“The brunt of the storm may have passed, but North Carolina residents still face perilous conditions after record-setting snow walloped the state…
“With a mix of snow, ice and rain still coming down in some areas, conditions remain treacherous in many parts of our state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Monday.
“”This storm dropped staggering amounts of snow, ice and rain across our state,” the governor said. “A year’s worth of snowfall or more fell on some places in a little more than a day.””
“If it seems as if Houston is getting wetter, you’re not imagining things. The nation’s fourth-largest city found itself under multiple flash-flood warnings Friday night as an early winter storm doused Harris County with up to a half-foot of rain.
“The suburb of El Lago saw 6.56 inches within 24 hours. That’s Houston’s single-greatest one-day rain total since Hurricane Harvey struck in August last year. Friday was also the second-wettest December day on record at the airport, where bookkeeping dates to 1969. In one day, more rain came down than is normal for the entire month in Houston.”
“It’s been an above average year for rainfall across the state, but especially on the Big Island… West Hawaii Today reports that the Hilo International Airport recorded a rainfall total of 165 inches for first 11 months of 2018, which is a 43 percent increase from the average rainfall.
“Hilo is on pace to have its second or third wettest year by the end of December. Hurricane Lane dropped the most rain in August, which brought catastrophic flooding. The storm released as much as 50 inches of rain in some spots.”
“A torrential downpour occurred on Sunday afternoon caused flooding in areas of Havana Center and Cerro, in Havana…
“…many residents of the neighborhood of Los Sitios were forced to evacuate furniture, appliances and put the rest of their belongings safe before the advance of the waters…”
“Heavy rainfall has left three dams in Duhok province on the brink of collapse, according to local officials, who say the government is ignoring their pleas for help.
“Meanwhile, Darbandikhan’s hydroelectric dam near Halabja has vastly increased its power generating capacity. Since last week, the Kurdistan Region has seen extremely heavy rain leading to flash flooding…”
“At least eight people have died and two others are missing as heavy downpours flood thousands of houses in central Vietnam. An extreme northeast monsoon dumping huge amounts of rain on central Vietnam since Saturday has triggered severe flooding in Da Nang City and many provinces… Da Nang has suffered heavy damage after the heaviest rainfall on record inundated 2,550 houses and flooded several downtown streets.”
“incredibly rare phenomenon of “ice hair” has been discovered in a Scottish wood, as temperatures plummet across the country.
“Delicate strands of “hair” are formed only when certain environmental conditions are present and a certain fungi is in the area. But one eagle-eyed photographer has managed to capture the fine and lace-like ice crystals…”
“While the Arctic sea ice is growing faster and higher during the winter months, it is more than offset by the melting in the summer months. So what we’ve seen is that the increased rate of sea ice growth in the winter helps to mitigate the melting during the summer. However, ultimately the warming summer temperatures continue to overall reduce the extent of sea ice… the seemingly inevitable ice-free Arctic will win out in the end, adds NASA.”
“NASA says it has detected the first signs of significant melting in a swathe of glaciers in East Antarctica.
“The region has long been considered stable and unaffected by some of the more dramatic changes occurring elsewhere on the continent. But satellites have now shown that ice streams running into the ocean along one-eighth of the eastern coastline have thinned and sped up.”
“If we continue our current level of greenhouse gas emissions — what some would say is a “business as usual” scenario — the overall global climate in 2030 will most closely resemble the overall climate of the mid-Pliocene period, Burke said.
“What did Earth look like then? Annual temperatures on average were about 2 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today, there was little permanent ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sea level was about 20 meters higher.”
“The central coast [of Vietnam] is experiencing heavy downpours and severe flooding, with Da Nang receiving the worst rainfall in history…
“The rainfall in Da Nang in the last 24 hours since 7 p.m. Saturday is about 635 mm [25 inches], the heaviest since archives were first available in 1975. Rainfall of 180 mm a day is considered heavy.”
“Temperatures dipped below 5 degrees in central Tokyo for the first time this season on Dec. 10, less than a week after various areas across Japan basked under record-setting heat… The mercury plunged to a bone-numbing minus 22.3 degrees in Nakashibetsu, Hokkaido, the lowest temperature in Japan on Dec. 10, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.”
“Parts of North Queensland have been drenched by ex-tropical cyclone Owen, with more than 200mm already falling in some areas since Sunday morning and the worst still to come. Wallaman has recorded 209mm of rain from 9am Sunday to 9am Monday, with the rain still bucketing down…”
“When Michelle Ready first moved to the cane farm she owns with her husband in Queensland nine years ago, it sounded like a jungle at night. “It was lush and green and wet,” she says. A week after a “frightening” fire ripped across their property in Finch Hatton, a small township in the subtropical region of Mackay, better known for its humid, rain-drenched summers, it’s obvious that things have changed.
