabad, Sindh, Pakistan, the temperature topped out 49.5C, with Nawabshah reporting 49.0C. Sibi, in nearby Balochistan, registered 48C. In southern Punjab, 46.5C was reached at Khanpur.
- Somalia is undergoing its worst drought in a decade, with cattle dying from lack of water and growing numbers of children being propelled into near-famine conditions. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia said yesterday that some 3.2 million Somalis - some 45 per cent of the population - and 24 per cent of children under five, in some parts, are suffering from malnutrition. An estimated 19 million people in the Horn of Africa are in urgent need of food aid. Drought and high local food prices have left 12 million people in Ethiopia and another 3.5 million in Kenya short of food supplies.
- Unusually powerful mudslides and avalanches have killed at least 18 people, including seven children, in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan this month. Landslides happen every year in Tajikistan but they were stronger than usual this spring due to very heavy rainfall. One such mudslide swept through the central streets of the capital, Dushanbe, last week, causing panic but no casualties.
- Very dry and warm conditions have been recorded in west coast parts of WA in May and in some locations these conditions have persisted for much of the year so far. At Geraldton it has been the driest year to date with 2.6mm recorded between 1 January and 15 May. The previous driest year up to 15 May was 2007 with 15.8 mm. Rainfall recording commenced in Geraldton in 1877. In Perth it has been the equal driest May to date. Perth has recorded no measurable rainfall up to 15 May, and this has occurred on only two other occasions previously, in 1926 and 1994. Rainfall records commenced in Perth in 1876. With fine weather forecast across the weekend, Perth will have had it's driest start to May in 134 years if no rainfall is recorded by 9am Saturday 16 May. Much warmer than normal conditions have also been recorded in Perth so far in May. Maximum temperatures up to 14 May dictate that Perth has experienced its 3rd warmest start to May, 2nd warmest autumn to date, and 2nd warmest start to a year since temperature recording commenced in 1897.
- Temperatures in Lahore, Pakistan, reached 41C. Many cities in Pakistan are facing heatwave conditions with temperatures forecast to reach 50C in some places, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
- The India Meteorological Department has forecast that the south-west monsoon, vital for ensuring a healthy agricultural output and GDP growth, is expected to hit the Kerala coast on 26 May, some five days ahead of the normal date.
- Severe flooding over the last month brought on by torrential rains has killed 45 people across northern Brazil and forced some 378,000 others to evacuate their homes, mainly to emergency shelters. The National Civil Defense Secretariat said deaths have occurred in eight out of the 11 states severely affected by the flooding, including Ceara with 15 deaths in the perennially drought-stricken northeast.
- Thousands of jellyfish-like creatures have been found on beaches in Cornwall.
The 10cm (4in) long, bright blue by-the-wind-sailors, or velella velella, were found near Penzance and identified by Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium.
The stranding is thought to coincide with the warming of coastal waters, the aquarium said.
Velella velella live in warm and temperate waters in all the world's oceans and are relatives of the Portuguese Man-o-War. However, they are not classed as jellyfish.
- People need to make sure they have a fair weather friend they can call on for aid in the event of a heatwave this summer, UK officials have advised.
The Department of Health's Heatwave Plan urges everyone to be aware of the health risks faced by elderly friends and relatives during a hot spell.
It says homeowners can stay cool by painting their houses white and planting shrubs for shade.
Forecasters say it is still too early to say if this summer will be hot.
The Met Office says it is too early to tell whether it will be a very hot summer this year, but the signs so far are that it will be warmer than our last two summers and conditions could well trigger its heatwave warning system.
- Tens of thousands of homes were without power and hundreds of schools closed as a wild storm front lashed Australia's northeast coast. A state of emergency was declared overnight in Queensland state, which was pounded by gale-force winds exceeding 100km/h an hour and torrential rains.
Enough rain fell over 48 hours in Brisbane, the state's capital, to supply drinking water for more than a year.
Massive ocean swells up of up to 15 metres hammered the coastline, with waves at Currmbin so powerful a car was swept from a beach carpark into the surf.
The state's premier Anna Bligh said it was likely to be among the highest damage bills Queensland had ever seen, with the worst flooding since 1974.
332mm of rain fell at Godwin Beach, north of Brisbane. Since the storm began there have been amounts to about 50cm in the same area of southeastern Queensland.
- Hurricanes will strike the United States this season and Americans must be prepared, federal forecasters said. They predicted nine to 14 named tropical storms this year. Current projections call for a near normal year for hurricanes, Gerry Bell, lead Atlantic hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a briefing. The named storms are expected to include 4 to 7 hurricanes of which 1 to 3 are likely to be major storms.
- Authorities moved to evacuate thousands of people from a second Australian town Friday as floodwaters from days of torrential rain inundated large parts of the country's east coast. About 5,000 residents in Lismore, in northern New South Wales (NSW) state, were evacuated from their homes as floodwaters, in some places more than 10m deep, surged across riverlands stretching along 300km of coastline.
Authorities also urged 9,000 people to evacuate the nearby town of Grafton, with floodwaters up to 8m deep expected to hit the town late Friday. State authorities declared disaster zones in six areas.
- Heavy rains triggered floods which killed at least 11 people in Haiti this week, where people are still trying to re-build after last year's hurricanes. Some areas were reported to have received up to 74 mm of rain on Thursday 21st. More rain and storms are forecast.
- Some 120 people are reported to have been killed by Tropical Cyclone Aila that struck Bangladesh and eastern India. Millions remain marooned by floodwaters or are living in shelters.
Many of the affected areas were still recovering from Cyclone Sidr which killed 3,500 people in Bangladesh and made at least a million homeless in November 2007.
- On the 25th temperatures reched 32-33C in parts of France, Switzerland and the western half of Germany. A sharp cold front from the west met the summery warmth over the southern half of Germany into Switzerland and Australia on Tuesday. The outcome was a rash of severe thunderstorms that tore eastward over the states of Baden-Wurttemburg and Bayern. Hail, damaging winds and flooding rain caused loss of property, disruption of travel and least one death.
At Landsberg, a gust of 87mph was indicated amidst a blinding burst of hail and rain. Falls of rain and hail amounted to 65mm at Konstanz. A 26-year-old man was driving an all-terrain vehicle near Hauzenberg in Passau county when a tree fell on him and he later died of his injuries.
Meanwhile a woman near Waldkirchen was hospitalised after being struck by lightning in her car.
A family of four camping near Ottach in lower Bayern narrowly escaped with their lives when heavy gusts pushed their camper wagon 30m into the Danube river.
Police closed the A8 motorway between Adelzhausen and Odelzhausen due to heavy rainfall and gale force winds overnight.
In Konstanz police reported that the city was covered with at least 10 centimetres of hail for a time.
In the north, on the Weser River near Bremerhaven, police reported that strong winds pushed a Norwegian freighter into three other boats while it was in the docks. In a separate incident a Lebanese ship sustained damage and lost a container overboard.
- The heatwave in Pakistan continues. Temperatures in Nawabshah reached 48C on the 25th and 46C on the 26th.
- A severe thunderstorm this evening in Texas has knocked out power to some residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
A spokeswoman for the utility Oncor said that 11,000 of its customers were blacked out by lightning and wind.
There were widespread reports of hail in Fort Worth and surrounding areas.
- The first tropical depression of the north Atlantic's hurricane season formed and forecasters said it would likely reach tropical storm strength before petering out over open seas.
"The depression is forecast to become a tropical storm over the next day or so, but then is expected to weaken or dissipate over colder waters by Saturday," the National Hurricane Center said.
