June 21, 2019

Today, June 21, is the first day of summer, and people in parts of the Midwestern and Southeastern United States can say goodbye to a stormy spring that included record flooding and an unusual number of powerful tornadoes. Beginning in March, snowmelt and repeated heavy rains overflowed the Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and other rivers. Tornadoes ravaged many areas in March and April, and in the month of May alone, an astounding 362 twisters touched down in 12 different states. The combined spring storms killed 64 people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

Mississippi River floodwaters cut off a highway at the Illinois-Missouri border on May 30, 2019. Spring storms ravaged many parts of the Midwest and Southeast in 2019. Credit: © Scott Olson, Getty Images

An unusually cold winter resulted in large snowfalls and frozen ground throughout the Midwest. In March, melting snow added large amounts of water to streams and rivers. Torrential downpours then followed, resulting in floods that affected Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Six people died in the regional flooding, and the waters caused some $8 billion in damage. Powerful thunderstorms and flooding continued in April and May, spreading damage to the states of Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. In some states, more than a month’s worth of rain (compared with the average) fell in a single day. Saturated fields prevented many crops from being planted, and many existing crops were severely damaged.

In early March, tornadoes first struck in the Southeast, killing 23 people and causing extensive damage in parts of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. In April, tornadoes killed 20 more people in the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. Then, in May, 362 tornadoes killed 15 people across the Midwest. A number of the tornadoes rated EF4—wind speeds of 166 to 200 miles (267 to 322 kilometers) per hour—on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, used to measure a tornado’s intensity. (EF5, with winds over 200 miles (322 kilometers) per hour, is the highest rating.) Destruction was substantial in Dayton, Ohio, and Linwood, Kansas, but no people were killed.

The Midwestern and Southeastern United States are accustomed to bouts of severe spring weather, but this year’s storms were abnormally abundant and strong. The increases in bad weather—in both winter and spring—aligned with what scientists expect as the world’s climate continues to change. As average global temperatures rise, air becomes saturated with moisture, resulting in higher amounts of precipitation. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have warned of increasing episodes of severe weather because of climate change.

February 11, 2019

Last week, monsoon rains dumped record amounts of water in northern  Queensland, Australia, flooding roads, swelling rivers above their banks, and causing landslides. The coastal city of Townsville received more than 3.3 feet (1.0 meters) of rain, raising the level of water held by the Ross River dam to dangerous levels far above its capacity. On February 3, city officials opened the dam’s gates, intentionally flooding several neighborhoods to ease pressure on the dam and keep it from collapsing. Crocodiles, snakes, and other wildlife followed the waters into the flooded streets, appearing in places they are not typically found. Boats and other vehicles capable of navigating high waters rescued many people and pets trapped by the flooding. Two people are known to have died in the flooding.

Floodwaters inundate the Townsville, Australia, suburb of Idalia on Feb. 4, 2019. Credit: © Ian Hitchcock, Getty Images

Some Queensland farmers welcomed the rainfall. Drought conditions have been widespread in recent months across Australia (where summer is from December to February), and the farmers hoped the rain would help their crops. The monsoon flooding came at the tail end of the hottest month ever recorded by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. On February 1, the agency reported that the average January temperature across the continent exceeded 86 ºF (30 ºC). The Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, and Victoria all set new high temperature records for the month of January. Some parts of western Queensland and New South Wales had weeks of temperatures above 104 ºF (40 ºC). Numerous farm and wild animals died in the extreme heat, as did many fish in overheated lakes and rivers.

Despite the monsoon rains in Queensland, much of Australia remains in a drought. Scientists believe that such extreme weather events will become more frequent in coming years as a result of global climate change.

July 24, 2018

From the end of June through early July 2018, torrential rains intensified by Typhoon Prapiroon caused catastrophic flooding in southwestern Japan. The floods breached levees and washed out towns and roads in heavily populated areas, killing 225 people and leaving several others missing. The freshwater floods (as opposed to tsunamis and ocean-generated flooding) were the deadliest in Japan since flooding killed 299 people in Nagasaki in 1982.

Floodwaters swamp houses in the Okayama city of Kurashiki on July 8, 2018. Credit: © STR/AFP/Getty Images

Unusually heavy seasonal rains began on the island of Kyushu and nearby areas on June 28. With flooding already beginning in some prefectures, Typhoon Prapiroon dumped immense amounts of rain beginning on July 3. As the situation worsened, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued emergency alerts, prompting the evacuation of several million people. Areas of Kyushu became awash in flooding, as did parts of nearby Honshu and Shikoku islands. In Honshu, Japan’s largest and most populous island, floodwaters as high as 16 feet (5 meters) devastated the southwestern prefectures of Hiroshima and Okayama. The worst short deluge took place in Kōchi prefecture on Shikoku, where 10.4 inches (26.3 centimeters) of rain fell in just 3 hours. On July 6 and 7, the Kōchi city of Motoyama recorded 23 inches (58.4 centimeters) of rain in as many hours. The deluge continued until July 9, when the rain gave way to stifling heat that has since claimed another 70 lives.