““It has been unbelievably dry here … the last few years we’re just not getting the rain and then, when we do, it’s often associated with a cyclone.””
“As summer approaches, scientists are trying to predict whether sea temperatures around New Zealand will reach the record levels they did last year… New Zealand recorded its hottest January on record this year, and a Tasman Sea marine heatwave is said to have played a large part.”
“A powerful winter storm that struck the U.S. Southeast over the weekend killed at least one motorist, left more than 385,000 customers without power and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights on Sunday.
“A winter storm warning remained in effect for most of North Carolina, Virginia and southern West Virginia as at least an additional 2 inches of snow and sleet were expected to fall overnight and into Monday after more than a foot of snow fell over the weekend.”
“The rainfall that doused Austin [Texas] on Friday shattered December records, with more rain falling in a single day than is typically recorded the entire month, according to the National Weather Service.”
“We already know that 2018 will go down in the books as the wettest year on record in Wilmington, North Carolina. The reigon is closing in on 100 inches of rain this year. The previous record of 83.65 inches was set back in 1877…”
“From three new cores and one existing one, they were able to compile a detailed history of surface melt events going back over 350 years. After analyzing the cores and identifying the timing and thickness of all the melt refreeze layers, they started by comparing those results to the available observations for recent years. That confirmed that their method was accurately tracking surface melt events.
“Their record shows that the melting over the last two decades is well outside the range of natural variability. In fact, it produces yet another hockey-stick shaped graph.”
“Cyclone Gaja has caused huge and unprecedented devastation in the Cauvery delta and neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu, and should be declared a national disaster, CPI leader D. Raja has said.”
“Early compilations of 2018’s data indicate that this year will likely become the fourth warmest on record, and the developing El Niño event is increasing the odds that 2019 will be the hottest year that human life has ever experienced.”
“An episode of extreme global warming that left ocean animals unable to breathe caused the biggest mass extinction in the Earth’s history, research has shown.
“The extinction event at the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago wiped out 96 per cent of all marine species and 70 per cent of land-dwelling vertebrates.
“Scientists have linked what has become known as the ‘Great Dying’ with a series of massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that filled the atmosphere with greenhouse gas.
“But precisely what made the oceans so inhospitable to life has remained an unanswered question until now.
“Earth could face a similar fate if predictions of runaway climate change in the modern world come true.”
“…climbing temperatures and drought are drying up the mighty Nile — a problem compounded by rising seas and soil salinization, experts and farmers say….
““The Nile is shrinking. The water doesn’t reach us anymore,” says Talaat al-Sisi, a farmer who has grown wheat, corn and other crops for 30 years in the southern Delta governorate of Menoufia.”
“This winter’s heaviest rainstorm yet is battering Israel, with heavy rains predicted to continue drenching the country’s north and center later Thursday while the coast remains at risk of flooding.
“Fifty children and two teachers were rescued by dinghy after a kindergarten complex flooded in the central Israeli city of Rehovot on Thursday.”
“Another storm system unleashed deadly flooding on parts of the Middle East this week, and more rain is on the way. The slow-moving storm has dumped heavy rain on areas from Turkey and Cyprus to Saudi Arabia and Iran in recent days.
“The flooding turned deadly on Thursday when four people were killed after their car was swept away in flood waters in Cyprus…”
“Wheat and opium farmer Murad Khan Ishaqzai, 80, has never seen a drought as bad as the one ravaging western Afghanistan where more than 250,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes. After his crops dried up in Gormach district of Badghis province earlier this year, Ishaqzai rented a truck and drove his family hundreds of kilometres through Taliban-infested areas to the neighbouring province of Herat. There, he and his family of seven took refuge in a squalid camp…”
“For around three weeks, four-year-old Anushree has been living in a high school on Santhanam Street in Thalaignayiru, a town in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district. “I cannot go home, it is broken,” she said.
“For most residents of Nagapattinam’s Vedaranyam block – where Cyclone Gaja made landfall on November 15 – the immediate crisis is shelter and housing.”
“Dr Ummenhofer discovered the Indian Ocean Dipole was an even bigger factor than El Nino in driving long-term Australian droughts…
“In its summer outlook the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said the IOD is currently dominating Australia’s weather and climate patterns. This comes after Australia experienced its driest September on record.”
“Drought-affected graziers desperate to feed their livestock have taken the unprecedented step of importing molasses all the way from Vietnam.
“The sugarcane by-product is a feed supplement that graziers in the region rely on to sustain their livestock during dry periods. Due to the shortage of Australian molasses, graziers and suppliers have had to turn internationally for supplies.”
“The heat was greatest in Victoria’s western Wimmera and Mallee districts where Horsham and Hopetoun both reached 42C.
“Avalon and Geelong both nudged just above 40C, breaking early December records for those towns since temperatures have been recorded, the Bureau of Meteorology said.”
