How Bad Is The Flooding In Chicago? The Streets Are Eating Cars [UPDATE]

http://chicagoist.com/2013/04/18/how_bad_is_the_flooding_check_it_ou.php
t's been a while since we've had flooding like this around the greater Chicago area. There are sinkholes on the South side, geysers erupting from storm drains on the North and northwest sides, and water shutting down expressways. We've put together a handful of photos gathered via social media of what commuters and homeowners are dealing with this morning. Call this a STORMify, y'all!

Chicago floods: Evacuations, sandbagging as river levels ris

After wreaking havoc on the morning commute, closing schools and prompting scattered evacuations, the massive storm that dumped upwards of a half-foot of rain on parts of the Chicago area overnight is expected to continue throughout the day, with flooding the big concern.

High waters already led to intermittent closures of most major expressways, but now officials throughout the city and suburbs are eyeing rapidly rising river levels along with drainage problems that are stranding motorists and blocking thoroughfares.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-18/news/chi-chicago-flooding-20130418_1_des-plaines-river-river-levels-flooding

Thunderstorms Spread Flooding Across Region

http://memphisdemocrat.com/2013/news/130425_flood.shtml

After a season lacking moisture, local creeks and streams were replenished and then some, as heavy rains on April 17th and 18th led to wide spread flash flooding across northeast Missouri.

The National Weather Service reported rain totals between four to six inches in Scotland County during the two days. That led to extensive flooding in the region. Flood waters breached the banks of the North Fabius River making for some tense moments for property owners along the canal. Flood waters threatened the Fuller Farms shop and the Hometown Animal Health store, but ultimately receded.

The waters made it to the parking area of Village Market on the west side of the river and spilled over into the neighboring farm ground submerging the region around the Highway 136 and 15 junctions. The waters never reached the roadways themselves.

"I can only remember one other time it flooded that bad down there," said Scotland County Sheriff Wayne Winn. "One time in the 70s I remember watching a couple guys in a boat bow fishing down around the fairgrounds after the canal got out like that."

While the waters did not stop traffic on the west side of town, that was not the case across Scotland County.

Sheriff Winn reported numerous road closures due to high waters. Route MM, or Ridge Road was closed due to flooding. Route C, T, H, A and W all were closed as well due to flooding near bridges.

Emergency service personnel placed road signs and barriers at the scenes to warn motorists of the closures.

The Missouri Department of Transportation reported all roadways were back open to traffic by Friday.

"Since the rapidly moving water rises and falls quickly during flash flooding, MoDOT reminds motorists it is dangerous to drive into water-covered roads," said Tana Akright, MoDOT Customer Relations Specialist. "If you're driving or walking and encounter flood water, turn around. Don't drown. It only takes six inches of water to knock over an adult and cause loss of control of a vehicle. A foot of water will float many vehicles and only two feet of rushing water will carry them away, including pickups and SUVs. The depth of flood water is not always obvious. It can be especially hard to judge at night. The best option is to play it safe and turn around."

Extreme weather: Get ready to see more of it, scientists say

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/world/unusual-world-weather

(CNN) -- A map of significant climate events for the United States in June looks almost apocalyptic: hellish heat, ferocious fires and severe storms leaving people injured, homeless and even dead.

Why to expect more weather disasters

That followed a warm winter and early season droughts. News came Monday that the mainland United States experienced its warmest 12 months since the dawn of record-keeping in 1895.

And on Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report calling 2011 a year of extreme weather.

Wildfire victims face second tragedy

Remember Hurricane Irene? Or the floods in Thailand and southern China and the deadly drought in the Horn of Africa? Heavy rains in Brazil caused massive landslides and much of Europe suffered through a sweltering heatwave.

Weird weather around the world sees in 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jan/12/weird-weather-2012

2012 has begun where 2011 left off with weird weather in Europe and the Americas, Arctic ice at almost its lowest extent ever recorded in midwinter, disastrous droughts and searing heat in Africa and Latin America, and one of the world's biggest insurance companies warning that climate change will increase damages.

Thousands of people in Austria, France and Germany were on Thursday still digging themselves out of some of the heaviest snowfalls seen in 30–50 years. After Europe's driest and warmest autumn for nearly 150 years, a massive storm dumped nearly 18ft of snow in two days this week, cutting off ski resorts and villages and leaving people and animals stranded. The summit of the 9,718ft Zugspitze mountain in Germany which had only 7.5 inches of snow a few weeks ago, now has 150 inches.