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In late June and early July 2018, flooding killed 225 people in southwestern Japan. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Flooding and mudslides caused the most casualties in Hiroshima, where 113 people died and hundreds more were injured. At least 60 people died in Okayama where the Odagawa and Takahashi rivers burst their banks, and 26 people were killed in Ehime prefecture on Shikoku. Deaths also occurred in Fukuoka, Kōchi, Kyoto, Yamaguchi, and other prefectures. Most of the victims had ignored evacuation and other precautionary orders; several died trying to escape the floods when their vehicles were swept away. The hardest hit areas lacked appropriate levees and other flood emergency infrastructure.

More than 50,000 military and emergency personnel and thousands of volunteers responded to help people trapped by the flooding. Many roads and railways were submerged by floodwaters or blocked by debris, but boat and helicopter rescue missions ran nonstop until the floodwaters subsided and roads once again became passable. Thousands of people were rescued from the rooftops of their flooded homes.

The floods also severely damaged area crops, livestock, and wildlife. People out of immediate danger were troubled by electric power outages, commuter train stoppages, and the closure of many public and private businesses.

April 3, 2017

In the early morning hours of Saturday, April 1, flooding and rocky mudslides engulfed parts of the city of Mocoa in mountainous southern Colombia. Mocoa is the capital of Putumayo, a department that runs along the border with Ecuador and Peru. Unusually heavy rains Friday night flooded the area’s Mocoa, Mulata, and Sangoyaco rivers. Steep ravines and gullies channeled the liquid mud and debris-filled water toward sleeping Mocoa. Entire homes disappeared and streets collapsed as boulders and fallen trees lodged against cars, washing machines, and shattered masonry wrenched away in the powerful torrent. The dead bodies of 301 people have been found, but more than 200 people remain missing.

Survivors contemplate the damage done by flooding and mudslides in the southern Colombian city of Mocoa on April 2, 2017. Credit: © Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos declared a state of emergency as he arrived in Mocoa. “The entire capacity of the state is deployed to support the search and rescue,” he said. “The tragedy of Mocoa hurts me as president and as a human being. My heartfelt condolences to each family of the victims.” Santos blamed climate change for the disaster, saying Mocoa received one-third of its normal monthly rain the night before the disaster. Nevertheless, landslides and flooding occur fairly frequently in mountainous Putumayo. In Quechua, the language of the Inca and other people of the Andes Mountains, putumayo means gushing river. But this year’s rains have been particularly bad, in Colombia as well as in neighboring Ecuador and Peru, where flooding and landslides have killed more than 100 people in recent weeks.

More than 1,500 rescue workers, including police, soldiers, and volunteers, are in Mocoa to help clear debris, look for survivors, and try to keep order. Panic and distress have compounded the problems created by the lack of drinking water, food, medicine, and electric power. The Colombian Red Cross warned of poor sanitary conditions and the threat of disease. Many roads are blocked with debris, and bridges have been washed away, making transportation difficult at best. Getting supplies in–and dead bodies out–remains a top priority.

January 10, 2017

Last week, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) released its annual climate statement, and it was filled with bad news. Extreme weather lashed Australia throughout 2016, harming fragile landscapes and ecosystems both on land and in the sea. The BOM blamed the damaging weather extremes on climate change as well as an unusually strong El Niño, a periodic variation in ocean currents and temperatures that can affect climate throughout the world.

This photo taken on Feb. 12, 2016, shows the charred remains of rare alpine flora after bush fires raged through the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Credit: Rob Blakers (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The BOM listed a number of weather events that devastated parts of Australia in 2016. The cities of Darwin and Sydney saw their hottest years on record, while hot and dry conditions and large numbers of lightning strikes led to raging bushfires in Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. Fires destroyed much of the unique alpine flora—including rare, 1,000-year-old cushion plants and King Billy pine trees—found in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The seas around Australia also reached record high temperatures, causing unprecedented bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef and other coral systems. Around Tasmania, hot sea temperatures damaged fragile kelp forests as well as the abalone, oyster, and salmon populations.