“Disasters and nasty weather shut down portions of several California highways Thursday, according to officials. A mudslide and flooding closed a 10-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, aka State Route 1, in both directions from western Malibu to the Ventura County line, the California Department of Transportation said.
“The closure occurred in the vicinity of last month’s Woolsey Fire…”
“November 2018’s North America snow cover set a record for any autumn month in the satellite era.
“Last November’s average snow cover across North America was an estimated 9.77 million square miles, topping the previous November record of 9.56 million square miles in 2014, according to data from the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab.”
“Something strange is happening over much of the world — winds are slowing down.
“Average winds near the ground have been gradually decreasing by more than 25 per cent in some regions since the 1970s, based on records from weather stations across the world… Even stranger, the decline in wind speeds appears to be happening only over land, not over the oceans.”
“It’s no surprise that rising global temperatures are causing ice to melt on many of Earth’s glaciers but scientists have recently come to the conclusion that Alaska, and especially some of the state’s southern mountain ranges, is one of the most affected areas in the world.”
“Permafrost thaw slumps in the western Canadian Arctic are releasing record amounts of mercury into waterways, according to new research by University of Alberta ecologists.
““We measured total mercury concentrations of up to 1,200 nanograms per litre,” said PhD student Kyra St. Pierre, a Vanier Scholar who co-led the study with fellow graduate students Scott Zolkos and Sarah Shakil.”
“The Gulf of Maine is experiencing its third-warmest year on record, triggering the starvation of puffin chicks off the Maine coast, mass strandings of sea turtles in Massachusetts, and heightened concerns about the survival of endangered right whales and the North Atlantic’s largest kelp forest.
“Surface temperatures in 2018 are running 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, a level exceeded only in 2012 and 2016…”
“Jennifer Rousseau will drive more than 1,600 miles out of Bay County, Florida — away from her hurricane-ravaged mobile home and the tent she lived in for weeks — until she reaches her new life in land-locked Durango, Colorado, this week.
““I feel like I survived Michael, and I’m trying to get away. I don’t want no part of the storms that are coming through,” said Rousseau, who’s unemployed and disabled. “I believe it’s going to get a lot worse around here. I’m moving way, way away from hurricanes.””
“Scientists and the media have documented deepening drought in the Amazon basin. But a new study finds that flood events are significantly intensifying too, becoming five times more common over the last century… Human-driven climate change is a major contributing factor to this increased Amazon basin flooding. Intensifying flood events result in lives and property lost, and significant harm to croplands, pastures and livestock.”
“The sweltering heat that hit the UK this summer was made 30 times more likely by human-caused climate change, a Met Office analysis has found. Scientists said the research showed global warming was already harming people’s lives and was not only a future threat.”
“Britain’s weather in November seemed to turn upside down. The far south of England was often stuck under gloomy clouds and drenched in some hefty downpours, while the north of Scotland was enjoying clear skies, warm sunshine and little rain. Most curious of all, the driest and sunniest area was the northwest Highlands and Western Isles, usually thoroughly wet at this time of year. The November rainfall here was less than half the norm and sunshine was well above average.”
“Belarus intends to buy 600,000-700,000 tonnes of grain abroad… May 2018 and the beginning of summer 2018 was a dry spell. According to the national weather service Belgidromet, the average air temperature in the country was 16.9C, 3.5C above the climate normal. It was the warmest May on record. In that month Belarus had 29mm of rains on the average or 49% of the climate normal… The lack of rains affected the consequent harvest. Some of the crops were damaged.”
“The autumn olive harvest is traditionally a period of optimism for Palestinians in an environment that often offers little reason for hope…
“…the global challenge of climate change… has the region facing an uncompromising swing toward near-perpetual drought. The olive harvest is suffering badly as a result.”
“Police in the breakaway north of ethnically split Cyprus say the bodies of three people have been recovered from river beds at two different locations after flash floods are believed to have swept them away…
“Torrential rains over the past four days have pounded the small, eastern Mediterranean island nation, causing flooding and some power blackouts.”
“Heavy rain brought much of Libya’s second city Benghazi to a standstill on Wednesday, closing major roads and shutting its airport, officials said, reports Reuters.
“Water flooded the passenger terminal, rising up to 1.5 metres (5 feet), the airport’s deputy manager, Usama Ferjani, said. Parts of the parking lot were also under water.”
“Organisers of Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games said on Wednesday that they planned to change the start times for the marathon and race walks to dawn, to lessen the effects of the city’s intense heat and humidity. The announcement followed a deadly summer heatwave in Japan and an appeal by Japan’s Medical Association in October expressing “grave concerns” about the risks for athletes and spectators.”