However, Arctic sea ice has not fully reformed after last year's massive melt when it reached its second lowest extent ever recorded. It is now at its third lowest December extent recorded since records began 30 years ago, averaging 12.38m square kilometres (4.78 million square miles).

More worryingly from a climate perspective, is data that shows its volume is now at it lowest ever recorded level at the start of a year. According to the US government-funded Polar Science Centre at the University of Washington, the volume on 31 December was around 12,230 km3 – a massive 47% lower than the maximum in 1979, and 37% below the meanas depicted on this chart.

Meanwhile, South Australia has been hit by its hottest start to the year in a century, with temperatures over 40C, and Argentina, he world's second-biggest maize exporter, is suffering a drought and heatwave which has severely hit crops.

Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, now estimates that losses from natural disasters totalled $380bn in 2011, nearly twice as much as the previous record set in 2005.Many of the extreme events are put down to a continuing La Niña event which sees lower than normal sea temperatures in the Pacific and frequently heralds droughts sometimes lasting several years. This is now believed to have peaked, a sign that 2012 could eventually see a return to less extreme weather.

According to the Climate Prediction Centre, new sea-temperature data suggests La Niña "will be of weak-to-moderate strength this winter, and will continue thereafter as a weak event until it likely dissipates sometime between March and May."

Spectacular Spinning Storm

http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/spectacular-spinning-storm-photos-20130424

Veteran storm chaser and photographer Roger Hill captured images of a spectacular supercell thunderstorm over western Oklahoma on April 22, 2013. (See below for the individual photos.)

A supercell thunderstorm is characterized by a sustained and powerful rotating updraft. These storms originate in unstable air accompanied by a particular type of changing wind direction at various altitudes in the atmosphere; a common combination supportive of supercells is a southerly or southeasterly wind near ground level and a southwesterly or westerly wind higher up in the atmosphere.

This combination of changing wind directions creates a horizontal rolling motion in the lower atmosphere. The same rapidly rising air motions that form the thunderstorm turn this horizontal rotation into a vertical rotation, and in the case of this particular storm, this rotation is spectacularly evident in the circular striations, or layers, visible in the cloud structure.

The structure of supercell thunderstorms allows rain and hail to fall well away from the source of the warm, unstable air fueling the storm, so these storms do not choke on their own rain-cooled air. In some cases this allows supercell thunderstorms to stay intact for hours, covering tens or even hundreds of miles. In the process they can produce giant hail, very high winds, and tornadoes.

In this case, the storm developed near the northwest Oklahoma town of Shattuck and tracked southeastward for over 80 miles before weakening southeast of Weatherford, Okla. The photos below show the evolution of the storm into what Mr. Hill called "the mothership," a term storm chasers often use for visually spectacular supercell thunderstorms with a deep and impressive layered cloud structure.

This cell did not produce any tornadoes, but it did bring hail up to 2.5 inches in diameter (slightly smaller than baseballs) near Arnett, Okla.

Photos on link on top

Fargo, Red River Flood Has Begun

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/fargo-flood-threat-delayed-20130412

According to the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, N.D., looking at the top 15 crests all-time for which snowmelt was a prime factor, none of them occurred after April 19 in Fargo or after April 26 in E. Grand Forks.

Due to a persistently cold late winter and early spring, the crests this year will be well past those dates.

How cold has it been?  

Fargo has still not recorded a single high as warm as 50 degrees.  In an incredibly warm spring of 2012, Fargo had already registered 43 days with highs at least 50 degrees by April 24.  Ten of those days were at least in the 70s!

Through Tuesday, Grand Forks has gone roughly a month and a half (46 straight days) without a single day warmer than average! 

Two Tornadoes Confirmed in Louisiana Wednesday

http://www.weather.com/news/severe-weather-south-20130424

An intense line of storms that moved through the New Orleans metro area around lunchtime damaged homes and ripped trees out of the ground.

The National Weather Service confirmed the storms spawned two tornadoes: An EF-1 in Kenner, La. and an EF-0 in Metairie, La.

Heat, Flood or Icy Cold, Extreme Weather Rages Worldwide

WORCESTER, England — Britons may remember 2012 as the year the weather spun off its rails in a chaotic concoction of drought, deluge and flooding, but the unpredictability of it all turns out to have been all too predictable: Around the world, extreme has become the new commonplace.

