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Tag: national weather service
Under High Pressure, Weather Agency Defends Trump On Dorian

Under High Pressure, Weather Agency Defends Trump On Dorian

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President Donald Trump has been fixated all week on his false claim made Sunday that Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated” by Hurricane Dorian, a statement which wasn’t supported by the evidence at the time. Through a whirlwind of lies, distortions, and even potentially criminal forgeries, Trump has tried to beat back the criticism he received for the gaffe, a campaign that peaked Friday when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration criticized a Birmingham branch of the agency for a tweet that contradicted the president.

Shortly after Trump tweeted falsely about Alabama on Sunday, the National Weather Service (a branch of NOAA) in Birmingham tweeted:

Now, in a statement, NOAA disavowed the tweet:

There are several things to note about this new development. First, it comes on the heels of Trump apparently forcing a Homeland Security official to come to his defense, even though his claims didn’t support the president’s initial or subsequent falsehoods. Second, this new statement is particularly dubious given that no administration official was willing to put their name on it. Third, it doesn’t address Trump’s myriad false claims about Hurricane Dorian, including his first claim on Sunday which created a completely false impression about the risks Alabama faced.

Now, as I have noted multiple times, there were a few indications around the time of Trump’s false claim that a relatively small portion of Alabama had a small chance of experiencing strong winds because of the hurricane. (Trump has also shifted ground on what claim he is defending because on Thursday, he asserted that his belief had been that “Alabama may also be grazed or hit” by the storm. He had previously said there had been a “95 percent” chance of the storm hitting the state.) One projection said there was a 5 percent chance of a tiny part of the state feeling 39+ mph winds.

So it’s possible that the NWS tweet somewhat overstated the confidence that there would not be “any” impacts in Alabama, though many dispute the idea that there was anything wrong with the statement. Nevertheless, Trump’s claim was still unequivocally wrong, which he hasn’t admitted; he said that the chances the state would get hit hard had dramatically increased when they were diminishing down to zero. In fact, state officials were so unconcerned about the impact of the storm on Sunday that Alabama’s governor wasn’t on a conference call at FEMA, as the Washington Post reported:

During a briefing at FEMA headquarters on Sunday afternoon, Trump acknowledged governors who had dialed in from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. He then turned to a state that wasn’t represented on the line.

“It may get a little piece of a great place: It’s called Alabama,” Trump said. “And Alabama could even be in for at least some very strong winds and something more than that, it could be. This just came up, unfortunately. It’s the size of the storm that we’re talking about. So, for Alabama, just please be careful also.”

Since his initial false prediction, Trump has made repeated false claims in his defense and is apparently pressuring government officials to back him up. Instead, he could have admitted he made a mistake or, alternatively, just let the matter drop. The fact that he can’t, and that he’s using the administration to serve his misguided impulses, is deeply disturbing. Many observers continued to express concern about Trump’s behavior:

 

That Record-Breaking Heat Wave Isn’t A ‘Hoax’

That Record-Breaking Heat Wave Isn’t A ‘Hoax’

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable — what then? — George Orwell, 1984

 

As President Donald J. Trump was preparing to unleash a deluge of half-truths, misconceptions and outright lies about his environmental record, Mother Nature went to the podium first. She unleashed her own deluge — a “once-in-a-hundred-years” rainfall that made rivers of local streets, crashed through the roof of a D.C. Metro station and threatened historic documents stored in the National Archives by flooding its basement.

According to the National Weather Service, almost a month’s worth of rain fell in metropolitan Washington, D.C., over the course of an hour, the sort of extreme weather event that climate scientists associate with climate change. Warmer air holds more moisture, so climatologists have predicted more, much more, rainfall and, as a consequence, more flooding. (The melting of Arctic ice is raising sea levels, which will also increase flooding in coastal areas.)

Of course, the president never uttered the phrase “climate change” in his address on Monday (July 8). He never alluded in any way to the existential challenge of our time — a warming planet that threatens all human life. He and most of his Republican Party either deny global warming outright or look askance at scientific evidence that blames it on human activity.