“Though Darwin may have been pipped at the post by a technicality, records for maximum temperatures were well and truly broken across the Top End [of Australia]. In Nhulunbuy, a record high of 38.7 degrees was recorded — beating the previous record of 38 degrees, set in 1967 — while Groote Eylandt residents suffered through an oppressive 39.8 degrees. Spare a thought for locals in Borroloola, however, who experienced a stifling top of 44.6 degrees.”
“Western Australia’s tropical north is about to experience a type of heat that is exceptional even for its standards. Parts of the north will be gripped by an extreme heatwave — the highest intensity there is… The heat will make its way to the other side of the country ahead of the weekend, with Melbourne and Adelaide expecting tops of 38C on Friday.”
“”Century-old” spring weather records have been swept aside across the Otago region [of New Zealand] this year, after a season that had nearly 50% more rainfall than normal.
“Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll said Middlemarch recorded 305mm over September, October and November – the highest spring rainfall since records began in 1896.”
“What was the hottest summer on record drove the biggest seasonal melt ever recorded at the Southern Alps [of New Zealand], Dr Jim Salinger says.
“The veteran climate scientist, who gave a presentation to a meteorology conference in Christchurch today, has described the mountain range as a “canary in the coal mine”, due to the sensitivity of its postcard glaciers to climate change.”
“A rare fire tornado that raged during this summer’s deadly Carr Fire in Northern California was created by a combination of scorching weather, erratic winds and an ice-topped cloud that towered miles into the atmosphere, according to a study announced Wednesday…
“The study in the Geophysical Research Letters journal used satellite and radar data to suggest how a monstrous “firenado” the size of three football fields developed on July 26.”
“The amount of yard waste collected by government departments that ended up in landfill this year was triple the amount of last year, according to official data, a reflection of a noticeable increasing trend over the past five years…
“Trees felled by Typhoon Mangkhut in September accounted for 20,480 tonnes, almost half the total.”
“The United Nations estimated that some 6 million North Koreans will require humanitarian assistance next year as the country experienced poor harvest due to the heatwave and flooding this year.”
Saudi Arabia’s western province of Makkah is bracing itself for further extreme weather conditions, with the risk of thunder and rain, leading to flash flooding in some areas. The country’s General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental Protection warned that heavy winds along with thunder and rain would hit Jazan, Asir and Baha heights, including the coast on Wednesday.”
“Drought and unemployment have forced people of Palghar district of Maharashtra to flee their homes in search of a livelihood… Tribals, who form the chunk of the population of Palghar district, said they faced major crop loss owing to drought.”
“… a weekly report on dam levels by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) sketches a disturbing picture of the country’s water status.
“South Africa’s dam levels have dropped by an alarming 4.8% from 73.2% to 68.4% in the past month, a trend that has prompted the Department to renew its calls for water users to conserve as much water as possible.”
“Severe storms have swept across Queensland, bringing flash flooding – and much-needed rain – to communities that a few days ago were fighting bushfires…
“Further north, on the Atherton Tablelands, buildings and cars were damaged by hail. Coastal and inland areas north of Gympie received widespread rainfalls… with some areas recording almost 100mm.”
“Farmers are counting the cost of hail storms, heavy rain and strong winds that tore through the central Wheatbelt [of Western Australia] on Monday afternoon. At Tammin, WA Farmers president Tony York said his family’s 1300ha wheat crop, yet to be harvested, had varying levels of hail damage. About 300ha of that was destroyed. He said neighbours had reported similar destruction.”
“California’s catastrophic wildfires – 25,000 homes destroyed over the last 18 months – have exposed and in some cases reinforced the socioeconomic inequalities that rend this state-nation of 40 million people.
“If Malibu, where some residents were rescued by yacht, defines one side of the class fault line, Paradise, where many tried unsuccessfully to flee on foot, clearly represented the other.”
“The meteorological winter began Saturday [for France] with extraordinary warmth, which has since intensified with several records beaten. These remarkable temperatures will last until Friday before the return of winter values.”
“2018 could be Germany’s warmest, driest and sunniest year since weather records began in 1881, writes the Germany’s National Meteorological Service (DWD) in a press release.
““Climate change has long since arrived in Germany,” said DWD vice president Paul Becker. The weather in 2018 so far is a warning signal, he said…”
“The sizzling summer temperatures [in the UK] sparked a surge in claims by households to deal with the impact of subsidence, figures from insurers show… Subsidence is routinely covered by buildings insurance and warning signs can include cracks suddenly emerging in properties, perhaps around doors and windows, and often appearing thicker than a 10p coin. It can happen when the ground beneath a building loses moisture and shrinks.”
“It may be December but almost 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle there’s still not enough snow for reindeer to begin their annual migration.
“Sweden’s indigenous Sami people have herded the animals for generations, with the corral usually happening over a two-week period in November.
“But this year the tradition has been postponed because temperatures keep fluctuating above and below the freezing mark.
