[November 3, 2009]

Venezuela Rations Water Due to Drought

Residents of the Venezuelan capital on Monday began to experience water rationing as part of a government preservation measure during a drought. The rationing will continue through the first quarter of 2010, the government said. The government says that weather changes are behind the drought. These drought conditions have reduced reservoir volume to critical levels, officials say. The level of the Camatagua Reservoir, which supplies Caracas with about half of its water, has been on a downward trend since 2007.

[October 5, 2009]

Death Toll Raises in India Floods

The number of dead in devastating floods triggered by torrential rains in India has risen to at least 271, and about a million people have fled their homes, officials said Monday. At least 192 people have died in the southern state of Karnataka, its disaster-management secretary H.V. Parshwanath told CNN. More than 450,000 people there have been housed in 1,330 relief camps as authorities completed rescue operations in most of the flooded zones in the state, he said.

[October 1, 2009]

Super Typhoon heads for Philippines

Typhoon Parma is expected to bring heavy rainfall and major property damage to the Philippines on Saturday, according to meteorologists. The storm was upgraded to a Super Typhoon Thursday as it churned towards the island nation with winds of 240 kph (150 mph). The storm was about 600 miles (965 km) southeast of Manila, the Philippines' capital on Thursday afternoon. The five-day tracking map shows the storm south of Taiwan on Monday. Parma comes on the heels of Typhoon Ketsana, which left at least 246 people dead as it passed over the Philippines over the weekend. An additional 38 were still missing, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.

[September 28, 2009]

Record Flooding in the Philippines Puts Death Toll at 140

Flood water began to subside after a weekend that saw Manila hit with its heaviest rainfall in more than 40 years.

More than 80 percent of the capital was under water at one point Sunday. The deluge caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana, which has since strengthened into a typhoon, engulfed whole houses and buses.

At least 140 people have died, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.

[September 25, 2009]

Glaciers Melting Faster Than Previously Thought

The seas are rising, and climate scientists say they'll keep rising as the globe continues to warm, causing all sorts of problems along tens of thousands of miles of coastline around the world. What the scientists can't say for sure, though, is how much sea levels will go up, or how fast. That's largely because nobody knows for sure how the vast ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica — especially the glaciers that flow down and into the sea — will respond.

more>>>Glaciers

[September 21, 2009]

At least two killed by flooding in Atlanta

Torrential downpours overnight in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, led to floods that killed two people, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said Monday.

About 100 miles north, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, one person was swept into rushing water and is presumed drowned, said Jeremy Heidt, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency in Nashville.

And in Chattooga County northwest of Atlanta, concerns that a levee might fail led 300 people to evacuate their homes in the city of Trion, where authorities opened a shelter for them in a church, Brummer said.

The problems came after days of persistent rain soaked a region that just recently was gripped by a seemingly unrelenting drought.

more>>>Floods

[September 9, 2009]

Dozens Killed by Record Floods in Turkey

The amount of rain that has fallen in two days roughly equals what normally falls in six months in the Turkish province, Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler told the state-run Anatolia News Agency. "We never had such rain in all the time I have been here," said Zafer Ercan, deputy mayor of the town of Silivri.

The resulting flash floods have caused the deaths of at least 28 people. Cars are being swept from the streets and dozens of cargo trucks flipped over or were ripped to pieces, the wreckage attracting crowds who watched the chaotic scene from nearby hilltops.

[September 5, 2009]

Artic Temperatures Highest in 2,000 Years !!!

According to researchers, Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reached their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years. One contributing factor seems to be a phenomenon called Arctic amplification, which occurs as highly reflective Arctic ice and snow melt away, allowing dark land and exposed ocean to absorb more sunlight.

"Because we know that the processes responsible for past Arctic amplification are still operating, we can anticipate that it will continue into the next century," said Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado at Boulder, a member of the study team.

"Consequently, Arctic warming will continue to exceed temperature increases in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in accelerated loss of land ice and an increased rate of sea level rise, with global consequences."

[August 13, 2009]

China - Worst Flooding in Decades !!!

Some parts of Taiwan have reported more than 83 inches of rain on the island, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A mud slide triggered by torrential rains may have buried up to 800 villagers in southern Taiwan, media reports said Monday, as the country assesses the impact of its worst flooding in decades.

[June 24, 2009]

Florida Space Coast sets Temperature Records

Record temperatures are one of predicted precursors leading to the more severe weather predicted for 2012 related events. That is exactly what the East coast of Florida known as the Space Coast is experiencing.

The heat index, the feel of the temperature combined with relative humidity on the human skin, was expected to top out at 100 degrees, officials said. Monday, Melbourne hit 99 degrees, with a heat index topping out at 107, breaking the previous 97 degree-record for the date in 1998.

The area around Patrick Air Force Base continued to feel like the hottest spot in Brevard County, with heat index readings of 112 degrees on Monday, the NWS reported.

Vero Beach reached an all-time high of 102 degrees on Monday, breaking the previous recorded high of 100 degrees set on June 27, 1950.

[June 4, 2009]

NOAA Predicts "Near Normal" Hurricane Season

Forecasters predict the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season will be "near-normal," with four to seven hurricanes likely, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced. The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and runs through the end of November. In 2008, there were 16 named storms and eight hurricanes, five of which were major. It was among the busiest and costliest seasons to date, with about $54 billion in damages, according to the National Climatic Data Center. 

[May 29, 2009]

Global Climate Change now 'catastrophic'  

The Global Humanitarian Forum reported from London, England today that global climate change is killing 300,000 people globally each year and that number could raise substantially. "Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide," said the forum's president, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

[April 10, 2009]

Too Many Fires to Count

Hurricane-force winds pushed wildfires across parts of Oklahoma and Texas, burning down the entire town of Stoneburg, Texas. "It's a bad day in Oklahoma," said Albert Ashwood, director of the state's emergency management department. There were so many fires in so many places, that local safety officials weren't sure how many fires they were fighting.

[March 25, 2009]

Historic Floods and Epic Drought hit the US

More than 1,000 volunteers rushed to fill sandbags early Wednesday in North Dakota to protect themselves from a historic floods that are expected to swamp the area. The fear is that the Red River could overtake all previous records. As of Wednesday morning, the Red River ran at about 33 feet, already 15 feet above flood level. A record level of 41.1 feet was set in 1897. Meanwhile, at least 36 states expect to face water shortages within the next five years, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, several regions in particular have been hit hard: the Southeast, Southwest and the West. Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have suffered the worst droughts this year, the agency said.

[March 12, 2009]

Scientists claim "Irreversible" climate change

During a three-day conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, climate scientists released data siting that  temperatures, sea levels, acid levels in the oceans and ice sheets were already moving "beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived,". The climate patterns are consistent with some worst-case scenarios predicted some two years earlier.

more >>> Changes

[February 10, 2009]

More Killed in Freak Tornado

At least eight people were confirmed dead as the result of tornados that struck Oklahoma Tuesday evening. The tornado was one of several that occurred in the state during a severe weather spurt Tuesday that was unusual, even for tornado-prone Oklahoma.

more >>> Tornado

[December 1, 2008]

2008 Hurricane Season 2nd Costliest 

The National Climatic Data Center said 2008 is "the only year on record in which a major hurricane existed in every month from July through November in the north Atlantic." To make matters worse, damage from the 2008 storms is estimated at $54 billion, the second highest ever, 2005 with Katrina and Rita was the highest.