According to Trump, who pulled out of the 2015 Paris Accords that might have ameliorated climate change, his administration has helped to curb greenhouse gases. “Since 2000, our nation’s energy-related carbon emissions have declined more than any other country on Earth,” he said. In fact, emissions had been trending downward until his presidency. In 2018, however, thanks in large part to Trump’s friendly policies toward polluters, emissions levels began to inch upward again, according to The Rhodium Group, an independent research organization.

Yet, Trump and his cult repeat their truth-inverting nonsense with straight faces. The president continues to dismiss experts, to marginalize scientists and even to ignore the reports of military experts, who point to the national security implications of climate change. And his supporters, from Mitch McConnell to Midwestern farmers who suffer amid frequent flooding, continue to sip the Kool-Aid.

Meanwhile, back here in reality, another tropical storm, this one named Barry, churns along the Gulf Coast, bringing yet more high winds and flooding. Barry’s winds bring peril, but the greater danger is from rising waters.

The National Weather Service has warned of flooding throughout eastern Louisiana, southern and central Mississippi and southeastern Arkansas. That area includes one of the nation’s great cities, New Orleans, which has been hit by deadly flooding before and will be hit again and again as climate change intensifies. When the calamitous Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, its rainfall breached levees even though the Mississippi River crested, then, at just 2 feet. Because of spring flooding, the Mississippi could surge to as high as 19 feet in New Orleans, according to hydrologists. This is the new normal.

The stronger storms and frequent floods are just two examples of the extreme weather events that scientists say climate change will foster. We will see not only more rainfall, but also more droughts and, of course, hotter temperatures worldwide. Last Thursday (July 3), Anchorage, Alaska, hit 90 degrees, its hottest temperature on record. With temperatures above 80 degrees for six days in a row, according to published reports, the city also had its hottest week in the record books.

The heat turned deadly in India, where many poor families don’t enjoy the benefit of air conditioning. Temperatures hovered at 115 degrees for weeks last month, and more than 30 people are believed to have died as a result. Scientists and demographers have long predicted that poorer nations will be harder hit by climate change. Some parts of India, they say, may be rendered uninhabitable. Some island nations, such as the Maldives and the Marshall Islands, may disappear altogether — lost like the mythical land of Atlantis.

But if you belong to the cult of “It’s a Hoax,” there’s nothing to worry about. Keep pretending, and everything will be fine.

Storms Snarl U.S Travel, Threaten Rare Winter Tornadoes

Storms Snarl U.S Travel, Threaten Rare Winter Tornadoes

By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Snow, sleet and hail snarled transportation in large parts of the United States on Monday during one of the busiest travel times of the year, after dozens died in U.S. storms that were just some of the wild weather seen worldwide over the Christmas holiday period.

More than 40 people were killed by tornadoes and floods during the holiday season in the United States, where rare winter tornado warnings were issued in Alabama on Monday.

Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle were expected to bear the brunt of the of the day’s strongest storms, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Michael Leseney.

As of about 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), more than 1,940 U.S. flights had been canceled on Monday, according to FlightAware.com, while another 2,790 delays were reported. Chicago-area airports were worst hit with hundreds of flights canceled as the city was swept by sleet and hail.

More than a foot (30 cm) of snow was forecast for southwestern Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota, and snow was also falling in Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri.

A flash flood warning was in effect in eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois, the National Weather Service said. Thirteen people died in flash floods in those two states during the weekend.

The U.S. storms came as other countries struggled with extreme weather and stressed holiday infrastructure.

In Britain, hundreds of troops were deployed and a government agency said a “complete rethink” of flood defenses was needed after swathes of northern England were inundated by rivers that burst their banks.

Severe weather also hit parts of Australia, where more than 100 homes were lost in Christmas Day brushfires.

Then on Sunday a freight train carrying sulphuric acid derailed in the Outback, and a Queensland Rail spokeswoman told local media that floods had stopped crews reaching the scene. (Video here)

‘RIPPED OUR WORLD APART’

The bad U.S. weather caused two candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, to cancel campaign events in Iowa.

