October 30, 2012

Some 6 million people remain without electric power on the East Coast of the United States in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The storm, reclassified as a post-tropical cyclone, made landfall at 6:45 p.m. last night near the New Jersey resort of Atlantic City, where a storm surge flooded much of the city and tore up parts of the famed boardwalk. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie described the damage to the “devastated” 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.

Hurricanes can cause massive damage from strong winds, flooding, mudslides, and a rapid rise in sea level called a storm surge. (AP/Wide World)

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. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel is also filled with sea water from “end-to-end.”

At least 33 people died in the storm, which toppled trees and sparked numerous fires. Driven by the hurricane-force winds, one fire burned at least 80 houses in the New York City 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.

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.

Sandy’s strong winds also spawned dangerous conditions on the Great Lakes. In Chicago, emergency management officials warned that winds up to 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour could send waves as high as 25 feet (8 meters) crashing along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. In Cleveland and other areas of northeastern Ohio, an estimated 250,000 people are without power amid heavy rains, high winds, flooding, and icy roads. The National Weather Service reports wind gusts of 60 to 70 miles (100 to 112 kilometers) per hour along the shoreline of Lake Huron near Port Huron, north of Detroit.

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)

March 16, 2012

Spring weather has come early to the United States, according to meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). On March 14, 400 locations around the United States reported record highs. Even the 68 °F (20 °C) temperature at Duluth, Minnesota, which was far below the 80 °F (27 °C) reported in Miami, Houston, and Chicago, was 35 Farhrenheit degrees (19 Centigrade degrees) above average.

Spring 2012 is following the fourth-warmest U.S. winter since record keeping began in 1895. Unseasonably warm temperatures have resulted in such welcome developments as lower natural gas heating costs for consumers, as well as concerns among farmers that spring frosts may damage crops that produce buds this early.

Because of the early arrival of spring in the United States, the famous cherry blossoms that tourists flock to the nation's capital to see are expected to bloom early. (Courtesy Dean Brown from Nancy Palmer)

The winter of 2012, which meteorologists define as the period from Dec. 1, 2011, to Feb. 29, 2012, brought no major snowstorms to the United States. Snow cover in early March, as photographed by NASA’s Terra Earth observing satellite, was much spottier and less thick than the snow cover recorded for the same time in 2011.

The less extensive snow cover, according to NOAA scientists, has lowered the risk of spring flooding. For the first time in four years, no area in the United States was expected to experience major spring flooding, according to an agency report released on March 15. At this time in 2011, half the country was at above-average risk of flooding.

According to meteorologists, the warm spring weather may be the result of two climate patterns in effect in 2012. One is a La Nina, during which cooler-than-normal water temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean produce warmer-than-normal temperatures and drier conditions in much of the United States. A strong La Nina has been in effect throughout 2011 and is just beginning to dissipate. Another weather pattern affecting U.S. climate is the Arctic Oscillation (AO). That phenomenon, in which changes in air pressure affect the circulation of warm and cold air masses in the upper atmosphere, has been bottling up cold Arctic air in regions around the North Pole.

Will the warm weather continue? NOAA forecasters indicate that temperatures for the rest of March, April, and May will probably be about one Fahrenheit degree (0.6 Centigrade degree) above normal. Nevertheless, one or two extreme temperature fluctuations during that period remain possible.

Additional World Book articles:

• Global warming
• Ocean (How the ocean moves)

March 9, 2012

Days of very heavy rain in Australia have caused flooding in parts of three states, New South Wales (NSW), Queensland, and Victoria. Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate in NSW, where an enormous stretch–fully 75 percent–of Australia’s most populous state is under water. In what has been described as the state’s worst flooding in 150 years, scores of towns are inundated–from Forbes in central NSW to Griffith in the south and across the state line into northern Victoria. On March 7, the heaviest recorded rainfall in years triggered flash flooding across much of Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.

La Nina weather conditions, which typically bring higher-than-normal rainfall, are affecting Australia’s southeast. “Australia is in the throes of two consecutive La Nina events,” stated Aaron Coutts-Smith, NSW climate manager for Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. “It is very rare to have such persistent, record-breaking rainfall over such large areas .  .  .”  Just weeks ago, in February, thousands were forced to evacuate in Queensland, where residents suffered through a third major flood in less than two years. From 2001 through 2009, the same area, Australia’s southeast, underwent the worst drought in the continent’s recorded history.

Additional World Book articles

• Australia 2006 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2007 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2008 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2009 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2010 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2011 (Back in Time article)