“Manila has been hit by its worst water shortage in years, leaving bucket-bearing families to wait hours to fill up from tanker trucks and some hospitals to turn away less urgent cases.
“Taps are dry from four to 20 hours per day in the homes of about half of the Philippine capital’s roughly 12 million people due to rolling outages driven by a dearth of rain and inadequate infrastructure.
“”I have learned to take a bath using only seven pitchers of water,” Ricardo Bergado told AFP as he lined up with his buckets. “I even save the bath water to flush our toilet.”
“…”This is the worst (water shortage) we have experienced. It almost happened last year but we were saved by heavy rains brought by storms,” Dittie Galang, Manila Water communications manager, told AFP.
“Better known for flooding from its frequent typhoons, the Philippines is experiencing a dry spell that led to reserves being severely depleted.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-6812227/Millions-hit-Manilas-worst-water-shortage.html
“Just six months ago, Kerala suffered the worst instance of flooding in recent memory, where in just the period between 1 August and 19 August, 2018, the state received rainfall at a level that was 164% (amounting to 771 mm) over the normal average for that window.
“Fast forward to today — in what is surely cruel irony — the state now faces a prolonged period of drought, as many of our major rivers have begun to dry up on account of miserly rainfall in aftermath of the floods.”
“Deputy Governor Peter Lotethiro, Woman Rep Joyce Emanikor and Turkana Central MP John Lodepe have appealed to the national government [of Kenya] and relief agencies to intervene urgently to save thousands of the region’s residents from starvation.
“Mr Lotethiro said at least 800,000 of the county’s 1.2 million people in the six constituencies need food urgently.”
https://allafrica.com/stories/201903150178.html
“A powerful tropical storm made landfall in Mozambique on Thursday evening, battering a coastal city with heavy rain and wind at speeds of up to up 170 km an hour and injuring several people.
“Cyclone Idai dumped more water and brought destruction on areas where scores of people have already been killed and tens of thousands displaced by floods over the past week.”
“”The floods came very quickly and we had no time to rescue anything, most of my property went with the floods,” she said. “What was important was to save lives…
“”We cannot go back soon because the water has not receded and so the house has been destroyed. So we will hang around the camp until the situation normalises. We have no other choice.””
“Weatherzone senior meteorologist Jacob Cronje said: ‘The reasons for the above average temperatures are the complex interactions between weather systems.’ ‘This is interesting and unique because is it widespread, affecting nearly the entire country.’ …Meanwhile, previous summer in Australia was the warmest on record and was among the ten driest summers. Bureau climatologist Dr Lynette Bettio said: ‘The heat we saw this summer was unprecedented.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6811549/Will-warmest-winter-record.html
“Massive hailstones, lightning and torrential rain have battered Australia’s east coast overnight resulting in thousands of power outages and dozens of cancelled flights.
“Efforts to clear water, branches and debris and restore power to homes in the Greater Sydney area have begun after some suburbs were pummelled with up to 120mm of rain and golf-sized hailstones. Dangerous thunderstorms were detected near Blacktown and Riverstone, the Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday evening.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6810741/Australia-set-to.html
“High temperatures have been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of fish in two south coast waterways [Australia]. The Department of Primary Industries is investigating the fish kills at Meringo, near Moruya, and Wallagoot Lake at Tathra.”
“Producers and authorities were surprised that there was a water deficit in the Caribbean region, where an increase in rainfall was expected due to the presence of El Niño.
“The most affected area is the southern Caribbean and particularly the Valle de la Estrella and Sixaola, where there is an 85% deficit of water compared to the historical average of this time, said the regional director of the MAG, Nelson Kooper.”
“Many people are still living in hotels six months after Hurricane Florence made landfall…
“Florence dumped record amounts of rainfall, causing massive damage and power outages. Fifty-three people died from the storm, and thousands of families were forced from their homes. Many of those families are still unable to get back to their homes, and funding ran out Tuesday.”
“Historic flooding is swamping parts of Nebraska, western Iowa and southeast South Dakota, shattering records in at least six locations, so far.
“Some flood protection systems have been compromised, bridges washed out and evacuations ordered in a number of locations in central and eastern Nebraska. Evacuations have also been ordered just across the border in western Iowa.”
“The ridge in the jet stream is expected to begin building into western Canada this weekend. Temperatures will begin their steady climb on Saturday for much of British Columbia, Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan. By Monday and Tuesday the upper ridge will strengthen giving spring-like, and even summer-like, warmth to close out the final days of the winter season. There will be several places that will flirt with some record breaking high temperatures for several days.”
“Winter Storm Ulmer was a massive low-pressure system that became a bomb cyclone on Wednesday, March 13. A bomb cyclone refers to a strengthening area of low pressure that undergoes bombogenesis, meaning its minimum surface pressure drops at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less…
“Unofficial all-time low-pressure records were set or tied in at least four locations, Pueblo, Colorado, Alamosa, Colorado, Amarillo, Texas, and Clayton, New Mexico.”
“Chinese and American scientists in joint research found that the past 30 years are the warmest time in the past 2,000-year period, due to the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gas.
“The scientists were able to read the well-dated and quantitative air temperature record through the research on a sediment core collected at a small alpine lake in subtropical southwest China’s Yunnan Province.”
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-03/15/c_137898135.htm
“Thousands of schoolchildren worldwide have abandoned classrooms for a day of protest against climate change. India, South Korea, Australia and France are among the countries where teenagers are already on strike.
“The day of action is expected to embrace about 100 countries. They are inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who protests weekly outside Sweden’s parliament.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47581585
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Just subscribed. Thanks for your work on this.
Jan, you are very welcome. JP