““Something is really wrong with nature,” said Niila Inga, 37, who lives in Sweden’s northernmost town of Kiruna. “I can’t ask my father what to do now because he hasn’t seen this; it hasn’t happened during his lifetime.””
“In Russia’s Siberian city of Yakutsk, one of the coldest on Earth, climate change is causing dangerous melting of the frozen ground, or permafrost, on which the buildings stand…
“Average temperatures in Yakutsk have risen by 2.5 degrees Celsius over the past decade, say scientists at the Melnikov Permafrost Institute located here, the world’s only such research centre.”
“A new study shows that the largest influx of water into the Arctic Ocean takes place in autumn and early winter and that the water is also warmest at this time of year.
“Powerful pulses of water warmer than five degrees enter the area at the time of the year when the sea ice should freeze. But even if the air temperature is far below freezing, even during the months without the sun to warm the ground, new sea ice fails to appear.”
“Late on Sunday night, a tropical cyclone formed off the north Queensland coast.
“The storm has begun a track towards the coast, where more than 100 bushfires are still burning after week-long heatwaves and “unprecedented” conditions. Tropical cyclone Owen will bring some relief from the stinking heat; lower temperatures and rainfall that should help firefighters control the most threatening fires by midweek.
“Queensland’s exhausted emergency services will not welcome Owen’s track towards the shore with any sense of respite; to them the blended ends of disaster seasons represent a horror scenario, but one many have seen coming.
“Paul Gray, a representative of the Queensland Firefighters’ Union, says the nature of bushfires has noticeably changed in recent years. The fires, he says, have become more intense and longer-lasting. Last week conditions in parts of Queensland were classified “catastrophic” for the first time. The rating has only existed since 2009, but no bushfire in the state since 1966, when warnings were first introduced, would have been considered so dangerous…
“Australia’s devastating bushfires typically occur far to the south of the tropical Queensland rainforest.
“But Gray says the fire season in the north now lasts longer. That means a diminishing timeframe to allow emergency services to change tack from firefighting to battling cyclones and floodwaters, which historically have caused many more deaths and wider destruction in Queensland.
““I think that what we’re seeing in Queensland is tragic for those who are there. For the rest of the country, who are coming into the beginning of summer, this is a real wake-up call saying, ‘Now is the time to prepare’.”
“The heatwave that has been gripping the state for the last several days smashed monthly records, with one city — Cairns — sweating through its hottest-ever November day, twice.
“The mercury hit a scorching 42 degrees Celsius in Cairns two days in a row. Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) climatologist Tamika Tihema said it was “significant” to see the record broken in such a way.”
“Beyond the current heatwave, the overall warming trend has disrupted snakes’ breeding cycles, meaning there could potentially be more snakes, acting more aggressively, because they were charged up by the heat.
“University of Queensland snake expert Professor Bryan Fry agrees, saying snakes are the “scaly canaries in the coal mine” warning of deeper problems in the ecosystem. “Snake encounters will go up with this extreme weather as snakes are trying to escape the heat,” Professor Fry said.”
“Australia has lowered its wheat production forecast by 11 per cent to the smallest in a decade amid a crippling drought across the country’s east coast that may cut exports from the world’s fourth biggest supplier.
“Wheat production during the 2018-19 season will total 16.95 million tonnes, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.”
“Temperatures on Jeju Island soared to 22.9 degrees Celsius on Monday, warmer than the average June temperature and the highest for December on the resort island in 82 years.
“At this time of year, temperatures usually average 13 to 15 degrees. The Korea Meteorological Administration said the heat wave was due to unusually warm southwesterly winds.”
“The National Weather Service says at least 23 tornadoes touched down Saturday in Illinois, making the outbreak the state’s largest on record for December. Meteorologist Dan Smith with the weather service’s Lincoln, Illinois, office says crews had confirmed 23 tornado touchdowns across central Illinois by Monday afternoon.
“Before afternoon even hit, record heat had rolled into Brevard County [Florida] Monday, with temperatures hitting 85 degrees, a watermark set on this day in 1983. It would be less than an hour before the record was shattered, and by 4 p.m., temperatures in Melbourne had reached 90 degrees… Fall has been especially warm this year, with temperatures running about 6 to 10 degrees above average… Melbourne had a month of broken heat records in November as temperatures leapfrogged records set as far back as 1938…”
“Britain’s largest ice rink has started to melt after the UK enjoyed some of its warmest ever December weather.
“Temperatures reached 61F (16C) in London yesterday as the surface of the main rink at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park turned to water – with a smaller rink’s inch-deep puddles soaking customers and workers clearing it.”
“2018 may end up being Hungary’s hottest year ever, the national meteorological office said, noting the country had witnessed its second hottest autumn since 1901.
“Median autumn daytime temperatures averaged 12.3 C., 2 degrees higher than during autumns between 1981 and 2010, the analysis said.”