Winter storms that brought ice and high winds to Oklahoma downed power lines and 54,000 customers were without power on Monday in Oklahoma City and surrounding areas, Oklahoma Gas & Electric said. Local news reports said there were 100,000 without power across the state.

Operators of the Kerr and Pensacola dams, about 160 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, warned they would have to release large amounts of water due to the storm and area residents might be forced to evacuate their homes.

Six tornadoes were reported on Sunday – three in Arkansas, one in Texas, and two in Mississippi.

Texas was cleaning up from weekend tornadoes that killed at least 11 people in the Dallas area and damaged about 1,600 structures and homes. One twister in the city of Garland had winds of up to 200 miles per hour (322 km per hour) and killed eight people, including a 30-year-old woman and her year-old son.

“We are very blessed that we didn’t have more injuries and more fatalities,” Garland’s Mayor Douglas Athas told CNN.

In the Dallas suburbs of Garland and Rowlett, which were devastated by tornadoes on Saturday, many residents turned to social media to tell stories of survival and to ask for help finding lost pets.

Briana Landrum posted a photo of her living room couch surrounded by wreckage where her house once stood in Rowlett. Her two cats are missing, she wrote, and the freezing rain has made searching for her “sweet babies” difficult.

“All I remember is the windows all shattering and insulation went everywhere,” she wrote. “The roof fell on us one second and the next, it was gone … The tornado ripped our world apart.”Ten deaths and 58 injuries were reported in Mississippi from the Christmas holiday storms, Governor Phil Bryant said at a news conference. Hundreds of homes were damaged.

In flooded southern Missouri, dozens of adults and children forced from their homes took refuge at Red Cross shelters.

Red Cross spokeswoman Julie Stolting said there was no telling when they might be able to return home. “But we’re feeding them, we’re sheltering them, we’re providing health services,” she said.

Some roads still were closed in New Mexico, where storms on Sunday dumped as much as 18 inches of snow on eastern parts of the state. Highways with difficult driving conditions included interstate highways 25 and 10.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago, Heide Brandes in Oklahoma City, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida, Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas, Laila Kearney in New York, Sara Catania in Los Angeles, and Emily Stephenson; Writing by Mary Wisniewski and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott)

Photo: A sign sits underwater located in the downtown area of Elba, Alabama, December 26, 2015. REUTERS/Marvin Gentry

Volatile, Unpredictable, Rare Storm Killed Two

Volatile, Unpredictable, Rare Storm Killed Two

By Steve Lord, Janelle Walker, and Matthew Walberg, Chicago Tribune (TNS)

CHICAGO — The day after tornadoes scoured parts of seven counties in north central Illinois, killing two women in a small town that was destroyed, National Weather Service meteorologists sought to explain exactly what happened.

What they found underscored the frightening volatility and unpredictability of such violent storms.

The most powerful tornado that swept through the area Thursday night packed winds of 180 to 200 mph, weather service meteorologists Mike Bardou and Gino Izzi said at a briefing Friday afternoon in Rochelle, Ill. The tornado measured a half-mile wide and traveled 15 to 20 miles on the ground, which Izzi said was “very unusual.”

Such a tornado can be expected to occur only every six years in Illinois, the meteorologists said. But the EF4 tornado — one notch below the most severe classification under the Enhanced Fujita scale — that struck around dusk Thursday was of the same severity as the one that devastated the central Illinois community of Washington on Nov. 17, 2013.

The weather service will continue to analyze computer data from radar and conduct aerial surveys of the storm’s path to glean more details about what happened.

For now, Bardou and Izzi said, radar readings and reliable accounts from storm chasers indicate the initial tornado, which developed about 90 miles west of Chicago, west of the town of Ashton, spun into a pair of twisters after the storm ripped through Rochelle and nearly wiped out the small community of Fairdale.

