Orcas in PE (PICTURE)

Deadly Tornadoes 'Very Unusual' - 55 dead

Photo: Jonathan Palmer/The Daily via Associated Press
Much of the havoc was wreaked by rare “long-track” tornadoes, which stay on the ground for distances of 30 to 50 miles. One tornado in Arkansas seems to have burned a path through five counties, said Renee Preslar, the public education coordinator for the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management.

“Normally tornadoes touch down and they’re on the ground for 20 minutes and they pop back up,” Ms. Preslar said. “There’s no signs yet of this having ever come off the ground.”

“The wrath of God is the only way I can describe it,” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee said after a helicopter flight to survey the damage. “I’m used to seeing roofs off houses, houses blown over. These houses were down to their foundations, stripped clean.” - from New York Times

Photo: ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE / EPA Source: New York Times

More Rain in Sodden California

A series of fierce storms has caused deadly avalanches, flooded streets and set off mud and rock slides in recent days. Some areas have received more moisture in a week than during the entire rainy season last year.

Three skiers were killed Friday by a trio of avalanches that swept through canyons outside the trails of Mountain High ski resort at Wrightwood, northeast of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains. A fourth man escaped the avalanches.

Avalanches are unusual in the San Gabriel Mountains, but the peaks had been hit by 3 feet or more of new snow this past week, drawing thousands of skiers and snowboarders.

By JACOB ADELMAN

New Climate Records Yesterday (South Africa)

Lowest Minimum 14.8 2001-01-03 9.3 2008-01-09
Mtunzini

Quite a significant downward jump, over 5 degrees Celcius.

• I saw a hole in a large thundercloud lasy night. Looked like an aeroplane had flown straight through. Quite unusual.

New Climate Records Yesterday (South Africa)

Highest Minimum
23.8 2003-12-17
25.8 2007-12-03
Kathu

Once again, not a fractional increase, but 2 entire degrees Celcius higher. I've started to give up on publishing HOLIDAY, and will begin something new soon. Working title: FIRE AND ICE (set in South Africa).

Yesterday's All Time Climate Records (South Africa)

Highest Daily Rain
Previously: 78.0mm 1983-11-28
Now: 80.0mm 2007-11-21
Location: Senekal

Highest Daily Rain
Previously: 39.5mm 1964-11-06
Now: 40.8mm 2007-11-21
Location: Cape Agulhas

Highest Daily Rain
Previously: 26.2mm 1997-11-16
Now: 46.2 2007-11-21
Struisbaai

Highest Daily Rain
24.8mm 1996-11-19
33.0mm 2007-11-21
Hermanus

Highest Daily Rain
44.2mm 2001-11-19
101.0mm 2007-11-21
Tygerhoek

Highest Daily Rain
86.0mm 1976-11-23
152.4mm 2007-11-21
Villiersdorp

Highest Daily Rain
16.6mm 2001-11-19
79.2mm 2007-11-21
Worcester

Highest Daily Rain
21.5mm 1976-11-23
65.0mm 2007-11-21
Mcgregor

Highest Daily Rain
41.0mm 1980-11-30
60.0mm 2007-11-21
Robertson

Highest Daily Rain
54.6mm 1995-11-21
71.8mm 2007-11-21
Greytown

Highest Daily Rain
53.0mm 1960-11-12
98.0mm 2007-11-21
Heidelberg

Highest Daily Rain
111.0mm 1996-11-21
206.0mm 2007-11-21
George Weather Office

Highest Daily Rain
82.6mm 1996-11-21
112.4mm 2007-11-21
Knysna

Highest Daily Rain
37.0mm 2000-11-12
41.2mm 2007-11-21
Joubertina

Highest Daily Rain
51.0mm 1982-11-15
55.0mm 2007-11-21
Ladismith AWS

Highest Daily Rain
37.0mm 2000-11-17
41.6mm 2007-11-21
Ladismith

Lowest Maximum
16.5 2002-11-03
15.8 2007-11-21
Molteno Reservior

NVDL: I see George receive 206mm in a single day. I was in George a few weeks ago, and the farms were suffering from one of the driest periods in human memory. It had been so dry that there had been terrible veld fires, and the mountains and landscapes had turned a brittle yellow/khaki green. It doesn't help to lose out on winter rainfall altogether, then have it all made up in a single day. But climate change basically heralds unstable, chaotic, extreme weather. Droughts, floods, unusual weather. Under these conditions, life takes strain, because there is no longer an established pattern to the weather, meaning life sukkels.