This photo of Uluru, also known Ayers Rock, shows its typically hot and dry environment. Heavy rains in late 2016 caused waterfalls to cascade down the sides of the giant sandstone formation. Credit: © Steve Vidler, SuperStock

Australia’s extreme weather in 2016 included both drought and heavy rains that caused unprecedented flooding. The areas around Darwin and Brisbane saw significantly less rainfall during the year, while heavier than usual rains soaked Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart, and Sydney. In central Australia, dangerous flash floods took out roads, washed away cars, and forced the evacuations of several communities. At Christmastime, record rains and floods forced the closure of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Uluru itself, a giant sandstone formation among sand dune plains, was awash with waterfalls.

The BOM climate statement warned that such extreme weather events will become more common, even become normal, as global warming continues to reshape Earth’s climate.

March 11, 2016

Very heavy rainfall developed in some Southern States during the afternoon of March 9. By the morning of March 10, some areas had received More than 20 inches (53 centimeters) of rain. Credit: NWS/NOAA

Heavy storms in the South and West of the United States have led to massive flooding. Areas of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas have all experienced flash floods that began March 9. As of March 10th, parts of Arkansas had received as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, parts of Texas got as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters), the high rain total in Arkansas was 13.5 inches (34.3 centimeters), and some parts of Louisiana were drenched with 20.97 inches (53.2 centimeters) of rain. By March 11, thousands of homes have been evacuated and five people have been killed in the flooding. Hundreds of people in Louisiana had to be rescued from floodwaters by boat and helicopter.

This situation is expected to worsen as heavy rains are predicted for these states through Saturday, March 12. On the Sabine River, which borders Texas and Louisiana, flooding is expected to reach levels not seen since 1884. Dozens of roads and interstate highways have heel closed due to flooding.

These storms come on top of severe weather in the South just a few weeks earlier. On February 18, around 20 tornadoes touched down in the Southern States. A few days later, over February 23-24, more serious storms brought more than 60 tornadoes over the two days. Unusually warm spring temperatures, which can be attributed at least in part to an El Nino, have likely fed these spring storms.

September 13, 2013

Up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain has fallen across a 100-mile (160-kilometer) expanse of Colorado’s Front Range, causing massive flash flooding. The city of Boulder has received 14 inches (35 centimeters) since the rains started on September 9. The National Weather Service has characterized the downpour as “biblical” in its volume. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle described facing 20-foot (6-meter) walls of water racing down canyons that had already been stripped bare, first by drought and then wildfires.“This is not an ordinary day,” he stated. “It is not an ordinary disaster.” At least three people are known to have died from the storms.

Thousands of residents are being evacuated as local streams turn into rampaging torrents. After examining the area around Boulder Creek, Boulder’s Office of Emergency Management warned all residents “to go to higher ground immediately due to the potential for flash flooding along the creek.” The resort towns of Lyons and Estes Park are totally isolated by water and cascading rivers. Lyons, which has been without electric power, is being evacuated. Estes Park has lost both telephone and cellphone service. The rampant water has already caused at least six dams to fail, and state officials are closely watching several high-hazard dams whose failure would endanger lives and cause enormous property damage.

Massive volumes of rain rushing down the slopes of mountains in Colorado's Front Range are creating flash floods that are devastating communities in their paths. (National Park Service)

In New Mexico, an area in the Guadalupe Mountains received 11 inches (27 centimeters) in a 24-hour period. Until this week, the state has been in the grip of an intense, year-long drought, and riverbeds that have been dry for months are now treacherous rapids. Carlsbad Caverns National Park closed yesterday because of the flooding.

Additional World Book articles:

• Rocky Mountains
• Rocky Mountain National Park

July 3, 2013

Weather extremes unprecedented in records kept since 1850 pummeled Earth during the decade of 2001-2010, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported today. The decade was the warmest for both hemispheres and for both land and ocean surface temperatures. The year 2010 was the warmest ever recorded, with an average temperature estimated at 1 Fahrenheit degree (0.54 Celsius degree) above the long-term average during the 1961-1990 base period. More national temperature records were reported broken than in any previous decade.

Extreme heat waves, particularly in Europe in 2003 and in Russia in 2010, caused a record number of deaths. The record high temperatures were accompanied by the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice, Antarctic ice sheets, and Greenland glacier ice. As a result, global mean sea levels rose during the 2001-2010 decade by 1/8 inch (3 millimeters) per year–about double the average rise of 1/16 inch (1.6 millimeters) during the 20th century.

Scientists believe that higher ocean temperatures are generating hurricanes of greater severity. (AP/Wide World)

The authors of the report analyzed trends, both global and regional, and such extreme events as Hurricane Katrina, floods in Pakistan, and droughts in the Amazon, Australia and East Africa. They noted that the decade of 2001-2010 was also the second wettest since 1901 and that 2010 was the wettest year ever recorded. They attribute the unprecedented weather extremes mainly to greenhouse gases generated by human action.

Additional World Book articles:

• Global warming
• Australia 2008 (a Back in Time article)
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)
• Australia 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Europe 2003 (a Back in Time article)
• Russia 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Twisted–More Terrible Storms (a special report)

March 6, 2013

The Australian government’s Climate Commission for the first time has issued a report that directly connects recent extreme weather events to climate change. At least 123 weather records in Australia fell during the period reviewed in the report. A four-month heat wave in late 2012 culminated in January 2013 in massive bushfires that tore through the eastern and southeastern coasts of the country in Australia’s most populous states, New South Wales and Queensland. These record-setting temperatures were followed by torrential rains and flooding that left six people dead and $2.4 billion in damages across the same region. While climate scientists have long been reluctant to link individual weather events directly to climate change, the author of the report–”The Angry Summer”–argued that the extremes of recent weather events suggest an acceleration of change to Earth’s environment.

Wildfires are common throughout Australia due in part to the country’s hot and dry climate. Many wildfires start in the remote countryside known to Australians as the bush. (ACT Emergency Services Agency)

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the commission’s leader, Tim Flannery, stated, “If you look at the last decade, we’re getting three times as many record hot days as we are record cold days, so the statistics are telling us, too, that there’s an influence on extreme events–they’re shifting. Over the last 50 years,” he noted, “we’ve seen a doubling of the record hot days, we’re getting twice as much record hot weather than we did in the mid-20th century.” The Sydney Morning Herald quotes the author of the report, Will Steffen, as saying, “Statistically, there is a 1-in-500 chance that we are talking about natural variation causing all these new records. Not too many people would want to put their life savings on a 500-to-1 horse.” Professor Steffen is the director of the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University.

Additional World Book article:

• Australia 2008 (a Back in Time article)
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)
• Australia 2010 (a Back in Time article
• Australia 2011 (a Back in Time article)
• The Great Meltdown (a special report)
• Probing the History of Climate Change (a special report)
• What We Know About Global Warming (a special report)

October 31, 2012

President Barack Obama, who has put campaigning on hold, accompanied New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today on a tour of areas of the Jersey Shore devastated by Hurricane Sandy. The storm made landfall on the night of October 29 along the New Jersey coast near the resort of Atlantic City. A storm surge flooded much of the city and tore up parts of the famed boardwalk. Governor Christie described the damage to the Jersey Shore as “incalculable,” and President Barack Obama declared a federal disaster area in eight New Jersey counties as well as in New York City and Long Island. Governor Christie, a Republican who supports Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has gone out of his way to praise President Obama for his handling of the storm. “I spoke to the president three times yesterday,” he said during a televised interview. “He’s been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state and not once did he bring up the election.”

The death toll from the storm has been raised to at least 80, including 37 people in New York State. At least 8 million households and businesses remain without electric power, the U.S. Department of Energy announced today.

A fire fueled by high winds from Hurricane Sandy burned more than 100 houses in the New York City borough of Queens. Sections of Staten Island remain flooded. (World Book map)

In New York City, the storm flooded seven subway tunnels under the East River in what the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority characterized as the single most destructive disaster in the 108-year history of the subway system. Although parts of the system are running on a limited basis, rails and electrical equipment in the flooded tunnels will have to be cleaned before the entire network can reopen, which could take weeks.

The storm toppled thousands of trees in New York City and sparked numerous fires. Driven by the hurricane-force winds, one fire burned more than 100 houses in the borough of Queens. In Manhattan, flooding topped the sea wall in the financial district and triggered an explosion in a Consolidated Edison generating plant, cutting electric power to much of the island below mid-town. The area remains in the dark. However, the New York Stock Exchange reopened today, running on generator power, after being closed for two days. The last time the stock exchange shut down for so long because of the weather was during the Great Blizzard of 1888.

With offices reopening and the subway hobbled, many commuters drove into the city, creating massive gridlock. Drivers reported delays of hours, with cars and taxis lined up at major crossings and the entrances to reopened bridges and tunnels.

The famed Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, suffered major damage as a storm surge caused by Hurricane Sandy devastated beaches on the Jersey Shore. (© age fotostock/SuperStock)

As Sandy moved inland, it collided with two other weather systems, including a burst of cold air sweeping down through the Canadian Plains. The combined storm brought high winds, freezing rains, and heavy snows to parts of West Virginia. In Pennsylvania, it caused power outages and flooding and forced numerous closures of roads, schools, and businesses. The storm left at least seven people dead in Pennsylvania and five dead in West Virginia.

Additional World Book articles:

• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• The Forecast: Better Weather Prediction Ahead (a special report)
• How the Ocean Affects Climate (a special report)