The depression formed even before the official June 1 start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which stretches though November 30.
- As of today, China had moderate to extreme drought conditions across parts of Heilongjiang and northern Inner Mongolia. Moderate drought was present across parts of Tibet, Sichuan, and Yunnan.
- There has been very hot weather in eastern Arabia, with winds blowing down slope and off shore to the Gulf of Oman. Hottest today was Suhar, Oman, with 50.8C. There was 50C at Fahud, Adam and, in easternmost UAE, at Al Fujayrah. At the Seeb airport of Masqat, 48.6C was reached. It was on Saturday that Sur, Oman, reached 49C.
Turbat (that's in southwest Balochistan, Pakistan) reached 52C. This was the same blast of heat leaping the Gulf of Oman and reappearing over South Asia. The nearby southeast of Iran may have had 50C heat as well.
World weather news, April 2009
- Floods described as a once-in-a-century deluge have left thousands stranded or isolated on Australia's east coast. Nearly 4,000 people may remain cut off until the weekend, and emergency crews are conducting food and supply drops. In Queensland, heavy rains and strong winds led to flash floods, blocking roads and causing widespread blackouts. More storms have been forecast. Meanwhile, four areas have been declared disaster zones, with some 70cm of rain recorded in 48 hours.
- Another barrage of storms hit southeastern USA, spawning possible tornadoes, causing a passenger train to hit a fallen tree and sending at least one person to the hospital after lightning struck a home. Flood warnings as well as tornado watches and warnings were in effect around the region.
- Algerie Meteo reported a rainfall event in the southwest regions, starting on 27 March with advected moist tropical air mixing with cold air. The succession of wet disturbances led to locally significant runoff and damage to property in certain localities. Significant rainfall occurred from 27 to 29 March on the South West particularly on Wilayas Tindouf and Bechar Naâma.
The second system developed from 30 March on the northern regions of the country; rather intense rainfall occurred in northern areas with some snow on the mountains of the Chrea Tellien and Atlas Mountains.
- An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped. Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence of rapid change in the region. Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s. Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place. Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean. European Space Agency satellite pictures had indicated last week that cracks were starting to appear in the bridge. Newly created icebergs were seen to be floating in the sea on the western side of the peninsula, which juts up from the continent towards South America's southern tip. Over the past 50 years, the peninsula has been one of the fastest warming places on the planet.
- Across the southern U.S., a major outbreak of severe weather and deadly tornadoes occurred, with 112 preliminary tornado reports along with many reports of hail and wind damage. As the storms progressed towards the east, the violent weather caused widespread damage across Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee and claimed the lives of five people?three in Arkansas and two in Tennessee. In western Arkansas, EF1-EF3 tornadoes ripped through the state on April 9, flattening homes, uprooting trees, rupturing gas lines, and downing power lines. The worst hit area was the city of Mena where an EF3 tornado killed three people and destroyed or damaged over 600 homes. This was the first tornado to hit Mena since November 1993. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, an EF4 tornado tore a 15-mile path through the city with winds as high as 165mph on April 10, destroying 117 homes and damaging 728 others, and killing a mother and her 9-week-old baby. According to reports, the EF4 Good Friday tornado caused an estimated $41.8 million in property damages.
- In the U.S., moderate to severe drought was present across the West to parts of the northern mid-Atlantic Northeast regions. Severe to extreme drought remained across parts of the Hawaiian islands and Florida. Meanwhile, severe to exceptional drought conditions engulfed much of Texas. As of today, 21% of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate to exceptional drought according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. This includes 26% of the western U.S., 40% of the South, 4% of the High Plains, and 18% of the Southeast.
Dangerous wildfires were blazing across Oklahoma and Texas during mid-April, as strong winds up to 40 mph and dry conditions throughout the south central U.S. helped fuel the fires. Across Oklahoma, two hundred homes were engulfed by the devastating fires and 34 people were seriously injured, while in Texas 32 homes were destroyed and three fatalities were reported
- Severe storms affected central Florida, resulting in three preliminary tornado reports. The strong winds generated by the storms uprooted trees, downed power lines, damaged 25 homes, and forced schools to evacuate from trailer classrooms. Over 70,000 customers were left without electricity.
- Tropical Cyclone Bijli, the North Indian Ocean's first tropical cyclone during the 2009 cyclone season, developed on April 14 as a tropical depression. Bijli intensified to a tropical storm on the 15th and by the 16th it reached its maximum sustained winds near 50kn. Although the storm did not make landfall in eastern India, its outer rain bands dump heavy rain across the region. The storm continued its northeast track, making landfall in southern Bangladesh on April 17. The cyclone brought heavy rain and strong winds, but by the 18th weakened in intensity as it moved towards Burma. Bijli was responsible for damaging homes and crops and claimed the lives of five people.
- 5,500 customers remained without power on Sunday in Boulder and in the Denver area of the USA. That's down from about 10,500 customers who lost electricity after the storm struck Friday and dropped as much as 52 inches of snow in the foothills west of Denver.
Up to 10 inches of snow also fell in the Denver metro area. Officials closed an 80-mile stretch of Interstate 70 from Friday into Saturday, stranding hundreds of travellers.
- A line of storms swept across SE USA with 70mph winds and possible tornadoes, killing two people in their mobile homes in north Alabama.
The severe weather knocked down trees, power lines and damaged homes in Georgia and Alabama on Sunday night. The National Weather Service in Huntsville said the storms struck six counties in the Tennessee Valley.
- An unseasonal heat wave has hit coastal California, USA. The National Weather Service reported record temperatures of 34C on Sunday and 38C on Monday in Los Angeles and 34C in San Francisco.
- In Bangladesh, hot spots, located in and near the states of West Bengal and Jharkhand, were Daltenganj, Jamshedpur, Jharsuguda and Bankura, all of which topped out between 45C and 46C.
The Indian Subcontinent is not the only intensely hot swath of land at this time. Sudan has lately had widespread 45C heat including at Khartoom, and it has reached northward into southern Egypt on a few days.
- Dry conditions and coastal winds helped a wildfire grow Wednesday near Myrtle Beach, S.C., destroying dozens of homes. A stretch of Florida's Alligator Alley was closed due to dense smoke from a brush fire and remained closed early this morning. North Carolina officials are urging caution as dry winds over the next few days will elevate fire danger.
Red flag fire warnings are in effect for much of Florida, north central and South Texas, southwestern Oklahoma, as well as parts of southwestern Minnesota, southeastern South Dakota, and central and western Nebraska. Fire weather conditions are critical across parts of the Colorado Valley in southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona.
- Hot, pre-monsoon conditions occurred over the Indian sub-continent. High tenmperatures include 48C at Nawabshah and Pad Idan (in Sindh) with 44-45C from Punjab to Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The cities of Akola, Nagpur and Jaisalmer had nearly 46C.
The Indian Meteorological Department's long range forecast for the 2009 south-west monsoon season (June to September) is that the rainfall for the country as a whole is likely to be near normal. Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall is likely to be 96% of the long period average with a model error of +/-5%. The Long period average rainfall over the country as a whole for the period 1941-1990 is 89cm.
- A new Australian record was set early this morning, a temperature of -13C, at Charlotte Pass on the Snowy Mountains.
This is the lowest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia in April and is 13C below the average. Nearby at Perisher it dipped to -11C and at the top of Thredbo it dipped to -10C.
Across the border, on the Victorian Alps April records were broken at Mt Hotham where it chilled to -8C and Mt Buller and Falls Creek where it got as low as -7C.
- The death toll from days of heavy rain in Kansas rose to five Wednesday when authorities found the bodies of two people in a car submerged in a flooded creek.
The five storm-related deaths have occurred in northeast, southeast and south-central Kansas since Saturday. More rain was expected Thursday and flood warnings were posted for communities along several eastern Kansas rivers.
In the south-central Texas city of Gainesville, residents in a retirement village and those in low-lying areas near a creek were asked to leave because of flooding.
Gainesville fire officers used a swift-water boat to rescue seven people from three vehicles. An estimated 7.5 inches of rain had fallen on Wednesday.
In severe weather elsewhere, a storm dumped as much as 4 feet of snow on northwest Montana and piled it in drifts 12 feet high, blocking major highways Wednesday and isolating the town of Browning just east of Glacier National Park. Many schools were closed in the area along the Rocky Mountain Front.
- Owing to converging low-level winds, out-flowing winds aloft and the hilly nature of the Philippine landscape, there have been instances of torrential rain south and east of Manila. On the eastern island of Catanduanes, a 36-hour rainfall total (through Thursday night (local time)) of 697mm was reported at the weather radar site. Other falls include 320mm at Alabat and and 335mm at Daet.
- Tasmania, and much of southeastern Australia, has had several days of unseasonably cold weather, with cold days and very cold mornings since Sunday. Conditions like this are rare in April, being more a feature of winter.
The last two mornings have seen Flinders Island Airport drop below its previous April lowest temperature of 0.1C, reaching down to -0.3C on Thursday morning. Several other sites (including Fingal, Geeveston and Dover) have also registered record low April temperatures. Meanwhile, Orford, Scottsdale and Tarraleah are among those to have had their coldest April days on record.
The temperature at Liawenee, on the Central Plateau, dipped to -7.5C on Wednesday morning. This is the second-coldest April temperature ever recorded in Tasmania, just short of the -7.7C at the same site in 2001. It is still well short of the annual record of -13C recorded at Butlers Gorge, Shannon and Tarraleah in June 1983.
- The coming summer is 'odds on for a barbecue summer', according to long-range forecasts. Summer temperatures across the UK are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer.
Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: "After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30C, something we hardly saw at all last year."
Although the forecast is for a drier and warmer summer than average that does not mean that we will not get some heavy downpours at times. However, a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.
World weather news, March 2009
- Late-season snow and high winds pushed through the eastern United States, killing at least five people as the freeze snapped power lines, closed schools ands badly affected transport. More than 30cm of snow fell in parts of the northeastern states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as the storm swept toward Canada after paralyzing traffic in southern states during the weekend.
Flights to LaGuardia in New York, as well as to Philadelphia airport, were delayed by at least 45 minutes, and many were cancelled early in the day.
The storm stunned southerners, provoking a rash of traffic accidents, huge jams along the freeways, and hundreds of flight cancellations.
10-20cm of snow fell in the Washington area, while a hefty 30cm blanketed one part of Virginia.
States far better known for their sultry summers like Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia all had a significant snowfall. One spot in Tennessee even got a huge 45cm of snow.
- East Coast residents still reeling from the effects of a massive snowstorm were met with freezing temperatures and blistering wind chills a day after as much as 16 inches of snow forced the closure of schools and businesses from South Carolina to New Hampshire.
Temperatures across New Jersey hovered in the single digits (degF) as wind chills dipped below 0F. New York City's Central Park felt like zero for much of the morning. Eastern Pennsylvania saw temperatures in the teens and low 20s with windchills just above zero.
Many towns up and down the coast remained in the dark and bitter cold Tuesday, and some schools cancelled or delayed classes for a second straight day.
- Drought was a factor of spring and summer weather in the middle south of South America, an area spanning the heart of Argentina into Uruguay and southern Brasil. An outburst of rain this week has broke down this drought in a big way.
In northern Argentina, thunderstorm complexes burst forth south of a big heat wave on Tuesday night. These left rainfall of nearly 25cm at Parana and 20cm at Cordoba. Farther east, rainfall reached about 20cm near the Uruguay border at Gualeguaychu.
- In northwestern Africa, particularly Algeria, strong winds blew. At Chlef, winds on Thursday rose as high as 80mph. At Oran, speeds topped 65mph. Well inland, high winds whipped over the northern Sahara, driving visibility to 100m or lower. This happened from eastern Algeria to southern Tunisia and northwestern Libya.
- California's mountain snowpack was measured at 80% of normal this week despite recent storms, far from enough to ease a prolonged drought that is forcing water rationing in cities and sharp cutbacks in irrigation supplies to farmers.
"Although recent storms have added to the snowpack, California remains in a serious drought," said Lester Snow, director of the state's Department of Water Resources.
"This year's precipitation levels are still below average. On the heels of two critically dry years it is unlikely we will make up the deficit and be able to refill our reservoirs before winter's end. It's very important that Californians continue to save water at home and in their businesses."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last Friday declared a statewide drought emergency, urging California cities to impose mandatory conservation measures to cut urban consumption by 20%.
- Strong storms including at least three tornadoes damaged or destroyed homes in parts of the Midwest, and rainfall brought fears of more misery to areas hard-hit by flooding last year.
The National Weather Service confirmed that damage in Illinois and Indiana on Sunday was the result of tornadoes.
In northwest Ohio, high winds tore a roof off of one house, blew the windows out of another and damaged a barn near Defiance.
Weekend rain prompted authorities in central and eastern Iowa, still rebuilding from disastrous floods last year, to warn people in low-lying areas to move to higher ground. Water poured through a broken levee Monday along the Iowa River near Wapello, but the town itself is on high ground and not in danger.
When the storm hit southern Indiana on Sunday, it threw an empty school bus atop one flattened house in Lawrence County, and at least 19 houses were damaged.
- Tropical Cyclone Hamish became a major hurricane with sustained winds pushing it into a Category Four storm on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Frightened residents of Australia's Queensland region received some good news, however. Hamish's center would stay off-shore, although the out reaches of the storm are reaching land and causing havoc.
Meanwhile, some of the highest tides of the year have been reported, and evacuations have taken place. Evacuations took place from Lady Elliot and Heron islands, Great Keppel Island and Fraser Island.
- Highway crews worked to carve through snowdrifts that a blizzard piled up 10 feet high as hundreds of stalled motorists waited in bitter cold in North Dakota, USA.
The storm was linked to at least four deaths and shut down numerous schools and businesses Tuesday.
Interstate 29 was reopened Wednesday from the Canadian border across North Dakota to Watertown, S.D., a distance of about 280 miles, highway officials said. The temperature at Fargo was -1F on Wednesday afternoon, with a wind chill factor of -21F, the National Weather Service said.
- Four people have been killed following an avalanche in the Savoie region of the French Alps.
Six skiers and a guide were swept away by the snowslide while skiing off-piste near the resort of Valmeinier, neighbouring Valloire.
The avalanche was said to be massive - loosing a shelf of snow 900m long and 600m wide, according to the website of the French newspaper Le Parisien.
- Air pollution has caused skies above most of the world's land areas to dim slightly over the past 30 years, says a study out today in the journal Science.
Scientists found that most of the blame can be traced to aerosols that are released from the burning of fossil fuels. Aerosols in the atmosphere block sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface.
The dimming has been nearly worldwide. The report says that while visibility worsened only slightly in North America, it "decreased substantially over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, resulting in net global dimming over land."
Europe, however, has actually experienced brightening skies, the authors say, where visibility has increased since the mid-1980s. This is because of declines in pollution over that continent.
When averaged globally, the dimming has been rather subtle, akin to a 100-watt bulb dimming to a 99-watt bulb. But it has been more noticeable in the most polluted locations.
The research was conducted by Dr Dickinson along with Kaicun Wang and Shunlin Liang of the University of Maryland. Wang used a database from the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., to collect visibility measurements from 3,250 meteorological stations worldwide from 1973 to 2007.
- The North China Plain, a vital breadbasket, had abnormal warmth in a blast of dry westerly downslope air. At Xingtai, the high was 33.9C. Yet the monthly mean high temperature is about 13C. High temperatures over the North China Plain as a whole ranged mostly from 25C to 30C.
Also unusual is the early heat over the Indian Subcontinent. There have been 100-degree F highs in many areas. Even Karachi has had 38.5C. This is against a mean monthly high (for March) of 26-27C.
- Two French yachtsmen escaped safely after their newly-purchased boat collided with a merchant ship.
The crew were on their way back to France after picking up the boat in Falmouth when the collision happened in thick fog 15 miles off the Lizard.
Visibility was down to only 300m when the vessels collided at about 1220GMT.
- The drought parching several areas of the U.S. is most pronounced in the heart of Texas cattle country. High temperatures and lack of rainfall the past 18 months have decimated grass needed for grazing and forced ranchers to sell off herds of cattle.
Those who can afford it buy feed for their cattle. Others are left with the hard choice of selling off their prized animals.
The first two months of 2009 were the driest start of any year since the USA began keeping records more than a century ago, according to meteorologists.
That was deeply felt in Texas. The past eight months were the driest on record for the state as a whole, says John Nielsen-Gammon, the state's climatologist. In Central and South Texas, where the drought hit the hardest, it has been drier than any year since 1918, he said.
- Deep snow and heavy rains have elevated the risk for serious flooding in parts of the U.S. Midwest, especially in the Red River Valley region of North Dakota.
Floods in the upper Midwest could rival high water levels seen in 2006 and possibly 1997, NOAA said.
In the Red River Valley, flooding poses an imminent and serious threat and will begin next week, the forecasters said, noting the crest of the river could be among the top five highest levels on record.
The Red River runs north, dividing North Dakota and Minnesota, before running through the flat southern plains of the Canadian province of Manitoba.
More than 0.4 million hectares of wheat, soybeans and other crops on the U.S. side of the valley could go unplanted this spring, analysts said.
- Severe Tropical Cyclone Ilsa has developed in the South-east Indian Ocean. At 0600GMT today, it was located at 16.0S, 107.7E, estimated to be 920km northwest of Exmouth, Australia, and 640 kmsoutheast of Christmas Island, with intensity of maximum 10 minute average wind 150 km/h. Ilsa is forecast to move southwestward with further intensification up to 185km/h in 24 hours.
- The second major snowstorm to hit the northern Plains (USA) in a week dropped more than 30cm of snow, closing hundreds of miles of highway and shutting government offices and schools. Three deaths were blamed on the storm.
High wind expected from the storm was the biggest worry for flood-weary Fargo on the eastern edge of North Dakota.
The National Weather Service posted blizzard warnings across sections of the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana, and said more than 40cm of snow had fallen by Monday morning in the Bismarck area.
- North Dakota dug in for a lengthy fight against the erosion of its levees, as flood levels were forecast to remain near record highs and an approaching snow storm threatened to complicate the work of emergency teams.
One floodwall protecting a Fargo school was undermined Sunday, swamping the campus in what the mayor called a "wakeup call" to those who thought the worst was over when the river crested.
The Red River, which divides North Dakota and Minnesota and runs north to Canada, was flowing at three to four times its normal strength, eating away at on the city's 77km of protective dikes and levees. Thousands of people have been evacuated from rising waters in North Dakota amid fears some 30,000 could be left homeless by the state's worst floods in over a century.
- More than 12 people are feared dead and over 200 injured after a tornado hit the eastern Indian state of Orissa, officials say. They say the tornado lasted about one hour and hit 11 villages in the Rajkanika area of the state with winds of about 120km/h. Tornados are common at this time of the year in this region of India.
World weather news, February 2009
- Heavy snow disrupted air and rail travel in Britain, Belgium and NW France, halting flights at London's main airport and bringing traffic in the British capital almost to a standstill.
Tens of thousands of commuters were advised not to attempt the journey into work in London, experiencing some of its worst snow in almost 20 years. Buses were taken off the roads and hundreds of schools were closed across the country, leaving children to play and build snowmen in parks and gardens.
Northern France also had difficulty as snow blanketed Paris and surrounding countryside bringing major air, rail and road systems to a halt.
London business leaders said the estimated cost to the British capital alone could be as much as 48 million pounds ($69 million) in lost productivity
All flights in and out of Heathrow were cancelled for a period before a limited service resumed with long delays and cancellations.
A Cyprus Airways jet at Heathrow slipped off a taxiway after arriving from Larnaca but came to a safe halt. No-one was hurt.
Gatwick, Stansted and Luton airports reported delays and flight cancellations. London City Airport was closed for the day.
Dublin, Cork and Belfast airports were also forced to cancel some flights.
Large parts of London's underground rail network were suspended.
Highway authorities warned of hazardous driving conditions in southern and central England and advised people not to drive unless absolutely necessary.
The heaviest snow fell in southern England. Epsom in Surrey had depths of 31cm, south London had 28cm and the North Downs in Kent saw 25cm.
The international rail operator Eurostar also reported delays due to snow in Britain, France and Belgium.
Also the Pennines in N England received substantial snowfall later in the day as more persistent sleet and snow moved north over eastern parts.
Guernsey had its heaviest snowfall overnight since 1987; al schools on the island closed
- Rainfall for today was unofficially near 50cm at Hawkins Creek, northwest of Townsville, Queensland. Another amount was 467mm at nearby Cardwell Range. At Townsville, rainfall was about 40cm in total over three edays.
- In Moscow, the last four months have been unusually mild, December and January exceptionally so. However, the end of January and the start of February have had the winter's coldest weather thus far.
- During the evening a band of rain moving up from the south readily
turned to snow moving across the SW England by midnight, leading to
accumulations of between 3 and 6 cm. Flash weather warnings were issued in expectation of up to 20cm in the Bristol area of the M4 and M5 and surrounding counties. A teenage girl died after suffering serious head injuries when a makeshift sledge crashed in South Yorkshire the previous day.
- Locally heavy outbreaks of sleet and snow moved northwards into the
Midlands during the night, with 20cm of snow settling on the
Cotswolds at Cirencester and 11cm accumulating at Boscombe Down.
There was significant disruption in central southern England and in
- The gritting salt keeping Britain's roads clear of snow and ice is running out amid a warning from the AA that some roads are becoming "death traps".
Many councils in England and Wales are having to ration supplies and have stopped using salt on minor roads.
- Little precipitation and high average temperatures have led to meteorological drought being declared in 12 provinces of China. Southern Hebei, south-eastern Shaanxi and south-western Henan are particularly affected. Winter-wheat growing areas in northern China have received their lowest rainfall in 30 years - 50 years in some places and the crops are under threat. Some four million people are suffering water shortages. It is the worst recorded drought in Henan since 1951.
- La Nina conditions in the Pacific will persist into the spring of 2009 but should gradually weaken during that period, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said. In a monthly update, the CPC said "a majority of the model forecasts ... indicate a gradual weakening of La Nina through February-April 2009, with an eventual transition to neutral conditions."
- About 200 people have been rescued by emergency crews in Devon (SW Engand) after spending several hours stranded in their vehicles in heavy snow.
Emergency crews were called to the A38 at Haldon Hill, near Exeter, at about 2100 GMT on Thursday. The M5 motorway southbound in the Exeter area was closed to keep motorists away from the rescue area.
Up to 17cm of snow has been reported in Exeter. The Army was called in to pick up about 60 people stuck on the A386 near Tavistock, and some motorists also got into difficulty on the A380. Many trains services and flights were agai9n cancelled. More than 1,500 schools were closed across southern England and Wales.
- Water levels began to drop slightly across the vast flooded region of northern Australia, but a forecast of more heavy rain will slow recovery and the cleanup effort.
The Herbert River in Ingham dropped by 1 metre in the last 24 hours but could return to its Monday peak of 12.2m if the low pressure storm system off the coast dumps the expected 300 millimeters on the town this weekend.
While overflowing rivers and heavy rainstorms are normal during northern Australia's November-to-April tropical cyclone season, the Bureau of Meteorology has predicted above-normal monsoonal activity this season.
More than 60 percent of Queensland is under water - 1 million square km. Ingham has been hardest hit, with 2,900 homes damaged or flooded in a weekend storm and hundreds of people evacuated.
The wet weather has also disrupted the habitat of the state's wildlife. Kangaroos and wallabies have been stranded on pockets of dry land, birds are starving and officials have warned of crocodiles and snakes roaming flooded streets and yards.
In stark contrast to the wet weather in the north, the south remains hot and dry. Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney have all sweltered through record-breaking heat waves in recent weeks, and weekend forecasts show temperatures 36-46C in those states.
- The Australian Bureau of Meteorology says that an all-time record for the state of Victoria was set at Hopetoun on 7 February, when the temperature reached 48.8C, exceeding the previous record of 47.2C and is maybe the highest ever recorded in the world so far south. Seven other sites also exceeded previous records.
A total of 14 sites exceeded the previous Victorian February record of 46.7C. Many all-time site records were also set in Victoria on 7 February, including Melbourne (154 years of record), where the temperature reached 46.4C, exceeding its previous all-time record of 45.6C set on 13 January 1939.
- On the South Island of New Zealand, Dunedin had a maximum temperature of over 33C. This may have been the highest temperature on record here for the month of February. Highs of 34C at Christchurch and Timaru, while significant, were comparatively less extreme compared to the average.
The heat in New Zealand was confined to the eastern side of both islands, but most markedly over eastern South Island.
- Winds of up to 140 km/h hit northern and western France last night, disrupting power supplies and transport routes. The two main airports serving Paris were closed for the first time in 34 years. Some ferry services were suspended. During the night of 9 February a depression formed on the Atlantic Ocean moved along the coasts of the English Channel. The strongest winds were localised in the south of this depression. While moving towards the East, the tempestuous winds first of all touched the coasts (of Brittany to the estuary of the Gironde) at the beginning of night, then central areas and the Ile-de-France, before reaching Burgundy and the east of the country at the end of the night and early morning. The strongest gusts were observed on the coasts with 141km/h at l'Ile d'Yeu (Vendée) and at the Pointe du Raz (Finistère). Away from the coasts 135km/h occurred at Fontenay (Vendée), 124km/h at Orly (Essone) and 121km/h at Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin).
The storm also brought a mixture of heavy rain, sleet and snow to much of southern Britain, along with gale force winds. Most of the snow fell across the Midlands and the south-west, with 7cm of snow falling in Nottingham through the 24 hours of Monday.
- A tornado killed eight people and injured 14, when it struck a small town in Oklahoma, USA. Local officials said that some 30 people were missing. The tornado was one of three to hit Oklahoma the same night, cutting a 0.8km swath between Oklahoma City and Dallas, Texas. Over 100 homes were destroyed.
- A weak tornado briefly touched down on Oahu, Hawaii. An administrator at the Kapolei Golf Course, Illona Ioli, says the twister ripped up some trees as it went straight through the golf course. Minor damage was reported to roofs and yard equipment.
This is only the 38th tornado to hit Hawaii since 1950 - most of them occurring between December and March. In 1971 five tornadoes affected the islands.
- The wildfires in the wake of the heat wave in south-eastern Australia have already claimed more than 180 lives in the state of Victoria, according to official reports, with about 30 fires still burning. An area of 3000 square km has been affected, with some towns almost completely destroyed.
Bush fires are common in Australia. The previous worst fire was on 16 February 1983, when 75 people died - the day that became known as Ash Wednesday.
The current extreme weather situation may be being enhanced by a weather phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
The IOD is a phenomenon that results in an irregular warming and cooling of sea temperatures in the southeastern and southwestern Indian Ocean. It was first recognised in 1999, and climate scientists from the University of South Wales have now linked the IOD to drought conditions in southern Australia.
The IOD has two phases, a positive and a negative phase. During the positive phase, the sea temperature drops in the southeastern Indian Ocean and rises in the southwestern Indian Ocean. During the negative phase, the reverse is true. These differences in sea temperature determine how much water evaporates into the atmosphere, which in turn controls the amount of rainfall received in the adjacent areas. Higher sea temperatures lead to increased rainfall, whereas lower sea temperatures can lead to drought conditions.
- A powerful snowstorm has lashed eastern Russia over the last few days, bringing heavy snow and strong winds to the Sakhalin Islands. Visibility across much of the island dropped to less than 50m, with heavy snow adding to the disruption on the roads. The storm formed in the Sea of Japan before heading north, dumping heavy snow on the Russian island of Sakhalin. This type of storm formation and track is not unusual for the region, which frequently gets hit by such storms at this time of year.
- A winter storm blanketed California with heavy rain and snow, forcing the temporary closure of major highways and the cancellation of the final round of a national golf tournament.
The storm stretched from the Mexican border up to Oregon and Washington.
In Northern California, a flood advisory was issued for the San Francisco Bay area and a flash flood watch was in effect for much of California's central coast.
Up to 7 feet of snow had fallen in the Sierra Nevada over the past week.
- Large areas of western Colombia are underwater after heavy rain earlier this week led to widespread flooding.
Since Tuesday, torrential downpours affected western Colombia due to a series of low pressure systems that swept in from the eastern Pacific. The rain fell on already saturated ground, and caused several rain-swollen rivers to burst their banks.
The town of Tumaco on the Pacific coast was particularly badly hit. At least six people are reported to have died in floods in Tumaco, and thousands of homes have been destroyed.
- In Serbia, snowfall this Wednesday and Thursday was 12 inches at Kraljevo and Kragujevac. Belgrade picked up 11 inches of snow. It was a disruptive storm that blocked travel on the roadways. Germany has had a sharp cold spell on the last two nights. In southern Germany, minimum temperatures were down to -19.7C (Wednesday) and -24.2C (Thursday), at Oberstdorf. Kempten was nearly as cold including -21.0C on Thursday morning. Atop Zugspitze, snowfall in a storm on Tuesday and Wednesday was 35cm. On Austria's Sonnblick mountain, snowfall from this storm was 66cm. The town of Bregenz got 25cm.
- The number of snow cover days in Berne is unusually high this year. So that a complete snow cover is present, a snowdepth of several centimetres must be present. Therefore one day with snowcover is defined as a day with 5cm of lying snow. In the 2008/9 winter so far Berne has had 61 snow cover days, the third highest in the recorrd from 1931/2. The record with 69 snow cover days occurred in the winter of 1962/63.
- One person was killed and at least 16 were injured when fierce thunderstorms swept Georgia and Alabama, bringing tornadoes, hail and lightning and downing trees and power lines. At least three tornadoes touched down in central Georgia when the storms swept through overnight; the storms gutted homes, and destroyed a nightclub and damaged schools.
- Widespread rain and snow over the past week has helped to alleviate the worst drought in nearly five decades in northern China. The Ministry of Agriculture had issued a top-level drought emergency; however this level has now been dropped to second-class in several provinces following the rain and snow.
The first snowfall of winter arrived in Beijing this week, with up to 7cm falling over much of the city. Although Beijing experiences cold winters, any snow - if it occurs at all - is usually very light.
This week's snow and rainfall is being partly attributed to the recent cloud-seeding, which has been the government's response to the drought situation.
- More than 72,700 homes and businesses in Maine (USA) were without power on Tuesday morning after a winter storm dumped heavy wet snow across northern New England on Sunday and Monday.
- Parts of western Austria and southern Germany were hit by heavy snow, triggering some of the worst avalanches so far this winter.
At least three people died in a series of avalanches in the Tyrol region of Austria, bringing the total killed in Austrian avalanches this winter to thirteen.
Snow storms spread east across the region during Monday and Tuesday, dumping 40-50cm of new snow widely, and up to 70cm over the peaks. On the Zugspitze Mountain in Germany, the snow depth has now reached 4 metres.
- A NASA satellite that would have helped solve a key global-warming mystery sank into Antarctic seas after the rocket taking it to orbit was dragged down by too much weight.
At first, the launch of the satellite, which was designed to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, seemed to unfold as planned. A few minutes after the 1:55 a.m. PT liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, data showed that a protective cover over the satellite did not peel away as it was supposed to. The cover - or fairing - added so much extra weight that the rocket carrying the satellite could not make it to orbit; it splashed into the ocean.
The loss of the phone-booth-size satellite, known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, cost NASA $278 million, although that included the estimated cost of operating it for two years. It was $33 million over budget because of problems with its main scientific instrument, according to NASA budget documents.
- New bushfires are blazing in Victoria, southern Australia, with one outbreak close to the state capital, Melbourne, where temperatures are expected to rise on Friday to over 32C. Higher temperatures and strong winds have created the worst conditions since 7 February or 'Black Saturday', when more than 200 people lost their lives. At least 2029 homes have been destroyed in hundreds of fires over the past two weeks.
- Recent observations indicate a warming of permafrost in many northern and mountain regions with resulting degradation of ice-rich and carbon-rich permafrost. Permafrost temperature has increased by 1-2C in northern Russia during the last 30-35 years. This observed increase is very similar to what has been observed in Alaska, where the detailed characteristic of the warming varies between locations, but is typically in the range 0.5-2C.
- Multidisciplinary research from the International Polar Year 2007-2008 provides new evidence of the widespread effects of global warming in the polar regions. Snow and ice are declining in both regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic, and also global ocean and atmospheric circulation and sea level. These are but a few findings reported in State of Polar Research, released today by WMO and the International Council for Science at a press briefing today in Geneva.
- Australia has heated up again, thereby bringing fire threat to the fore in the dry and dusty south. On Wednesday the heat affected South Australia and nearby eastern Western Australia. Hot northerly winds lifted the temperature to 44.8C at Eucla, WA. On Thursday, the south-flowing hot desert air covered the state of South Australia. Ceduna heated to 43.6C, and Nullarbor rose to 43.3C. At Adelaide, the high was 38.7C.
- February is the last month of winter season in India. Being a transition period from winter to summer, the weather over most parts of the country is normally very comfortable. However, this year the temperatures during February 2009 were exceptionally high. Mean maximum temperatures for the month were above normal by 2-4C over most parts of central, adjoining east and peninsular India, northeastern states and western Himalayan region and parts of plains of northwest India. Mean minimum temperatures of the month were also above normal by 2-4C over many parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat, some parts of Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra and isolated pockets of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Marathawada, Vidarbha and Bihar.
The atmospheric circulation features which led to the rise in temperatures over various parts of the country are: 1. Western disturbances affected only western Himalayan region and did not cause any significant rainfall activity over northwest plains and central India, and 2. Due to persistent presence of strong anticyclone over the Arabian Sea, there was warm air advection which led to anomalous above normal temperatures. Also clear sky conditions due to a lack of rainfall activity had contributed to high day temperatures.
World weather news, January 2009
- Abundant snow from the Rockies to the Alps is leading to forecasts of a particularly active avalanche season this winter.
In the northwest USA, early season snow fell during October and November, providing an unstable base for the heavy December snowfall. 19 people have been killed in avalanches in the northwest over the past two weeks alone.
Ski resorts in Canada, Japan and the Alps are also feeling the effects of the early season snow. Last week, eight snowboarders lost their lives in a series of avalanches near the resort of Fernie and one man was killed in an avalanche in Austria.
- It has been an usually heavy start to the wet season across parts of South America, with heavy downpours lashing Peru and Brazil. Heavy rain hit Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest. Here around 167mm of rain fell in just 24 hours.
In Sao Paulo, weeks of heavy rainfall in Brazil's south-eastern coffee area has helped farmers increase production.
Flooding has caused widespread damage across Minas, Uruguay, killing three people in the capital of Belo Horizonte.
- Unseasonable floods brought by rains this week have killed at least five people in central Vietnam while 10 others remained missing.
Floods and storms often strike central Vietnam between August and November but heavy rains since Monday caused by a cold spell hit the region widely exposed to the sea and raised river waters. The government said more than 5,000 homes were submerged and floods also inundated a combined 74,400 hectares of rice in five provinces. Over four days, 200 to 400 mm of rain has fallen over the central provinces.
- About 5,000 families in the southern Philippines have been displaced by flash floods and large waves spawned by heavy rains.
Over a hundred houses have been destroyed and many people are fleeing their homes in the face of rising waters in the northern part of the southern island of Mindanao.
- A violent storm broke out across KwaZulu-Natal killing at least 16 people and injuring many others.
This freak storm was described by residents as one of the worst storms in living memory. Trees were uprooted, roofs were torn off and some places there were reports of water mains bursting. At least four people were killed by lightning strikes and more than 2000 households were affected by the intense storm. The worst affected areas were Ndwendwe, Pietermaritzburg and Dalton, where authorities set up temporary tents to accommodate the homeless families.
This violent storm comes after a series of similar storms that have struck the province over the past few months causing much damage and loss of life.
- A winter storm brought blankets of snow across Europe, forcing the closure of an icy Eiffel Tower in Paris and causing flight cancellations.
Up to four inches of snow was recorded in parts of France, the national weather service said. Most areas, including Paris, got around half that amount.
French authorities issued traffic alerts in around 30 regions because of icy roads.
The Eiffel Tower, one of Paris' main tourist attractions, was closed because of slippery conditions.
"We can't put down salt because it's metallic," Eiffel Tower press officer Isabelle Esnous said. "We can't use sand either ... because it risks getting into the elevator (cogs)."
A dozen flights were cancelled at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, officials said.
In Germany, heavy snowfall snarled road traffic and flight delays and cancellations at the country's international airports.
Duesseldorf International Airport said no flights were allowed in or out during 6-9 a.m. because clearing crews were unable to keep up with the snow.
More than 30 flights were cancelled there because of the bad weather.
Snow also fell across Britain. Children built snowmen in parts of England, including Cambridge.
- About an inch of snow fell on Seattle (USA) late Sunday, but had mostly disappeared after overnight rain.
Spokane, a city of 200,000, was largely shut down Monday, as up to 8 inches of snow fell. More than 5 feet of snow has fallen on the city since 17 December.
The latest storm began on Sunday and continued into Monday morning. Up to 15 inches fell in the Cascades, prompting closure of Snoqualmie Pass on Interstate 90 at about 11 p.m. Sunday.
Spokane children, whose Christmas break began two days early because of snow, got another day off as school had been scheduled to resume Monday.
The heavy snow has caused dozens of roof collapses in the Spokane area. There have been 28 roof collapses just in the city of Spokane since the big storms started.
- Ell (Limburg, Holland) recorded -18.3C. This is the lowest temperature in Holland since March 2005, when on the 4th in Marknesse above a snow layer 50cm deep -20.7C was measured. The lowest temperature on record in Holland is -27.4C on 27 January 1942.
- Heavy rain pounded the northwest US state of Washington, flooding roads, triggering mudslides and leaving millions of residents cut off from the rest of the country. Melting snow and ice combined with warm torrential rain have combined to leave rivers across the state close to bursting, and forcing 30,000 people to evacuate their homes. An estimated three million people living along Puget Sound, the coastal inlet where the state's main hub of Seattle is located, were isolated after road and rail links into the area were severed. Some of the worst flooding has occurred in west Washington where around 178mm of rain fell in 24 hours near Marblemount in the Cascade foothills.
- At least 12 people are reported to have died in the cold spell which has enveloped much of Europe. Ten deaths occurred in Poland, when temperatures dropped to -25C. Freezing temperatures and exceptional snowfall have caused delays and cancellations of flights, shutdowns of airports and chaos on roads and railways. Many schools have been forced to close. In some countries, electricity and water supplies have been disrupted. Marseilles, southern France, had its heaviest snowfall in 20 years. Temperatures in Germany reached a record low of -28C. Several rivers in the north of Germany froze over including parts of the River Elbe, blocking ship traffic.
- Large parts of the Spanish Interior were hit by heavy snow with Madrid being badly affected. Between 6cm and 10cm of snow have fallen in parts of the capital causing disruption on roads and affecting rail transportation. One of Europe's busiest airports, Madrid Barajas, was forced to close during Saturday morning due to the heavy snowfall and poor visibility.
Across the border in France, more than 1000 homes still remain without electricity after heavy snow caused white-out conditions in the Marseille region.
- A ferry capsized in a severe storm and crashing waves in central Indonesia and officials said around 250 people were feared dead. Eighteen survivors were rescued by fishing boats, but the fate of the others remained unclear. About 250 passengers and 17 crew are believed to have been onboard the ferry when it went down 50km off the coast off western Sulawesi.
- Some notably hot temperatures have occurred in Western Australia (WA) in January 2009 to date. Emu Creek Station in the Pilbara recorded a maximum temperature of 49.0C on the 10th, breaking its January record of 48.2C, set on 1 January 2004. It was the equal seventh hottest day in January ever recorded in WA, and the hottest temperature recorded in WA since 11 January 2008, when 49.2C was recorded at Onslow. The mean maximum temperature for January so far at Emu Creek Station is 45.6C. Gascoyne Junction also registered its new highest January temperature on record on the 11th with 48.6C. Its previous record was 48.3C on 4 January 2008. The mean maximum temperature for January so far at Gascoyne Junction is 46.4C.
Perth has experienced 14 consecutive hot days over the New Year and into the start of 2009, with maximum temperatures remaining above 32C from 29 December 2008 to 11 January 2009. This type of hot spell has only been exceeded on three occasions since 1897: 29 December 1961 to 12 January 1962 (15 days); 1 to 16 Febuary 1996 (16 days); and 24 December 1999 to 7 January 2000 (15 days).
- A week of intense rainfall has triggered widespread flash floods and caused several landslides across the Philippines leaving 11 people dead and another eight missing. More than 200,000 people have been displaced by the rains which have been affecting eastern, central and southern parts of the country. The Bicol region and eastern parts of Visayas and Mindanao have been worst hit. Over the last few days, Northern Samar has also been badly affected, as mudslides and flooded roads cut it off from the rest of the country and displaced more than 11,000 families.
- More flash floods hit Fiji today, where many homes had already been inundated and thousands of people had taken to emergency shelters. The second flood came five days after a spate of tropical storms killed at least eight people. According to the Director of the Meteorological Service, Rajendra Prasad, the flooding is the worst in recent Fijian history. Over 1000mm of rain fell in one week at Nadi on Fiji.
- Mozambique authorities say that torrential rains in the central province of Manica have killed 19 people in the past few days. Hundreds have taken refuge in emergency shelters and roads are impassable. Four more people have been killed and 1,000 displaced in the coastal region of Inhambane in the past two weeks. It is feared that the flooding will worsen as the rainy season continues.
- Arctic air extended its grip with below-zero temperatures stretching from Montana to northern New England (USA) and frost nipping the Gulf Coast. A few ski areas in Vermont and northern Minnesota closed for the day because of the cold -38F at International Falls, with the wind chill during the night estimated at -50F.
The coldest weather has been recorded around the Winnipeg area, where temperatures on Tuesday night fell to -36C. Regina in Saskatchewan recorded temperatures of -33C on Wednesday morning with wind chill factors of -43C.
The current severe chill comes after one of the coldest Decembers for 26 years in Saskatchewan and the coldest in Manitoba for nearly ten years.
- In Alaska there was the shift from bitter cold to record warmth in the interior of Alaska with warmth, as of Thursday, now overtaking northwestern Canada. There was a 100F rise in temperature between early and mid-month at Eagle, Alaska. At Fairbanks, the temperature swing was 91F within one week ending with a record 44F on Wednesday.
- A record cold snap gripped the American Midwest as temperatures plummeted to lows of -34C and officials scrambled to protect the homeless and vulnerable.
The cold was the result of an arctic blast that descended from Canada and settled across the upper Midwest.
The temperatures were the lowest since 1999 in Illinois and since 1994 in some parts of Ohio and Indiana.
In Canada the polar freeze was not any kinder as the extreme cold caused flooding in Montreal and left 100,000 people in Toronto without power or heating for over 12 hours, as temperatures stood at -18C
The severe cold forced scores of school closures, prompted people to leave their homes for warming centers and saw cadres of volunteers and government officials take to the streets across affected states to ensure the homeless and vulnerable were not stuck in the deadly winter freeze.
- Severe gales and heavy rain swept across much of the UK and Ireland causing havoc and killing at least one person.
Exposed parts of Western and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales saw the strongest winds with gusts in excess of 100mph. Belmullet in County Mayo, Ireland saw the strongest gust of 108mph.
One person was killed when a tree fell on a car in Downpartick, Co Down in Northern Ireland. Electricity supplies to around 100,000 homes right across Ireland were cut during the height of the storm.
- Australia's tropical Queensland state declared a flood disaster over an area the size of France and Germany after recent monsoon storms.
Thirty Queensland communities covering 969,000 square km were declared disaster zones.
Eight major rivers remain in flood after monsoonal rains and a cyclone moved across the state, cutting roads and forcing many small communities to rely on air drops of food and fresh water.
The floods are eventually expected to move inland, helping fill lakes and relieving a long-running drought in parts of Australia's desert interior and tropical north.
- The string of natural catastrophes that wreaked havoc in 2008, costing the global economy $225 billion and leaving insurers with their second costliest year in history, graphically highlights the increasing risks to businesses of extreme weather events, according to Swiss Re.
Many companies are now grappling with the consequences of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and rainstorms.
January saw the heaviest rainfall in nearly a century to hit Queensland, Australia. The resulting heavy flooding to major coalmines disrupted production for months, pushed up the global price for coking coal and cost insurers billions of dollars.
That the two most expensive years for insurers on record, according to research by Swiss Re, should come during the last four again spurs debate: is climate change already having an effect on our weather?
- Officials say three people were killed and nearly 3,000 left homeless when a powerful cyclone struck Madagascar.
Cyclone Fanele hit the Indian Ocean island off the southern coast of Africa on Wednesday, bringing with it heavy rain and winds of up to 130 mph.
The storm uprooted giant trees, flattened homes and left large areas flooded.
Morondava, a regional hub on Madagascar's western coast, and home to about 30,000 people, was left without water and electricity. The local hospital has had its roof blown off.
- It has been a very cold and particularly snowy start to winter in the northeast USA, and there is yet more arctic weather on its way later this week.
The cold air, originating east of the Canadian Rockies is being carried southeastwards by an 'Alberta Clipper', which is bringing very low temperatures to states including Ohio and Pennsylvania.
An Alberta Clipper is a fast moving low pressure system that affects parts of the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes provinces between December and February.
- A storm spun eastward over northwest Africa, reaching the shore near the Tunisia-Libya border today. This big storm has whipped up widespread dust storms over Algeria and snow along its Tell Atlas. But the cold, soaking rain that pelted the northernmost Sahara stood out. El Oued was splashed with 85mm of rain as of Thursday morning. This would be more than the normal yearly rainfall of about 76mm.
Eight people died and 15 others were injured as a result of this weather in Algeria since Tuesday.
Heavy rain accompanied by hail and snow were reported Tuesday and Wednesday in northern Algeria including Tlemcen, Ain Temouchent, Oran, Mostaganem, Médéa, Algiers, Boumerdès, Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia. A sudden drop in temperature has been registered since Tuesday evening in the north of the country where abundant snowfalls were also recorded. Some 25cm of snow have fallen in particular in the Department of Sétif, according to the National Office of Meteorology.
- A big, cold high is building southeast from western Siberia to Mongolia, whence it will spread its cold over the China heartland, the Korean Peninsula and into Japan. That part of Asia in and about Mongolia is known to the weather-wise as the home to world's highest surface pressure (corrected to sea level). As of 1800 UTC today the highest pressure was 1077mb at Altai, Mongolia. Compare this to that storm forecast for seas off Iceland (935 mb) on Friday.
- Several days of the lowest temperatures South Florida has seen in years are threatening to ruin orange groves, cucumber fields and tropical fish ponds across the state.
"This is peak harvest season for many Florida crops, so damage at this time could have significant consequences stretching far outside Florida's borders," Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said. Freezing temperatures hit South Florida on Wednesday night for the first time since January 2003, said Amy Godsey, deputy state meteorologist. Interior areas such as Lake Okeechobee saw temperatures as low as -5C.
- Many parts of Argentina have been experiencing a very dry spell, which is being described by the National Meteorological Service as the most severe drought in a generation.
The worst affected area is the Pampas region in east and central Argentina, which is also the most important agricultural region of the country. Argentina is one of world's top exporters of wheat, soy, corn and beef, but this year, crop yields are down, and hundreds of thousands of cattle have died.
The Pampas region is one of the driest parts of the country, as the Andes provide shelter from the persistent westerly winds. Here, most of the rainfall falls in the summer months of October until March. However, since March of last year, rainfall has been significantly below normal and temperatures have been unusually hot.
- A violent storm named Klaus hit south-western France and northern Spain with torrential rains and winds of between 122 and 193 km/h this weekend, leaving at least 26 people dead and one million homes without power. Roads, airports and railways were forced to close.
The weekend was also deadly in the French Alps, where five people died in three separate avalanches.
It was the worst storm in France since December 1999, when a huge storm killed 88 people. After that, the weather forecast agency had set up an early warning system that helped keep the death toll relatively low on Saturday as people stayed indoors.
In Spain, troops helped emergency services fight a forest fire in La Nucia, north of Benidorm in Alicante province.
There were no forest fires in France but the impact of the storm was devastating in the huge Landes forest, south of Bordeaux, one of Europe's largest, where tens of thousands of timber businesses are based.
- Formiguères (Pyrénées Orientales) : 193 km/h
- Cap Béar (Pyrénées Orientales) : 191 km/h
- Mont-Aigual (Gard) : 185 km/h
- Perpignan (Pyrénées Orientales) : 184 km/h (record)
- Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet (Pyrénées Orientales) : 177 km/h (record)
- Biscarosse (Landes) : 172 km/h (record)
- Cap Ferret (Gironde): 172 km/h
- Bordeaux (Gironde): 161 km/h (record)
- Hundreds of thousands of people were left shivering in the dark after a massive ice and snow storm cut a swath across the United States, knocking down power lines, snarling traffic, grounding flights and forcing schools to close.
Freezing rain on the southern end of the storm covered trees and bridges with brilliant ice crystals but made roads incredibly slick and dangerous from Texas to Pennsylvania.
At least a dozen deaths were reported.
The northern side of the snow dumped as much as 30cm of snow in some areas of Ohio and the US east coast.
The storm formed Monday over the southern plain states and Texas and moved steadily east and north.
Heavy ice brought down tree limbs and power lines, blew out transformers and caused a number of fires in Kentucky, where several cities were completely without power.
President Barack Obama, who recently moved from the icy city of Chicago to relatively temperate Washington, joked about how the US capital proved unable to cope with some winter weather.
"As my children pointed out, in Chicago school is never cancelled," Obama told reporters.
- Tropical storm Hettie has developed in the western South Pacific, and was located about 400 km south-southeast of Suva, Fiji, at 1100UTC today. It is forecast to move south-southwestward, with current intensity as tropical storm sustained in the next 48 hours.
- Despite the recent winter storms causing havoc across much of the Midwest and northeast USA, ski resorts in the Rockies have been left reaping the benefits.
Winter storms during last weekend and at the start of this week have pushed snow depths above 500cm. The latest storm dumped more than 107cm of fresh powdery snow across Steamboat in Colorado, bringing their total snowfall to 582cm so far this season. Crested Butte received 84cm pushing their snowfall to 513cm.
- Melbourne (Australia) has endured three successive days of temperatures above 43C for the first time in recorded history. The mercury reached 45.1C today, 44.3C yesterday, and 43.4C on Wednesday.
Today's 45.1C at 4.27pm was the second highest temperature ever recorded in Melbourne, behind only the 45.6C recorded on Black Friday, 13 January 1939.
Melbourne's most sustained heatwave occurred in January 1908 when temperatures reached 39.9C (15th January), 42.8C (16th), 44.2C (17th), 40.0C (18th), 41.1C (19th) and 42.7C (20th).
Other parts of Victoria also baked this week, with many places having their hottest January day on record. These included Bundoora (Latrobe University), Grovedale (Geelong airport), Heywood Forestry, Hamilton airport, Maryborough, Moorabbin airport, Morwell (Latrobe Valley airport), Mt Buller, Scoresby Research Institute, Wilsons Promontory lighthouse, and Wonthaggi. Many sites also set record highs for January minimum temperatures.
The heatwave has also affected South Australia and Tasmania. Adelaide recorded a near-record maximum of 45.7C on Wednesday, and Scamander set an all-time record for Tasmania today with 42.2C.
Dr Harvey Stern of the Bureau of Meteorology?s Victorian Climate Services Centre said the extreme heat was due to a blocking high pressure system in the Tasman Sea. The system had directed a northerly air flow over the southeast of Australia, moving an extremely hot air mass over the southeast of the continent.
Melbourne's rainless spell now stands at 27 days, the longest since 1965 with a spell of 28 days.
If you have a snippet of weather news that you feel merits inclusion, then please feel free to email it to me.
Last updated 14 January 2010.