“Torrential rains overwhelmed a dam and caused landslides that killed at least eight people and displaced more than 2,000 in central Indonesia, officials said Wednesday.
“The dead included two infants who drowned and a man who was electrocuted after the floods began late Tuesday, said Adnan Purichta Ichsann, the chief of Gowa district near Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi.”
https://punchng.com/floods-landslides-kill-at-least-eight-in-indonesia/
“As the rest of Australia sweltered in a heatwave, Western Australia was smashing rainfall records as a rare summer front swept across the State.
“Huge amounts of rain fell across the South West overnight, while Perth residents also woke to a downpour this morning. Cape Leeuwin, near Augusta set a 123-year rainfall record for January…”
“Emergency services are bracing for scorching conditions across South Australia and Victoria, with an expert warning that “nowhere is going to escape the heat” as sweltering temperatures threaten to break all-time records. Adelaide’s all-time record temperature of 46.1C is expected to the tested tomorrow…
“In South Australia, Ceduna reached its hottest day on record today with the mercury climbing to 48.4 degrees Celsius.”
“A new state record for the most consecutive days over 45 degrees Celsius has been broken in Queensland this week, with the mercury reaching sweltering temperatures in Birdsville in the state’s far south-west over 10 days… “As soon as you start sweating, you’re dry within seconds and the ground, the bitumen, sometimes you drive around, and the bitumen is bubbling and peeling.””
“It took one heatwave — just one — to kill about 34 per cent of the spectacled flying foxes in Australia. Shocked? Wait. It is not over yet. All the animals — also known as the spectacled fruit bats — reportedly died in two days.
“Before the heat wave last November, Australia had an estimated 75,000 spectacled flying foxes…”
“Heatwave conditions with persistently high temperatures are expected over Free State, North-West and eastern parts of the Northern Cape [South Africa] until Friday…
“Extremely high fire danger conditions are expected over the central and eastern parts of the Northern Cape, the northern interior of the Eastern Cape, and the western parts of both the North West and Free State provinces.”
https://www.all4women.co.za/1670851/news/south-african-news/weather-heatwave-fire-danger-2
“While temperatures in many parts of the United States plummet close to zero, Seattle could be barreling toward its warmest January ever.
“According to the National Weather Service, the average high temperature at Sea-Tac for the first 16 days of January was 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit — that represents the warmest temperature on record over that period in any recorded year, dating back to the 1890s.”
http://mynorthwest.com/1250517/seattle-warmest-january-2019/
“Bark beetle invaded tens of thousands of untouched acres of Colorado forests last year as trees suffered under record-breaking heat and extreme drought, says a new report by the Colorado State Forest Service and the U.S. Forest Service.
“Spruce beetle attacked 178,000 acres of Engelmann spruce…”
“A cold weather system strengthened by Arctic air has helped freeze the area around Niagara Falls. More cold weather is expected to prolong the stunning scenes, with freezing rain on the way.
“Niagara Falls have only completely frozen over once before, back in 1848.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-23/niagara-falls-blanketed-in-ice-and-snow/10743992
“Argentina declares emergency due to floods.
“Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio said that the president, Mauricio Macri, will sign on Tuesday a water emergency decree urging the areas involved from the government to promote the necessary mechanisms to “alleviate the difficult situation” that citizens have experienced in recent days.”
“University of Colorado glaciologist Mike MacFerrin, who studies meltwater on Greenland’s surface, agreed with the new paper’s conclusions. He recalled visiting Greenland in the spring of 2012, when the NAO was in a deeply negative phase and a massive high pressure system had parked itself over the ice island.
““We…watched with horror as meltwater and runoff overwhelmed all previous records in the scientific record of Greenland,” MacFerrin told Earther via email.”
https://earther.gizmodo.com/greenlands-ice-can-no-longer-handle-hot-summers-1831951993
“The Arriondas hospital [NW Spain], forced by flooding to evacuate patients.
“The patients are being transferred to the health centers of Avilés, Gijón and Mieres. Asturias, on alert for floods, meaning a morning of complications in schools, railways and roads. In Aller 49.5 liters of water per square meter have been registered during the night…”
https://www.lne.es/asturias/2019/01/23/temporal-asturias-alerta-inundaciones/2415065.html
“A storm system that brought the first accumulating snowfall of the year to Amsterdam and Paris on Tuesday will strengthen as it reaches the Mediterranean Sea and bring the risk for flooding rain, heavy snow and ice to parts of Italy and the Balkan Peninsula in the coming days. “This large and powerful storm will bring impactful weather to millions of people from Thursday into this weekend.”
“The rains have failed us. Nothing new, one might say. True, except that the rains’ let down this time comes on top of an already low-rain and, in many places, no-rain ground situation. And the next nearest rains are six months away. The cruelly blue, cloudless skies over much of India, north, central, eastern and peninsular India, say it all. And there is no guarantee that June will see the onset of a normal monsoon.”
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/india-stares-at-water-scarcity/article26063544.ece
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