KwaZulu and Gauteng Rainfall Records, Weather Warning And Weekend Weather

Rainfall records

Looking at the table of rainfall figures below one can see that a number of places received heavy rainfall, with Durban, Greytown and Pennington South breaking their previous 24-hour rainfall record for November. It is also interesting to note that on this one day Durban received 251% of its normal rainfall for the first ten days of the month, while Mount Edgecombe received 227% and Richards Bay 165%.

NVDL: Many of the previous records are recent, 4 out of 6 between 2000 and 2006. Climate change will affect SA by creating a vastly wetter Eastern Region, and drying the Western Interior. All areas will be more susceptible to storms, and extreme weather - floods and droughts.

Also yesterday:
Highest Daily Rain: Was - 49.4mm (2001-11-24) Now: 58.0 (2007-11-06) Witbank

Warning:
Isolated heavy falls of rain are possible in the escarpment and lowveld areas of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, including the Soutpansberg.

Weekend Temperatures:


More:

Icebergs passing north of SANAE IV along the coast of Dronning Maud Land
Serious Beach Erosion continuing along the KwaZulu-Natal Coast
Gauteng Snow
The Legacy of Tropical Cyclone Gamede
Sea Level Pressure Analysis and Satellite-derived Ocean Surface Wind Fields

Weather Awareness Zapping the Zeitgeist

Some of the most potent tools (to fight cow-induced-climate-change) at our disposal right now include UGC and blogs. What is the weather doing in the world down your street? Grassroots journalists can provide the answers. This can be as simple as looking at monthly mean temperatures for local areas (the newspaper usually provides these figures) and checking to what extent aberrations are occurring. I was doing that for a few months in Bloem, and noticed just how out of whack the rainfall was getting.



Here's a real time experiment. Usually at this time of year, people express surprise that warm weather has suddenly arrived. A friend of ours has his birthday in the last week of September. He says that every year a cold front hits in that last week (in South Africa) and it always catches everyone by surprise. The only reason he is never surprised, is he's always looking forward to his birthday by the end of September, and has come to associate that time with the season's Last Big Cold Front. So let's see if it happens. If it doesn't, well that will be unusual.

I think it truly becomes alarming when we get a global perspective. Try this: google 'unusual weather' (in the NEWS category) right now.
" Flooding along the fringes of the Sahara counts under the surprise category."
You'll also read about fires. What people don't realise is that floods and fires are the bread and butter of global warming. Fires of course, lead to more global warming, and more fires. We're seeing 'climate change' starting to balloon in our local Zeitgeist. And Africa and South Africa are likely to bear the brunt of this global conundrum.

Read the final Stern Report here.

Meanwhile: Climate campaign to stop ill wind
by Mark Sweney

The Guardian

The Vegetarian Society is to raise awareness of "emissions" from cattle as a leading cause of global warming with an ad campaign using the strapline "Silent but deadly".

Sir Paul McCartney and daughter Stella are patrons of the Vegetarian Society, which argues that "damaging gaseous emissions" from farmed animals exceed those from the world's entire transport system. The campaign, which features a close-up of the rear of a cow, will include a range of "Silent but deadly" postcards and press ads that will run in environmental and ethical magazines over the coming months.

Ads will run in publications including Ethical Consumer, Ecologist, the Green Planet and Organic Life, as well as the Friends of the Earth's members' magazine Earth Matters.

"'Silent but deadly' is about getting the reader's attention, making them think and hopefully wanting to find out more about the connection between diet and climate change," said the Vegetarian Society head of communications, Liz O'Neill.

The ad claims that farmed animals produce 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, while the global transport industry accounts for 13.5%.
The advertisement finishes with the line "It's not just a lot of hot air." To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk

Humberto Hits Texas

Hurricane Humberto slams Texas coast
4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Hurricane Humberto blasted across southeast Texas Thursday as it headed toward Louisiana, packing strong winds and triggering fears of flooding, US forecasters said.

Humberto emerged as a tropical storm over the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday and suddenly mushroomed into a hurricane moments before slamming ashore on the Texas coast early Thursday, packing winds as strong as 135 kilometers (85 miles) per hour.

The category one hurricane -- the lowest strength on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale -- crawled across Texas toward neighboring Louisiana at 13 kilometers (eight miles) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said.

Humberto is the third hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic storm season, following two maximum category five storms that slammed Mexico and Central American in August and earlier this month.

The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings in parts of Texas and Louisiana. The hurricane center warned the storm could also produce isolated tornadoes

2 x 5 CATs

Updated: 8:17 a.m. ET Sept. 4, 2007

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - Hurricane Felix roared ashore early Tuesday as a fearsome Category 5 storm — the first time in recorded history that two top-scale storms have come ashore in the same season. The storm hit near the swampy Nicaragua-Honduras border, home to thousands of stranded Miskito Indians dependent on canoes to make their way to safety.
Twenty fishermen were missing, and communication to the area was cut off.

It's Happening Again

The storm has strengthened into a Category 4 storm and is expected to reach Category 5 status later Saturday. Winds hit 150 mph as it headed on a collision course with Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where it is forecast to become a Category 5 storm. (AP Photo/NOAA)

Triple-digit heat searing West

A 1-year-old boy was found dead Wednesday evening in a locked car in temperatures approaching 100 degrees in Orofino, Idaho. He was locked in the car for about five hours when passers-by noticed him, and the boy's stepgrandmother was charged in his death, authorities said Thursday.

Around Las Vegas -- where temperatures reached 116 degrees Thursday afternoon -- transformers overheated and caused electrical pole fires because of all the people switching on their air conditioners, said Scott Allison with the Clark County Fire Department.

In Montana, farmers anxiously watched their crops and thermometers. High temperatures for a handful of days can harm crop yield.

"Prolonged heat is devastating. Four or five days of it is going to be hard," said wheat farmer Lynn Nordwick near Poplar, Montana. Watch how a drought is spreading »

In Spokane, Washington, the temperature reached 101 degrees, surpassing the record 100 degrees.

Northeastern Oregon residents experienced what was expected to be the hottest day of the year Thursday, with temperatures reaching 108 in Pendleton and 107 in Hermiston.

The heat wave began last week after a large high-pressure center developed over Arizona, said National Weather Service forecaster Paul Flatt in Boise. A weather pattern was pushing that high-pressure center north into Canada, Flatt said, but most of the West is expected to experience high temperatures into next week.

Meanwhile, another round of heavy rain drenched parts of eastern Texas early Friday. State emergency management chief Jack Colley said all of Texas' major river basins are at flood stage, the first time that has happened since 1957.

CNN etc Today

"The fact that you've got almost a year's worth of tornadoes in less than 24 hours is unusual in that extent," Environment Canada's David Phillips told CTV.ca Tuesday.

...We had almost three times as many as normal," Schaefer said...

...It was even worse in Mississauga, where the mercury reached 36C. That's weather health experts describe as 'dangerous', and it's going to stay on full broil late into Wednesday...


Bob Kerslake, the chief executive of Sheffield city council, said the area had seen the greatest amount of rain since records began 125 years ago.

THE icy weather of snow, hail and heavy rain that has swept across South Africa over the past few days has set 54 weather records. (Cape Times, May 23)
Top: Canada, Middle: Pakistan, Free State (South Africa) Above: Sheffield, Britain.