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Hurricane Melissa more severe due to climate change

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Hurricane Melissa more severe due to climate change

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Climate change made Hurricane Melissa have more precipitation.

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Climate change enhanced intensity of Hurricane Melissa, testing limits of adaptation in Jamaica and eastern Cuba – World Weather Attribution

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Early on October 28th, Hurricane Melissa made landfall on the southern coast of Jamaica as a Category 5 storm on the Saffir–Simpson scale, bringing extreme winds, torrential rainfall, and life-threatening storm surges to coastal areas. The following day, Melissa weakened to a Category 3 hurricane before striking Cuba, while also bringing heavy rain and flooding to the neighbouring countries of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

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Hurricane Melissa caused devastation across the Caribbean.

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At least 36 people dead after Hurricane Melissa batters Caribbean islands

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Can volcanoes make weather? Yes! Similar to a firenado, Kilauea recently created a landspout that we could call a volnado.

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The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The twister appeared during the afternoon on September 2 in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater, at the volcano's summit, and in a video captured during a livestream by the US Geological Survey (USGS), can be seen swirling in front of the erupting lava fountain as it kicks up loose ash on the surface.

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

While an impressive sight to witness, according to the USGS, it's far from an unusual one. "These whirlwinds, which can also occur on the crater rim downwind of the eruption (within the closed area of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park), have been documented during several eruptive episodes," the agency said in a post to X.

In fact, an even larger - if less defined - whirlwind had also been caught on the livestream earlier that day, throwing pumice up to around 305 meters (1,000 feet) up into the air in a scene that looked more like something you'd see in a movie than a regular, real-life occurrence.

But there's no movie magic here - the USGS says that the whirlwinds are the result of "the chaotic and turbulent mixing of hot and cold air" in the area surrounding a lava fountain, similar to how dust devils are whipped up in deserts.

There'll likely be more "volnadoes" to come at Kīlauea, too. Found on the southeastern coast of Hawai'I - the largest of the Hawaiian Islands - it's one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, having erupted near-continuously between 1983 to 2018.

The current eruption at Kīlauea began back in December 2024, and since then, lava fountains have been spurting up from the ground roughly once a week. Despite the volcano's previous long period of activity, this is the first time episodic lava fountaining has been seen in an eruption since 1986, which marked the end of three years of regular molten jets during the Puʻuʻōʻō eruption.

This more recent bout has brought some seriously spectacular fountains, with some from the beginning of the eruption back in December 2024 shooting up to 90 meters (300 feet) into the air. But greater heights were yet to come; on May 25, 2025, the USGS reported that one spray reached nearly 305 meters (1,000 feet).

The fountains seen yesterday might not have reached quite such epic heights, but the eruptive episode they were part of spewed out an impressive 9.56 million cubic meters (338 million cubic feet) of lava - which, according to the USGS, is enough to fill a 1.6-kilometer (1 mile) deep, football field-sized hole.

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"Volnado" Dances Around Spectacular Lava Fountain In Kīlauea Volcano Crater

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Throw in a few comically large great whites and you've got the plot for the next Sharknado movie.

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Why the African Union supports a different map projection.

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The African Union has joined a campaign calling for the widely-used Mercator map, which makes Africa appear smaller than it is, to be replaced with a map that more accurately reflects the continent's relative size.

AU Commission Deputy Chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters when the size of Africa is misrepresented on maps, the world's perception of the continent is also distorted, including in media, education and policy.

"It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not," she said.

Organizations such as Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa are leading the "Correct The Map" petition. As of Wednesday evening, the petition was about 800 signatures short of its goal of 5,000.

"By correcting the map, we aim to shift perceptions and highlight the true scale, power, and potential of the African continent," the campaign explained in a slideshow presentation about the effort, which is provided as a resource on its website.

Members of the Correct The Map campaign are instead encouraging global entities to adopt the Equal Earth map, which was developed in 2017 by cartographer Tom Patterson and his colleagues.

Patterson's map projection is what's known as an equal area map. It shows the true relative sizes of countries and continents, but their shapes are distorted. The Mercator map is conformal, which means shapes are preserved, but actual sizes are distorted.

The Mercator map was developed in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer. The map allowed explorers to plot their journey in a straight line without having to adjust their compasses.

"That was extremely useful during the age of exploration and European colonialism," Patterson told NPR. "It almost became the de facto world map."

On Mercator's map, Africa appears to be about the same size as Greenland, he said. In reality, it's about 14 times bigger.

"If you're using the Mercator map as a world map, say, in the classroom, students would just have a completely warped view of the size of countries in the world," Patterson said.

Patterson said institutions may choose to use the Mercator map so that when users zoom in, a circular object doesn't become an oval, for example. Groups like NASA and National Geographic have begun using the Equal Earth map, he said. The World Bank told NPR that it's phasing out the Mercator map in favor of the Equal Earth map, because it's "committed to ensuring accurate representation of all people, on all platforms."

Google Maps made the Mercator map optional on its desktop version in 2018, a company spokesperson said.

Organizers of the Correct The Map campaign s say they've reached out to the United Nations to assist in its mission to replace the Mercator map. The UN did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.

"By making this change, we empower future generations to view Africa not through a lens of distortion or disrespect, but through one of clarity, respect, and African opportunity," the campaign organizers laid out in the slideshow presentation.

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African Union backs campaign to replace Mercator map that distorts Africa's size

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Organizers behind the Correct The Map campaign say the Mercator map's shrinking of Africa minimizes the continent's global influence - and is just plain inaccurate.

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How does January 2025 temperature rank globally?

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How does January 2025 temperature rank globally?

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Globally, January 2025 was the warmest January since records began in 1850, breaking the 2024 record by 0.09 °C

The land temperature average was the warmest January on record while the ocean average was the second warmest.

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Robert Rohde, Zeke Hausfather, Devin Rand

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January 2025 Temperature Update - Berkeley Earth

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November 2024 was the 2nd warmest November since records began in 1850. 2024 is almost certain to become the warmest year on record.

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Helene Impacts More Likely and Severe due to Climate Change 

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Helene Impacts More Likely and Severe due to Climate Change 

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Helene rainfall was 10% more intense and 70% more likely due to climate change.

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Climate change made Hurricane Helene more powerful, rainier, and significantly more likely. And as temperatures continue to warm, the U.S. can expect more storms like Helene in the future.

Those are the findings of a study released Wednesday by researchers with World Weather Attribution, an international network of scientists who conduct rapid studies to assess the impact of climate change on major weather events.

The study found that rainfall from Helene was about 10% heavier due to human-caused climate change. That's a massive amount of additional precipitation, and similar to other damaging, climate-fueled hurricanes in the past decade, like Hurricanes Harvey and Ian.

Climate change also made such heavy rainfall up to 70% more likely in central and southern Appalachia, where catastrophic flooding washed away roads, destroyed homes and businesses, and left thousands of people still without power two weeks later. So far, 230 people have died from the storm, though the true human toll will take years to fully determine.

"We found that essentially all aspects of this event [were] amplified by climate change to different degrees," says Ben Clarke, an extreme weather researcher at Imperial College, London, and an author of the study. "We'll see more of the same as the world continues to warm."

Many of those same conditions are now fueling Hurricane Milton, which is currently headed toward Florida as a major, life-threatening storm.

Warmer ocean temperatures drive more powerful storms

A key factor in Helene's intensity was extraordinarily high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. Sea surface temperatures reached about 85 degrees Fahrenheit as Helene was forming.

Such temperatures were 200 to 500 times more likely because of climate change, the study found.

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Warmer ocean temperatures are perhaps the most important driver of more powerful storms, says Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who was not involved in the WWA study.

"It's all about sea surface temperatures, at the end of the day," Wehner says.

Wehner worked with a team on a similar analysis to fingerprint the impact of climate change on the storm, using different statistical techniques. His team found that climate change could have boosted Helene's rainfall by up to 50% along parts of its pathway.

When ocean waters are hotter, storms can suck up additional moisture. That drives heavier rainfall - but it also acts as a power source for the storm: when water turns from vapor to liquid, it releases energy.

That, in turn, drives even more rainfall and potentially allows a storm to travel further inland.

"Simply put, the storm is more violent," Wehner says.

Hurricane Helene eventually unleashed more than two feet of rain on some towns in North Carolina. Such an event would have been very unlikely without the 1.3 degrees Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming from human-caused climate change, the WWA analysis found.

Communities need to prepare for more intense storms

As warming continues, storms like Helene will become even more common, the WWA analysis found.

Communities need to prepare for more intense storms in the future - even communities well outside historical hurricane zones, says Julie Arrighi, an author of the study and director of programs at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

"We need to really be adapting and preparing for these unprecedented, very extreme events," Arrighi says.

Ultimately, the only way to head off more storms like Helene is to limit global warming, says Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for Climate Central, who worked on the WWA analysis.

"We know what's causing these increases," Woods Placky says. "And we know if we don't accelerate climate action, storms are only going to get stronger, wetter, and more frequent."

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Climate change made Helene more dangerous. It also makes similar storms more likely

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Researchers found that Hurricane Helene was stronger, rainier, and significantly more likely because of climate change. The U.S. can expect more such storms in the future as warming continues.

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Area on coast built a dune to protect houses. It didn't last long.

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TED. WELL, ED, WE WITNESSED TWO INCREDIBLE THINGS TODAY. FIRST OF ALL, A HISTORIC HIGH TIDE AND A HANDMADE SAND DUNE THAT WAS WASHED AWAY IN THREE DAYS. RHONDELLA GUILMETTE STARES OUT AT SALISBURY BEACH WITH ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE IT CATASTROPHIC. THIS WEEK, PRIVATE HOMEOWNERS, ALONG THE BEACH WRAPPED UP A HALF MILLION DOLLAR PROJECT, BRINGING IN 4000 TONS OF SAND TO PROTECT THEIR HOMES. IN THREE DAYS, THE SAND IS GONE. RICK RIGOLI OVERSAW THE PROJECT. WE GOT HIT WITH THREE STORMS IN JANUARY, TWO IN JANUARY, ONE NOW AT THE HIGHEST ASTRONOMICAL TIDES POSSIBLE, JUST DOWN THE STREET IN HAMPTON BEACH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, POLICE WERE KEEPING PEOPLE OUT OF THIS SEACOAST TOWN UNTIL WATERS RECEDE FROM HIGH TIDE. SOME VEHICLES DIDN'T MAKE IT OUT, OTHERS SPENT THE DAY CLEANING UP PROVO RUNS A BEACHSIDE BAR IN TOWN THAT'S JUST COMES WITH THE TERRITORY. YOU CAN MOVE OR YOU CAN STAY WITH IT. I MEAN, IT'S NOT GOING TO. IT'S MOTHER NATURE. YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. CASE IN POINT, YOU CAN SEE REMNANTS OF A TENNIS COURT IN FRONT OF THIS SALISBURY BEACHFRONT HOME. IT IS LONG GONE FROM STORMS PAST ITS OWNER. NOT SURE IF HE WILL STAY OR HOW MUCH IT'S NOW WORTH. RON GUILMETTE HAS BEEN HERE A HALF CENTURY. BEAUTIFUL PROPERTIES HERE AND JUST A BEAUTIFUL BEACH. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE SOLUTION IS. ON WEDNESDAY, DCR HOMEOWNERS ENVIRONMENTALISTS WILL GATHER FOR A MEETING IN HOPES OF COMING UP WITH A PLAN TO SAVE THIS

Homeowners invested more than $500,000 to bring in 14,000 tons of sand to protect their properties, but the barrier is now gone.

Homeowners invested more than $500,000 to bring in 14,000 tons of sand to protect their properties, but the barrier is now gone.

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'Catastrophic': Sand dune made to protect beachfront homes in Mass. washes away in 3 days

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Homeowners invested more than $500,000 to bring in 14,000 tons of sand to protect their properties, but the barrier is now gone.

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Pictures of the devastation of Category 5 Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico.

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Hurricane Otis was recorded to be the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in Mexico's history. The tropical storm grew into a Category 5 hurricane devastating the resort town of Acapulco. Dozens of people have died, and dozens more are still missing.

Take a look at its destructive aftermath:

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Photos: See the aftermath of Hurricane Otis in Mexico

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Dozens of people have died after Hurricane Otis made landfall last week.

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Estimated Climate Impact of Hunga Tonga Eruption

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Estimated Climate Impact of Hunga Tonga Eruption

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The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcanic eruption on 15 January 2022 produced aerosol and water vapor plumes in the stratosphere. These plumes have persisted mostly in the Southern Hemisphere throughout 2022. Enhanced tropospheric warming due to the added stratospheric water vapor is offset by the larger stratospheric aerosol attenuation of solar radiation. The change in the radiative flux could result in a very slight cooling in Southern Hemisphere surface temperatures.

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While NHC forecasts anticipated Otis strengthening from a Tropical Storm to a Hurricane, it did not capture the actual rapid intensification increasing 114 mph in 24 hours to a Cat 5 hurricane.

Rapid intensification is made more likely due to warm SSTs due to human caused climate change.

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I know that over the decades you've come to know me as a non-alarmist. I try not to worry you when there's no need to worry. But what's been happening lately cannot be sugarcoated.

This is a scary new paradigm in the tropics. And we all need to worry.

Hurricane Otis struck very near Acapulco, Mexico, on Tuesday night as a monster 165 mile-per-hour category 5 cyclone. On Monday night, about 24-hours prior to landfall, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was predicting it would do so as 70 mile-per-hour tropical storm.

With the energy content (and destructive potential) of the wind increasing with the cube of the windspeed, that means that Otis reached Mexico with 13 times more destructive potential than what had been called for! Even when the tardy hurricane warning was issued at 4 a.m. local time on Tuesday, NHC was still forecasting just an ordinary category 1 hurricane to reach Mexico's Pacific coast.

I want to be clear that this is not an article about NHC's skill. The collection of experts at their offices in Miami is the best in the hemisphere at analyzing and forecasting tropical cyclones. I've written about how they were once hesitant to forecast rapid intensification of hurricanes but have adjusted do so more often‚ like they correctly did for hurricanes Idalia and Lee in the Atlantic this year.

In the case of Otis, NHC first noted in their Sunday advisories that the waters were "very warm." Rapid intensification was first contemplated late on Monday night based on the low-level structure of the tropical storm at the time. On Tuesday morning NHC indicated that models showed a 1-in-4 chance of Otis undergoing rapid intensification (RI), and by midday the chance of RI was characterized as "greater than normal." But RI was never explicitly called for.

Otis then proceeded to go from a 50 mph low-end tropical storm at 11 p.m. on Monday night to a 160 mph category 5 hurricane 24 hours later. Just on Tuesday afternoon, Otis grew from a tropical storm into a category 3 hurricane in the span of six hours! Otis' level of rapid intensification broke Hurricane Patricia's record in 2015 for fastest-strengthening hurricane in a span of 12 hours eastern Pacific.

NOAA

While Otis is a record-setter, this is far from the first time the eastern Pacific has seen rapidly intensifying hurricanes this year. A whopping 80% of this year's storms have undergone rapid intensification. Norma did it just before Otis, and Lidia earlier this month went from 80 to 140 mph in just 18 hours. Jova, in September, went from 70 to 155 mph in a day.

Hurricane Season

The NBC 6 First Alert Weather team guides you through hurricane season

The Atlantic, which has faced El Niño-produced wind shear often, still has had three hurricanes undergo RI in 2023: Franklin, Idalia (which struck Florida), and Lee, which reached the once-rare category 5 intensity. In the western Pacific, nearly half of all storms underwent RI.

For those of you that follow developments in climate science, you've known that for many years the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had been predicting that tropical cyclone intensities would increase in a warming climate. Confidence in that forecast has gone from medium to high over the years. And while the total number of tropical storms around the globe has remained steady, the proportion of those reaching category 4 & 5 intensity had indeed gone up.

Which leads to my warning.

I am supremely confident forecasting hurricane tracks. If it's not coming, it's not coming! But I am no longer as comfortable in putting everyone at ease in regard to the strength of a storm. My confidence in forecasting storm intensity is decreasing.

In the battle of wind shear versus hot sea surface temperatures, it seems like the warm water is winning most of the time. Otis had wind shear over it, and it didn't matter.

One of these days, in the not too distant future, there's going to be a run-of-the-mill tropical storm in the central Bahamas that's going to ramp up to category 4 or 5 intensity before reaching Miami. Will NHC or I be able to correctly call for such rapid intensification?

If they can miss it, so can I.

All that to say that we are in a new era, one in which climate change, through the physical changes it's producing in the ocean and atmosphere, is boosting windspeeds and rainfall in hurricanes. The insurers and reinsurers see it, and it's reflected in their premiums. The military sees it, and it's reflected in the actions they're taking to retrofit bases and prepare for climate-driven crises. And 3 in 4 Americans see it, and it's manifesting in how the climate crisis is ticking up in the rankings of the most important voter priorities.

This hurricane season will be over in a month or so, and obviously we'll be watchful. But I want you to think of future hurricane seasons and this scary new paradigm. There are limits to resiliency, but preparedness has never been more important.

Future hurricanes are more likely than ever to be worse than any you've ever experienced.
John Morales is NBC6's hurricane specialist.

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Hurricane Otis' rapid intensification and a warning about predicting storm strength: Morales

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NBC6 hurricane specialist John Morales looks at the rapid intensification of Hurricane Otis and has a warning about the future of predicting storm strength.

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Typhoon Koinu Records 3rd Highest Wind Gust Event

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Typhoon Koinu Records 3rd Highest Wind Gust Event

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In the western Pacific Typhoon Koinu created the 3rd highest wind gust ever as it made landfall on the island of Taiwan.

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Taiwan Records World's 3rd Most Powerful Wind Gust

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Heavy rainfall in New York City has led to flooding of roads and neighborhoods.

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Hochul declares state of emergency as rain soaks NYC region: flash flooding, commuter delays

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The downpour snarled some commutes and flash flood warnings are in effect Friday.

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Libya Flooding 50x More Likely Due to Climate Change

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Libya Flooding 50x More Likely Due to Climate Change

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Analysis from scientists with World Weather Attribution used climate observations and climate models to determine the impact of Climate Change on recent flooding. Heavy rainfall in Libya was a 1-300 to 1-600 year event and climate change of 1.2C has made the event 50 times more likely to occur and 50% more intense.

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During the first two weeks of September 2023 torrential rain fell in several countries across the Mediterranean, caused by low-pressure systems forming around a blocking high centred over the Netherlands.

On the 3rd of September torrential rain fell within a few hours in Spain, followed by very heavy rain and floods caused by the low-pressure system "Daniel" in Greece and Bulgaria between the 4th and the 7th of September, and devastating floods in Libya after very extreme rainfall during the 10th.

All three individual rainfall events caused severe flooding, submerging settlements, leaving thousands homeless and killing at least four people in Bulgaria, six in Spain, seven in Türkiye, and 17 in Greece. Further, 3,958 casualties have been confirmed in the Libyan city of Derna alone, and an additional 170 fatalities elsewhere in the country, while more than 10,000 people are still missing after two major dams broke.

Researchers from Greece, the United States of America, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the heavy rainfall that led to the flooding.

To capture the different characteristics of the heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding we focus on two regions to assess the role of climate change: one over Greece, Bulgaria and Türkiye encompassing the region impacted by storm "Daniel" characterised as 4 day maximum rainfall averaged over land in the region 36 to 42.5N and 20 to 28.5 E (red box in Figure 1, 4th to 7th of September). Given that the region receives little rain over the summer (JJAS) but much more in winter, we focus for this event on 4-day max rainfall in the summer season. Secondly, we look at 1-day maximum annual rainfall in a smaller region over Libya (32 to 33N and 20 to 23E, red box in Figure 1, 10th September) where most of the heavy rain fell that led to the devastating flooding in Derna and the surrounding area. We do not assess the role of climate change for the event in Spain due to the fact that the rain fell in less than 24 hours.

The severe flooding in Spain, Greece, Türkiye, Bulgaria and Libya was caused by very heavy rainfall that fell, in the case of Spain in less than 24 hours, whereas it lasted 24 hours in Libya and up to 4 days over Greece and Türkiye.

For Libya and Spain, we thus evaluate the return period of the annual maximum of 1-day accumulated precipitation; for central Greece, and the larger region defined above the annual maximum of 4-day precipitation. As a summary assessment, we state that the return time for the event in Spain is a 1-in-10 to 1-in-40 year event; for central Greece a 1-in-80 to 1-in-250 year event; for the large GBT region a 1-in-5 to 1-in-10 year event; and over Libya a 1-in-300 to 1-in-600 year event.

In Libya the event magnitude is far outside that of previously recorded events.

The uncertainties for the return times are very high and depend on the exact region and dataset chosen. In individual locations they can be very different from the ones shown here.

To assess the role of climate change we combine observation-based products and climate models and assess changes in the likelihood and intensity of a 1-in-10 year 4-day event over the larger region encompassing Greece, and the parts of Türkiye and Bulgaria that were impacted by flooding, as well as the 1-in-600 year 1-day maximum rainfall event over Libya.

For the large region including Greece and parts of Bulgaria and Türkiye, we find that human-induced climate change made an event as extreme as the one observed up to 10 times more likely and up to 40% more intense. An event as extreme as the one observed over Libya has become up to 50 times more likely and up to 50% more intense compared to a 1.2C cooler climate.

The uncertainty in these estimates are high and encompass the possibility of no detectable change, but there are multiple reasons we can be confident that climate change did make the events more likely: from theory we know that an increase in rainfall intensity of around 10%, would be expected given current warming levels, so we could only report that there has been no change if there was a well-known dynamic process counteracting this effect, which there is not. Studies focussing on extreme rainfall with future warming also show an increase in heavy rainfall, rendering it probable that the observed increase in heavy rainfall is indeed a trend due to climate change. For these reasons, we do not give a central estimate of the influence of climate change, as in previous studies, instead giving an upper-bound of the effect.

In Greece, this has been a summer of extreme heatwaves and fires, including the largest fire ever recorded in the EU, followed by Storm Daniel which devastated the centre of the country. Deforestation and relatively high rates of urbanisation have changed the landscape over time, increasing the number of people and assets exposed to flooding, and reducing stormwater drainage.

In Libya, the volume of water and overnight timing of the dam failures meant that anyone in the path of the water was at increased risk, not just those who are typically highly vulnerable.

Ongoing conflict and state fragility in Libya compounded the effects of the flooding, contributing to a lack of maintenance and deterioration of dam infrastructure over time and increasing peoples' risk and the resulting impacts. The conflict also limits nation-wide adaptation planning and coordination across a range of climate issues facing the country, such as water scarcity, and extreme weather including heat and floods.

In addition to the lack of maintenance, the Al-Bilad and Abu Mansour dams were built in the 1970s, using relatively short rainfall records, and may not have been designed to withstand a 1-in-300 to 600 year rainfall event. A full after-action review looking at the design criteria of the dams will be required to understand the extent to which the dams' design, and the lack of subsequent maintenance contributed to the disaster. Even still, catastrophic dam failures and its impacts can be limited through risk reduction protocols that include real-time monitoring of forecasts, water volumes, and warning systems that alert those downstream of possible failures and the need to evacuate.

While in Libya there was a forecast with a 3-day lead time on the track of Storm Daniel, the impact of that potential rainfall on infrastructure and people was not clearly understood in advance. Further, it is not clear to what extent forecasts and warnings were communicated and received by the general public, or relevant emergency responders. In conjunction with improved emergency management capacity, impact-based forecasts may help to provide a clearer understanding of how the rainfall translates into potential impacts and could lead to improved warnings in the future.

This disaster also points to the challenge of needing to design and maintain infrastructure for not just the climate of the present or the past, but also the future. In Libya, this means taking into account the long-term decline in average rainfall, and at the same time, the increase in extreme rainfall like this heavy rainfall event; a challenging prospect, especially for a country plagued by crises.

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Interplay of climate change-exacerbated rainfall, exposure and vulnerability led to widespread impacts in the Mediterranean region

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During the first two weeks of September 2023 torrential rain fell in several countries across the Mediterranean, caused by low-pressure systems forming around a blocking high centred over the Netherlands.

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Libya is facing a catastrophe after flooding caused over 10,000 deaths.

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PBS NewsHour
The deadly floods that inundated eastern Libya earlier this week have now led to a tide of the dead, with a death toll of more than 11,000. This amid a race that pits dignity and respect for those lost, against the threat of disease and further calamity. Stephanie Sy reports.

Aired: 09/15/23

Rating: NR

Problems Playing Video? Report a Problem |

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PBS NewsHour | Devastation grips Libya after catastrophic flooding | Season 2023 | PBS

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Devastation grips Libya after catastrophic flooding

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Death toll soars to 11,300 from flooding in Libyan coastal city of Derna

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Heavy rains combined with dam collapses caused over 10,000 deaths.

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DERNA, Libya - The death toll in Libya's coastal city of Derna has soared to 11,300 as search efforts continue following a massive flood fed by the breaching of two dams in heavy rains, the Libyan Red Crescent said Thursday

Marie el-Drese, secretary-general of aid group, told The Associated Press by phone that a further 10,100 are reported missing in the Mediterranean city. Health authorities previously had put the death toll in Derna at 5,500.

The flooding swept away entire families on Sunday night and exposed vulnerabilities in the oil-rich country that has been mired in conflict since a 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Here's a look at the latest developments:

What caused the flooding?

Daniel, an unusually strong Mediterranean storm, caused deadly flooding in towns across eastern Libya, but the worst-hit was Derna. As the storm pounded the coast Sunday night, residents said they heard loud explosions when two dams outside the city collapsed. Floodwaters gushed down Wadi Derna, a valley that cuts through the city, crashing through buildings and washing people out to sea.

A U.N. official said Thursday that most casualties could have been avoided.

"If there would have been a normal operating meteorological service, they could have issued the warnings," World Meteorological Organization head Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva. "The emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out the evacuation."

The WMO said earlier this week that the National Meteorological Center had issued warnings 72 hours before the flooding, notifying all governmental authorities by email and through media.

Officials in eastern Libya warned the public about the coming storm and on Saturday had ordered residents to evacuate areas along the coast, fearing a surge from the sea. But there was no warning about the dams collapsing.

How does the conflict in Libya affect the disaster?

The startling devastation reflected the storm's intensity, but also Libya's vulnerability. Oil-rich Libya has been divided between rival governments for most of the past decade - one in the east, the other in the capital, Tripoli - and one result has been widespread neglect of infrastructure.

The two dams that collapsed outside Derna were built in the 1970s. A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the dams had not been maintained despite the allocation of more than 2 million euros for that purpose in 2012 and 2013.

Libya's Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah acknowledged the maintenance issues in a Cabinet meeting Thursday and called on the Public Prosecutor to open an urgent investigation into the dams' collapse.

The disaster brought a rare moment of unity, as government agencies across the country rushed to help the affected areas.

While the Tobruk-based government of east Libya is leading relief efforts, the Tripoli-based western government allocated the equivalent of $412 million for reconstruction in Derna and other eastern towns, and an armed group in Tripoli sent a convoy with humanitarian aid.

What's happening today?

Derna has begun burying its dead, mostly in mass graves, said eastern Libya's health minister, Othman Abduljaleel earlier Thursday.

More than 3,000 bodies were buried by Thursday morning, the minister said, while another 2,000 were still being processed, He said most of the dead were buried in mass graves outside Derna, while others were transferred to nearby towns and cities.

Abduljaleel said rescue teams were still searching wrecked buildings in the city center, and divers were combing the sea off Derna.

Untold numbers could be buried under drifts of mud and debris, including overturned cars and chunks of concrete, that rise up to four meters (13 feet) high. Rescuers have struggled to bring in heavy equipment as the floods washed out or blocked roads leading to the area.

How many people have been killed?

The Libyan Red Crescent said Thursday that 11,300 people have been killed, and a further 10,100 are reported missing.

Local officials suggested that the death toll could be much higher than announced. In comments to the Saudi-owned Al Arabia television station, Derna Mayor Abdel-Moneim al-Ghaithi said the tally could climb to 20,000 given the number of neighborhoods that were washed out.

The storm also killed around 170 people in other parts of eastern Libya, including the towns of Bayda, Susa, Um Razaz and Marj, the health minister said.

The dead in eastern Libya included at least 84 Egyptians, who were transferred to their home country on Wednesday. More than 70 came from one village in the southern province of Beni Suef. Libyan media also said dozens of Sudanese migrants were killed in the disaster.

Is help reaching survivors?

The floods have also displaced at least 30,000 people in Derna, according to the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration, and several thousand others were forced to leave their homes in other eastern towns, it said.

The floods damaged or destroyed many access roads to Derna, hampering the arrival of international rescue teams and humanitarian assistance. Local authorities were able to clear some routes, and over the past 48 hours humanitarian convoys have been able to enter the city.

The U.N. humanitarian office issued an emergency appeal for $71.4 million to respond to urgent needs of 250,000 Libyans most affected. The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, estimated that approximately 884,000 people in five provinces live in areas directly affected by the rain and flooding.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it has provided 6,000 body bags to local authorities, as well as medical, food and other supplies distributed to hard-hit communities.

International aid started to arrive earlier this week in Benghazi, 250 kilometers (150 miles) west of Derna. Several countries have sent aid and rescue teams, including neighboring Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. Italy dispatched a naval vessel on Thursday carrying humanitarian aid and two navy helicopters to be used for search and rescue operations.

President Joe Biden said the United States would send money to relief organizations and coordinate with Libyan authorities and the United Nations to provide additional support.

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Death toll soars to 11,300 from flooding in Libyan coastal city of Derna

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Another 10,100 are reported missing from flooding caused by Mediterranean storm Daniel, the Libyan Red Crescent says.

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Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii (Halemaʻumaʻu crater)

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Check out this live USGS video of Kilauea erupting in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

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Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii (Halemaʻumaʻu crater)

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Live view of the eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu, from the northwest rim of the caldera, looking east [V1cam] . =====Current Kīlauea Eruption FAQs (seen from the li…

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Heavy rains caused mudslides in several locations in Utah, including a long closure of HWY 6.

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CARBON COUNTY, Utah - U.S. Highway 6 was shut down near Helper due to a massive mudslide Sunday night.

At approximately 2 p.m., the mudslide was reported by the Carbon County Sheriff's Office. A few hours later, the Utah County Sherriff's Office said U.S. Highway 6 was closed at milepost 187 by Thistle and milepost 230 in Carbon County.

Deputy Daniel Robison with the Carbon County Sheriff's Office told KSL TV the floodwaters were flowing on a burn scar from the 2021 Bear Fire.

The US-6 closure is expected to remain in place for at least two days while crews contend with continued weather and extensive repairs. Please use alternate routes of US-191 and US-89. https://t.co/TEkHm4SgUL pic.twitter.com/Jq69bY3bzD

- Utah Highway Patrol (@UTHighwayPatrol) September 3, 2023

Driver Nathan Strain got caught in the backup caused by the flooding.

"I could hear big huge rocks tumbling in the bottom of the flowing water, it sounded like thunder but from the ground," he said.

He said the damage to the road was major.

"It was tons of water flowing over that road," Strain said. "By the time I got there, it had gauged out the road pretty deep, so it was flowing kind of at road level.

Those driving from Moab or Colorado are now forced to take a detour. Officials suggest drivers take U.S. Highway 89 at Thistle, and other roadways if they are traveling from Utah County.

At approximately 8:20 p.m., four to five mudslides in Indian Canyon temporarily closed U.S. Highway 191 southbound 4 miles south of Duchesne. UDOT crews reopened all lanes late Sunday night.

Road Closure: US-191 is closed heading southbound between mile markers 260-295 for a mud slide. The northbound detour from US-6 to Duchesne County is still open.
Southbound is expected to reopen around midnight. pic.twitter.com/7ayBZV7mQx

- Utah Highway Patrol (@UTHighwayPatrol) September 4, 2023

"Lots of people in their little camper vans and lots of RVs, so yeah, there's definitely a lot of travelers, a lot of out-of-state plates," Strain said.

Another problem is a possible setback of the installation of a large culvert designed to prevent road damage from flooding at the site of this mudslide.

"Over the last few weeks and months, they've been installing a big culvert into the road, and they've been shifting lanes and moving stuff and digging," Strain said. "They were doing work to prevent this sort of thing in the future, kind of an irony there.

The already busy highway is expected to see significant traffic delays this Labor Day.

UDOT plans to reopen U.S. 6 by Monday afternoon. The agency said the road won't be paved, so drivers will need to slow down and travel around 25 mph. Officials said it all depends on the weather that moves in Sunday night.

"It looked pretty wild and it's going to take them a long time to fix that," Strait said.

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Major mudslide closes U.S. Highway 6 in Carbon County

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Two major highways near Helper and Duchesne were shut down due to mudslides Sunday night.

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The peak of hurricane season is about a week and a half away... and the tropics are busy!

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TROPICAL UPDATE: Active tropics as we head into peak hurricane season with four named storms and two

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Damage From Idalia and How Cities Prepared

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Damage From Idalia and How Cities Prepared

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A look at the impacts of Hurricane Idalia in Florida and a discussion with Tallahassee Mayor on how they prepared.

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PBS NewsHour | A look at the damage after Hurricane Idalia slammed Florida | Season 2023 | PBS

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A look at the damage after Hurricane Idalia slammed Florida as a Category 3 storm

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A selection of photos showing the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia.

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Photos: See the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia

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The hurricane was downgraded to a category 3 tropical storm before making landfall in Florida Wednesday. But storm surge has those residents worried as they watch the waters rise.

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Unfortunately wildfire smoke from fires in northern California and Oregon has moved into Utah. This has led to Unhealthy air quality from PM2.5 (very fine particles) for much of northern Utah.

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This map shows fine particle pollution (PM2.5) from wildfires and other sources. It provides a public resource of information to best prepare and manage wildfire season. Developed in a joint partnership between the EPA and USFS.

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Tropical Storm Idalia is currently entering the southern Gulf of Mexico. As it moves north it is forecast to strengthen to a major hurricane and make landfall on the Florida Gulf Coast.

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Idalia strengthens into a hurricane off Cuba as it churns toward Florida

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Forecasters warn of the possibility of dangerous storm surges caused by Idalia and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suggested that some residents in coastal areas may have to evacuate.

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Deserts are hot, but heat waves are getting even hotter. This comic explores then and now in Egypt and how we can address hotter hots in summers.

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In elementary school, NPR's Malaka Gharib visited her dad in Cairo each summer. It was hot, there was no AC - but she coped. In this age of global warming, she wonders: How are Egyptians getting by?

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COMIC: In the '90s I survived summers in Egypt with no AC. How would it feel now?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In elementary school, NPR's Malaka Gharib visited her dad in Cairo each summer. It was hot, there was no AC - but she coped. In this age of global warming, she wonders: How are Egyptians getting by?

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Rainfall totals in many locations were over 1/2 of annual average totals leading to widespread flooding including mud and landslides.

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This morning, weather officials downgraded Hilary to a post-tropical storm. And, in all, the damage wasn't as bad as some forecasters feared.

Still, it battered Baja California in Mexico, where several homes collapsed and one person drowned. When it arrived on U.S. coastlines, it brought chaos to an area where droughts are far more common than this type of deluge. School districts in San Diego and Los Angeles shut down today.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city remains on high alert.

Karen Bass (D), Mayor of Los Angeles, California: It's not to say many Angelenos have been - not been impacted by the storm, whether they woke up without power or were unable to get through streets due to flooding and mudslides. As you know, sometimes, damage can occur in the hours and days after a storm hits.

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Southern California begins cleaning up after first tropical storm in 8 decades

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Southern California has been battered by historic rainfall, floods and mudslides in the latest in a string of disasters wreaking havoc across the country. So far, there are no reports of major damage or injuries linked to Tropical Storm Hilary. As the system barrels north, some 17 million people are under flood and high-wind advisories, watches and warnings.

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Hurricane Hilary an Anomaly in the western U.S.

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Hurricane Hilary an Anomaly in the western U.S.

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Tropical storms are rare in the southwestern U.S. and Hurricane Hilary brought widespread flooding and impacts.

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LOS ANGELES, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Southern California officials braced on Monday for possible overnight reports of serious damage from Tropical Storm Hilary after the system unleashed furious flash floods east and west of Los Angeles in its historic arrival a day earlier.

The National Weather Service downgraded the former hurricane to a tropical depression but not before California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for much of Southern California, with flash flood warnings until at least 3 a.m. (1000 GMT) on Monday in an area more accustomed to drought.

Mountain and desert areas could get 5 to 10 inches (12 to 25 cm) of rain rain, as much as the deserts typically see in a year, forecasters said.

The storm passed northward through Mexico's Baja California peninsula, where Pacific hurricanes are expected. It killed at least one person in Mexico amid reports of flash flooding in the peninsula, sweeping away some roads.

Images on social media showed raging torrents gushing down city streets that turned into rivers.

It crossed the border Sunday afternoon, hitting San Diego county with its first tropical storm ever recorded and becoming the first to pelt Los Angeles county since 1939, triggering serious flooding.

San Bernardino county, to the east of Los Angeles, ordered evacuations of towns in the mountains and valleys where social media images showed torrents of water, mud, rock and trees.

In more populated Ventura county northwest of Los Angeles, the National Weather Service warned of life-threatening flooding as up to 2 inches (5 cm) of rain fell within two hours.

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered federal agencies to move personnel and supplies into the region after local officials prepared for days.

But Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass still worried that people could let down their guard if Hilary left them initially unharmed but later bands of the storm swung back around to surprise those who were not prepared.

"We know that it could get much worse," Bass told a news briefing on Sunday. "My concern is that people will be a little dismissive and go out when we need people to stay at home, to stay safe."

Officials said Los Angeles county's 75,000 homeless people were especially vulnerable, as were hillside canyons and areas recently denuded by wildfires.

As a precaution, the two largest school districts in the state, in Los Angeles and San Diego, canceled school on Monday.The storm stunned people in the nearby town of Rancho Mirage, where water and debris rushed over closed roads and stranded at least one pickup truck in water that rose nearly to the top of its bed.

"It's quite amazing. I've never seen anything like this," said Sean Julian, 54, a resident of the town. "I'm seeing a lot more trees down. And there's a big tree that just fell over there, and I probably shouldn't be out here."

Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tropical Storm Hilary releases fury on Southern California

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Southern California officials braced on Monday for possible overnight reports of serious damage from Tropical Storm Hilary after the system unleashed furious flash floods east and west of Los Angeles in its historic arrival a day earlier.

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Are tornadoes and climate change connected?

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Are tornadoes and climate change connected?

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America’s Tornadoes Are Evolving, Fast | WIRED

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The US is experiencing devastation from a flurry of tornadoes. At least five people died Wednesday when a tornado tore through southeastern Missouri. It followed six in New Jersey and one in Delaware that killed a person and became the state's widest on record. Batches of tornadoes killed more than 30 people in the South and Midwest over the weekend. And January saw 168 preliminary tornado reports, nearly five times that month's average between 1990 and 2010.

It's been a busy and deadly start to tornado season, and the twisters have hit regions typically spared. We know that a warming climate is creating moisture and instability in the air-two factors that spur the formation of tornadoes. But experts caution that it's too soon to link one major event-or even season-to climate change. What they are seeing is changes in when and where the tornadoes strike, which could expose more people to danger.

"We are still very unsure what the future holds," says Jana Houser, a professor of meteorology at the Ohio State University. Meteorologists can look at increased humidity and warming, along with changes in the jet stream, and see how they may affect the storms that cause tornadoes. But, Houser says, "we really can't pinpoint what we expect to see in terms of when and where tornadoes are going to occur."

Most tornadoes spring from uncommon supercell thunderstorms. To form, tornadoes need moist, warm air near the ground. But they also need a strong, vertical wind shear, which is caused by wind changing direction and speed between the ground and higher elevations. Air begins to spin horizontally in a cylinder-like shape. As that is lifted and gains speed, it narrows and forms the menacing funnel we recognize as a tornado.

To understand how tornado patterns might change, meteorologists are looking at trends in their parent supercell storms. More heat in the atmosphere leads to more moisture and more instability. But wind shear, the other component of a tornado, may actually decrease over time with climate change. The jet stream could weaken as temperature differences between Arctic and mid-latitude air lessen, which affects wind shear. The end result of those changes mingling in the atmosphere isn't clear.

"We're in the experiment," says Walker Ashley, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University who wrote a recent paper on changing tornado patterns. "When we look at the fundamental ingredients that go into creating the severe storm, we are having changes. It's a question of how much and to what scale?"

It's likely supercell storms will hit the US more often in the late winter and early spring and become less frequent in the late summer and fall, experts say. And tornado territory is shifting too. "Tornado Alley," a swath of land encompassing parts of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska, has long been the twister hotbed. But drought conditions are leading to fewer storms, says Robert Trapp, professor and head of the Department of Atmospheric Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The US is experiencing devastation from a flurry of tornadoes. At least five people died Wednesday when a tornado tore through southeastern Missouri. It followed six in New Jersey and one in Delaware that killed a person and became the state's widest on record.

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This video highlights the changes happening to Great Salt Lake, some of the causes, and why we should be concerned.

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Well done new disaster documentary on Netflix.

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Climate change has the potential to make hurricanes stronger and rainier.

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Hurricane Ian capped 2 weeks of extreme storms around the globe: Here’s what’s known about how climate change fuels tropical cyclones

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Two hurricane and climate scientists explain what’s known – and still unknown – about global warming’s influence on intensity, rainfall and much more.

# data[].attributes.body
This CNN page has live updates as Hurricane Ian makes landfall in Florida.

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What we're covering

The latest: Hurricane Ian made landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida near Cayo Costa as a powerful Category 4 storm. It's one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.

The extremely dangerous conditions that this hurricane is unleashing - including catastrophic floods and life-threatening storm surge - will continue as the storm advances inland. Some areas could see the worst surge forecast on record.

Tracking Ian: You can track the storm's path here or sign up for email alerts from CNN meteorologists here.

In the storm's path? Bookmark CNN's lite site for fast connectivity. Sigue nuestra cobertura en vivo en español aquí.

CNN's live coverage of Hurricane Ian can be .

1:36 a.m. ET, September 29, 2022
CNN's continuing coverage of Hurricane Ian can be . Bookmark CNN's lite site for fast connectivity.

All flights through Jacksonville International Airport are canceled Thursday and the terminal is closed, the airport announced in a tweet.

JAX joins Orlando International Airport and Tampa International Airport in discontinuing flights due to Hurricane Ian.

The Tampa airport announced that no flights would depart from the airstrip Thursday and has not provided a reopening date. Orlando International said in a Wednesday update that its commercial operations are "expected to resume sometime Friday."

The city of Venice, Florida, posted a picture of the storm damage to its award-winning Venice Theatre, which has operated since the 1950s, according to the theatre website.

The performing arts facility hosts two stages, a 432-seat main venue and a 90-seat theatre.

The theatre canceled show performances, rehearsals and classes through Thursday due to the storm, according to its website.

Any individual who is thinking of looting a business or residence will be caught by police and sent to jail, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno warned Wednesday night.

"The one thing I do have is absolute, and that is a message that's very clear for any of those individuals that think they're going to go out there and loot or prey on people during this horrific event: you better think twice," Marceno said at a news conference.
"When I say zero tolerance, zero tolerance means we will hunt you down, track you down and you're going to jail if you're lucky," he said.

An incident of someone trying to loot a gas station was reported and police will not tolerate such behavior, the sheriff said.

Calls are also coming in for people to rescue them, but officers will not be able to go out until the winds die down to less than 45 mph, Marceno said.

"Obviously, there are a lot of challenges that we face. We don't even know exactly what we face just yet. We know we've been hit very hard," he said.

Reports are coming in of damaged buildings as well as vehicles floating to the ocean, but until deputies can get out to assess they are unable to give specific details, he said.

"We don't know exactly what's out there. There are residents that are desperate for help. Their homes are compromised, businesses are compromised. We have water issues," he said.

Officials are asking residents to stay off the roadways in the meantime, he said.

Once winds decrease to under 45 mph, Sarasota County's Tactical First-In teams will begin clearing emergency routes so that authorized staff can begin conducting damage assessments, the county said in a statement.

"We will also be evaluating our county infrastructure, like water and wastewater systems. Please be patient with this process as we do not know how long this will take," the statement said.

Residents are urged to stay off the roadways until local officials say they are clear.

Sarasota schools are also closed through Friday and schools will be assessed for any damage, the county said in a separate statement.

Emergency crews in Charlotte County are not able to respond to 911 calls due to dangerous storm conditions, the county emergency director told CNN.

"Unfortunately our dispatch continues to receive calls - our 911 center - and just like every other county, our emergency response agencies cannot safely operate," Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Patrick Fuller told CNN's Anderson's Cooper Wednesday night.
"We are receiving calls about water in homes, other situations, but until the hazards conditions end, they won't be able to answer those calls," he added.

Overnight damage and storm surge levels are still unclear, but the department hopes to resume emergency services Thursday morning, Fuller said.

"We do fear that there is some catastrophic damage out there that we are going to see come morning time and come when the winds abate," he said, adding, "I hope it did not reach that catastrophic worst-case scenario. I fear, we are preparing for that regardless."

The majority of the county is without power, Fuller said.

Hurricane Ian has weakened to a Category 1 hurricane as it moves across central Florida, the National Hurricane Center said late Wednesday. The storm's sustained winds are down to 90 mph.

Ian is now centered about 70 miles south of Orlando. East-central Florida, including Orlando, is also under a tornado watch through 1 a.m. ET Thursday.

Overnight, widespread tropical storm-force winds with gusts above hurricane force will continue to impact central Florida, the hurricane center said.

"Hurricane conditions are expected along the east-central Florida coast overnight through early Thursday," the hurricane center said.

The storm will also bring a continued threat of heavy rain into Thursday.

"Widespread, life-threatening catastrophic flooding, with major to record river flooding, will continue across portions of central Florida tonight," the hurricane center said, also warning of "considerable flooding in northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and eastern South Carolina" through the end of the week.

As Hurricane Ian continues to cross the Florida peninsula, some areas are reporting more than a foot of rainfall. Here are some preliminary rainfall totals from Ian, as reported by the National Weather Service in Tampa as of Wednesday night:

Lehigh Acres - 14.42"

Warm Mineral Springs - 11.05"

Ding Darling - 8.71"

Frostproof - 8.34"

North Port - 8.24"

The roof above an ICU at a hospital in Port Charlotte was torn off by the storm, Dr. Birgit Bodine, an internal medicine specialist at the facility, told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"Unfortunately, today we had about 160 patients in-house and our roof blew off, part of the roof above the ICU. So, of course, we had torrential rains coming in which then went down the stairwell, which then went onto other floors," Bodine said.

The staff worked together to move patients to a safe place but they can't evacuate yet because of the conditions outside, the doctor said. Some rooms that are built for two people are now housing three and four patients, she said.

"It's actually pretty terrible. I'm actually still in the hospital. We still have not been able to leave," she said.

They hope to be able to evacuate patients in the morning, she said.

While the air conditioner is not working, the hospital is running on backup generators and all other vital systems are working, Bodine said.

What we're covering

The latest: Hurricane Ian made landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida near Cayo Costa as a powerful Category 4 storm. It's one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.

The extremely dangerous conditions that this hurricane is unleashing - including catastrophic floods and life-threatening storm surge - will continue as the storm advances inland. Some areas could see the worst surge forecast on record.

Tracking Ian: You can track the storm's path here or sign up for email alerts from CNN meteorologists here.

In the storm's path? Bookmark CNN's lite site for fast connectivity. Sigue nuestra cobertura en vivo en español aquí.

CNN's live coverage of Hurricane Ian can be .

1:36 a.m. ET, September 29, 2022
CNN's continuing coverage of Hurricane Ian can be . Bookmark CNN's lite site for fast connectivity.

All flights through Jacksonville International Airport are canceled Thursday and the terminal is closed, the airport announced in a tweet.

JAX joins Orlando International Airport and Tampa International Airport in discontinuing flights due to Hurricane Ian.

The Tampa airport announced that no flights would depart from the airstrip Thursday and has not provided a reopening date. Orlando International said in a Wednesday update that its commercial operations are "expected to resume sometime Friday."

The city of Venice, Florida, posted a picture of the storm damage to its award-winning Venice Theatre, which has operated since the 1950s, according to the theatre website.

The performing arts facility hosts two stages, a 432-seat main venue and a 90-seat theatre.

The theatre canceled show performances, rehearsals and classes through Thursday due to the storm, according to its website.

Any individual who is thinking of looting a business or residence will be caught by police and sent to jail, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno warned Wednesday night.

"The one thing I do have is absolute, and that is a message that's very clear for any of those individuals that think they're going to go out there and loot or prey on people during this horrific event: you better think twice," Marceno said at a news conference.
"When I say zero tolerance, zero tolerance means we will hunt you down, track you down and you're going to jail if you're lucky," he said.

An incident of someone trying to loot a gas station was reported and police will not tolerate such behavior, the sheriff said.

Calls are also coming in for people to rescue them, but officers will not be able to go out until the winds die down to less than 45 mph, Marceno said.

"Obviously, there are a lot of challenges that we face. We don't even know exactly what we face just yet. We know we've been hit very hard," he said.

Reports are coming in of damaged buildings as well as vehicles floating to the ocean, but until deputies can get out to assess they are unable to give specific details, he said.

"We don't know exactly what's out there. There are residents that are desperate for help. Their homes are compromised, businesses are compromised. We have water issues," he said.

Officials are asking residents to stay off the roadways in the meantime, he said.

Once winds decrease to under 45 mph, Sarasota County's Tactical First-In teams will begin clearing emergency routes so that authorized staff can begin conducting damage assessments, the county said in a statement.

"We will also be evaluating our county infrastructure, like water and wastewater systems. Please be patient with this process as we do not know how long this will take," the statement said.

Residents are urged to stay off the roadways until local officials say they are clear.

Sarasota schools are also closed through Friday and schools will be assessed for any damage, the county said in a separate statement.

Emergency crews in Charlotte County are not able to respond to 911 calls due to dangerous storm conditions, the county emergency director told CNN.

"Unfortunately our dispatch continues to receive calls - our 911 center - and just like every other county, our emergency response agencies cannot safely operate," Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Patrick Fuller told CNN's Anderson's Cooper Wednesday night.
"We are receiving calls about water in homes, other situations, but until the hazards conditions end, they won't be able to answer those calls," he added.

Overnight damage and storm surge levels are still unclear, but the department hopes to resume emergency services Thursday morning, Fuller said.

"We do fear that there is some catastrophic damage out there that we are going to see come morning time and come when the winds abate," he said, adding, "I hope it did not reach that catastrophic worst-case scenario. I fear, we are preparing for that regardless."

The majority of the county is without power, Fuller said.

Hurricane Ian has weakened to a Category 1 hurricane as it moves across central Florida, the National Hurricane Center said late Wednesday. The storm's sustained winds are down to 90 mph.

Ian is now centered about 70 miles south of Orlando. East-central Florida, including Orlando, is also under a tornado watch through 1 a.m. ET Thursday.

Overnight, widespread tropical storm-force winds with gusts above hurricane force will continue to impact central Florida, the hurricane center said.

"Hurricane conditions are expected along the east-central Florida coast overnight through early Thursday," the hurricane center said.

The storm will also bring a continued threat of heavy rain into Thursday.

"Widespread, life-threatening catastrophic flooding, with major to record river flooding, will continue across portions of central Florida tonight," the hurricane center said, also warning of "considerable flooding in northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and eastern South Carolina" through the end of the week.

As Hurricane Ian continues to cross the Florida peninsula, some areas are reporting more than a foot of rainfall. Here are some preliminary rainfall totals from Ian, as reported by the National Weather Service in Tampa as of Wednesday night:

Lehigh Acres - 14.42"

Warm Mineral Springs - 11.05"

Ding Darling - 8.71"

Frostproof - 8.34"

North Port - 8.24"

The roof above an ICU at a hospital in Port Charlotte was torn off by the storm, Dr. Birgit Bodine, an internal medicine specialist at the facility, told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"Unfortunately, today we had about 160 patients in-house and our roof blew off, part of the roof above the ICU. So, of course, we had torrential rains coming in which then went down the stairwell, which then went onto other floors," Bodine said.

The staff worked together to move patients to a safe place but they can't evacuate yet because of the conditions outside, the doctor said. Some rooms that are built for two people are now housing three and four patients, she said.

"It's actually pretty terrible. I'm actually still in the hospital. We still have not been able to leave," she said.

They hope to be able to evacuate patients in the morning, she said.

While the air conditioner is not working, the hospital is running on backup generators and all other vital systems are working, Bodine said.

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By Adrienne Vogt, Elise Hammond, Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Maureen Chowdhury, Seán Federico-O'Murchú and Meg Wagner, CNN

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September 28, 2022 Hurricane Ian updates

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What we're covering The latest: Hurricane Ian made landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida near Cayo Costa as a powerful Category 4 storm. It's one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.

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Hurricane season is starting to get going after a slow start. What do we expect for the future of hurricanes?

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This strange quirk has uncovered hurricanes' deadly future

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Dr. Hahnenberger's take on what we can do about Great Salt Lake dust.

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Dust from the Great Salt Lake is causing early snowmelt. Here’s what we can do about it.

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As the Great Salt Lake dries up, dust can land on the state’s snowpack in the mountains, causing the snow to absorb more sunlight and melt faster.This, in turn, means more water becomes absorbed in the soil and doesn’t reach the lake.

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Great article showing the size of the eruption compared to numerous world locations.

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How big was the Tonga eruption?

The explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano may be one of the largest recorded in such detail. The blast was visible from space, with images of the massive ash plume going viral over the following days. But just how big was it?

The underwater volcano erupted with a deafening explosion on Jan. 15, triggering deadly tsunamis, covering islands in ash, and knocking out communications for Tonga's 105,000 people

The event was captured in astonishing detail by satellites including the NOAA GOES-West satellite, shown below.

Satellite images: NOAA. Jan. 21, 2022

Breaking down the stages of the eruption into intervals allows us to plot the expansion of the enormous plume of material that volcanologists call an "umbrella cloud".

Around the time of the initial eruption, a cloud measuring 38 km (24 miles) wide is thrust into the atmosphere. Its diameter already measures almost twice the length of Manhattan, New York. One hour later, it appears to measure around 650 km wide, including shock waves around its edge.

The scale of the umbrella cloud is comparable to the 1991 Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines and is one of largest of the satellite era, according to Michigan Tech volcanologist Simon Carn in a NASA blog post.

Different perspectives

The satellite images of the event show mostly ocean with scattered islands of Tonga and Fiji barely noticeable. Gauging the actual size of the eruption is difficult when in such a remote part of the South Pacific.

Here, we take the cloud of volcanic material and place it over well-known land masses and coastlines to get a true sense of just how big the eruption was.

At 650 km in diameter, the cloud would obscure most of Great Britain and the east coast of Ireland. It is almost the same size as mainland Spain.

When compared to parts of the U.S., it would cover a large part of Florida or a section of California from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

If we compare the scale of the eruption to Southeast Asia, it would cover Cambodia and part of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand, or obscure almost all of North and South Korea.

If we placed the scale of the eruption over Egypt's Mount Sinai region, it would cover Israel, spilling over into Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. It is also large enough to obscure the Horn of Africa.

Scientists are still determining the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of the eruption, a measurement from 1 to 8 that examines the explosivity of eruptions. Pinatubo, which is considered similar to the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption, scored a 6 on the index.

Pinatubo produced an eruption column of gas and ash that rose 40 km into the atmosphere, whereas "preliminary data on the Tongan eruption is that the gas and ash column was at least 20 km high," said Raymod Cas, a volcanologist at Monash University in Australia.

Satellite imagery

Base maps: NASA, Terra/MODIS

Eruption clouds: NOAA, GOES-West

Note

All maps and satellite imagery reprojected to orthographic projections for accuracy of measurements

Sources

NASA; NOAA; Google Earth

Edited by

John Stonestreet

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The explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano may be one of the largest recorded in such detail. The blast was visible from space, with images of the massive ash plume going viral over the following days. But just how big was it? The underwater volcano erupted with a deafening explosion on Jan.

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What's the story with the 2021 Hurricane Season?

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What's the story with the 2021 Hurricane Season?

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It was the first time that a season exhausted every single name on the list after following a previous season that did the same thing. In other words, both the 2020 and 2021 seasons ran out of names. The only other year that ran out of names was the 2005 season.

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We did it. We made it through another Atlantic hurricane season. The season ended on November 30th, and as expected, it was another active season. Before I type another word, it is imperative that I thank the men and women of the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service for another year on guard and keeping us safe. With that done, here is a summary of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season and why it was so unique.

All of the storms during the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season
NOAA / NWS

Let's start with a couple of unprecedented things. The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season did something that we have not seen before. It was the first time that a season exhausted every single name on the list after following a previous season that did the same thing. In other words, both the 2020 and 2021 seasons ran out of names. The only other year that ran out of names was the 2005 season. From Ana to Wanda, the 2021 season gave us an array of storms.

Another unprecedented aspect of the 2021 season is that unlike 2005 and 2021, this was the first year that a supplemental name list was to be used rather than the Greek Alphabet. In 2020, we had 30 named storms, which surpassed the record of 28 in 2005. Greek Alphabet names made it up to Iota. Though it was not needed in 2021, a new supplemental name list similar to what is done in other basins was ready to go. The 2020 season revealed numerous problems with using the Greek Alphabet including:

Confusion about Greek lettered-names. Zeta is not the last letter in the Greek alphabet though many people thought Zeta was the last storm.

Many of the Greek letters have similar sounds (Beta, Eta, Theta, and Zeta), which compromises messaging.

Too much media focus on the novelty of the Greek letters rather than associated risks with the storms.

Lack of clarity on how to retire Greek-named storms and track them in a historical sense.

Ok, let's focus on the key summary points of the season. According to the National Hurricane Center, the Atlantic hurricane season, "produced 21 named storms (winds of 39 mph or greater), including seven hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater) of which four were major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater)." These numbers are on par with an expected above-average hurricane season sniffed out by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, in their spring and early summer outlooks.

Hurricane Ida and two other storms during the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.
NOAA

According to NOAA, the active season is attributed to many factors including a "double-dip La Nina" and an abnormally wet African Monsoon. The NOAA press release goes on to say, "Scientists attribute the heightened hurricane activity in recent years to the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation that began in 1995 and favors more, stronger and longer-lasting storms." However, the nation's key climate agency is also quick to point out that anthropogenic climate change is on the table too. The press release referenced the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report released in August 2021. It highlighted that the report "projects with high confidence that the global proportion of tropical cyclones that reach very intense (category 4-5) levels, along with their peak winds and rainfall rates, are expected to increase with climate warming at the global scale." It is important to note how NOAA used the "and" not "or" approach when discussing the roles of natural variability and human-induced climate change.

The graphic below also points out other things that happened in 2021 that some scholars believe to be consistent with a changing climate system - 5 rapidly intensifying storms and the 7th consecutive year with a named storm before the official start of the hurricane season (June 1st). The landfalling impacts of Hurricane Ida along the Gulf Coast and the tremendous rainfall rates in the northeastern U.S. associated with its remnants were also concerning. And in some ways, unprecedented too given the way some people lost their lives in the New York area.

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The 2021 Hurricane Season Did Something We've Never Seen Before

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We did it. We made it through another Atlantic hurricane season. The season ended on November 30th, and as expected, it was another active season. Before I type another word, it is imperative that I thank the men and women of the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service for another year on guard and keeping us safe.

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Satellite captures rare weather phenomenon following volcanic eruption

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A rare phenomenon captured after the eruption of an island volcano wowed meteorologists and internet enthusiasts alike, and it wasn't the first time the volcano had produced amazing aerial video.

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State of Utah Investigating Earthquake Warning System

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State of Utah Investigating Earthquake Warning System

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State may investigate early warning system for earthquakes

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The state may investigate a system to detect earthquakes, giving "tens of seconds" before you would feel the ground move. You might call it ground-breaking technology - literally. Utah's Seismic Safety Commission voted Thursday to recommend seeking $150,000 in state funds for a "feasibility study" on the system.

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How do we communicate to help people heed warnings?

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How do we communicate to help people heed warnings?

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As flood alerts lit up phones, did 'warning fatigue' set in?

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NEW YORK (AP) - Cellphones across New York and New Jersey pulsed with urgent warnings of catastrophic flooding as the fury of Hurricane Ida's remnants, carrying torrential rains, approached upper New Jersey and New York City on Wednesday.

The first alerts of severe weather blared across millions of phones at 8:41 p.m. that night when the National Weather Service warned of dangerous flash flooding from the looming storm. Officials would issue three more alerts, late into the night, urging people to immediately head for higher ground and to stay out of rising floodwaters.

A barrage of other alerts from a litany of apps lit up phone screens throughout the night - prompting some to wonder if people were just too inundated with information to take the threat seriously.

Experts call it "warning fatigue," and no one can be sure what role it might have played in a tragedy that killed scores of people across the Northeast, including more than two dozen in New Jersey and at least 11 in New York City - many drowning in their basement apartments or in cars trapped in submerged roadways.

The weather service acknowledged that in the past, alerts were being pushed out too often. There's been lots of handwringing over how to get more people to heed warnings.

"It's either they don't believe the information that they're hearing - they can't verify it - or there's some other reason that is completely out of anybody's control," said Ross Dickman, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service in New York.

"It's up to that individual," he said, "but I think we need to do more work in understanding why people make the decisions that they do when they receive information and help get them to understand the impacts."

In some cases, people tried to flee too late and became trapped by floodwaters gushing so quickly, and with such force, that they could not open their doors to escape. Others might not have fathomed that flash flooding could also transform roadways into raging, impassable streams.

Last year, the federal weather service revamped its criteria for issuing alerts, mindful that it might have been overusing the Wireless Emergency Alert system, which first went into operation in 2012 and now broadcasts urgent warnings to more than 300 million cellular devices.

The weather service established a three-tier system in which alerts would only be sent out for the most severe flooding. Wednesday was the first time it issued an alert for the most catastrophic level for flash floods in New York and New Jersey, Dickman said.

The ubiquity of cellphones makes the devices a key tool for urgently informing the public of dangerous weather, including hurricanes and tornadoes. It's also used for Amber Alerts to enlist the public to help locate missing children. Authorities have also used cellphone alerts to help authorities nab dangerous people, including a terrorist who set off a bomb four years ago in New York City's Chelsea district.

New York City now has a million people subscribed to its wireless alert system that informs of a host of developments, including flooding but also disruptions in subway and other city services.

"People drowning in their basement apartments, in cars and so on is not something we typically would ever see in New York, "said Irwin Redlener, a founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University who says officials have to have plans to accompany warnings.

"So if we have warnings that we're going to see very severe, rapid rainfall with flash flooding," he said, "what is it that we actually want people to do? Other than advise people it's going to happen, do we want them to go to shelters? If so, do we have shelters for them to go?"

The city's alert system, Notify NYC, launched as Hurricane Sandy approached nine years ago. The storm killed dozens in New York City and caused massive flooding.

"We do put a lot of thought into when we push that button - and we know the weather service does, as well - because we don't want to over warn and we want people to take our warning seriously when we when we're issuing messaging," said Benjamin Krakauer, an adviser to the Office of Emergency Management commissioner.

James Mielke, a video game designer who lives in downtown Manhattan, found the alerts more aggravating than useful.

"They sound like somebody just blew a soccer horn in your ear," Mielke said.

"It actually got to the point where I Googled it and figured out how to turn off those alerts so I could just, you know, not have a heart attack every time the big siren went off on my phone," Mielke said, adding that he thought he had turned off all the emergency alerts on his phone after Tropical Storm Henri blew through two weeks ago.

"This time they weren't as bad, but a few still got through," he said.

Henri brought lots of rain and fury but very little loss of life. That might have prompted complacency, said Jeannette Sutton, a disaster and risk expert specializing in communication at the University of Albany.

"So they got a message last week that said it's really really bad and then nothing happened. And then this week they get a message that's really really bad - do they take it seriously?" Sutton asked.

That's a question on the minds of weather and public safety officials, she said, adding that the seemingly simple act of pushing out alerts is actually complicated.

"We have been thinking about alerts and warnings since the 1950s, and how to increase their effectiveness, and thinking about how to help people make really good decisions when they're faced with life-threatening situations," she said.

___

Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.

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As flood alerts lit up phones, did 'warning fatigue' set in?

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NEW YORK (AP) - Cellphones across New York and New Jersey pulsed with urgent warnings of catastrophic flooding as the fury of Hurricane Ida's remnants, carrying torrential rains, approached upper New Jersey and New York City on Wednesday. The first alerts of severe weather blared across millions of phones at 8:41 p.m.

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We still have weather communication work to do

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We still have weather communication work to do

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The Forecasts Were Accurate - 3 Big Messaging Challenges With The New York City Flood

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From a forecast perspective, the flooding event was spot on. The N ational Weather Service was sounding the alarm days in advance that the remnants of Hurricane Ida was going to be a huge problem for parts of the Northeast, including New York City. The National Weather Service - New York City put out an urgent message on Monday August 30th stating that remnants of Ida would produce heavy rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday. The message called for 3 to 5 inches of rain "with locally higher amounts possible." That same alert also said, "This rainfall combined with antecedent conditions may lead to flash flooding." Earlier this week, I even spent the first part of my Satellite Meteorology class at the University of Georgia dissecting the flood potential for the Northeast while Ida was still in the Southeast. I don't claim to have all of the answers in this discussion, but there are three big messaging challenges that need to be considered.

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 02: Cars sit abandoned on the flooded Major Deegan Expressway following a ... [+]
Getty Images

This flooding event was caused by the interaction of Ida's deep tropical moisture and a stationary front draped across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Urban impervious surfaces are also an unsung aspect of many catastrophic flooding disasters. Flash flooding is not just a function of what falls from the sky. The vast and ever-expanding parking lots, pavements, and roadways accelerate the runoff cycle of the water cycle we all learned about in 4th grade. As I told my students this week, a firehouse of moisture is in place and there is a lifting mechanism - a recipe for disaster. And in this case, the urban landscape of New York City did not help. Ok, so the hydrometeorological set-up was pretty obvious. The National Weather Service even issued rare Flash Flood Emergencies during the event. Do people understand what a NWS Flash Flood Emergency means?

My colleague Dave Jones, founder and president of StormCenter Communications, Inc, raised this very question on social media. This event represented the first time that the National Weather Service - New York City had issued this type of warning. They even tweeted, "To be clear... this particular warning for NYC is the second time we've ever issued a Flash Flood Emergency (It's the first one for NYC)." The first Flash Flood Emergency for the area had been issued an hour prior to the Tweet for parts of northeastern New Jersey. According to the National Weather Service, a flash flood emergency is issued for, "exceedingly rare situations when a severe threat to human life and catastrophic damage from a flash flood is happening or will happen soon." Earlier this summer, Jonathan Erdman wrote a piece at Weather.com entitled, " Why You Should Never Ignore a Flash Flood Emergency Issued by the National Weather Service." Erdman also lays out the triggering criteria for such a warning. To Dave Jones point, the National Weather Service only started using the terminology in 2014. Candidly, the public already responds to flood warnings differently than hurricanes, blizzards, or tornadoes.

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 02: Commuters walk into a flooded 3rd Avenue / 149th st subway station and ... [+]
Getty Images

Which leads me to the second challenge. The prospect of flooding, in my professional opinion, doesn't garner the same response level from the public, media, or stakeholders as a named hurricane, tornado or Nor'easter. If you think back to Hurricane Sandy, there was significant debate about whether to keep warning on it as a hurricane even as the storm transitioned to a "regular" extratropical cyclone. The weather-risks were going to be the same, but the discussion illustrated that some officials understood that people pay attention to named hurricanes.

My colleague Brian McNoldy at the University of Miami made an excellent point. He tweeted, "If 32 inches of snow is forecast for NYC (for example), they'd probably close things in advance and stage resources for the aftermath. But when there's a forecast for extreme rainfall, ignore it until it happens?" His point echoes some things that I argued in a recent Forbes piece about messaging extreme rainfall and flooding. McNodly went on to ask why it matters if the water is frozen and ended by refuting the narrative that this was a "surprise." He wrote, " Maybe the EXACT placement of the heaviest amount was not known, but you don't often see that pink "HIGH" risk cover so much area a whole day in advance."

NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 09: Pedestrians walk in the snow and wind in Manhattan on February 9, 2017 ... [+]
Getty Images

Another challenge is the "rise of the Weather Apps." Don't get me wrong, Apps can be useful for general weather forecasts and guidance, but I personally do not rely on them for a rapidly, evolving extreme weather event of any kind. Yet, the public is increasingly conditioned to look at the little sun or rain icons to make decisions about the weather. My colleague Dr. Jonathan Gourley, a hydrometeorologist at the National Severe Storms Lab, tweeted, "Could it be over-reliance on non-NOAA sources of weather information such as apps that provide hyperlocal (yet often inaccurate) information down to the minute?" Virtually every meteorologist by now has heard, "But my app said..." Daniel Swain is a trusted source on weather and climate. The expert, who is affiliated with the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), echoed Gurley's concern. He tweeted, "I think this is a bigger part of the problem than a lot of folks realize, and it is incredibly aggravating since the "last mile" forecast communication issue is critically important."

I will give my University of Georgia colleague Professor Janet Frick the last word. She is a psychology professor who also pays close attention to extreme weather events. Frick also understands behavior and aspects of human decision-making. Frick tweeted, "I think the phone weather App is a big part of it. And not enough people enabling emergency alerts through more reliable weather sources." She closed by noting that the fix may need to be at local levels and involve realigning systems.

... Read More

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The Forecasts Were Accurate - 3 Big Messaging Challenges With The New York City Flood

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From a forecast perspective, the flooding event was spot on. The N ational Weather Service was sounding the alarm days in advance that the remnants of Hurricane Ida was going to be a huge problem for parts of the Northeast, including New York City.

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The Caldor fire is moving toward Lake Tahoe causing evacuations and destruction.

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave.

The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.

"It's more out of control than I thought," evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Additional strike teams arrived just after dark and many of the new firefighters were immediately dispatched to protect homes in the Christmas Valley area about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from South Lake Tahoe, said fire spokesman Dominic Polito.

"We're flooding the area with resources," he said. "Wherever there are structures, there are firefighters on the ground."

Ken Breslin was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from his home in the city of 22,000, with only a quarter-tank of gas in his Ford Escape. His son begged him to leave Sunday night, but he shrugged him off, certain that if an evacuation order came, it would be later in the week.

"Before, it was, 'No worries ... it's not going to crest. It's not gonna come down the hill. There's 3,500 firefighters, all those bulldozers and all the air support,'" he said. "Until this morning, I didn't think there was a chance it could come into this area. Now, it's very real."

As flames churned toward South Lake Tahoe, residents just over the state line in Douglas County, Nevada were under evacuation warnings.

Monday's fresh evacuation orders, unheard of in the city, came a day after communities several miles south of the lake were abruptly ordered to leave as the fire raged nearby. South Lake Tahoe's main medical facility, Barton Memorial Hospital, proactively evacuated dozens of patients, and the El Dorado Sheriff's Office transferred inmates to a neighboring jail.

"There is fire activity happening in California that we have never seen before. The critical thing for the public to know is evacuate early," said Chief Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. "For the rest of you in California: Every acre can and will burn someday in this state."

The threat of fire is so widespread that the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until Sept. 17.

"We do not take this decision lightly but this is the best choice for public safety," Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien said.

Overnight, the already massive Caldor Fire grew 7 miles (11 kilometers) in direction in one area northeast of Highway 50 and more than 8 miles (13 miles) in another, Cal Fire officials said.

More than 15,000 firefighters were battling dozens of California blazes, including crews from Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of California's Office of Emergency Services. About 250 active-duty soldiers were being trained in Washington state to help with the arduous work of clearing forest debris by hand.

Crews from Louisiana, however, had to return to that state because of Hurricane Ida, "another major catastrophic event taking place in the country and is a pull on resources throughout the United States," he said.

Porter said that only twice in California history have blazes burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, both this month, with the Caldor and Dixie fires. The Dixie, the second-largest wildfire in state history at 1,205 square miles (3,121 square kilometers) about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of the Lake Tahoe-area blaze, prompted new evacuation orders and warnings Monday.

The Lake Tahoe area in the Sierra Nevada mountains is usually a year-round recreational paradise offering beaches, water sports, hiking, ski resorts and golfing. South Lake Tahoe, at the lake's southern end, bustles with outdoor activities, and with casinos available in bordering Stateline, Nevada.

On weekends, the city's population can easily triple and on holiday weekends, like the upcoming Labor Day weekend, up to 100,000 people will visit for fun and sun. But South Lake Tahoe City Mayor Tamara Wallace said they've been telling people for days to stay away because of poor air from wildfires.

She said she thought the Caldor Fire would stay farther away. Fires in the past did not spread so rapidly near the tourist city.

"It's just yet another example of how wildfires have changed over the years," she said as she gathered treasures passed from her deceased parent and her husband's while they prepared to leave.

The last two wildfires that ripped through populated areas near Tahoe were the Angora Fire that destroyed more than 200 homes in 2007 and the Gondola Fire in 2002 that ignited near a chairlift at Heavenly Mountain Resort.

Since then, the dead trees have accumulated and the region has coped with serious droughts, Wallace said. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive, scientists say.

Wallace said traffic was crawling Monday, but praised the evacuation as orderly because residents heeded officials' orders. Authorities have also been more aggressive in recent years, issuing warnings and orders sooner so people have more time to flee.

Not everyone agreed as fierce winds kicked up dust and debris and drivers sat in gridlock. The California Highway Patrol added "quite a bit of additional personnel" to help guide a chaotic evacuation from South Lake Tahoe, as huge traffic jams slowed the evacuation of vehicles, CHP Assistant Commissioner Ryan Okashima said. Congestion had eased by Monday afternoon.

South Lake Tahoe resident John Larson said the evacuation probably went as smoothly as possible, considering how swiftly flames moved into the area.

"The fuel went so fast and it climbed the ridge so quick," Larson said of the fire after settling into an evacuation center at a park in Carson City, Nevada. Red Cross volunteers set up the facility with 50 cots after another evacuation center in nearby Gardnerville reached capacity.

The fire destroyed multiple homes Sunday along Highway 50, one of the main routes to the lake's south end. It also roared through the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, demolishing some buildings but leaving the main buildings at the base intact. Crews used snow-making machines to douse the ground.

Cabins burned near the unincorporated community of Echo Lake, where Tom Fashinell has operated Echo Chalet with his wife since 1984. The summer-only resort offers cabin rentals, but was ordered to close early for the season by the U.S. Forest Service due to ongoing wildfires.

Fashinell said he was glued to the local TV news. "We're watching to see whether the building survives," he said.

The Caldor Fire has scorched nearly 292 square miles (756 square kilometers) since breaking out Aug. 14. After the weekend's fierce burning, containment dropped from 19% to 15%. More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and at least 20,000 more were threatened. Gov. Steve Sisolak on Monday declared a state of emergency in Nevada, citing "the anticipation" that the wildfire in the Lake Tahoe area in California would burn across the state line into the Silver State.

The National Weather Service warned of dangerous fire conditions and winds through Wednesday.

Diane Kinney, who has lived in the city since the 1970s, said this is the first time her neighborhood has been ordered to evacuate. She and her husband were packing up keepsakes, jewelry and insurance papers shortly after noon. They had to leave their 1964 Chevelle, but she hopes it stays safe.

"Everybody wants to live in Lake Tahoe. There are definitely advantages of being in the mountains, being with these beautiful pine trees," she said. "But we definitely have to get out now."

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California Fire Approaches Lake Tahoe After Mass Evacuation

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave.

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Photos: Hurricane Ida Hit Louisiana's Coastline Hard, Leaving Serious Damage : NPR

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Hurricane Ida's fierce Category 4 winds and torrential rain left the Louisiana coastline badly beaten.

Images of the affected areasdays after the storm show crushed homes, debris scattered across streets and flooded neighborhoods.

As cleanup is underway, officials are warning residents who evacuated not to return to their homes just yet because of the severe damage.

When the storm made landfall, its winds were as high as 150 mph and tore roofs from homes and ripped trees from their roots. It was eventually downgraded to a tropical depression by Monday as it moved across Mississippi.

Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm on record in U.S. history. Katrina, which caused massive damage to New Orleans, was a Category 3 storm when it hit. Though a weaker storm (winds during Hurricane Katrina reached 125 mph), it was larger in size than Hurricane Ida, which experts say is why Katrina caused so much damage.

The winds knocked out power in New Orleans, including, temporarily, the city's 911 emergency response system, and in surrounding areas. More than 1 million residents were still without power by early Tuesday. It's unclear when power will be restored to most residents, but officials believe it may last more than a month for some people.

Hurricane Ida has been blamed for the death of at least two people as of Monday, according to Louisiana's Department of Health. One man drowned after he attempted to drive his car through floodwaters in New Orleans. The other victim was found Sunday night after being hit by a fallen tree.

Gov. John Bel Edwardssaid he expects the number of fatalities to increase as recovery efforts continue.

President Biden approved Louisiana's request for a major disaster declaration on Sunday, allowing federal funding to reach residents and business owners.

Emergency and first responder teams, including the U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard, continued operations on Tuesday. Search and rescue teams from more than 15 states are conducting operations in hard-hit areas, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA also reminded residents to be cautious of news shared on social media being attributed to the agency.

Its website warned residents about false rumors being shared on online alleging the agency is paying for hotels for people who evacuated because of the storm. The agency said people must first apply for FEMA assistance online before receiving aid.

Officials continue to remind Louisianans thatbouncing back from Ida's destruction is a marathon - not a sprint.

In New Orleans, the city put out a call for hot and nonperishable meals, generators and charging stations and offered options for those interested in donating to assist residents.

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These Images Show Just How Bad Hurricane Ida Hit Louisiana's Coastline

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Hurricane Ida's fierce Category 4 winds and torrential rain left the Louisiana coastline badly beaten. Images of the affected areasdays after the storm show crushed homes, debris scattered across streets and flooded neighborhoods. As cleanup is underway, officials are warning residents who evacuated not to return to their homes just yet because of the severe damage.

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A very serious and life threatening situation is emerging for the Gulf Coast. Soon to be Hurricane Ida is forecast to make landfall near New Orleans, LA as a major hurricane... on the 16 anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

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As I told my class at the University of Georgia earlier this week, the "I" storms have been particularly bad in recent decades. Several "I" storm names including Irma (2017), Ingrid (2013), Irene (2011), Ike (2008), Ivan (2004), and Isabel (2003) have been retired. It is not surprising given that the "I" storm would likely also fall within the peak of the Atlantic Hurricane season. Tropical Storm Ida, as of Friday morning, was becoming better organized near the Grand Cayman Islands and is expected to become a hurricane as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. Here are my three big concerns.

The first concern is that the storm is going to get stronger. The latest guidance from the National Hurricane Center forecasts a Major Hurricane (at least Category 3) before landfall in Louisiana. However, it is important to remember that hurricanes are not points or lines on a map. Impacts will be felt throughout (and beyond) the cone of uncertainty.

There are several reasons why Ida is expected to strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Kim is an atmospheric scientist based in Mississippi. She tweeted on Thursday, "Um. The Gulf is warm. Really warm." She went on to say that 30 degrees C temperatures currently extend below 40 meters. Her Tweet exclamation was, "I don't have words for that." The map below shows the warm sea surface temperatures and signs of the loop current.

NOAA's National Ocean Service website notes that, "The Loop Current is an area of warm water that travels up from the Caribbean, past the Yucatan Peninsula, and into the Gulf of Mexico." In addition to some pretty high-octane hurricane fuel (warm water), the National Hurricane Center discussion on Friday morning hinted at favorable wind shear conditions soon. Forecasters wrote, "Some decrease in the shear is expected during the next 24 h, and that, combined with a moist environment and warm sea surface temperatures along the forecast track, should allow steady to rapid strengthening until the cyclone makes landfall along the northern Gulf coast."

My second concern is the collection of impacts that always come with a strong hurricane - storm surge, flooding, winds, tornadoes, falling trees, and power outages. The state of Louisiana was in the hurricane cone of uncertainty eight times in 2020, and it is likely that people are hurricane fatigued. I suspect some of the infrastructure is still recovering too. If Ida does become a major hurricane, it brings the prospect of Category 3 level winds, over 2 feet of rainfall, tornadoes, and nearly a foot of storm surge.

My last concern is that the expected landfall area is a COVID-19 disaster right now. As the virus continues to explode (again) around the country, the Deep South is a hot mess right now. While I will not speculate on why that is (I have my hunches), the South stands out like a "flashing red light" on maps like the one below. I urge people to consider these facts and prepare accordingly as evacuation and contingency plans are made for Ida.

We are only three days from the anticipated landfall. This situation is rapidly evolving so the time to prepare is now. Stay safe and continue to follow the National Hurricane Center for updates.

... Read More

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3 Big Concerns As A Potential Major Hurricane Approaches The U.S.

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As I told my class at the University of Georgia earlier this week, the "I" storms have been particularly bad in recent decades. Several "I" storm names including Irma (2017), Ingrid (2013), Irene (2011), Ike (2008), Ivan (2004), and Isabel (2003) have been retired.

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Living in Geologic Time: Scientists dismantle the myths of Yellowstone.

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Haiti Was Hit By Another Major Earthquake. Why Does This Keep Happening? : NPR

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It happened again.

Over the weekend, Haiti was hit by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that crumbled homes and buildings and killed more than 1,200 people.

Rescuers are still working to find survivors amid the rubble. The death count is expected to rise.

More than a decade ago, a similar quake left an estimated 220,000 dead, more than 1 million people displaced and roughly 300,000 injured.

These two events are part of Haiti's history of major destructive earthquakes, records of which go back centuries.

Researchers say the country's unique geology make it seismically active - and prone to devastating earthquakes. A combination of factors, however, leaves the country especially susceptible to damage from these events.

Why is Haiti so susceptible to earthquakes?

Haiti sits on a fault line between huge tectonic plates, big pieces of the Earth's crust that slide past each other over time. These two plates are the North American plate and the Caribbean plate.

There are two major faults along Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The southern one is known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system.

It's this fault that the U.S. Geological Survey says caused Saturday's quake and the same one that caused the January 2010 earthquake.

The USGS believes the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone can be blamed on other major earthquakes from 1751 to 1860. The agency said none of these quakes has been officially confirmed in the field as associated with this fault, however.

A history of catastrophic earthquakes in Haiti

One of the earliest major recorded earthquakes in Haiti occurred in the 1700s, according to the USGS. Others followed, with researchers cataloging events that left hundreds dead and destroyed homes and businesses.

Nov. 21, 1751: A major earthquake destroys Port-au-Prince and causes major destruction in nearby towns. Witness accounts of the event from the National Centers for Environmental Information recount the devastation. "Houses and factories were thrown down at St.-Marc, Lkogbne, and Plaine du Cul-de-sac. Crevices formed and abundant springs of nauseous water broke forth," researchers who witnessed the event described it. "Great landslips occurred and the beds of the rivers changed direction."

June 3, 1770: An earthquake hits Port-au-Prince again.Researchers described the event as "one of the strongest shocks recorded on the Island of Haiti." An estimated 200 people in the nation's capital died as a result of the earthquake.

April 8, 1860: This earthquake occurred farther west of the 2010 earthquake, near Anse-à-Veau, and was accompanied by a tsunami. "At Anse-a-Veau, crevasses sliced across the streets and 124 houses were demolished; at Miragoane, the bridge sank; at Petit Goave, all the houses were abandoned ... ," researchers said of the event. "Ships in the harbor of Les Cayes felt the shock, as did ships at sea."

Before the 2010 earthquake, there hadn't been another major quake along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone for about 200 years.

Building to withstand hurricanes, not earthquakes

The USGS says it recorded 22 magnitude 7 or larger earthquakes in 2010, the same year as the devastating earthquake in Haiti. However, despite an active year, almost all the fatalities were produced by the major temblor that hit on Jan. 12 of that year, the USGS said.

It struck around the densely populated capital of Port-au-Prince, contributing to the high death toll.

But the way structures are built in Haiti is also believed to have contributed to the loss of life and property.

Due to the 1751 and 1770 earthquakes and minor quakes that occurred between them, local authorities started requiring building with wood and forbade building with masonry, according to the USGS.

In the years since, Haitians have focused on building their homes to withstand the bigger threat in the neighborhood - hurricanes.

Structures made of concrete and cinder block hold up well during storms but are more vulnerable during earthquakes, according to The Associated Press.

More earthquakes may be ahead

In 2012, researchers wrote that the 2010 earthquake "may mark the beginning of a new cycle of large earthquakes on the Enriquillo fault system after 240 years of seismic quiescence."

"The entire Enriquillo fault system appears to be seismically active; Haiti and the Dominican Republic should prepare for future devastating earthquakes," researchers said.

It's still too early to determine the long-term impact of Saturday's earthquake. What is certain is the unique pressures facing Haitians in the days ahead.

The country still has not fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

Haiti was already suffering from political instability following last month's assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Moïse's death has since left a power vacuum that's been filled by interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry, a 71-year-old neurosurgeon and public official.

The nation is also bracing for another threat as Tropical Depression Grace threatens to bring heavy rains on Monday.

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Why Earthquakes In Haiti Are So Catastrophic

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It happened again. Over the weekend, Haiti was hit by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that crumbled homes and buildings and killed more than 1,200 people. Rescuers are still working to find survivors amid the rubble. The death count is expected to rise.

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Scientists already know the oceans are rapidly warming and sea levels are rising. But that's not all. Now, thanks to satellite observations, we have three decades' worth of data on how the speeds of ocean surface currents are also changing over time.

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Scientists already know the oceans are rapidly warming and sea levels are rising. But that's not all. Now, thanks to satellite observations, we have three decades' worth of data on how the speeds of ocean surface currents are also changing over time.

In research published on 23 April in the journal Nature Climate Change we detail our findings on how ocean currents have become more energetic over large parts of the ocean.

What are ocean eddies?

If you looked down at the ocean from a bird's eye view, you would see some mesmerizing circular motions in the water. These features are called "ocean eddies". They give the ocean an artistic flavor, reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

Eddies span somewhere between 10 and 100 kilometers (6 and 60 miles) across. They're found all over the oceans. Certain regions, however, are particularly rich in eddies.

These include the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Kuroshio Current in the North Pacific, the Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica and, closer to Australia, the East Australian Current - made famous by the film Finding Nemo.

Ocean eddies are an integral part of ocean circulation. They move warm and cold waters from one location to others. They mix heat, carbon, salt and nutrients, and affect ocean conditions both regionally and globally.

Satellites constantly watch the ocean

One way we monitor movement on the ocean's surface is by using specialized, powerful satellites orbiting Earth. Although these satellites are thousands of kilometers above us, they can detect even just a few centimeters of change in the sea's surface elevation.

Then, through data analysis, we can take the change in sea surface elevation and translate it into ocean flow speeds. This can then tell us how "energetic" an ocean eddy is.

By carefully analyzing satellite observations, our team discovered clear changes in the distribution and strength of ocean eddies. And these changes have never been detected before.

How eddies have been changing

Using available data from 1993 until 2020, we analyzed changes in the strength of eddies across the globe. We found regions already rich in eddies are getting even richer! And on average, eddies are becoming up to 5 percent more energetic each decade.

One of the regions we found with the biggest change is the Southern Ocean, where a massive 5 percent increase per decade was detected in eddy activity. The Southern Ocean is known to be a hotspot for ocean heat uptake and carbon storage.

Until recently, scientists could only observe changes in ocean eddies by using either sparse ocean measurements or the limited satellite record. The satellite record has only just become long enough for experts to draw robust conclusions about the likely longer-term trends of eddy behavior.

Why is this important?

Ocean eddies play a profound role in the climate by regulating the mixing and transport of heat, carbon, biota and nutrients in the oceans. Thus, our research may have far-reaching implications for future climate.

Scientists have known for decades that eddies in the Southern Ocean affect the overturning circulation of the ocean. As such, changes of the magnitude observed for eddies could impact the rate at which the ocean draws down heat and carbon.

But eddies are often not taken into account in climate predictions of a warming world. Since they are relatively small, they remain practically "invisible" in current models used to project future climate.

The impact of eddies is therefore either not resolved in climate projections, or is severely underestimated. This is particularly concerning in light of our discovery eddies are becoming more energetic.

Our research emphasizes how crucial it is to incorporate ocean eddies into future climate projections. If we don't, we could be overlooking a critical detail.
Navid Constantinou, Research Fellow, Australian National University; Adele Morrison, Research Fellow, Australian National University; Andrew Kiss, Research fellow, Australian National University; Andy Hogg, Professor, Australian National University; Josué Martínez Moreno, P.h.D. candidate, Australian National University, and Matthew England, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow; Deputy Director of the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC); Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science, UNSW. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Navid Constantinou et al., The Conversation

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The Speed of Ocean Currents Is Changing in a Major Way, Scientists Warn

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Scientists already know the oceans are rapidly warming and sea levels are rising. But that's not all. Now, thanks to satellite observations, we have three decades' worth of data on how the speeds of ocean surface currents are also changing over time.

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Witness the marvel of thunderstorms, lightning, and dust storms in this amazing time-lapse compilation!

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As U. s. Climate warms, we are seeing shifts in extremes.

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Extreme Rainfall Statistics May Shift as U.S. Climate Warms - Eos

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Precipitation data and high-resolution modeling suggest that extreme rainfall events under a changing climate will be shorter, more intense, and more widely spread out.

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Utah finishes winter with slim snowpack, depleted reservoirs as drought fears persist

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Coming out of another drier-than-usual winter, it is not looking good for Utah's water supply - despite the latest spring storm - with snowpacks peaking last month at 79% of normal, according to a report released this week.

The state's snowpacks peaked March 27, about 10 days earlier than usual, with an average of 12.6 inches of snow-water equivalent, and have been shrinking fast in the face of record-high temperatures in recent days. That's a far cry from two years ago, when Utah snowpacks were twice as thick as normal in some places.

"Utah's poor snowpack conditions, extremely dry soils, and low antecedent streamflow are expected to impact runoff conditions," states the monthly report compiled by the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS. "Streamflow forecasts for April to July snowmelt runoff volume are generally between 25% and 70% of average."

The report is based on data gathered at 135 sites, known as Snotel stations, around the state. With soils far drier than normal, some of this spring's runoff is expected to be absorbed into the ground before reaching reservoirs. Soils are currently, on average, 40% saturated, or about two-thirds of normal.

To make matters worse, Utah reservoirs are already depleted, currently at 69% capacity, or 14 percentage points lower than last year. Gunnison Reservoir in the San Pitch Basin is pretty much empty, while many others in the hardest-hit southwestern reaches of the state are less than half full, or more than half empty, depending on how you prefer to look at it.

Either way, Utah is in the grips of a prolonged dry spell that is expected to result in reduced water deliveries to some growers and calls on residents across the state to reduce their water use.

Gov. Spencer Cox signed an emergency order last month declaring a state of emergency due to drought conditions. He urged Utahns to conserve water by, among other steps, fixing leaks, cutting shower times, and waiting to run full loads in dishwashers and washing machines.

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall put the city under a Stage 1 conservation advisory, putting the public on notice about possible future water shortages.

"As a whole," the NRSC reported, "we expect Utah to experience well-below average water supply conditions for the 2021 water year."

Highlighted in the report is a concerning trend for Utah water users and skiers: The spring melt starts earlier than in the past. That indicates snowpacks are not holding their moisture as long, resulting in less water reaching reservoirs. Two Snotel sites in southwestern Utah peaked at less than 3 inches of water and were completely melted by April, along with many other sites.

According to new research from the University of Colorado, early runoff - more evidence of the planet's warming climate - is becoming a growing problem across the West. The study examined data from 1,065 Snotel sites going back 40 years.

Melt occurring before April 1 had increased at more than half these site by an average of 3.5% per decade, according to the paper posted Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. In fact, snow appears to be melting throughout the winter in many places, meaning there will be less water available for use later in the summer.

"Historically, water managers use the date of April 1 to distinguish winter and spring, but this distinction is becoming increasingly blurred as melt increases during the winter," said co-author Noah Molotch, an associate professor of geography and fellow at Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

Utah's snowpack scenario varies across the state with the eastern basins recording snowpacks slightly above average. The state's thickest snowpack was recorded at Snowbird, outside Salt Lake City, with nearly 30 inches of water, and Ben Lomand Peak and Tony Grove each clocked in at 26.5 inches, which is still below average for the northern Wasatch Mountains.

Precipitation recorded at the Snotel sites was 71% of normal for the water year that began Oct. 1

Over the 41 years NRCS has been tracking Utah's snowpacks, this year ranks 34th for the water values recorded at the Snotel sites.

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Yes, we just had a storm, but here's why Utah drought fears persist

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At winter's end, Utah's snowpack stood at 79% of normal. While it was not the driest winter on record, the low snow portends tight water supplies since reservoirs are already depleted and soils are nowhere near their typical levels of saturation.

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The Difficulty of Defining the Anthropocene - Eos

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The Difficulty of Defining the Anthropocene - Eos

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Humans may be in a new geologic epoch-the Anthropocene-but different groups define its start at varied times. When should the Anthropocene have begun?

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Great description of the meteorology of this big snowstorm.

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This weekend parts of the Rockies including Colorado and Wyoming are likely to experience a potentially historic snowstorm. In at least one National Weather Service map, I saw a high-end forecast for 50 inches of snowfall in parts of the region. While that is probably an outlier, the more likely range of solutions is still impressive and life-altering. The National Weather Service issued the following statement for the event, " Winter Storm Warning issued for Mountains, Front Range Foothills and the Urban Corridor from midnight Friday into early Monday. Travel will be difficult to impossible through the weekend. " As I read through their forecast discussion, several key meteorology terms were used. Here is a meteorological breakdown of what it all means.

Snow totals are anticipated in the 2 to 3 feet range (graphic above) in the mountains and major cities of the Front Range region. For historical perspective, this storm has a significant chance to surpass the March 23, 2016 heavy snow event according to the National Weather Service. By Saturday and Sunday, peak wind gusts (graphic below) could exceed 30 mph so people in the region should be prepared for associated risks such as power outages. Clearly, there are some significant things expected in the atmosphere as we approach Spring.

The National Weather Service (NWS)-Boulder highlights several things that I want to explain. One key element of the storm is lee cyclogenesis. The Friday morning NWS discussion said, "....lee cyclogenesis will develop over northeastern New Mexico and southeastern Colorado today through tomorrow.... Cold air damming to the east of the Rockies should keep the center of the surface cyclone towards the southern edge of the model solutions perhaps ending up in northeastern New Mexico." Ok Dr. Shepherd, what does all of that mean?

The American Meteorological Society Glossary defines lee cyclogenesis as, "The synoptic-scale development of an atmospheric cyclonic circulation on the downwind side of a mountain range." The term "lee" is relative to the background airflow, according to the Glossary. The mountain barrier is essential for formation of a low ("cyclogenesis") as it can redistribute vorticity ("fluid rotation") as the wind flows over the mountains. Intensity of the cyclogenesis can be stronger if the mountains interact with a developing baroclinc wave, a wave featured associated with differences in temperature, wind shear, and surface frontal features. The National Weather Service website has an excellent analysis of a case from 2019 at this link since my word count is limited herein.

The NWS forecast discussion for this storm also mentions, "There are many factors that this system has going for it that will come together to create significant lift across our area." Lift is the key with these types of events. Here are some of the major meteorological players:

A left exit region of an upper level jet streak overhead. The left exit region of jet streak, a region of stronger winds within the jet stream, is often associated with rising motion due. The map above shows some of the upper level jet stream features for this storm.

Positive vorticity advection (PVA) ahead of the trough. PVA is usually a good indicator of the potential for rising air.

TROugh of Warm Air ALoft (TROWAL) that will bring warm air advection and moisture to the area. According to the National Weather Service Glossary, a TROWAL is "a tongue of relatively warm/moist air aloft that wraps around to the north and west of a mature cyclone....During a winter storm, the heaviest snowfall amounts frequently occur along and north of the TROWAL axis."

Strong upslope flow out of the east at up to 45 knots.

Instability during the day Saturday and into Saturday night. In fact, I would not be surprised to see thunderstorms in parts of the storm as well.

If there is one positive thing about the storm, it is happening during the weekend. However, significant weather events like this are always high-impact events and in this time, our fight against COVID-19 compounds them too.

... Read More

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Meteorology '101' Of The Potentially Historic Snowstorm In The Rockies This Weekend

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This weekend parts of the Rockies including Colorado and Wyoming are likely to experience a potentially historic snowstorm. In at least one National Weather Service map, I saw a high-end forecast for 50 inches of snowfall in parts of the region. While that is probably an outlier, the more likely range of solutions is still impressive and life-altering.

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Dr. Katharine Hayhoe explains the deadly event in Texas and its connection to climate change.

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on gps: texas's climate catastrophe - cnn video

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On GPS: Texas's climate catastrophe - CNN Video

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Fareed asks Texas-based climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe why a winter storm in the state was so damaging. Can the world prepare for such extreme weather?

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A glacial event caused a dam collapse and flood in India.

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Three days after a wall of water and debris entombed workers in a tunnel at a power plant project in northern India, rescuers continue to search for survivors.

From large excavators to handheld shovels, teams used every tool at their disposal on Tuesday to reach the 35 or so workers who have been trapped since floodwaters roared through a valley in the northern state of Uttarakhand on Sunday.

The flood smashed through two dams, damaged two power plants and inundated villages in the Chamoli district below the Nanda Devi glacier. Scientists are investigating whether the flooding came from the glacier itself or whether it was caused by a landslide.

The death toll in the disaster climbed to at least 31 people on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Another 165 are missing, most of them workers at the power plants.
(MORE: Avalanches Have Killed 21 People in the U.S. This Season)
Away from the plants, hundreds of other rescuers searched muddy ravines and along the banks of the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers in hopes of finding survivors.

About 13 villages have been cut off because of the destroyed bridges, the Times of India reported. Helicopters are flying supplies to them.

It's unclear what exactly caused the flooding.

At first, scientists thought a lake that had formed on the Nanda Devi had burst. Now, satellite images indicate a landslide and avalanche were the more likely cause, according to the Associated Press.
The Weather Company's primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
It's not clear whether the landslide caused an avalanche of ice and debris, or whether falling ice resulted in the landslide, said Mohammad Farooq Azam, who studies glaciers at the Indian Institute of Technology at Indore.

Scientists want to know if friction in the landslide caused enough ice and snow to melt to create the flood that roared down the mountain.

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Death Toll Rises in India Glacier Flood Disaster; Attempts To Free Trapped Workers Continue | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

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Three days after a wall of water and debris entombed workers in a tunnel at a power plant project in northern India, rescuers continue to search for survivors. From large excavators to handheld shovels, teams used every tool at their disposal on Tuesday to reach the 35 or so workers who have been trapped since floodwaters roared through a valley in the northern state of Uttarakhand on Sunday.

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Our most recent Atlantic hurricane has now reached category 5 strength and is about to make landfall in Nicaragua.

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Hurricane Iota at Category 5 strength Monday morning. (Tropical Tidbits)

Update, 11:10 p.m. Monday - At 10:40 p.m., Hurricane Iota made landfall as a strong Category 4 about 30 miles south of Puerto Cabezas in northeastern Nicaragua packing winds of 155 mph. It crossed the coast just 15 miles south of where Category 4 Hurricane Eta came ashore on Nov. 3. For the latest updates on Iota into Tuesday, see: Category 4 Hurricane Iota slams into Nicaragua

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA - The Nicaraguan coast prepared for Hurricane Iota on Monday as it approached as a "potentially catastrophic" Category 5 hurricane making landfall Monday night, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Iota is expected to be even more devastating than Hurricane Eta, which ravaged Central America less than two weeks ago. It is the latest Category 5 hurricane to occur in the Atlantic on record. As it moved ashore south of Puerto Cabezas, its winds slackened slightly to 155 mph, making it a Category 4 landfall, though by that point its fiercest winds had already swept inland.

"I'm really sad, to be honest, because it's not fair that after we experienced one storm, once again another threat arrives for our people," Presly Coleman Alejandro, an activist with the Youth Indigenous Movement of La Moskitia, said in an interview. "I don't know what we've done to deserve this treatment."

Hurricane Iota became a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane on Nov. 16 as it headed toward northeastern Nicaragua. (Reuters)

Nicaraguan authorities evacuated an estimated 30,000 people during Eta, which made landfall in Puerto Cabezas on the northern Nicaraguan coast Nov. 4. Coleman Alejandro estimates that less than half were able to return to their communities to check on their homes, crops and livestock, much of which was swept away during Eta, before having to prepare for this hurricane.

Hurricane Eta brings disastrous flooding to Central America

The government issued a new hurricane alert to evacuate communities, and many residents are staying in churches, schools and universities to wait out the storm. Coleman Alejandro said that shelters are not well coordinated and lack some basic supplies, such as mattresses and cooking utensils.

Hurricane Iota intensified at an exceptional rate Sunday night into Monday morning.

"This is a catastrophic situation unfolding for northeastern Nicaragua with an extreme storm surge of 15-20 ft forecast along with destructive winds and potentially 30 inches of rainfall," the National Hurricane Center wrote.

Iota is likely to make landfall very near or in the same location as Eta did. Its predecessor moved ashore with 140 mph winds and ravaged the community of Puerto Cabezas in northern Nicaragua. Iota could equal or exceed that force as it makes landfall overnight Monday into Tuesday, with social media footage showing heavy rain and gusty winds moving ashore during the day Monday.

Hurricane warnings are up for the eastern coast of Nicaragua, eastern Honduras and Providencia Island, where Iota's worst effects are likely.

Iota is the 30th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, marking a record. It's the first time on record that the Atlantic has had two major hurricanes in November. It's also the 10th named storm of the season to rapidly intensify, a feat that atmospheric scientists link to warmer sea surface temperatures from human-caused climate change.

Overnight explosive strengthening turns Iota into a monster

At 10 p.m., Hurricane Iota was centered about 30 miles south of Puerto Cabezas, and was churning west at 9 mph. The storm had maximum sustained winds, tightly coiled about the center, of 155 mph. The storm's southern eyewall clipped San Andres island on Monday morning and swept inland across the Nicaraguan mainland beginning around 7:30 p.m.

Tropical storm-force winds had already spread onto land in eastern Nicaragua, including in Puerto Cabezas. The airport in Puerto Cabezas reported sustained winds of 70 mph, with a gust to 103 mph shortly before 10 p.m.

Late afternoon satellite imagery revealed Iota maintaining its fierce buzzsaw-like appearance, a maelstrom of devastating winds and lightning surrounding a razor-sharp eye.

Iota beats Laura, which struck southwest Louisiana in late August, and Eta, which made landfall in Nicaragua 12 days ago, as the strongest hurricane of the 2020 season. Activity this strong so late in the season is virtually unheard of.

Iota became a hurricane at 1 a.m. on Sunday and had lurched to Category 4 strength about 24 hours later. It has been rapidly intensifying nonstop since its early stages as a tropical storm, a rate of intensification that would be extreme even during the height of the hurricane season.

A disastrous blow to hard-hit Nicaragua and another inland flood disaster

Hurricane Iota will make landfall in Central America late Monday, probably just south of Puerto Cabezas, near Laguna de Wounta. That would place Puerto Cabezas, Haulover, and Wawa, about where Eta made landfall two weeks ago, in line for catastrophic winds and storm surge flooding in Iota's northern eyewall. That's the most dangerous part of the storm.

The overall environment favors maintenance of Iota's strength until landfall. The only possible avenue for weakening would be if the system internally experiences an "eyewall replacement cycle," which would briefly weaken winds by perhaps 15 percent.

The Hurricane Center wrote that "Iota is forecast to continue to be a catastrophic category 5 hurricane when it approaches Central America tonight."

In preparation for the storm's arrival, residents boarded up the windows of the houses still left standing. Fishermen's boats were once again brought ashore. The communities affected are mainly Afro Nicaraguan and from the Miskito Indigenous community. Many communities have been without electricity since Hurricane Eta, which tore down wood-paneled homes and toppled palm trees. They are also without clean water after the storm contaminated their water sources.

Aid has been arriving throughout the week, said Coleman Alejandro, but it's not enough. On Sunday, the Nicaraguan government, with the support of the Nicaraguan Red Cross, sent an aid caravan with food and hygiene kits to communities in the northern Caribbean coast affected by Hurricane Eta, according to a statement from the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation and Attention of Disasters (SINAPRED).

The brigade included 39 volunteers.

"Our colleagues are going to try to arrive as quickly as possible, considering the other event that is approaching us, in order to be there before any circumstance," SINAPRED Director Guillermo González said.

"The population experiences stress at a time of crisis, especially children, women and elderly people," he said. In a statement, Oscar Gutiérrez, president of the Nicaraguan Red Cross, said that getting clean water was the first priority. The second was psychological and social support for "people and kids who lost everything."

An estimated 80,000 Nicaraguans could be affected by Hurricane Iota, according to the Nicaraguan government.

Across Central America, more than 3 million people were affected by Hurricane Eta, with the most damage occurring in Honduras, where extreme flooding affected more than 2 million people, according to the International Red Cross.

Central America is bracing for a direct hit from the "potentially catastrophic" Category 5 hurricane that could make landfall on Nov. 16. (The Washington Post)

At least 250 people died across the region after flooding reached to the roofs and landslides buried homes with residents inside. The World Food Program estimates that millions in Central America need food assistance after Hurricane Eta in a region already suffering from the effects of climate change.

"Eta arrived at the worst moment, making life more difficult for millions of people who have been affected for years by erratic climate and recently by the socioeconomic crisis caused by COVID-19," Miguel Barreto, World Food Program regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement Nov. 13. "It also worries us that rain and flooding could destroy the next harvest, which subsistence farmers depend on."

Historical perspective

Iota is the strongest hurricane ever observed this late in the season and ranks as the second-strongest November storm on record. Iota's peak winds leaped 40 mph in six hours Sunday night, quadrupling the criteria for hurricane rapid intensification, which is a 35 mph increase in 24 hours.

Hurricane Laura's rapid intensification is a sign of a warming climate, scientists say

Its sudden strengthening was also reflected by a sudden drop in pressure, toppling 61 millibars in 24 hours, the fourth-fastest decline on record, trailing only hurricanes Gilbert (1988), Rita (2005) and Wilma (2005).

This kind of rapid intensification is becoming more likely because of warming ocean waters. The water temperatures east of Nicaragua, where Iota has explosively strengthened, have warmed markedly in recent decades during November and December.

Iota's intensity and rapid strengthening have helped make the 2020 season even more exceptional, compared with past seasons:

2020 is the first Atlantic season featuring two major (Category 3 or higher) hurricanes on record during November, following Eta earlier this month.

Iota is the sixth major hurricane of the 2020 season, tying six other seasons for the second most in a year.

The latter half of the hurricane season has been particularly remarkable, as four of the past six named storms to form, all named after a Greek letter, have become major hurricanes. Storms named using the Greek alphabet have produced the equivalent energy of an average entire hurricane season.

This year marks the fifth straight with a Category 5 storm forming in the tropical Atlantic, the longest stretch on record. Iota is the seventh Category 5 storm during that span.

Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow reported from Washington. Andrew Freedman contributed to this report.

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Hurricane Iota explosively intensifies to Category 5 as it bears down on Nicaragua

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Update, 11:10 p.m. Monday - At 10:40 p.m., Hurricane Iota made landfall as a strong Category 4 about 30 miles south of Puerto Cabezas in northeastern Nicaragua packing winds of 155 mph. It crossed the coast just 15 miles south of where Category 4 Hurricane Eta came ashore on Nov.

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Simple Actions Can Help People Survive Landslides - Eos

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Simple Actions Can Help People Survive Landslides - Eos

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New research provides practical advice to minimize landslide risk for individuals before, during, and after an event.

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Hurricane Delta Hits Yucatan and Headed for Louisiana

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Hurricane Delta Hits Yucatan and Headed for Louisiana

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Hurricane Delta just passed over the Yucatan Peninsula and will restrengthen over the Gulf before making landfall near Louisiana.

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By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN

Updated 7:09 a.m. ET, October 7, 2020

Hurricane Delta makes landfall on the Yucatan peninsula

From CNN's Dave Hennen

Hurricane Delta has made landfall roughly half-way between the Mexican resort towns of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, in the town of Puerto Morelos, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

Delta has winds of 110 mph, making it a strong Category 2 storm.

The hurricane will quickly make its way over the Yucatan this morning, and reemerge in the Gulf of Mexico later today.

Once back over open water, Delta will likely strengthen back into a major hurricane, before turning north towards the Louisiana coast.

Hurricane and storm surge watches will likely be issued later today along the US Gulf Coast.

Louisiana and Alabama declare states of emergency ahead of storm

From CNN's Michael Guy, Robert Shackelford, and Hollie Silverman

In Louisiana, where evacuees are still living in shelters from Hurricane Laura, voluntary evacuations have already began in several low-lying areas.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency Tuesday ahead of the storm. He encouraged residents to be prepared for a major hurricane and not focus on its strength.

Ben Schott, the head of the National Weather Service in New Orleans, said during a Tuesday briefing that Delta will be a major hurricane and that its effects, including life-threatening storm surge, widespread damaging winds and flash flooding and river flooding related to heavy rainfall, will be significant.

The earliest the storm will hit is Friday morning, he said, but if the storm slows, it could be as late as Saturday morning. The whole coastline of Louisiana could see tropical storm winds, Schott said.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also declared a state of emergency Tuesday ahead of the storm to help Alabama begin the preparation process and position the state to be able to declare a pre-landfall disaster declaration with Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A mandatory evacuation for tourists at the Alabama Gulf Coast, including Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Dauphin Island, and unincorporated areas of Ono Island and Fort Morgan, is ordered to begin Wednesday morning.

The storm is already stronger than Hurricane Sally, which caused widespread destruction to the state when it hit September 16, and Ivey encouraged residents to take it seriously.
Other southern states prepare:

Mississippi has deployed 160,000 sandbags to low-lying counties and has nine shelters on standby to open if needed, the Mississippi Emergency Management agency said in a tweet Tuesday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has placed numerous resources on standby across the state in anticipation of potentially severe weather caused by Hurricane Delta, according to a news release from the governor's office.

There have been so many storms this season, the National Hurricane Center ran out of names

Delta is the 25th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

The National Hurricane Center ran through its list of 21 standard names earlier this year, and has now switched to the Greek alphabet for additional storm names.

This is the second time in recorded history that the center has used Greek letters.

In 2005, the NHC had to use sixletters of the Greek alphabet to account for the record number of storms. Four of those systems reached tropical storm strength (Alpha, Gamma, Delta, and Zeta), while the two other storms reached hurricane strength (Beta and Epsilon). The NHC does not use the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z because there aren't enough names to fill those letters.

Here's a look at the next possible Greek letter storms:

Hurricane Delta rapidly intensified yesterday. Here's what that means

If you thought the past week's lull in hurricane season was a sign of it slowing down -- think again.

Hurricane Delta, an "incredibly dangerous" major hurricane, is on a collision course with Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the US Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm.

From Monday to Tuesday, Delta's wind speeds tripled, growing from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane. Maximum sustained winds increased by 85 mph in 24 hours -- the most in one day so far this year.

Early Wednesday morning, ahead of an anticipated landfall between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. CT, the storm weakened slightly, with winds dropping to 120 mph. It is expected to bring life-threatening storm surge and extreme winds as it hits the Yucatan, where Cancun and Cozumel are located. The area has been mostly spared by Atlantic storms this season.

About rapid intensification: It usually takes several days or even a week for a tropical storm to grow into a powerful hurricane. But if conditions are just right, a major hurricane can develop in hours -- that process is called rapid intensification.

What we know so far

The latest: Hurricane Delta made landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 2 storm Wednesday morning.

Later this week: Delta is expected to hit the US Gulf Coast overnight Friday into Saturday.

Track Delta: You can follow the storm's path here.

Hurricane Delta makes landfall on the Yucatan peninsula

From CNN's Dave Hennen

Louisiana and Alabama declare states of emergency ahead of storm

From CNN's Michael Guy, Robert Shackelford, and Hollie Silverman

Other southern states prepare:

Mississippi has deployed 160,000 sandbags to low-lying counties and has nine shelters on standby to open if needed, the Mississippi Emergency Management agency said in a tweet Tuesday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has placed numerous resources on standby across the state in anticipation of potentially severe weather caused by Hurricane Delta, according to a news release from the governor's office.

There have been so many storms this season, the National Hurricane Center ran out of names

Hurricane Delta rapidly intensified yesterday. Here's what that means

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live updates: hurricane delta heads toward mexico

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By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN

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Live updates: Hurricane Delta heads toward Mexico

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By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN Updated 7:09 a.m. ET, October 7, 2020 From CNN's Dave Hennen Hurricane Delta has made landfall roughly half-way between the Mexican resort towns of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, in the town of Puerto Morelos, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

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Hurricane Sally is a slow moving hurricane and is on track to dump a large amount of rain along the Gulf Coast.

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TROPICAL STORM SALLY

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Click Here for a Printer Friendly Graphic Key Messages, when available, are found in the NHC Tropical Cyclone Discussion text product. They are designed to highlight essential points about hazards and forecast uncertainty for select tropical cyclones.

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While the high winds have subsided, thousands of downed trees will lead to a long recovery for many areas in northern Utah. Many people are still without power and cleanup will take a long time.

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Herbert made the announcement Wednesday, after touring parts of Salt Lake City's hard-hit Rose Park neighborhood. Such a declaration will let the state access federal funds.

Rose Park was one of many areas in northern Utah that sought to restore order Wednesday, after the storm leveled thousands of trees and cut the power to more than 170,000 homes and businesses.

When asked how much money might be pumped into the cleanup effort, Herbert said, "it's a lot," and noted officials are still assessing how much.

Salt Lake and Davis counties, along with seven municipalities, have already made emergency declarations, Jess Anderson, the state's commissioner of public safety, said Wednesday after Herbert's tour.

As of Wednesday night, 78,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity as Rocky Mountain Power crews jumped from outage to outage. The company has no estimate on when service will be restored to all its Utah customers - but it could be "days" for some. And the outages left many schools from Ogden to the south end of Salt Lake County closed for a second day.

Truck driver Donald Hardy, 61, was making a delivery at Industrial Injection at 2858 S. 300 West. The winds caught his truck door and slammed it into his face, according to South Salt Lake Police spokesperson Danielle Croyle.

"We're not sure exactly what happened," Croyle said, "but he fell backward and hit his head."

Hardy and his wife had sold all their belongings and lived on the road over the past 18 months.

"It's a pretty sad situation," Croyle said.

Spencer Hall, spokesperson for Rocky Mountain Power, called it a "historic 40-year storm." He said all local crews are working on restoring power and a team from Iowa should arrive Thursday to help.

The areas most heavily affected by power outages in Salt Lake County are Millcreek, the Avenues in Salt Lake City and the northeast section of the city, South Salt Lake, Murray, Holladay and northern portions of Taylorsville.

Hall said there are about 250 workers out in the field. On Tuesday, the focus was on connecting transmission lines, hub stations and other backbone pieces. On Wednesday, the work shifted to residential repairs, which will be prioritized by groups that can bring on as many customers as possible with one repair.

According to Christine Kruse, a meteorologist in the Salt Lake City office of the National Weather Service, the Wasatch Front experiences one or two isolated storms like what happened Tuesday every year, "but it's rare for it to be of this magnitude and this widespread."

Wind speeds in Centerville were actually slightly higher during a similar storm in December 2011 - 102 mph vs. 99 mph on Tuesday - "but that was much more limited."

She said Tuesday's destructive winds came as a result of a "very cold air mass over the central part of the United States, and then on top of that, the weather disturbance that was creating these strong winds was strengthening overhead. So there were 60 to 70 mile an hour winds coming out of Wyoming into Utah. That's exceptionally strong."

Crews went out in force Wednesday across the Wasatch Front to remove fallen trees.

"Now that the winds calmed down, we can go after some of those big, dangerous ones that are on roofs still," said Cade Dillree, the owner of Wild Bill Tree Service in Bountiful. "And they're very tricky. ... They're pretty scary for us because there's not enough cranes available to assist in lifting these big trees up off the roofs safely."

Salt Lake City's Sustainability Department announced on Twitter that crews are out clearing roads and removing debris. Residents with limbs from city trees are asked to place them on the side of the road for crews to pick up but to avoid including debris from private properties.

City crews will focus on removing trees blocking sidewalks, roads and bike lanes for now. Once that debris is cleared, efforts will turn to removing downed city-owned trees. After those city trees are hauled off, efforts will shift to helping with debris on private properties.

"We are asking that residents not place storm debris from private property in the street just yet," said Lorna Vogt, director of Public Services, in a news release issued Wednesday evening. "City crews will be scheduling routes throughout the city to clear private property debris as soon as possible, but with such a high volume of debris, it will take time."

Salt Lake City Forester Tony Gilot estimated Wednesday that the city had lost about 1,000 public trees and an equal number of private trees. That loss, Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, will change the "face of Salt Lake City" for "the rest of our lifetimes."

"This storm sets us back a little bit, but I know our commitment to planting trees and growing urban forests are strong," she said. "What's even stronger is our commitment to helping the residents here."

Gilot said that the loss is probably more detrimental "to a lot of the hearts of people who love these trees" than it is to the city's ecosystem.

"Wind events like this, just like a forest fire, are part of the life of every forest and the urban forest is not an exception to that," he said. "The animals and birds and insects and other life forms that utilize our urban forest still have places to go, and we're going to regrow."

Gilot urged people to stay out of the parks while officials assess the damage, noting that some trees that haven't fallen could still be unstable. And he asked people to exercise patience as the city works to clear the streets, a process he said could take up to a week and a half.

In Ogden, city officials have responded to at least 305 incidents as a result of the storm, most of them tree-related, said Mike McBride, a spokesman in the mayor's office.

"There's so much damage it's crazy," he said, adding later that the city has 60 parks "and all of them have downed trees and tree debris."

So many people have taken in green waste that the city had to open a second site to process that debris, he said. Residents are now encouraged to dispose of tree branches at a backup facility at 720 Park Blvd. in Ogden. Drop-offs are free for Ogden residents.

In Farmington, Assistant City Manager Brigham Mellor estimated that about 75% of homes had sustained some form of wind damage.

Mellor said that when a 2011 windstorm hit the city, it took about a week for everything to get cleaned up. This time, he said, there are about three times more green waste. Comparing the storms, Mellor said there's been more tree damage with this storm but fewer roof shingles ripped off. The biggest difference, he said, is the psychological effects.

"There's a lot of anxiety on the part of the public; it's just been a crazy year," he said. "These families have already been affected by COVID and an earthquake and all this other garbage going on."

In Salt Lake County, green waste drop-off at the dump will be free starting Friday through noon on Sept. 23. The Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District is waiving fees for green waste delivered to the Davis landfill. The fee waiver applies only to residents, and people must show proof of residency. The Bountiful landfill will accept green waste for free from residents of West Bountiful, Woods Cross, North Salt Lake and Centerville through Sept. 19.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Gov. Gary Herbert and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall are joined by other state representatives as they tour the extensive wind damage in the Rose Park neighborhood on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020.

Neighbors helping neighbors

In Rose Park, professional crews - both from the city and private contractors - were out Wednesday cleaning up dozens of toppled trees with chain saws, backhoes and other equipment.

Juan Alvarado was busy clearing branches from his front yard on Nocturne Avenue after a tree fell onto his house. It knocked over a flagpole and may have put a few holes in the roof of his patio, he said, but otherwise his home was spared major damage.

Alvarado said he and his brother will tackle the main trunk in a few days. "We're going to try and pull it with a truck," he said.

Alvarado said he saw neighbors come out with chain saws Tuesday, clearing Nocturne for cars to pass through. On neighboring streets, other neighbors did the same.

A block west, on Capistrano Drive, Matt Lyman saw two oak trees in the parking strip get uprooted. One fell in his side yard, and in the yard of his 85-year-old neighbor, which he was helping clear Wednesday. The other, which he believed had been planted in the mid-1950s when the neighborhood was first developed, is still leaning on the house he shares with his husband, Angel, and their 3-year-old foster daughter, Elena.

Watching the trees topple seemed to happen in slow motion, Lyman said. "Suddenly the grass started to look a little higher than normal," he said, and then the trees fell over.

The Lymans posted a small sign near the larger uprooted oak: "Landscaping project brought to you by 2020."

"[Rose Park] is a neighborhood that has always been dependent on each other," said Carlton Christensen, the chairman of the Utah Transit Authority board who lives in the area.

"Each of these trees were planted by the original homeowners. There weren't any trees here to begin with," Christensen said. "It's just a reminder that we'll start again, and this will be a strong place for us to be neighbors and support one another."

Salt Lake City residents are being asked to report any city-owned trees - ones planted in parking strips, medians, parks or other city-owned property - that have fallen on houses, power lines or cars. Residents can call 801-972-7818.

Tree damage on private property, the city said on its website, is the homeowner's responsibility.

In Ogden, McBride said the city is also encouraging people "to be good neighbors and lend a helping hand wherever they can."

"This is quite a mess for people to clean up," he said, "so every little bit helps."

Reporters Leia Larsen and Scott D. Pierce contributed to this article.

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Utah declares state of emergency after windstorm knocked down thousands of trees

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Herbert made the announcement Wednesday, after touring parts of Salt Lake City's hard-hit Rose Park neighborhood. Such a declaration will let the state access federal funds. Rose Park was one of many areas in northern Utah that sought to restore order Wednesday, after the storm leveled thousands of trees and cut the power to more than 170,000 homes and businesses.

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Majority Of Hurricane Laura Deaths Linked To Improper Use Of Portable Generators : NPR

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More deaths associated with Hurricane Laura were caused by the improper use of portable generators than the storm itself.

And officials warn that the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning persists, as thousands of households in Louisiana remain without power.

Eight of the 15 hurricane-related deaths confirmed by the Louisiana Department of Health are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators, which can provide life-saving power in emergency situations but also pose a deadly threat if used incorrectly.

The unidentified victims of carbon monoxide poisoning range in age from 24 to 84 years old, and outnumber the deaths caused by drowning, fallen trees and storm cleanup.

Officials in Lake Charles said at a press briefing on Friday that five people in one house succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning after fumes from their generator - which was running in an attached garage - entered through a door that was either partially or fully open.

Most generator-related fatalities are caused by carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless gas that can build up especially quickly in enclosed spaces. At certain levels, just five minutes of exposure is enough to be fatal.

Lake Charles Police Chief, Shawn Caldwell, acknowledged that many people are likely relying on generators in the aftermath of the storm but cautioned they should be used at a distance. The safest place for a portable generator is at least 20 feet away from any door or window.

"Chain it to a tree if there's one left out in the yard," he said, "but don't let a generator cost your life."

Hard-hit Louisiana is dealing with widespread power outages that may not be restored for weeks. As of Tuesday afternoon, some 250,000 electric customers were still in the dark as thousands of utility workers from nearly 30 states showed up to help. "But the damage is extensive," Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday night, "and complete restoration will take time."

In the meantime, the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal announced that search and rescue teams are making it a part of their mission to ensure people are using generators safely.

For example, it said responders helped an elderly couple in Vernon Parish refuel their generator and move it from their front porch to the back of their home, as the wind was blowing exhaust towards the windows and doors.

Officials also warned not to refuel generators while they are running and federal agencies stress the importance of keeping carbon monoxide detectors on hand, particularly after natural disasters when portable generators get the most use.

And some health experts are calling for broader reform, like stronger industry regulation and better safety features on portable generators, to help prevent potentially-fatal user error in the first place.

In fact, some generator models now include a sensor that triggers an automatic shutoff if carbon monoxide builds up too quickly, while others emit less of the gas in the first place.

Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include headache, dizziness, weakness, stomach pain, chest pain and confusion. Health officials urge anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to carbon monoxide to get to fresh air immediately and seek medical help.

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Majority Of Hurricane Laura Deaths Linked To Improper Use Of Portable Generators

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More deaths associated with Hurricane Laura were caused by the improper use of portable generators than the storm itself. And officials warn that the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning persists, as thousands of households in Louisiana remain without power.

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Now crews and residents begin the process of cleaning up the damage.

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Emergency crews, utility workers and residents are mourning the damage and cleaning up the mess Hurricane Laura made in southwest Louisiana. The storm - whose 150-mph winds tie for the strongest to ever hit the state - wrought destruction on a broad scale, leveling warehouses and crashing trees through roofs.

Residents are finding telephone poles and large trees strewn across streets. In Iowa, a small town a few miles east of Lake Charles on I-10, the hurricane smashed Fire Station No. 1.

"It tore the brick off, it tore the roof off, it lifted the truck by its roof. I mean, it tore everything. I have a skylight in my truck right now," said Scooter Lewis, chief of the volunteer fire department, in an interview with NPR's Wade Goodwyn.

At a nearby mobile home park, Greg Lewis rode out the storm in his double-wide, staying behind after his wife went to a motel - a mistake, he now says.

As the Category 4 hurricane brought its furious winds ashore after 1 a.m., Lewis crouched down behind his brick steps.

"It was the noisiest I have ever heard in my life, and it never quit," Lewis tells Goodwyn, adding that he could hear tornadoes in the midst of the storm's howling winds. He regretted staying behind, Lewis said.

"Every minute. Every minute. I won't do it again."

Another resident says her mobile home moved like a roller coaster in the intense winds.

South of Lake Charles, Patrick Bright spent the night at his father's house, and he says the structure started shaking as the storm hit. Then, they felt the roof get pulled off - and water started coming into the house.

It was very different, he said, from previous strong hurricanes that hit the area.

"I was here for a little bit of Rita" and its massive flood waters in 2005, Bright said. He added, "This time it's more, as you can see, the wind just tore everything up."

Laura's remnants are now moving across the mid-Mississippi Valley, bringing rain and the chance of tornadoes. As Lake Charles and surrounding areas take stock and clear out the damage, forecasters say strong thunderstorms will hit the region Friday, bringing more heavy rain, pea-size hail, and winds up to 30 mph.

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Hurricane Laura's Impact: 'The Wind Just Tore Everything Up'

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Emergency crews, utility workers and residents are mourning the damage and cleaning up the mess Hurricane Laura made in southwest Louisiana. The storm - whose 150-mph winds tie for the strongest to ever hit the state - wrought destruction on a broad scale, leveling warehouses and crashing trees through roofs.

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Hurricane Laura intensifies; 'catastrophic' wind and storm surge expected » Yale Climate Connections

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Hurricane Laura powered its way to major hurricane status overnight, putting on an impressive display of rapid intensification over the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Laura is headed towards a landfall expected Wednesday night or early Thursday morning in northeastern Texas or western Louisiana as a major category 4 hurricane, and is expected to cause "catastrophic" wind and storm surge damage, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Rain squalls from Laura's outer spiral bands were already affecting the coasts of Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday morning, and they will increase in intensity throughout the day.

Laura rapidly intensified by an impressive 50 mph in the 24 hours ending at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, with the winds rising from 75 mph to 125 mph and the pressure falling from 990 mb to 956 mb. This far exceeds the definition of rapid intensification, which is a 24 mb drop in 24 hours. Buoy 42395, located just east of Laura's eye on Wednesday morning, reported sustained winds of up to 76 mph, wind gusts as high as 107 mph, and a wave height of 37 feet (11 meters).

At 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Laura was already generating a storm surge of 1 - 3 feet along much of the Texas and Louisiana coasts; the largest surges, between 2.5 - 3 feet, were at Shell Beach, Louisiana, located to the southeast of New Orleans, and Freshwater Canal Locks, on the south-central coast of Louisiana. Laura's storm surge can be tracked using the Trabus Technologies Storm Surge Live Tracker or the NOAA Tides and Currents page for Laura.

Laura continues to rapidly intensify

At 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Laura was located over the waters of the central Gulf of Mexico, about 235 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas. These waters were a very warm 30 degrees Celsius (86°F). Laura was headed northwest at 15 mph with top sustained winds of 125 mph and a central pressure of 956 mb, putting it just 5 mph below category 4 strength.

Satellite images and data from the Hurricane Hunters showed that Laura has closed off a large eye about 30 miles in diameter. Intense thunderstorms with very cold cloud tops surrounded the eye and extended high into the atmosphere. The eye had not yet fully cleared out, which likely will occur by Wednesday afternoon as the hurricane continues to intensify.

High-level cirrus clouds were streaming out to the east and south of Laura, indicating good upper-level outflow on that side. Upper-level outflow was steadily improving to the north and west, showing that Laura was establishing a second outflow channel that connected up with the trough of low pressure over the central U.S. This improved outflow structure will help Laura intensify further on Wednesday afternoon. Laura was embedded in a moderately dry region of the atmosphere, with a mid-level relative humidity of 60%, but this dry air was not hindering the hurricane anymore, as the moderate wind shear of 10 - 15 knots affecting the storm was not high enough to drive the dry air into the well-developed inner core.

Landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border imminent

There's not much mystery on where Laura is going. The hurricane has made its expected turn to the northwest, and is headed toward a landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border around midnight Wednesday night. After landfall, Laura will turn to the north, following steering currents from a trough of low pressure over the central U.S. The rapidly weakening storm will then turn to the east on Friday, passing through the Tennessee Valley on its way to the mid-Atlantic coast, where it will move out to sea by Sunday.

Intensification expected until just before landfall

Ocean temperatures are a very warm 30 degrees Celsius (86°F), and Laura will be passing over Gulf waters with very high heat content on Wednesday. Conditions for intensification will be very favorable until four to six hours before landfall, when strong upper-level winds from the trough of low-pressure steering Laura will bring a high 20 - 25 knots of wind shear and likely halt the intensification process. Interaction with land may also slow intensification at that time. Data from the Hurricane Hunters late Wednesday morning showed that Laura might be starting to develop concentric eyewalls, a process common in intense hurricanes, which leads to a temporary halt in intensification when the double eyewalls become fully developed. This process could slow down Laura's intensification by Wednesday night. The top dynamical intensity models - the HWRF, HMON, and COAMPS -predicted in their 0Z and 6Z Wednesday runs that Laura would be a category 4 hurricane at landfall, with the 6Z COAMPS forecast calling for a category 5.

Laura a catastrophic storm surge threat

Laura will drive a massive catastrophic storm surge to the coast, with the 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday NHC advisory calling for a peak surge of 15 - 20 feet along the western Louisiana coast. The magnitude of this storm surge will depend not only on how strong the winds are, the speed the storm is traveling, and the angle at which it approaches the coast, but also on the size of the storm. A large storm with winds blowing over a wide area of ocean will typically generate a higher storm surge that covers a larger area than a smaller hurricane.

The 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday NHC forecast called for Laura's tropical storm-force winds to span a diameter of 220 nautical miles (nm) at landfall. For comparison, Hurricane Rita in 2005 - a low-end category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds which drove a 10 - 15-foot storm surge to the southwest Louisiana coast - had tropical storm-force winds that spanned a diameter of 300 nm. Hurricane Ike in 2008 - a high-end category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds that drove a storm surge of 15 - 20 feet to Texas' Bolivar Peninsula - had a tropical storm-force wind field 390 nm across. (Thanks to weather.com's Jon Erdman for this information) Given that Laura likely will be a much stronger storm than Rita at landfall, but smaller in areal size, a peak storm surge of 15 - 20 feet - larger than the 10 - 15-foot storm surge Rita brought to southwest Louisiana (see below) - is a reasonable forecast.

Inundation levels also will depend on whether Laura strikes at high or low tide. Tidal ranges are low in this part of the Gulf, however. The tidal range at Lake Charles, Louisiana is 1.5 feet, and high tide is at 6:09 a.m. CDT Thursday.

An impact greater than Hurricane Rita's in 2005 likely

After peaking as a category 5 storm with 180 mph winds and a central pressure of 895 mb - the fourth lowest pressure ever measured for an Atlantic hurricane - Hurricane Rita weakened to a category 3 storm with 115 mph winds before making landfall in western Cameron Parish, Louisiana, near the Texas border, on September 24, 2005. Rita caused an estimated $25.2 billion in damage, making it the eleventh-costliest hurricane in U.S. history. Seven direct deaths were blamed on the storm, and the chaotic evacuation of Houston was blamed for 107 deaths.
When a hurricane threatens, don't underestimate storm surge risk Posted August 26, 2020, at 12:35 p.m. EDT. Website visitors can comment on "Eye on the Storm" posts (see below). Please read our Comments Policy prior to posting. (See all EOTS posts here. Sign up to receive notices of new postings here.)
The small town of Cameron (population 2,000 and elevation three feet) was the largest town along the stretch of southwest Louisiana coast that received Rita's peak storm surge, estimated to be 10 - 15 feet. The storm surge destroyed 90% of the homes in Cameron, and destroyed all of the structures in Holly Beach (population 300), with the only human-made features remaining after the storm being power poles, concrete slabs, and roads. Rita's surge penetrated more than 30 miles inland, reaching Interstate 10. The surge, combined with freshwater flooding, inundated downtown Lake Charles, located 30 miles from the ocean, up to six feet deep. Rita also produced a storm surge of 4 - 7 feet in coastal areas of southeastern Louisiana, flooding some spots that had already been impacted by the surge from Hurricane Katrina about one month earlier.

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Hurricane Laura intensifies; 'catastrophic' wind and storm surge expected " Yale Climate Connections

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Hurricane Laura powered its way to major hurricane status overnight, putting on an impressive display of rapid intensification over the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Laura is headed towards a landfall expected Wednesday night or early Thursday morning in northeastern Texas or western Louisiana as a major category 4 hurricane, and is expected to cause "catastrophic" wind and storm surge damage, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

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Many tornadoes causing extreme destruction.

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Elaine Powell speaks with relatives on her cell phone as she surveys the remains of her boyfriend's campers and property, in Carson, Miss., on Monday, April 13, 2020, a day after severe weather struck the area. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
A well-predicted outbreak of severe weather more than made its mark from early Sunday into Monday from the South to the mid-Atlantic. As of 4:30 PM EDT Monday, 32 fatalities had been reported, according to weather.com. Assuming these are confirmed to be tornado-related, this outbreak appears to be the deadliest single tornado event since the catastrophic tornado in Joplin, Missouri, that killed 158 people on May 22, 2011.

Hundreds of homes across the South are in ruins, and countless snapped trees have been strewn across the landscape. More than 1.2 million homes and businesses, including close to 500,000 in North and South Carolina, were without power in eight states as of 10:30 a.m. EDT Monday, according to PowerOutage.us.

At least seven of the fatalities came from a tornado that plowed through two manufactured home parks in Murray County, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta.

One of the larger communities to experience a direct hit was Monroe, in northeast Louisiana, at midday Sunday. About 300 homes were damaged or destroyed in Monroe, police Sgt. Chuck Johnson told The Weather Channel. The Monroe airport received substantial damage as well, making it one of at least four U.S. airports to experience a significant tornado hit this spring. On top of this, an apparent tornado came within roughly a mile of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport-the world's largest-early Monday morning. See Marshall Shepherd's writeup in Forbes for more on this event.

The NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center has received at least 51 preliminary tornado reports for the period through 8 am EDT Monday, with another eight reports since then. These numbers are likely to rise. Very little large hail was reported east of Texas, but there were more than 400 reports of severe wind gusts.

A broken line of intense and sometimes tornadic storms ripped through the Southeast on Sunday night and Monday morning. This squall line moved off the coast by late morning, but severe weather continued to the north. A tornado watch was in effect through 6 pm EDT Monday evening for much of the mid-Atlantic, including Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.

Some of the twisters in the Carolinas and Virginia were surprisingly intense for line-embedded storms occurring in the morning hours, a reflection of the extreme values of wind shear and instability present during this event. Postdoctoral researcher Tony Lyza (University of Alabama Huntsville) analyzed radar data in detail from a strong tornado near Charleston, South Carolina, and estimated that winds just above the surface might have been as strong as 169 mph.

The NWS has confirmed EF3 damage with the tornado below near Livingston, SC, with surface winds estimated at 140 mph.

NWS survey teams will be combing through wreckage starting Monday to determine which tornadoes were the most intense. A twister that tore through the city of East Chattanooga, Tennessee, has already been rated at least EF3 by the NWS office in Morristown, and an EF2 tornado was confirmed southeast of Stonewall, Louisiana, by the NWS office in Shreveport.

Perhaps the most stunning tornadic storms on Sunday-at least on radar-were a pair of long-lived tornado-producing supercells that tracked one behind the other across southeast Mississippi. In some places, the damage tracks were separated by only about three miles.

In a mesoscale discussion issued at 4:26 pm CDT Sunday, SPC pulled no punches: "A violent tornado with potential peak winds of 170 to 205 mph is likely ongoing."

Social media leapt to declare that both of these storms had produced EF5 tornadoes, but it remained to be seen at midday Monday whether or not the tornadoes from either of these jaw-dropping storms will be confirmed as an EF4 or EF5-and that, in turn, will hinge on the vagaries of exactly what the tornadoes hit, since the EF-scale determination is currently based only on observed damage rather than radar returns. Experts are now working on ways to incorporate radar data into EF ratings.

One of the quirkier outcomes of Monday's tornadoes was a house blown onto a highway in Upson County, Georgia, south of Atlanta (see embedded tweet below). David Roueche, an engineer and wind-damage expert at Auburn University, attributed the movement to a likely lack of a fixed foundation. "Homes like this one that moved typically sit on unreinforced (i.e., not filled with grout or steel rebar) masonry block stem walls or brick masonry piers. The wood floor joists rests on the walls with maybe a few concrete nails into the block or similar if anything at all." He added, "The concerning part is that when the anchorage is the first element to fail, the house is much more susceptible to complete collapse."

See the weather.com article for more on the widespread impacts from this outbreak.

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Widespread Tornadoes Leave Destruction from Louisiana to Mid-Atlantic

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Elaine Powell speaks with relatives on her cell phone as she surveys the remains of her boyfriend's campers and property, in Carson, Miss., on Monday, April 13, 2020, a day after severe weather struck the area. (AP Photo/Rogelio V.

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When Shakira Franklin drives from West Baltimore to her job near the city's Inner Harbor, she can feel the summer heat ease up like a fist loosening its grip.

"I can actually feel me riding out of the heat. When I get to a certain place when I'm on my way, I'll turn off my air and I'll roll my windows down," says Franklin. "It just seems like the sun is beaming down on this neighborhood."

Franklin isn't imagining that. Her neighborhood, Franklin Square, is hotter than about two-thirds of the other neighborhoods in Baltimore - about 6 degrees hotter than the city's coolest neighborhood. It's also in one of the city's poorest communities, with more than one-third of residents living in poverty.

Across Baltimore, the hottest areas tend to be the poorest and that pattern is not unusual. In dozens of major U.S. cities, low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be hotter than their wealthier counterparts, according to a joint investigation by NPR and the University of Maryland's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.

Those exposed to that extra heat are often a city's most vulnerable: the poorest and, our data show, disproportionately people of color. And living day after day in an environment that's literally hotter isn't just uncomfortable, it can have dire and sometimes deadly health consequences - a fact we found reflected in Baltimore's soaring rates of emergency calls when the heat index spiked to dangerous levels.

According to a Howard Center analysis of U.S. census data and air temperature data obtained from Portland State University and the Science Museum of Virginia, the hottest neighborhoods in Baltimore can differ by as much as 10 degrees from the coolest.

And Baltimore is not an extreme case. NPR analyzed 97 of the most populous U.S. cities using the median household income from U.S. Census Bureau data and thermal satellite images from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. In more than three-quarters of those cities, we found that where it's hotter, it also tends to be poorer. And at least 69 had an even stronger relationship than Baltimore, the first city we mapped.

This means that as the planet warms, the urban poor in dozens of large U.S. cities will actually experience more heat than the wealthy, simply by virtue of where they live. And not only will more people get sick from rising temperatures in the future, we found they likely already are.
"Before I knew it, I was gasping for air"
In the summer of 2018 in Baltimore, when the heat index reached 103 degrees - the threshold deemed dangerous by the National Weather Service - EMS calls increased dramatically citywide for potentially fatal heat stroke. But calls increased for chronic conditions too: EMS calls for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) increased by nearly 70%. Calls for respiratory distress increased by 20%. Calls for cardiac arrest rose by 80%. And those for high blood pressure more than doubled. Other conditions also spiked: psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and dehydration, among others.

The heat affected residents citywide, but even when controlling for income by looking only at the patterns of Medicaid patients, there were differences across the city. From 2013 to 2018, Medicaid patients in Baltimore's hottest areas visited the hospital at higher rates than Medicaid patients in the city's coolest areas. The low-income patients in the city's hot spots visited more often with several conditions, including asthma, COPD and heart disease, according to hospital inpatient and emergency room admissions data from Maryland's Health Services Cost Review Commission.

In the Franklin Square neighborhood of West Baltimore, Shakira Franklin knows the link between heat and health all too well. She says her asthma is triggered by heat.

On a Saturday in July, Franklin says she was making the same drive she often makes from her home to the city's harbor. A heat wave was gripping the city, with temperatures reaching 100 degrees and above. Franklin says she normally tries to stay inside on days like that, but she had to get to work. That's when she had her first asthma attack in nearly five years.

"Before I knew it, I was gasping for air. It doesn't even take me 10 minutes to get from home to my other job. Just like that," says Franklin, who says an attack feels like drinking water through a pinched straw.

"Your windpipe is that straw and that water is the breaths you can take," Franklin says. "You're trying to bring your air through as much as you can."

Doctors in emergency departments near Baltimore's hotter neighborhoods say they prepare each summer for an increase in heat-related conditions.

"A lot of times the heat played a factor in making a chronic condition acutely worse," says Dr. Amit Chandra, chief of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus. He says that's especially true for cardiovascular conditions.

"The worse your circulatory system is, the worse you are at getting cool," says Chandra, who is also a faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. A weak or damaged heart might struggle to pump extra blood to the skin so heat can radiate off the body. Even sweating, which also gets rid of heat by evaporation, can put stress on the heart.

Respiratory conditions can become aggravated too, in part, because heat can actually worsen air quality and because conditions like asthma and COPD can be triggered by high heat and humidity.

Chandra says even looking at patients' medical records wouldn't necessarily tell the full story of how heat could be harming their health.

"We wouldn't diagnose them at the end of the day with heat exhaustion or heat stroke necessarily unless their temperature went up," Chandra says. "So there's probably quite a few folks that are affected by the heat, and we're not really tracking or measuring."

Regardless of where they live, people in poverty are more vulnerable to many chronic conditions, including some made worse by heat, like asthma and heart disease.

"Our patients are plagued by poverty, substance abuse and unfortunately some of the patients don't have great access to health care," says Dr. Reginald Brown, chair of emergency medicine at Bon Secours Hospital Baltimore in West Baltimore and a faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

"As far as the impact [of heat] to our patients, it's just another thing that complicates their lives," he added.
The urban heat island
Cities in general tend to be hotter than their natural surroundings, thanks to a phenomenon known as the urban heat island.

"If you have less green cover, you will almost always have higher temperatures, and greater exposure to heat," says Brian Stone, director of the urban climate lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Trees provide shade, but they also cool the environment down through the evaporation of water from their leaves - a process similar to how humans sweat to cool down.

"When you pave over an area, particularly if it had green plants, you have interrupted that cycle," Stone says. "Not only have you sealed the surface, you have put a lid on it, so evaporation cannot happen."

Pavement - particularly if it's black - absorbs heat and holds it in. At night, a city of more than 1 million people can be as much as 22 degrees warmer than its surroundings. Even the buildings themselves, Stone says, can create a sort of canyon that traps heat.

Given these elements, Stone says it makes sense that many low-income areas are hotter than richer areas.

"Lower-income parts of the city tend to have less green cover," Stone says. "That's something that we see across a lot of cities."

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It's also not unusual, Stone says, for poorer areas to be located near "undesirable land uses" such as nearby highways or industrial areas, which create even more heat.

The pattern of who lives closer to those sources of heat is not just a matter of poor versus rich, it is also often a matter of black and brown versus white. Nationwide, many of the low-income communities NPR found to be hotter - often with fewer trees, more concrete and closer to highways and factories - are also communities of color.

"It wasn't just a coincidence that communities of color end up in some of the most undesirable places," says Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which focuses on environmental justice issues affecting working-class Asian and Pacific Islander immigrant and refugee communities.

Yoshitani explains that policies like redlining - a practice, beginning in the 1930s and banned by the Fair Housing Act in 1968, in which neighborhoods were marked high risk for mortgage lenders in large part based on their racial makeup - forced people of color into less desirable areas. In Baltimore, the city's hottest neighborhoods, many of which are predominantly African American, still line up fairly consistently with the neighborhoods marked "hazardous" on a 1937 map created by the Home Owners' Loan Corp.

"People of color, African American communities, indigenous communities in the beginning and then immigrant communities as they came to the United States were not given a choice about where they could live, where they could raise their families, where they could work," Yoshitani says. "Those choices were made for them and that legacy continues today."
"They can't escape it"
In the majority of the cities NPR mapped, poverty was linked to heat, adding a second layer of risk to an already at-risk population. This is not only because poverty itself is a health hazard, but because poverty is also tied to other factors that can make it harder to get cool.

"People with money, of course, can do that a lot better than people with less money," says Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

He says no one is immune to climate change, but wealthier people can more easily control their exposure to heat by using air conditioning - which on its own contributes to climate change - or even by moving to a cooler part of the city.

"On the other hand, the folks with less money, they're going to be in their one home. And they're going to have to deal with the conditions in their one home," Benjamin says. "If they're going to be in an area where it's real hot, they're going to have to find other ways to adapt, but they can't escape it."

The urban poor, already often in hotter environments and already at higher risk for health problems, will have a harder time escaping climate change.

"It is the most significant public health problem that we have. It's going to be here for a long time. And it's getting worse," Benjamin says.
"This is ours"
There are strategies to cool down a city: investing in public transit, designing roofs that reflect sunlight, and planting more trees, among others.

In Baltimore, the city is working to combat urban heat. The government has installed cool roofs, turned vacant lots into community green space and strategically planted and maintained trees in low-income neighborhoods, among other initiatives. But the city's own arborist told the Howard Center that Baltimore is not on track to meet its goal of increasing the tree canopy to 40% by 2037.

"We're doing a lot with a little," says Anne Draddy, the city's sustainability coordinator.

The neighborhood where Shakira Franklin lives has increased its tree canopy over time. But by 2015, it still was among the city's lowest. Franklin says she's not optimistic the city will be able to cool down her neighborhood anytime soon.

"The city has a lot of responsibility. And I think that we would be close to the bottom of the list to be honest," she says.

There's a grassy vacant lot near her apartment where Franklin often takes a break from her job as a landscaping crew supervisor at Bon Secours Community Works, a nearby community organization owned by Bon Secours Health System.

It's one of the few places in the neighborhood with a lot of shade - mainly from a large tree Franklin calls the mother shade. She helped come up with the idea to build a free splash park in the lot for residents to cool down in the heat. Now Bon Secours is taking on the project.

"This was me taking my stand," Franklin says. "I didn't sit around and wait for everybody to say, 'Well, who's going to redo the park?' "

Daniel Greenspan, an architectural fellow working on the project, says they're about halfway to their current fundraising goal - with plans to buy the lot from the city.

On a hot Saturday this summer, Bon Secours and the neighborhood's community association threw a party in the lot. Children ran through streams of water from a pop-up fountain, while adults discussed and voted on potential designs for the new park.

"Our kids, they deserve it," says Franklin, who has two children. "I just feel like it's a long time coming to just have something to say that we built this here for us. This is ours."

Franklin says the park would become a refuge for people who can't escape the heat - and it will indeed be a place to cool off in this neighborhood. But worldwide, heat waves are getting hotter and more frequent, and the past five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

Methodology
To determine the link between heat and income in U.S. cities, NPR used NASA/U.S. Geological Survey satellite imagery and U.S. Census American Community Survey data. An The software also downloaded thermal imagery for each city from NASA's Landsat 8 satellite, looking for days since 2011 in June, July and August when there was less than 4% cloud cover. NPR reviewed each of the satellite images and removed images that contained clouds or other obscuring features over the city of interest. In cases when there were multiple clear images of a city, we used the thermal reading that showed a greater contrast between the warm and cool parts of the area of interest. In cases where there were no acceptable images, we manually searched for additional satellite images and found acceptable images from Landsat 8 for every city except for Hialeah and Miami, Fla., and Honolulu, which are frequently covered by clouds. For each city, NPR aligned the satellite surface temperature data with the census tracts. For each census tract, the software trimmed the geography to only what is contained within the city of interest's boundaries, then removed any lakes, rivers, ocean, etc. It calculated a median temperature reading for each census tract. When all of the tracts in a city were completed, it calculated a correlation coefficient (R) of the tracts to find the relationship between income and heat. The satellite data measure temperature at a surface, such as the ground or a rooftop. We used this measurement rather than ambient temperature, which measures the air about 2 meters above the ground. Measuring air is a more accurate measure of how people experience heat, but satellite data are more widely available than air temperature data. Using that data allowed us to provide a more complete snapshot of temperature trends across many cities. View NPR's full data and code on Github. To determine the relationship between heat and poverty in Baltimore, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism used block-by-block temperature data showing variations in Baltimore's urban heat island captured by researchers at Portland State University and the Science Museum of Virginia on Aug. 29, 2018. For each "community statistical area" in Baltimore, the Howard Center computed a median temperature and joined it to a U.S. Census American Community Survey data set with the poverty rate for each area and then calculated the correlation coefficient (R). NPR's Nora Eckert and Nick Underwood; and the Howard Center's Sean Mussenden, Roxanne Ready and Theresa Diffendal contributed to this report. open-source computer program developed by NPR downloaded median household income data for census tracts in the 100 most populated American cities, as well as geographic boundaries for census tracts. NPR combined these data with TIGER/Line shapefiles of the cities.

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As Rising Heat Bakes U.S. Cities, The Poor Often Feel It Most

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When Shakira Franklin drives from West Baltimore to her job near the city's Inner Harbor, she can feel the summer heat ease up like a fist loosening its grip. "I can actually feel me riding out of the heat.

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Widespread damage Nashville and the region from tornadoes.

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Tornadoes gashed through western and central Tennessee early Tuesday, with the worst damage concentrated in and around Nashville. Gov. Bill Lee says at least nine people were killed, and there are fears the death toll could climb as first responders continue to search for victims.

At a Tuesday morning press conference, the governor said the nine fatalities came from multiple counties. "It is heartbreaking," Lee said. "We have had loss of life all across the state. Four different counties, as of this morning, had confirmed fatalities - in Benton County, Putnam County, Wilson County, Davidson County. Nine confirmed fatalities so far, there are a number of people that are still missing."

A line of severe storms caused significant damage to buildings, roads and bridges across multiple counties, according to a 7:40 a.m. bulletin from TEMA. Emergency officials were still trying to assess the scope of the damage. The number of businesses and residents without power remains unknown.

The storms ripped through middle and western Tennessee hours before residents were to take part in Super Tuesday voting in presidential nominating contests.

Davidson County, which includes Nashville, pushed back the opening of its polling centers by an hour to 8 a.m., citing storm damage. The polls are still scheduled to close at 7 p.m., as originally planned.

"The State of Tennessee has activated a strong coordinated response effort to last night's devastating storms," Lee tweeted Tuesday morning. "In the hours ahead, we will continue deploying search and rescue teams, opening shelters across the state, and sending emergency personnel to our communities hit hardest."

Maria and I send our prayers across Tennessee this morning as our state suffers from last night's storms. I am at @T_E_M_A this morning working closely with our emergency and local officials and coordinating resources to help our neighbors in need.
- Governor Bill Lee (@GovBillLee) March 3, 2020

Reporter Blake Farmer of NPR member station WLRN described a scene on Morning Edition of debris strewn across one section of East Nashville.

Nashville is hurting, and our community has been devastated. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones. Be sure to lend a helping hand to a neighbor in need, and let's come together as a community once more. Together, we will get through this and come out stronger.
- Mayor John Cooper (@JohnCooper4Nash) March 3, 2020

"Just debris everywhere, roofs that are gone, windows that have been blown out a good part of an old historic church that's laying in the street as rubble, a few buildings that have basically collapsed," Farmer said. "I'm looking down an alley, they're power lines just all netted over the alley and pieces of metal roofing and all sort of debris hanging everywhere."

Officials are cautioning residents to keep roads free for emergency personnel and to stay away from damaged buildings or hazardous locations. Emergency officials are also urging residents to refrain from calling 911 unless it is a life-threatening emergency.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper sought to project a message of unity, tweeting that "together, we will get through this and come out stronger."

"Nashville is hurting and our community has been devastated," he tweeted. "My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones. Be sure to lend a helping hand to a neighbor in need, and let's come together as a community once more. Together, we will get through this and come out stronger."
This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Tornadoes In Tennessee Kill At Least 9 And Cause Widespread Damage In Nashville

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Tornadoes gashed through western and central Tennessee early Tuesday, with the worst damage concentrated in and around Nashville. Gov. Bill Lee says at least nine people were killed, and there are fears the death toll could climb as first responders continue to search for victims. At a Tuesday morning press conference, the governor said the nine fatalities came from multiple counties.

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Massive rain and river flows has caused flooding in Kentucky... but other big news has overshadowed this natural disaster.

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I bet most Americans have no idea this natural disaster has been happening. When trouble comes to rural people-whether they're in Kentucky, California, Montana, or Michigan-the media mostly shrug. The public as a whole is no better, as people seem to have little sympathy for these rural areas. I've been asked "Why do people live there, anyway?" These sentiments aren't directed only at Appalachia. In 2017 President Donald Trump told unemployed people in rural New York that their best solution would be to move to a city. He gave them his condescending blessing, saying, "I'm going to explain: You can leave."

But people in rural areas value their communities just as much as anyone else. Even after my parents lost nearly everything, they stayed to raise their family in Lily. My parents, and many other people where I am from, say they need night skies undimmed by city lights. They cannot breathe properly in places that lack hills and pastures. Their native topography is in their blood and bones.

Residents of rural areas aren't the only ones who appreciate the environment, of course, but an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality can take hold when people lose their connection to nature. If coal mining isn't devouring the mountain in front of your house, then it's easy to leave all the lights on. If your home isn't being carried away by floodwaters, it's hard to feel the consequences of climate change. Folks in rural places aren't immune to this disconnect. They say they care about the land, yet they often elect politicians who value profit over the environment. Rural voters' support of Trump is widespread, even though he has been designated by several environmental groups as the "worst president in history."

This story of our lost connection to nature and the way it affects rural people is not a new one. From the moment Europeans arrived in America, they tried to tame the natural world. Once deposits of natural resources were discovered, perpetuating the idea of wild places and the people who lived there as "other" behooved big industry. Media only exacerbated the portrayal of rural people as stupid, lazy, filthy, and worthless. Throwaway people living in a throwaway place. Americans claim to love the natural world, but we often negate the people who live closest to it. Insulting phrases like the middle of nowhere and flyover country are common parlance in everyday conversations and newscasts.
Read: The education deserts of rural America
Besides being irritating, the stereotype of rural people as inferior and separate has also allowed Americans to take the effects of climate change in this area less seriously, to let the devastation slip by unnoticed. By turning a blind eye to rural people, we are turning a blind eye to climate change.

A study released in late 2018 by the American Meteorological Society showed that record wet and dry spells are occurring around the world, and that the events are connected to climate change. The study predicted that the extreme weather would only increase in the future, which means that flooding like the kind that recently hit Appalachia will continue.

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education deserts of rural americabesides

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Eastern Kentucky Has Been Underwater, but You Probably Didn't Notice

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I bet most Americans have no idea this natural disaster has been happening. When trouble comes to rural people-whether they're in Kentucky, California, Montana, or Michigan-the media mostly shrug. The public as a whole is no better, as people seem to have little sympathy for these rural areas.

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Regularly updated map of Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak including confirmed cases, number of deaths, and numbers recovered.

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Coronavirus has reduced China's CO2 emissions by about 25%

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Coronavirus has reduced China's CO2 emissions by about 25%

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Due to decreased economic activity and shutdowns of factories and businesses in China, they are seeing a decrease in CO2 emissions of about 25% from a similar periods in past years.
This analysis is primarily in China, but impacts on emissions will likely soon be more widespread as other countries take actions. And also due to the massive recent drops in the stock market, which may have the effect of reducing worldwide economic productivity.

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As China battles one of the most serious virus epidemics of the century, the impacts on the country's energy demand and emissions are only beginning to be felt.

Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below their usual levels across a range of indicators, many of which are at their lowest two-week average in several years. These include:

Coal use at power stations reporting daily data at a four-year low.

Oil refinery operating rates in Shandong province at the lowest level since 2015.

Output of key steel product lines at the lowest level for five years.

Levels of NO2 air pollution over China down 36% on the same period last year.

Domestic flights are down up to 70% compared to last month.

All told, the measures to contain coronavirus have resulted in reductions of 15% to 40% in output across key industrial sectors. This is likely to have wiped out a quarter or more of the country's CO2 emissions over the past two weeks, the period when activity would normally have resumed after the Chinese new-year holiday. (See methodology below.)

Over the same period in 2019, China released around 400m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), meaning the virus could have cut global emissions by 100MtCO2 to date. The key question is whether the impacts are sustained, or if they will be offset - or even reversed - by the government response to the crisis.

Initial analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) suggests the repercussions of the outbreak could shave up to half a percent off global oil demand in January-September this year.

However, the Chinese government's coming stimulus measures in response to the disruption could outweigh these shorter-term impacts on energy and emissions, as it did after the global financial crisis and the 2015 domestic economic downturn.

A country in shutdown

Every winter, during Chinese new year, the country closes down for a week, with shops and construction sites closing and most industries winding down operations. The holiday has a significant short-term impact on energy demand, industrial output and emissions.

The blue lines on the chart below show how coal-fired power generation typically drops by an average of 50% in the 10 days following the eve of Chinese new year, marked as zero on the x-axis.

This year, shown in red, the usual fall in energy use has been prolonged by 10 days so far, with no sign of rebound. This is because the annual holiday was extended to give the government more time to get the epidemic under control - and demand has remained subdued, even after the official resumption of work on 10 February.

Daily coal consumption around the Chinese new-year period at six generating companies reporting daily data, in 10,000 tonnes per day. X-axis shows days before and after Chinese new year eve, which falls on various dates in the second half of January or in February. Source: Analysis of data from WIND Information. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

In the three-week period commencing 3 February this year, average coal consumption at power plants reporting daily data fell to a four-year low, with no sign of recovery in the most recent data, covering Sunday 23 February.

The short-term effect has been equally dramatic across a range of other industrial indicators, shown as 14-day averages in the figure below. The top left chart shows coal throughput at the main coal port, Qinhuangdao, which fell to the lowest level in four years in the two weeks to 16 February.

Similarly, refinery operating rates in Shandong province, the country's main centre for oil refining, fell to the lowest level since autumn 2015 (below left), indicating a sharply reduced oil demand outlook.

Operating rates of industrial capacity in China (%). Steel product (steel bar and wire rod) operating rates show the effect of the Chinese new year holiday each year. Source: Analysis of industry surveys reported by WIND Information. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

Strikingly, all indicators of industrial capacity utilisation - coal power plants, blast furnaces, coking, steel products, refineries - deteriorated further in the week commencing 10 February, when business was officially expected to resume.

Taken together, the reductions in coal and crude oil use indicate a reduction in CO2 emissions of 25% or more, compared with the same two-week period following the Chinese new year holiday in 2019. This amounts to approximately 100MtCO2 - or 6% of global emissions over the same period.

One exception to the wider downturn has been primary steel production, which kept running through new year and the extended holiday. In contrast, production of the main steel products - a closer proxy of demand - is down a quarter, hitting the lowest 14-day level in five years. Unless demand rebounds fast, blast furnaces will have to shut down as well given limited capacity to hold stocks and a souring demand outlook.

There is further confirmation of the reduction in fossil-fuel use in satellite measurements of NO2, an air pollutant closely associated with fossil-fuel burning. In the week after the 2020 Chinese new year holiday, average levels were 36% lower over China than in the same period in 2019, illustrated in the right-hand panels below.

Average atmospheric levels of NO2 (molecules per centimetre squared) measured by the NASA OMI instrument.

Demand-side impacts

Although the short-term impact of the current crisis is large, in terms of reduced energy demand and industrial emissions, the longer-term direct effect of factory closures could be much more limited.

Apart from the annual Chinese new year holiday, shutdowns of a week or more are not uncommon in China.

Moreover, shaving 25% off energy consumption and emissions for two weeks would only reduce annual figures by around one percent. China also has very substantial overcapacity in all of the major CO2 emitting industries, meaning production volumes - and emissions - can catch up rapidly after a shutdown, if the demand is there.

Any sustained impact on fossil-fuel use would come from reduced demand, which initial indicators suggest could have a major impact. For example, February car sales are forecast to fall by 30% below last year's already depressed levels.

If consumer demand is reduced - for example, due to unpaid wages during the crisis cascading through the rest of the economy - then industrial output and fossil-fuel use might not recover, even though capacity is available to do so.

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Some analysts have pointed to images of empty cities and cellphone factories as evidence for such an effect, although this might give an exaggerated idea of the impact. China's energy consumption is heavily dominated by energy-intensive industries and freight, with residential and commercial electricity consumption, private cars and so on playing a relatively minor role.

This is illustrated by the fact that Beijing experienced its second severe smog episode of the year last week, leaving many wondering where the pollution was coming from when most cars were off the road and most businesses were shut. As already noted above, steel blast furnaces in particular kept running throughout the extended holiday, while most power plants only shut a part of their boilers, at most.

Instead, the single most important question on the demand side is the effect of the coronavirus outbreak on construction activity. The sector relies on migrant workers who might still be affected by restrictions on movement, enforced home quarantine and other measures for days or weeks, so resumption of operations is not straightforward.

The key factor determining the size of this impact is how fast things return to normal.

Currently, Beijing is urging local governments to focus on getting the economy back on its feet. Chairman Xi himself has reportedly said that the coronavirus response outside the epicentre of the outbreak in Hubei province has gone too far, warning of damage to the economy and cautioning against more restrictive measures.

However, local governments continue to maintain and even tighten controls on movement and are encouraging businesses to stay shut. This suggests they are more worried about getting blamed for a new outbreak than about keeping the economy on ice for a few extra days or weeks.

Beyond the disruptions caused by the measures to combat the virus on construction sites, apartment sales are certain to be affected for weeks, if not months, due to restrictions on movement. Lowered income is likely to prompt builders to slow down and refrain from starting new projects. If financial distress results in disruption to operations, the effect could be more profound and sustained.

The potential for wider financial disruption is clear as firms, local governments - and increasingly households - have high levels of debt. Lack of cashflow during the extended shutdown is likely to make some debt unserviceable, with the country's leading financial media Caixin calling the virus " an existential threat " to small businesses. The issue is compounded by the widespread practice of firms taking on very short-term debt to finance long-term spending.

The measures taken by China and other countries to contain the virus are also having a dramatic impact on aviation volumes. The industry data provider OAG reports reductions of 50-90% in capacity on routes departing mainland China and a 60-70% reduction in domestic flights within the mainland over the past two weeks, compared with the week commencing 20 January. Based on ICCT estim a tes (pdf), these flights were responsible for 17% of total CO2 emissions from passenger aviation in 2018, implying that that the on-going flight suspensions and cancellations have cut global CO2 emissions from passenger flights by around 11% (3Mt) in the past two weeks. (This is calculated by taking into account that flights arriving in China emit the same amount of CO2 as flights departing from China, and have to be reduced in equal amount.)

Planet Labs imagery under CC licence.

Government response

The leadership in Beijing appears keenly aware of the financial risks. It has been calling on banks to roll over loans and local governments to cut rents and other costs for firms, as well as on brokerages to hold or buy stocks to keep share prices from tanking.

Beyond the immediate interventions to avoid financial disruption, a forceful economic policy response is shaping up.

The background to this is that 2020 was to be the showcase year for China's economic accomplishments, marking the achievement of the goal of "building a moderately prosperous society", set a decade ago. Significantly lower GDP growth rates for the year would hardly fit the script.

The basic formula of Chinese economic policymaking is to take the projected growth in private consumption and net exports, and subtract them from the GDP growth target. The residual is the amount of debt-driven investment spending that is needed to hit the target.

Of these three GDP components, investment is by far the most CO2-intensive, due to the energy used to make steel, cement, non-ferrous metals, glass and other basic construction materials. If the central government were to make up for a worse outlook on consumption and exports, then it could result in an increase in CO2 emissions overall.

There are already signs this could happen, with the Politburo calling recently for "active" stimulus, including speeding up large construction projects and increasing both bank lending and government spending.

A return to debt-fuelled stimulus spending runs counter to the government's aim of rebalancing the economy towards consumption. Relaxing the GDP growth target for the year would give more space to reconcile the different objectives, but Xi has signalled that the country should stick to its targets "as of now".

The GDP growth target for 2020 will be officially set in the annual session of the National People's Congress, which normally takes place at the start of March, but appears likely to be delayed due to the virus outbreak.

Another major uncertainty is that the initial statements about stimulus gave no indication of which sectors or what type of expenditure should be targeted. Targeting clean energy and energy efficiency investments would be a natural way to reconcile the perceived need to prop up economic growth with state-engineered spending and China's stated ambition to be a contributor to the fight against climate change.

The clean-energy sector is currently running well below capacity as investment in non-fossil energy sources and in electric vehicles slowed in 2019.

Analysis of data from the China Electricity Council shows newly installed wind power capacity fell 4%, solar power capacity by 53%, hydropower by 53% and nuclear by 31% in the first 11 months of the year, while newly added thermal power capacity increased by 13%. After booming in the first half of the 2019, electric vehicle sales fell 32% year on year in the period from July to November.

Methodology

The estimated CO2 reduction is based on fossil-fuel consumption data by sector and fuel for February 2019, and estimating year-on-year changes using sector activity indicators: daily coal consumption at power plants; coking plant; blast furnace and steel plant operating rates; and oil refinery operating rates. Residential fuel use is assumed to be unaffected. The estimate aligns with satellite-based NO2 levels, which point to the possibility of an even larger reduction.
Update 27/2/2020: More recent data was added to the charts.

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Analysis: Coronavirus has temporarily reduced China's CO2 emissions by a quarter

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As China battles one of the most serious virus epidemics of the century, the impacts on the country's energy demand and emissions are only beginning to be felt. Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below their usual levels across a range of indicators, many of which are at their lowest two-week average in several years.

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Great set of graphs depicting changes to our atmosphere and climate.

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Detailed & fully interactive climate level graphs featuring current and historical greenhouse gas levels, global temperature and sea levels. Customize and embed the graph on your website or blog for free! A project by the 2 Degrees Institute.

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When disaster strikes, Indigenous communities receive unequal recovery aid — High Country News

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In the last decade, more than 70 natural disasters have occurred on tribal lands, with some communities being hit more than once a year. According to an analysis from the Center for Public Integrity, tribal nations were on average more vulnerable than the U.S. overall during the same period, based on measures such as unemployment and income. Yet, in the span of one year, they receive less than half of what the Department of Homeland Security grants states for recovery efforts daily. Data from the National Congress of American Indians show that U.S. citizens receive, on average, about $26 per person, per year, from the federal government, while tribal citizens receive approximately $3 per person, per year.

"There are huge gaps in the way the federal government responds to tribes when a natural disaster occurs," said Nelson Andrews Jr., emergency management director for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

For every region, one tribal liaison navigates tribal agencies, approved contractors, the federal government and tribal council. And while tribes can apply for grants from FEMA to get help financing a hazard mitigation plan, there's no guarantee the agency will provide funding. Without a FEMA-approved mitigation plan in place, tribes are not able to receive funding for permanent, non-emergency repairs or long-term mitigation measures, Andrews Jr. said. And yet, as of 2018, around 30% of tribal nations had an approved plan.

But even when such a plan is in place, FEMA aid isn't guaranteed to cover the full cost of recovery. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have experienced four natural disasters in the last 10 years, according to the Center for Public Integrity 's analysis. In 2012, a severe storm, straight-line winds, and flooding damaged communities and left residents without power - and sometimes water - for days. In 2015, some of the most destructive wildfires in Washington state's history hit the reservation and surrounding communities, leaving three firefighters dead and more than 255,000 acres of land burned - approximately 20% of the tribe's land base. And last year, in 2018, flooding caused at least $356,000 in damage.

In 2012, according to then-Chairman Michael O. Finley, the tribe sought aid from FEMA's technical assistance personnel to help navigate the "complex FEMA regulatory scheme." But when Chairman Finley testified in an oversight hearing about FEMA recovery efforts in 2013, he noted in his prepared statement that FEMA's personnel "had little experience working with Indian tribes and were not in a position to provide us with prompt answers to our questions." Finley added that the paperwork the tribe had to provide presented a "significant workload" that required the efforts of three full-time employees to assemble all the records and complete requests for reimbursement. Even when that paperwork is completed, many tribes experience financial difficulty while waiting to recoup costs they paid out of pocket.

In 2015, wildfires swept across the Colville Reservation, destroying 24 homes. Both the state and the tribe applied for Individual Assistance from FEMA but both requests were denied, based on criteria including the severity of the damage, estimated damages and existing insurance coverage. In the absence of individual aid from FEMA, the tribe received public assistance through the state, while volunteers and the Tulalip Tribes helped rebuild the homes.

The process by which tribes submit paperwork for reimbursement can also cause problems. After severe floods hit the Colville Reservation in 2018, the tribe completed nearly a half-million dollars in repairs, and FEMA pledged to reimburse the tribe for response and recovery costs. More than a year later, the Colville Tribe says they still haven't received payment, and say FEMA delayed payment because some expenses and volunteer hours weren't correctly coded. The Colville Tribe does not have a full-time employee dedicated to completing FEMA forms.

In response to requests for comment, FEMA said requiring mitigation plans is necessary to ensure that "recipients are simultaneously taking steps to repair and replace infrastructure but also build resilience and reduce risk in the future."

Other tribal nations have had similar experiences. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North and South Dakota has been hit nine times in the last 10 years by catastrophic flooding and winter storms that knocked out power and washed out roads and bridges. In the spring of 2013, when record flooding swept the state of North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux received just under $240,000 in assistance from FEMA to repair roads, bridges and replace culverts that were washed out. But according to Elliott Ward, the tribe's emergency manager, it wasn't enough: "They sent us college students." Ward said the repairs were done incorrectly and ended up costing the tribe more money.

Nelson Andrews Jr. and other tribal emergency managers have urged Congress to increase their natural disaster aid next year. The amount has been stagnant for more than a decade, he said, and that's unacceptable.

When the emergency managers propose that new budget, they want to drive home one point: Equitable disaster funding be achieved for tribal communities to protect their citizens and ensure their continued sovereignty.

"It's basically like you're setting us up to fail," said Andrews Jr.

This story is part of a series about the insufficient protections for vulnerable people as natural disasters worsen in a warming climate. The Center for Public Integrity and four partners - the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ohio Valley ReSource, StateImpact Oklahoma and High Country News - are contributing stories.

Allison Herrera is Xolon Salinan from the Central Coast of California and serves as editor of climate and environment for Colorado Public Radio . Follow her @alisonaher. Emily Moon fact checked this story. High Country News

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When disaster strikes, Indigenous communities receive unequal recovery aid

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In the last decade, more than 70 natural disasters have occurred on tribal lands, with some communities being hit more than once a year. According to an analysis from the Center for Public Integrity, tribal nations were on average more vulnerable than the U.S.

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Great article on the extreme weather we are currently seeing in the western U.S.

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According forecasts and reports, temperatures could approach or fall below zero in places like Denver, Colorado this week. For Denver, the record low temperature for October is -2 degrees F so it could definitely be broken. Record cold temperatures are expected from the Rockies to the Midwest as Halloween approaches. Meanwhile, California residents are facing devastating wildfires. NBA star Lebron James and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger were forced to evacuate their homes as were many people that don't have famous names. What's the meteorology behind these two extremes?

Kincade Fire in northern California, acquired on 27 October 2019 by the Visible Infrared Imaging ... [+]
NOAA

I pose this question because it is always fascinating to watch people make sweeping statements and assumptions about weather or climate because it is extremely hot or cold in a particular week. Our weather is strongly governed by a series of undulating wave patterns in the atmosphere comprised of troughs and ridges. I will deal with the cold temperatures first. The Earth is within one of its seasonal transition periods, Fall. Slowly, the Northern Hemisphere is starting to tilt away from the Sun as we transition to winter. This means that cooler temperatures and snowstorms become more common in the forecasts. There is nothing weird about cold temperatures or snow at this time of the year even as Alaska and the eastern U.S. are warmer than normal right now (graphic below). Extreme cold events are determined by the amplitude of those "valleys" or troughs in the atmospheric wave patterns. The amplitude of a wave can be thought of as a representation of the amount of energy in the wave or how far the "hill" (ridge) or "valley" (trough) is from the base or rest position.

Surface temperature anomalies on October 29th, 2019 illustrate the record cold in the mountain west, ... [+]
Climate Reanalyzer, University of Maine

The current weather map shows that there is a significant trough in the western half of the United States right now (below). This trough allows cold, polar air, which is relatively dense, to ooze into the this portion of the country. Areas under ridges are associated with warmer conditions. The meandering train of waves is often delineated in our atmosphere by the jet stream. Forecast models move the wave pattern along and into the Great Plains and Midwest such that the upper level trough and associated surface cold front will cause temperatures to plummet in the coming days.

Upper level pattern of troughs and ridges in the United States on October 29th
Climate Reanalyzer, University of Maine

Meanwhile in California, NBA star Lebron James recently tweeted,

Man these LA (fires) aren't no joke. Had to emergency evacuate my house and I've been driving around with my family trying to get rooms. No luck so far!

Lebron James on Twitter

The Kincade fire just north of San Francisco and the Getty fire near the Los Angeles area are being fanned by near "perfect" fire weather conditions. Red flag warning have been issued for these areas. According to the California government website, "A Red Flag Warning is issued for weather events which may result in extreme fire behavior that will occur within 24 hours." The fires, once ignited by a source (human or natural) are being fanned by Santa Ana winds, which I have explained previously in Forbes. In that piece National Weather Service meteorologist Curt Kaplan told me,

There are several factors that can generate a Santa Ana event in Southern California. The majority of our weak to moderate Santa Ana events are driven by pressure gradients (difference in pressure over a given distance). When the high pressure is to the east of the region, the winds are impacted by the terrain-induced friction. Santa Ana events tend to have cold air at higher levels, typically associated with an upper-level low-pressure system.

NWS meteorologist Curt Kaplan

Winss from the northeast (typical of Santa Ana events) have been gusting to 20-65 mph in the region. The region is also experiencing single digit humidities, which means it is very dry, and temperatures in the upper 80s and 90s. Kaplan, on social media, said that such conditions breed "the potential for very rapid fire growth and extreme fire behavior."

These conditions in California and the interior of the United States are very scary (and dangerous) and not because it is the Halloween season. If you live in these regions, please be aware of the risks associated with extreme fires or extreme cold, respectively.

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Halloween Extremes - Explaining The California Wildfires And Frigid Cold In The U.S. This Week

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According forecasts and reports, temperatures could approach or fall below zero in places like Denver, Colorado this week. For Denver, the record low temperature for October is -2 degrees F so it could definitely be broken. Record cold temperatures are expected from the Rockies to the Midwest as Halloween approaches.

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And EF3 tornado hit Dallas on Sunday... and some TV stations chose not to interrupt programming to share the warning.

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Earlier this year a former student of mine was threatened and trolled because she interrupted a live broadcast of the Masters golf tournament for severe weather coverage in Atlanta. Other meteorologist like James Spann have opined on the foolishness that they receive for interrupting programming for live storm coverage. NBC 5 News in the Dallas-Forth Worth TV market issued a rare statement ( read it here) apologizing for their coverage of a devastating EF3 tornado that moved through densely populated North Dallas on Sunday. Here are 3 reasons why this tornado and future ones like it warrant immediate TV coverage.

DALLAS, TEXAS - OCTOBER 21: A Home Depot store damaged by a tornado is seen on October 21, 2019 in ... [+]
Getty Images

Television is still a trusted source for many people. I am not writing this piece to bash any particular station. It is an opportunity to elevate the conversation. To be fair, the NBC station in Dallas cut-in 6 times during the tornado warning and there were also multiple hours of live streaming coverage. It is my understanding that their Telemundo station was also on the air within a minute of the tornado warning. However, their own statement of apology acknowledged,

During Sunday night's Dallas Cowboys game, we made a mistake by not immediately interrupting the football game with a Tornado Warning. Although our meteorologists were tracking thunderstorms across the area when the National Weather Service issued a Tornado Warning for Dallas County, we delayed breaking into programming for six minutes.

NBC 5 News Dallas-Forth Worth Statement

In severe situations that six minutes could be critical. The station pointed out that "Our meteorologists were also streaming live weather coverage throughout the evening on our site, NBCDFW.com. We also alerted the football audience to our weather livestream throughout the game." Ahaaaaaaa, the Dallas Cowboys were playing the Philadelphia Eagles. As a big sports fan myself, I am certain that interrupting the game with "Dem Boys" would not be popular in that market. Heck, people attacked the Atlanta meteorologist over a golf tournament.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS - OCTOBER 20: Randall Cobb #18 of the Dallas Cowboys attempts to make a catch ... [+]
Getty Images

For many people, live streaming and digital alerts by phone are sufficient to make them feel adequately informed. Here comes the difficult part for many of the people that complain about their game or TV show being interrupted for weather coverage. It is not sufficient for everyone. In 2015, Five Thirty Eight asked 938 respondents how they receive wither information. The answers were: phone's default weather app (23.2%), local TV news (20.6%), a specific weather website or App (19.1%), The Weather Channel (15.2%), Internet Search (14.2%), newspaper (3.5%), radio (3.4%), and newsletter (0.9%). While I have a collegiate minor in math, the calculation is pretty simple. Almost 36% percent of people (over one-third) rely on TV for their weather information. An analysis by TVB revealed for a high-impact weather event in 2016 viewers flocked to their local broadcasts for information. Weather communication expert Dr. Gina Eosco told me in a previous Forbes piece,

Information is everywhere, but risk communication tells us that trust stems from the source of the information, not the information itself. For life threatening weather, then, TV plays an instrumental role. It provides a trusted context in which to understand risk information. Seeing a doctor is a similar analogy. There are plenty of websites on health information, but we still want a credible doctor to confirm what is wrong and give us guidance on what to do.TV meteorologists play that confirmatory role.

Dr. Gina Eosco, an award winning risk communication expert with Cherokee Nation Strategic Programs supporting NOAA's Office of Weather & Air Quality (OWAQ)

For many, access to streaming, digital, and phone-based services is not trivial. People can be very narrow and privileged in their thinking about many things in society. I can't tell you how many times that I hear things like, "that doesn't offend or bother me so what's the problem and why are they offended." However, I digress. It is amazing how people struggle to divorce themselves from their own situation to consider other perspectives or situations. For a large number of people, alerts on phones or streaming information is as natural as sleeping or eating. However, there are marginalized groups (elderly, lower income groups, etc) that may not have a smartphone or access to a computer. In a 2004 study published the journal Educational Gerontology, it was found that most elderly Americans "see the Internet more as a functional replacement for the library rather than mass media." Even today, may people in this age demographic still watches TV, listens to radios, and reads newspapers.

I think about my own mother. She is more likely to have received an alert about a tornado approaching her home Sunday night from a TV cut-in rather than a computer or her phone. She just doesn't consume information the way that I do. It is important for people to understand this fact and to be a less selfish in "cut in moments." By the way, I am sure the Cowboys game was streaming somewhere too.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) wants the media to alert the public of severe weather emergencies. T he FCC has a website called, "Accessibility to Emergency Information on Television. " It clearly states,

FCC rules require broadcasters and cable operators to make local emergency information accessible to persons who are deaf or hard of hearing, and to persons who are blind or have visual disabilities. This rule means that emergency information must be provided in both audio and visual formats.

FCC

Things that qualify according to the website are "Immediate weather situations" or "Community situations." While scrolls, crawls, and captioning meet these requirements, there are guidelines for the visually impaired on the same website.

Kudos to the station in Dallas for the apology and the statement that they are reviewing procedures. This was an EF3 tornado moving through one of the more populated cities in the United States. Every second counts in that situation. It is worth mentioning a few reminders from James Spann's "10 Deadly Sins of TV Severe Weather Coverage" ( see all 10 at this link):

"Staying OFF camera during severe weather coverage. No doubt this is the most widespread and serious problem we have today. The easiest thing to do is to "hide behind the equipment". With all of the fancy computer graphics, radar software, and social media tools, the natural thing to do it get behind the console and work the equipment. But, you will never, ever be an effective communicator unless you look your audience in the eyes."

"No easy access to your live video stream. It should be easy to find on the main web page of your station, and on all your station apps. People don't see it, they move along to the next station. I am shocked when I see a tornado warning in the heart of a TV market, and no local stations offer easy access to their live stream. I have searched web sites until I am blue in the face and I still can't find it."

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3 Reasons Tornado Threats Warrant Immediate TV Coverage

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Earlier this year a former student of mine was threatened and trolled because she interrupted a live broadcast of the Masters golf tournament for severe weather coverage in Atlanta. Other meteorologist like James Spann have opined on the foolishness that they receive for interrupting programming for live storm coverage.

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"While the wilderness survival skills certainly can’t hurt, it will be empathy, generosity, and courage that we need to survive. Kindness and fairness will be more valuable than any survival skill. Then as now, social and leadership skills will be valued. We will have to work together. We will have to grow food, educate ourselves, and give people a reason to persevere."

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I am an archaeologist and a wilderness survival instructor. Because I study societies that have collapsed, and since I teach basic outdoor skills, people ask me about what to do in a natural disaster, social upheaval, or some apocalyptic event. Right now, much of that concern relates to climate change. What I would do, where I would go, and what equipment I would take?

I understand the preoccupation with things falling apart. We face serious problems, like climate change. Perhaps because we worry, we envision the post-apocalyptic world. However, the great number of zombie fantasies and natural disaster movies suggests more than just a concern for the future. We seem to enjoy the fantasy. We like imaging life after civilization collapses. Like wiggling a loose tooth, it hurts in a good way.

I understand the appeal of these post-apocalyptic fantasies. They resonate with the rugged individualism and self-sufficiency that we imagine in ourselves. In the post-apocalypse, we would be able to start over, from a blank slate: decluttering on a global scale. Our needs would be immediate, and our focus clear. The tasks might be hard, but decisions would be easy. Life would be simple.

As a survival instructor, I can teach you the skills we think would be important. These are relatively simple - fire starting, shelter building, direction finding, and even picking locks. We can learn all the cool stuff from the movies. Armed with that knowledge, we imagine ourselves heading out to the woods with our families, with our chosen clan, surviving on our own. We will be self-sufficient. We can get back to basics. Surely, these types of forgotten outdoor skills will allow us to negotiate the collapse brought by climate change, neoliberalism, authoritarianism, zombies, or a meteor, right?

Wrong. As an anthropologist who studies human societies, I know this is not how it plays out. An apocalyptic disaster will be nothing like those fantasies. It will be harder than we think, and we will need different talents than the survival skills I teach. I study how people live and how societies change, in the past and present. I cannot predict the future, obviously, but no likely disaster scenario fits our fantasies. No tragic yet convenient event will allow us to discard our complex, messy, and ever-changing social reality and live out our rugged individualistic fantasy. We will not be by ourselves, with only the people we choose, avoiding those we do not understand or trust. We will not be free from the need to cooperate and compromise.

Any of the plausible scenarios for disaster, like unchecked climate change, will involve billions of survivors. We will find ourselves in large groups, in rapidly changing situations, and we will have to negotiate that. We will not escape the messiness of contemporary society. Any post-apocalyptic reality will not be a time machine to a mythical past we long for. It will not be a simpler, uncluttered life. We will not be able to run away. We will have to stay and fix things, and if we succeed, we may not recognize ourselves.

While the wilderness survival skills certainly can't hurt, it will be empathy, generosity, and courage that we need to survive. Kindness and fairness will be more valuable than any survival skill. Then as now, social and leadership skills will be valued. We will have to work together. We will have to grow food, educate ourselves, and give people a reason to persevere. The needs will be enormous, and we cannot run away from that. Humans evolved attributes such as generosity, altruism, and cooperation because we need them to survive. Armed with those skills, we will turn towards the problem, not away from it. We will face the need, and we will have to solve it together. That is the only option. That's what survival looks like.
Chris Begley is an archaeologist and wilderness survival instructor. He is the Director of The Exploration Foundation, a National Geographic Explorer, and a professor of anthropology at Transylvania University. His radio segment, The Great Outdoors, airs during the program Eastern Standard on WEKU, 88.9 FM.

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I study collapsed civilizations. Here's my advice for a climate change apocalypse.

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I am an archaeologist and a wilderness survival instructor. Because I study societies that have collapsed, and since I teach basic outdoor skills, people ask me about what to do in a natural disaster, social upheaval, or some apocalyptic event. Right now, much of that concern relates to climate change.

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Interesting video outlining a simple, but powerful, plan to combat climate breakdown.

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Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot make short film on the climate crisis

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Tropical storm Imelda is bringing extremely heavy rain to southern Texas, which has caused disastrous flooding.

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On Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster for 13 counties in Texas due to ongoing flooding as result of Imelda's rainfall.

A state of disaster has been declared in 13 counties as Tropical System Imelda impacts Texas. Learn more about how the state of Texas is responding. https://t.co/iZQjDlHyaA

- Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) September 19, 2019

Imelda quickly developed into a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico as it was making landfall on Tuesday afternoon near Freeport, Texas. While Imelda weakened to a depression Tuesday night, this storm has been proof that a tropical system does not need to be "strong" in order to cause big impacts. Flooding rain over southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana has caused widespread, extreme flooding.

Extreme flooding developed early Thursday in southeast Texas communities, including Winnie and Beaumont, where WeatherNation had crews on the ground. Imelda dropped extreme rainfall amounts through the day Thursday, leading to rapid and severe flooding.

Thousands of residents were evacuated and/or rescued from flood waters by local emergency responders.

The rainfall amounts have been staggering, with some parts of Texas deluged with more than 3 feet of rainfall since Monday. Rain totals like these now place Imelda in the top 5 wettest tropical systems on record for the Lone Star State.

The system has been responsible for brief tornadoes that spun up over Texas Wednesday. WeatherNation field correspondent, Brandon Clement, captured one tornado live on the air with WeatherNation from a drone.

Imelda will drift inland over Texas, remaining in a very warm and moist environment. Due to the slow movement of the storm, heavy rainfall and flash flooding will be continued risks through the Friday, though the rain will finally let up.

While too much rain has caused extreme flooding, the rain is also needed across Texas - just not so much, so fast. Drought conditions have developed throughout much of the Lone Star State in recent months. This rain from Imelda, while causing extreme flooding, will be beneficial to the drought conditions in the long run.

Stay with WeatherNation as we continue to follow this developing story.

Don't forget you can stream WeatherNation anytime on these stream outlets-> WEATHERNATION

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'State of Disaster' as Imelda Soaks Texas

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On Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster for 13 counties in Texas due to ongoing flooding as result of Imelda's rainfall. A state of disaster has been declared in 13 counties as Tropical System Imelda impacts Texas. Learn more about how the state of Texas is responding.

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Natural disasters like Hurricanes and Tornadoes get the headlines, but Extreme Heat can be deadly, and low income areas often bear the brunt of the worst impacts.

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When Shakira Franklin drives from West Baltimore to her job near the city's Inner Harbor, she can feel the summer heat ease up like a fist loosening its grip.

"I can actually feel me riding out of the heat. When I get to a certain place when I'm on my way, I'll turn off my air and I'll roll my windows down," says Franklin. "It just seems like the sun is beaming down on this neighborhood."

Franklin isn't imagining that. Her neighborhood, Franklin Square, is hotter than about two-thirds of the other neighborhoods in Baltimore - about 6 degrees hotter than the city's coolest neighborhood. It's also in one of the city's poorest communities, with more than one-third of residents living in poverty.

Across Baltimore, the hottest areas tend to be the poorest and that pattern is not unusual. In dozens of major U.S. cities, low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be hotter than their wealthier counterparts, according to a joint investigation by NPR and the University of Maryland's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.

Those exposed to that extra heat are often a city's most vulnerable: the poorest and, our data show, disproportionately people of color. And living day after day in an environment that's literally hotter isn't just uncomfortable, it can have dire and sometimes deadly health consequences - a fact we found reflected in Baltimore's soaring rates of emergency calls when the heat index spiked to dangerous levels.

According to a Howard Center analysis of U.S. census data and air temperature data obtained from Portland State University and the Science Museum of Virginia, the hottest neighborhoods in Baltimore can differ by as much as 10 degrees from the coolest.

And Baltimore is not an extreme case. NPR analyzed 97 of the most populous U.S. cities using the median household income from U.S. Census Bureau data and thermal satellite images from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. In more than three-quarters of those cities, we found that where it's hotter, it also tends to be poorer. And at least 69 had an even stronger relationship than Baltimore, the first city we mapped.

This means that as the planet warms, the urban poor in dozens of large U.S. cities will actually experience more heat than the wealthy, simply by virtue of where they live. And not only will more people get sick from rising temperatures in the future, we found they likely already are.
"Before I knew it, I was gasping for air"
In the summer of 2018 in Baltimore, when the heat index reached 103 degrees - the threshold deemed dangerous by the National Weather Service - EMS calls increased dramatically citywide for potentially fatal heat stroke. But calls increased for chronic conditions too: EMS calls for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) increased by nearly 70%. Calls for respiratory distress increased by 20%. Calls for cardiac arrest rose by 80%. And those for high blood pressure more than doubled. Other conditions also spiked: psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and dehydration, among others.

The heat affected residents citywide, but even when controlling for income by looking only at the patterns of Medicaid patients, there were differences across the city. From 2013 to 2018, Medicaid patients in Baltimore's hottest areas visited the hospital at higher rates than Medicaid patients in the city's coolest areas. The low-income patients in the city's hot spots visited more often with several conditions, including asthma, COPD and heart disease, according to hospital inpatient and emergency room admissions data from Maryland's Health Services Cost Review Commission.

In the Franklin Square neighborhood of West Baltimore, Shakira Franklin knows the link between heat and health all too well. She says her asthma is triggered by heat.

On a Saturday in July, Franklin says she was making the same drive she often makes from her home to the city's harbor. A heat wave was gripping the city, with temperatures reaching 100 degrees and above. Franklin says she normally tries to stay inside on days like that, but she had to get to work. That's when she had her first asthma attack in nearly five years.

"Before I knew it, I was gasping for air. It doesn't even take me 10 minutes to get from home to my other job. Just like that," says Franklin, who says an attack feels like drinking water through a pinched straw.

"Your windpipe is that straw and that water is the breaths you can take," Franklin says. "You're trying to bring your air through as much as you can."

Doctors in emergency departments near Baltimore's hotter neighborhoods say they prepare each summer for an increase in heat-related conditions.

"A lot of times the heat played a factor in making a chronic condition acutely worse," says Dr. Amit Chandra, chief of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus. He says that's especially true for cardiovascular conditions.

"The worse your circulatory system is, the worse you are at getting cool," says Chandra, who is also a faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. A weak or damaged heart might struggle to pump extra blood to the skin so heat can radiate off the body. Even sweating, which also gets rid of heat by evaporation, can put stress on the heart.

Respiratory conditions can become aggravated too, in part, because heat can actually worsen air quality and because conditions like asthma and COPD can be triggered by high heat and humidity.

Chandra says even looking at patients' medical records wouldn't necessarily tell the full story of how heat could be harming their health.

"We wouldn't diagnose them at the end of the day with heat exhaustion or heat stroke necessarily unless their temperature went up," Chandra says. "So there's probably quite a few folks that are affected by the heat, and we're not really tracking or measuring."

Regardless of where they live, people in poverty are more vulnerable to many chronic conditions, including some made worse by heat, like asthma and heart disease.

"Our patients are plagued by poverty, substance abuse and unfortunately some of the patients don't have great access to health care," says Dr. Reginald Brown, chair of emergency medicine at Bon Secours Hospital Baltimore in West Baltimore and a faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

"As far as the impact [of heat] to our patients, it's just another thing that complicates their lives," he added.
The urban heat island
Cities in general tend to be hotter than their natural surroundings, thanks to a phenomenon known as the urban heat island.

"If you have less green cover, you will almost always have higher temperatures, and greater exposure to heat," says Brian Stone, director of the urban climate lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Trees provide shade, but they also cool the environment down through the evaporation of water from their leaves - a process similar to how humans sweat to cool down.

"When you pave over an area, particularly if it had green plants, you have interrupted that cycle," Stone says. "Not only have you sealed the surface, you have put a lid on it, so evaporation cannot happen."

Pavement - particularly if it's black - absorbs heat and holds it in. At night, a city of more than 1 million people can be as much as 22 degrees warmer than its surroundings. Even the buildings themselves, Stone says, can create a sort of canyon that traps heat.

Given these elements, Stone says it makes sense that many low-income areas are hotter than richer areas.

"Lower-income parts of the city tend to have less green cover," Stone says. "That's something that we see across a lot of cities."

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It's also not unusual, Stone says, for poorer areas to be located near "undesirable land uses" such as nearby highways or industrial areas, which create even more heat.

The pattern of who lives closer to those sources of heat is not just a matter of poor versus rich, it is also often a matter of black and brown versus white. Nationwide, many of the low-income communities NPR found to be hotter - often with fewer trees, more concrete and closer to highways and factories - are also communities of color.

"It wasn't just a coincidence that communities of color end up in some of the most undesirable places," says Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which focuses on environmental justice issues affecting working-class Asian and Pacific Islander immigrant and refugee communities.

Yoshitani explains that policies like redlining - a practice, beginning in the 1930s and banned by the Fair Housing Act in 1968, in which neighborhoods were marked high risk for mortgage lenders in large part based on their racial makeup - forced people of color into less desirable areas. In Baltimore, the city's hottest neighborhoods, many of which are predominantly African American, still line up fairly consistently with the neighborhoods marked "hazardous" on a 1937 map created by the Home Owners' