“In just over a year’s time, the nation’s rainfall fortunes have shifted suddenly and dramatically. Rainfall famine has turned to rainfall feast.
“Thanks to its wettest 12-month period in recorded history, the amount of U.S. real estate covered by drought has plunged to its lowest level in recent decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Wednesday. But at the same time, excessive rainfall and flooding plague large areas of the country.
“Precipitation over the last year (May 2018 to April) in the United States has been extraordinary…”
“Recent rainfall has already-high water levels surging in the Great Lakes, contributing to flooding along the lakeshores in parts of Ohio and Michigan, and New York is expected to follow suit in the days ahead.
“Areas along the Lake Ontario shoreline are “at the precipice of a disaster,” according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as forecasts for additional rain threaten to push water levels past flood level.”
“…the [Pine Ridge] reservation is wracked by rampant poverty, lack of resources and poor infrastructure…
“Now it faces another devastating challenge – extreme weather and a government that seems unwilling to help those it hits…
“hundreds of homes on Pine Ridge were recently damaged due to flooding induced by a bomb cyclone, essentially a winter hurricane, in March.”
“It’s May. But the calendar has never been a deterrent when it comes to a Duluth, Minnesota snowstorm. Wednesday and Thursday the area got hit with over 10 inches of snow.
“That total is good for the largest May snowfall in the city’s distinctive weather history and also made May 2019 their snowiest May on record.”
http://www.fox9.com/news/duluth-gets-10-inches-of-snow-sets-may-record
“After a slow-moving storm moved through the area, Jackson, Mississippi, declared a state of emergency due to flash flooding Thursday afternoon. Torrential rain in the Greenville, Mississippi, area Thursday morning caused significant flooding of businesses and prompted water rescues. As of 2:40 p.m. CDT, the city had reported 7.25 inches of rain. This is well above the 4.42 inches of rain that the town typically receives in the entire month of May.”
“In a week that’s already seen Houston and surrounding areas in southeast Texas face some of the most severe rainfall since Hurricane Harvey, heavy storms again pounded the city late Thursday, leaving at least three bayous flowing over the top of their banks, nearly 90,000 residents without power and dozens reportedly trapped for a time in floodwater on Interstate-10…
“Earlier in the week, the city faced as much as six to 10 inches of rain in just a few hours. As The Washington Post’s Ian Livingston reported, at least one location in Houston saw water rise higher than it did during Harvey.”
“Many researchers believe a faster snowmelt and a drier summer landscape may also worsen the fire season in some areas [of the western US], leading to bigger, hotter blazes.
“The whole process offers the possibility of a climate feedback cycle, said researcher Kelly Gleason of the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. Wildfires lead to faster melting, and faster melting in turn leads to more wildfires.”
“Record high temperatures are in the forecast for Friday in the northwest for even more cities within the region [Pacific NW].
“A building ridge of high pressure is going to allow for the heat to also build and temperatures to climb. Especially along the Pacific coast line, temperatures are looking to reach upwards of 20 degrees above average.”
http://www.weathernationtv.com/news/record-heat-is-building-in-the-northwest/
“Kotzebue [Alaska] experienced its warmest April on record. The Tanana and Kuskokwim Rivers saw the earliest ice break-ups on record as well… The year so far is… trending warmer than normal.
“The statewide average temperature for January through April was 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit which is more than 9 degrees above the long-term average.
“This makes the first four months of 2019 the second warmest on record.”
“The permafrost may be about to spring an unwelcome surprise, with Arctic soils thought to be thawing faster than anyone had predicted.
“This threatens to release vast quantities of frozen methane into the atmosphere and transform the northern landscape.
“One-fourth of all the land in the northern half of the globe is defined as permafrost.”
https://www.eco-business.com/news/arctic-soils-may-produce-huge-methane-leak/
“Climate change has already increased the spread and severity of a fatal disease caused by Ranavirus that infects common frogs (Rana temporaria) in the UK, according to research led by ZSL’s Institute of Zoology, UCL and Queen Mary University of London published today in Global Change Biology.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-climate-responsible-severe-infectious-disease.html
“A newly-developed measurement method has revealed that Austria’s glaciers are losing about a meter of thickness every year, the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) revealed on Thursday…
“The resulting calculation method has not only confirmed that glacial retreat has occurred, but that Austria’s glaciers lost one-fifth of their ice mass between 2006 and 2016…”
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-05/10/c_138046591.htm
“An African air mass will cause an extraordinary rise in temperatures from Friday to next Tuesday and will lead to the first episode of intense heat in 2019, according to [Spain’s] State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), which points out that more values will be achieved. own of end of June and principles of July, because they will arrive to register until 15ºC more of the normal for these dates.”
http://elcorreoweb.es/sevilla/llega-una-ola-de-calor-africano-a-sevilla-LH5382940
“As the heatwave alert in Andhra [India] continues to be in place till May 12, parts of the state recorded a temperature of 47 degree Celsius [117f] on Thursday.
“According to data from the AP State Development Planning Society’s automatic weather stations, the temperature hit 47 degrees in Kurichedu Mandal of Prakasam district on Thursday.”
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/andhra-heatwave-temperatures-hit-47-degrees-parts-state-101558
“As mercury rises, a number of forest fires have been reported from Uttarakhand [India] in the last 24 hours.
“Around 79 wildfire incidents have been reported from different areas in the state incinerating at least 80 hectares of forest.”
“Cyclone Fani was the longest-lived cyclone in the Bay of Bengal ever observed.
“The elongated time period of the storm went on for 11 days in the sea and land put together. What made it even more surprising was the fact that it had formed in the pre-monsoon season, that too in April.”
“The National Disaster Mitigation Agency [of Indonesia] said on Thursday that a tropical cyclone emerging from the Banda Sea in Maluku, called Lili, had just hit several villages hard in the form of severe rain and strong wind.
“Water as deep as 1.5 meters on average had reportedly inundated three villages in three separate districts in the province…”
“The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit 415 parts per million last week for the first time in 800 000 years.
“Scientists have warned that the world must keep CO2 emissions below 350 ppm to avoid dangerous levels of climate change – but emissions keep rising.”
https://www.fin24.com/Economy/carbon-dioxide-levels-hit-800-000-year-record-20190509
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