The temperature in Minneapolis didn’t fall to zero degrees this winter until Jan. 12. On Jan. 5., the daytime high in Rapid City, S.D. (a record-setting 71 degrees), was higher than in balmy Miami (69 degrees). And just a couple of days before New Year’s, visitors to Park City, Utah, skied on man-made snow and [...]
Signal: shifting weather patterns
Global warming fueling La Niña’s floods and cyclones
Tropical Cyclone Yasi has been, according to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, the “most severe, most catastrophic storm that has ever hit our coast”. I asked Dr Andrew Ash, who is director of the CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship, if perhaps it didn’t just used to be really wet and windy before the drought and maybe we’d [...]
Unusual Philippine flooding driven by changing weather patterns
The flooding in some parts of the country particularly in the eastern sections of the Bicol area as well as in Visayas and Mindanao is the effect of changing weather patterns brought about by climate change, a weather forecaster based in this city said. “Iba na talaga ang panahon ngayon,” said Gregorio de Vera, chief [...]
Australian floods driven by strongest Southern Oscillation on record
A major La Niña event continues to affect the Pacific Basin. Long-range forecast models surveyed by the Bureau suggest that the La Niña is likely to persist into the southern hemisphere autumn. All climate indicators of ENSO remain beyond La Niña thresholds. The tropical Pacific Ocean remains much cooler than average for this time of [...]
Record low December sea ice driving extreme weather conditions
The extreme negative Arctic Oscillation, driven by record low sea ice, has been identified as one of the primary drivers of cold, snowy winters for the eastern U.S. and western Europe.
Weather extremes increasing in Sahel over last five years
IN SOME ways Alhaji Bunu Fodio is lucky: at least his house is still standing. Most of Kagara, his dusty village in Nigeria’s far north, was smashed to smithereens during this year’s rainy season when an unexpected deluge burst a nearby dam. Floods destroyed homes and farms in at least a dozen nearby villages. Mr [...]
3rd straight year of drought for New Zealand linked to climate change
New Zealand is in for a long, hot summer as La Nina hits our shores, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) says. Already, temperatures have soared across the country in late November, a pattern likely to continue until March, principal scientist James Renwick said today. “In November, pretty much all of the [...]
Amazon hit by two 100-years droughts in last 5 years
The Amazon experienced its second 100-year drought in five years this year. The record drought began in April, during the usual start to the region’s dry season, when rainfall less than 75% of average fell over much of the southern Amazon (Figure 2.) The drought continued through September, and by October, when the rainy season [...]
Weather swing from drought to flood wipes out Australian crops
Successive deluges this week have ruined many harvests. In the long, thin shire of Warren along the Macquarie River in western NSW, hundreds of farmers are waiting for the flood surge predicted for Sunday afternoon that will ruin their grain crops. ”Some have barely started to harvest and it was such a good crop, to [...]