“It is often said that climate change will hurt the world’s poorest people first. Nowhere is that potentially truer than in Somaliland, an unrecognized state in the Horn of Africa sandwiched between an expanding desert and the Red Sea. A prolonged drought has killed 70 percent of the area’s livestock in the past three years, devastating the region’s pastoral economy and forcing tens of thousands of families to flee their grazing land for urban camps.”
“Gauteng residents must brace for yet another heatwave as temperatures in the province will reach a scorching 37 degrees Celcius (°C) on Tuesday, the South African Weather Service said. Temperatures are expected to reach 35°C in Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon, 36°C in Vereeniging, and 37°C in Pretoria. This is after the heatwave intensified on Monday afternoon, with temperatures averaging 35°C while Pretoria reached a maximum of 36°C.
“This is the third heatwave of the Spring/Summer season in South Africa.”
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Weekday updates on both climate change and the global economy. Stay current with what’s happening around the world with a quick scan of top news.
“The brunt of the storm may have passed, but North Carolina residents still face perilous conditions after record-setting snow walloped the state…
“If it seems as if Houston is getting wetter, you’re not imagining things. The nation’s fourth-largest city found itself under multiple flash-flood warnings Friday night as an early winter storm doused Harris County with up to a half-foot of rain.
“It’s been an above average year for rainfall across the state, but especially on the Big Island… West Hawaii Today reports that the Hilo International Airport recorded a rainfall total of 165 inches for first 11 months of 2018, which is a 43 percent increase from the average rainfall.
“A torrential downpour occurred on Sunday afternoon caused flooding in areas of Havana Center and Cerro, in Havana… 
“Heavy rainfall has left three dams in Duhok province on the brink of collapse, according to local officials, who say the government is ignoring their pleas for help. 
“At least eight people have died and two others are missing as heavy downpours flood thousands of houses in central Vietnam. An extreme northeast monsoon dumping huge amounts of rain on central Vietnam since Saturday has triggered severe flooding in Da Nang City and many provinces… Da Nang has suffered heavy damage after the heaviest rainfall on record inundated 2,550 houses and flooded several downtown streets.”
“incredibly rare phenomenon of “ice hair” has been discovered in a Scottish wood, as temperatures plummet across the country. 
“While the Arctic sea ice is growing faster and higher during the winter months, it is more than offset by the melting in the summer months. So what we’ve seen is that the increased rate of sea ice growth in the winter helps to mitigate the melting during the summer. However, ultimately the warming summer temperatures continue to overall reduce the extent of sea ice… the seemingly inevitable ice-free Arctic will win out in the end, adds NASA.”
“NASA says it has detected the first signs of significant melting in a swathe of glaciers in East Antarctica. 
“If we continue our current level of greenhouse gas emissions — what some would say is a “business as usual” scenario — the overall global climate in 2030 will most closely resemble the overall climate of the mid-Pliocene period, Burke said. 
“Temperatures dipped below 5 degrees in central Tokyo for the first time this season on Dec. 10, less than a week after various areas across Japan basked under record-setting heat… The mercury plunged to a bone-numbing minus 22.3 degrees in Nakashibetsu, Hokkaido, the lowest temperature in Japan on Dec. 10, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.”
“When Michelle Ready first moved to the cane farm she owns with her husband in Queensland nine years ago, it sounded like a jungle at night. “It was lush and green and wet,” she says. A week after a “frightening” fire ripped across their property in Finch Hatton, a small township in the subtropical region of Mackay, better known for its humid, rain-drenched summers, it’s obvious that things have changed.
“A powerful winter storm that struck the U.S. Southeast over the weekend killed at least one motorist, left more than 385,000 customers without power and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights on Sunday. 
“The rainfall that doused Austin [Texas] on Friday shattered December records, with more rain falling in a single day than is typically recorded the entire month, according to the National Weather Service.”
“From three new cores and one existing one, they were able to compile a detailed history of surface melt events going back over 350 years. After analyzing the cores and identifying the timing and thickness of all the melt refreeze layers, they started by comparing those results to the available observations for recent years. That confirmed that their method was accurately tracking surface melt events.
“Recent days [Iraq] have seen a deluge of heavy rain, causing significant damage to roads and infrastructure. 
“Cyclone Gaja has caused huge and unprecedented devastation in the Cauvery delta and neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu, and should be declared a national disaster, CPI leader D. Raja has said.”
“An episode of extreme global warming that left ocean animals unable to breathe caused the biggest mass extinction in the Earth’s history, research has shown.
“…climbing temperatures and drought are drying up the mighty Nile — a problem compounded by rising seas and soil salinization, experts and farmers say…. 
“This winter’s heaviest rainstorm yet is battering Israel, with heavy rains predicted to continue drenching the country’s north and center later Thursday while the coast remains at risk of flooding. 
“Another storm system unleashed deadly flooding on parts of the Middle East this week, and more rain is on the way. The slow-moving storm has dumped heavy rain on areas from Turkey and Cyprus to Saudi Arabia and Iran in recent days. 
“Wheat and opium farmer Murad Khan Ishaqzai, 80, has never seen a drought as bad as the one ravaging western Afghanistan where more than 250,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes. After his crops dried up in Gormach district of Badghis province earlier this year, Ishaqzai rented a truck and drove his family hundreds of kilometres through Taliban-infested areas to the neighbouring province of Herat. There, he and his family of seven took refuge in a squalid camp…”
“For around three weeks, four-year-old Anushree has been living in a high school on Santhanam Street in Thalaignayiru, a town in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district. “I cannot go home, it is broken,” she said. 
“Dr Ummenhofer discovered the Indian Ocean Dipole was an even bigger factor than El Nino in driving long-term Australian droughts… 
“Drought-affected graziers desperate to feed their livestock have taken the unprecedented step of importing molasses all the way from Vietnam. 
“The heat was greatest in Victoria’s western Wimmera and Mallee districts where Horsham and Hopetoun both reached 42C. 
“One El Niño is all it will take to throw Gauteng [South Africa] into a water crisis. 
“Disasters and nasty weather shut down portions of several California highways Thursday, according to officials. A mudslide and flooding closed a 10-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, aka State Route 1, in both directions from western Malibu to the Ventura County line, the California Department of Transportation said. 
“November 2018’s North America snow cover set a record for any autumn month in the satellite era. 
“Something strange is happening over much of the world — winds are slowing down. 
“Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at a scale that has been labelled by scientists as ‘off the charts’.
“Permafrost thaw slumps in the western Canadian Arctic are releasing record amounts of mercury into waterways, according to new research by University of Alberta ecologists. 
“The Gulf of Maine is experiencing its third-warmest year on record, triggering the starvation of puffin chicks off the Maine coast, mass strandings of sea turtles in Massachusetts, and heightened concerns about the survival of endangered right whales and the North Atlantic’s largest kelp forest. 
“A multifaceted storm will unleash flooding rainfall and localized severe weather across the southern tier of the United States beginning on Friday… 
“Jennifer Rousseau will drive more than 1,600 miles out of Bay County, Florida — away from her hurricane-ravaged mobile home and the tent she lived in for weeks — until she reaches her new life in land-locked Durango, Colorado, this week.
“Scientists and the media have documented deepening drought in the Amazon basin. But a new study finds that flood events are significantly intensifying too, becoming five times more common over the last century… Human-driven climate change is a major contributing factor to this increased Amazon basin flooding. Intensifying flood events result in lives and property lost, and significant harm to croplands, pastures and livestock.”
“Britain’s weather in November seemed to turn upside down. The far south of England was often stuck under gloomy clouds and drenched in some hefty downpours, while the north of Scotland was enjoying clear skies, warm sunshine and little rain. Most curious of all, the driest and sunniest area was the northwest Highlands and Western Isles, usually thoroughly wet at this time of year. The November rainfall here was less than half the norm and sunshine was well above average.”
“Belarus intends to buy 600,000-700,000 tonnes of grain abroad… May 2018 and the beginning of summer 2018 was a dry spell. According to the national weather service Belgidromet, the average air temperature in the country was 16.9C, 3.5C above the climate normal. It was the warmest May on record. In that month Belarus had 29mm of rains on the average or 49% of the climate normal… The lack of rains affected the consequent harvest. Some of the crops were damaged.”
“The autumn olive harvest is traditionally a period of optimism for Palestinians in an environment that often offers little reason for hope… 
“Police in the breakaway north of ethnically split Cyprus say the bodies of three people have been recovered from river beds at two different locations after flash floods are believed to have swept them away… 
“Heavy rain brought much of Libya’s second city Benghazi to a standstill on Wednesday, closing major roads and shutting its airport, officials said, reports Reuters. 
“Organisers of Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games said on Wednesday that they planned to change the start times for the marathon and race walks to dawn, to lessen the effects of the city’s intense heat and humidity. The announcement followed a deadly summer heatwave in Japan and an appeal by Japan’s Medical Association in October expressing “grave concerns” about the risks for athletes and spectators.”
“Though Darwin may have been pipped at the post by a technicality, records for maximum temperatures were well and truly broken across the Top End [of Australia]. In Nhulunbuy, a record high of 38.7 degrees was recorded — beating the previous record of 38 degrees, set in 1967 — while Groote Eylandt residents suffered through an oppressive 39.8 degrees. Spare a thought for locals in Borroloola, however, who experienced a stifling top of 44.6 degrees.”
“”Century-old” spring weather records have been swept aside across the Otago region [of New Zealand] this year, after a season that had nearly 50% more rainfall than normal. 
“What was the hottest summer on record drove the biggest seasonal melt ever recorded at the Southern Alps [of New Zealand], Dr Jim Salinger says. 
“A rare fire tornado that raged during this summer’s deadly Carr Fire in Northern California was created by a combination of scorching weather, erratic winds and an ice-topped cloud that towered miles into the atmosphere, according to a study announced Wednesday…
“Many parts of [Japan] experienced their hottest December day on record Dec. 4 as the Japan Meteorological Agency warned of a cold weekend ahead.
“The amount of yard waste collected by government departments that ended up in landfill this year was triple the amount of last year, according to official data, a reflection of a noticeable increasing trend over the past five years… 
“The United Nations estimated that some 6 million North Koreans will require humanitarian assistance next year as the country experienced poor harvest due to the heatwave and flooding this year.”
“… a weekly report on dam levels by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) sketches a disturbing picture of the country’s water status. 
“Severe storms have swept across Queensland, bringing flash flooding – and much-needed rain – to communities that a few days ago were fighting bushfires… 
“Farmers are counting the cost of hail storms, heavy rain and strong winds that tore through the central Wheatbelt [of Western Australia] on Monday afternoon. At Tammin, WA Farmers president Tony York said his family’s 1300ha wheat crop, yet to be harvested, had varying levels of hail damage. About 300ha of that was destroyed. He said neighbours had reported similar destruction.”
“California’s catastrophic wildfires – 25,000 homes destroyed over the last 18 months – have exposed and in some cases reinforced the socioeconomic inequalities that rend this state-nation of 40 million people. 
“2018 could be Germany’s warmest, driest and sunniest year since weather records began in 1881, writes the Germany’s National Meteorological Service (DWD) in a press release. 
“The sizzling summer temperatures [in the UK] sparked a surge in claims by households to deal with the impact of subsidence, figures from insurers show… Subsidence is routinely covered by buildings insurance and warning signs can include cracks suddenly emerging in properties, perhaps around doors and windows, and often appearing thicker than a 10p coin. It can happen when the ground beneath a building loses moisture and shrinks.”
“It may be December but almost 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle there’s still not enough snow for reindeer to begin their annual migration.
“In Russia’s Siberian city of Yakutsk, one of the coldest on Earth, climate change is causing dangerous melting of the frozen ground, or permafrost, on which the buildings stand… 
“A new study shows that the largest influx of water into the Arctic Ocean takes place in autumn and early winter and that the water is also warmest at this time of year.
“Late on Sunday night, a tropical cyclone formed off the north Queensland coast.
“The heatwave that has been gripping the state for the last several days smashed monthly records, with one city — Cairns — sweating through its hottest-ever November day, twice. 
“Beyond the current heatwave, the overall warming trend has disrupted snakes’ breeding cycles, meaning there could potentially be more snakes, acting more aggressively, because they were charged up by the heat. 
“Australia has lowered its wheat production forecast by 11 per cent to the smallest in a decade amid a crippling drought across the country’s east coast that may cut exports from the world’s fourth biggest supplier. 
“A short but brutal storm has delivered two hours of thunder, lightning and heavy downpours to Auckland [New Zealand]…. 
“Temperatures on Jeju Island soared to 22.9 degrees Celsius on Monday, warmer than the average June temperature and the highest for December on the resort island in 82 years. 
“The National Weather Service says at least 23 tornadoes touched down Saturday in Illinois, making the outbreak the state’s largest on record for December. Meteorologist Dan Smith with the weather service’s Lincoln, Illinois, office says crews had confirmed 23 tornado touchdowns across central Illinois by Monday afternoon. 
Fall has been especially warm this year, with temperatures running about 6 to 10 degrees above average… Melbourne had a month of broken heat records in November as temperatures leapfrogged records set as far back as 1938…” 
“Britain’s largest ice rink has started to melt after the UK enjoyed some of its warmest ever December weather. 
“2018 may end up being Hungary’s hottest year ever, the national meteorological office said, noting the country had witnessed its second hottest autumn since 1901. 
“It is often said that climate change will hurt the world’s poorest people first. Nowhere is that potentially truer than in Somaliland, an unrecognized state in the Horn of Africa sandwiched between an expanding desert and the Red Sea. A prolonged drought has killed 70 percent of the area’s livestock in the past three years, devastating the region’s pastoral economy and forcing tens of thousands of families to flee their grazing land for urban camps.”
“Gauteng residents must brace for yet another heatwave as temperatures in the province will reach a scorching 37 degrees Celcius (°C) on Tuesday, the South African Weather Service said. Temperatures are expected to reach 35°C in Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon, 36°C in Vereeniging, and 37°C in Pretoria. This is after the heatwave intensified on Monday afternoon, with temperatures averaging 35°C while Pretoria reached a maximum of 36°C. 