The more powerful twister moved northeast into Boone and McHenry counties. Different meteorological conditions developed that apparently created a funnel cloud, which bounced along the ground in Boone County, Bardou said.

The smaller, “satellite” tornado traveled on a parallel path farther northwest, starting near Rockford in Winnebago County and streaking through northwest Boone and McHenry Counties, the weather service said.

The most severe damage was in tiny Fairdale, where two neighbors, Geraldine Schultz, 67, and Jacklyn K. Klosa, 69, were killed. Virtually every structure in the DeKalb County town of about 150 people was damaged substantially. Many were completely destroyed.

An estimated 49 structures were damaged in the Rochelle area, nearly 20 of which were destroyed, the Illinois State Police reported. A total of 11 people suffered injuries serious enough to be taken to area hospitals, the agency said.

While it didn’t appear there were more victims, searchers continued to work Friday night with cadaver dogs because not all residents had been accounted for, the state police said.

“Numerous vehicles” were blown off Interstates 39 and 88, the state police said.

One of the buildings destroyed by the storm was Grubsteakers restaurant, on the outskirts of Rochelle at the intersection of Illinois Routes 251 and 64.

Tod Carlock had stopped in the restaurant’s parking lot about 5 p.m. Thursday to get a tire changed on his semitractor after a blowout on I-39.

Two hours later, he was one of a dozen people trapped in the restaurant’s basement, where they had taken shelter from the storm.

“I had the fear — it was way too close,” Carlock said of the tornado. “So I backed up the truck up 50 or 60 yards and ran inside as fast as I could.” The restaurant owner led Carlock and others through the restaurant and back outside to the cellar doors.

“Not more than he shut the doors and it hit,” Carlock said.

They could hear the tornado hit the building above them. “We could hear it being torn apart.” It lasted only a few moments, he said. “Here and gone.”

They waited a few more minutes for the storm to completely pass before some of those in the cellar tried to open the doors. They could see light outside, but the debris was blocking their way.

Someone called 911, and the dispatcher told them to wait, that help was on the way.

Nearly two hours later, they were rescued, Carlock said. Those with cellphones used the flashlight apps for light, he added.

Help in a different form came to Fairdale from Washington, the Peoria suburb that experienced similar devastation less than two years ago. In the weeks and months after the Washington tornado, which killed one resident and destroyed nearly 750 homes, people from all over the country donated to the town’s recovery.

Washington resident Jewel Ward wanted to pass it on.

Ward, who grew up near Fairdale and sought refuge there for a few days after the Washington twister, started an online fundraiser Thursday night to help Fairdale residents. Her goal with the Fairdale Tornado Relief fund on youcaring.com was $5,000. By 7:15 p.m Friday, the fund totaled more than $6,000.

“All of us remember what it was like in those first days of recovery,” Ward wrote on the fund site, “and how important it is to get needed funds to those in need quickly.”

Ward said she is working with the Kirkland Lions Club, near Fairdale, to receive and distribute funds to “those in need due to tornado related costs,” she wrote.

While Ward’s effort was garnering contributions, Gov. Bruce Rauner visited the tornado-ravaged region, declaring DeKalb and Ogle counties state disaster areas. Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk also toured the area.

“Our hearts and thoughts go out to those impacted by yesterday’s storms,” Rauner said at the Flagg Center Community Church of God in Flagg, another small town about 265 miles south of Fairdale. “The state will do everything it can to help these families and communities recover and heal, while providing response resources.”

(Matthew Walberg is a Tribune reporter, Steve Lord is a reporter with the Aurora Beacon-News, Janelle Walker is a freelance reporter)

(Tribune reporters Juan Perez Jr., Genevieve Bookwalter, Gregory Pratt, Quinn Ford, Peter Nickeas and Tony Briscoe contributed, as did Erika Wurst of the Aurora Beacon-News and freelancer Quan Truong)

(c)2015 Chicago Tribune, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Homes in the town of Fairdale, Ill. are severely damaged Friday, April 10, 2015 after a tornado ripped through north central Illinois the previous night. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)