Especially lately. China is enduring its coldest winter in nearly 30 years. Brazil is in the grip of a dreadful heat spell. Eastern Russia is so freezing — minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and counting — that the traffic lights recently stopped working in the city of Yakutsk.

Bush fires are raging across Australia, fueled by a record-shattering heat wave. Pakistan was inundated by unexpected flooding in September. A vicious storm bringing rain, snow and floods just struck the Middle East. And in the United States, scientists confirmed this week what people could have figured out simply by going outside: last year was the hottest since records began.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/science/earth/extreme-weather-grows-in-frequency-and-intensity-around-world.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Winter Storm Walda: Say it Ain't (April) Snow!

Needless to say, it's been a long, snowy winter for many Americans.Recent weeks have brought signs of spring to parts of the northern and central Rockies with highs in the 70s as far north as Montana. That taste of spring is about to come to a crashing halt as Winter Storm Walda brings heavy snow, very high winds, and a drastic drop in temperatures as the new workweek begins.We have a classic spring storm set to pivot out of the West into the Plains.  We've already addressed the likelihood for an outbreak of severe thunderstorms this week with this bullish dip in the jet stream.This same sharp southward dip in the jet stream, lumbering slowly east, looks poised to tap deep moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and pull it north and westward.The combination of higher elevation, strong lift in the atmosphere, and near-surface temperatures just cold enough is expected to churn out accumulating snow, heavy in spots.  Let's lay out the forecast for Walda as it stands right now:

video on website

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/winter-storm-walda-20130407

Extreme Heat, Cold, Snow Plaguing the Globe

Record heat, deadly cold temperatures, flooding and rare snowfall - a wide range of extreme weather events have taken place around the world in the last few weeks.The latest such example is from the Middle East, where flooding rains this week were followed by rare snow on Thursday.

• Several inches of snow accumulated in Jerusalem and the West Bank on Thursday, according to reports from The Associated Press. The snow, reportedly the most in a decade, had significant impacts on transportation.
• Prior to the snow, heavy rainfall led to flooding in parts of the Middle East.

http://www.weather.com/news/extreme-weather-around-the-world-20130111

Heat, Flood or Icy Cold, Extreme Weather Rages Worldwide

WORCESTER, England — Britons may remember 2012 as the year the weather spun off its rails in a chaotic concoction of drought, deluge and flooding, but the unpredictability of it all turns out to have been all too predictable: Around the world, extreme has become the new commonplace. Especially lately. China is enduring its coldest winter in nearly 30 years. Brazil is in the grip of a dreadful heat spell. Eastern Russia is so freezing — minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and counting — that the traffic lights recently stopped working in the city of Yakutsk.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/science/earth/extreme-weather-grows-in-frequency-and-intensity-around-world.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Weather: 'It is supposed to be spring', says Met Office as more snow on the way

The country will experience a north-south divide over the next few days, with heavy persistent rain across the South bringing flood warnings, while other parts of the country brace themselves for a blanket of white.

Heavy snow is expected across northern and central parts of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and North Wales overnight tonight and into tomorrow.

Lower levels are likely to see around four inches (10cm) while on higher ground that could reach around 16 inches (40cm).

Even areas as far south as Birmingham and Peterborough could see just over 3 inches of snow (8cm) while forecasters have warned that the wintry showers could reach London by Saturday morning.

It is too early to predict how much snow may fall in the South East, but it is looking like there may be a covering, forecasters have said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9945237/It-is-supposed-to-be-spring-says-Met-Office-as-more-snow-on-the-way.html

Spring snowstorm hits central states, pushes east

 http://weather.yahoo.com/spring-snowstorm-hits-central-states-pushes-east-085406171.html

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A wide-ranging storm is hitting the East Coast after blanketing the Midwest and burying thoughts of springtime weather under a blanket of heavy wet snow and slush, though less snow was predicted to fall as the storm moves eastward.

Light rain and snow fell in New Jersey on Monday morning after as the storm dropped 2 to 6 inches in Ohio.
Similar accumulations were expected in some areas of Pennsylvania, except for higher elevations like the Laurel Mountains southeast of Pittsburgh, where 6 to 10 inches were forecast. No major problems reported.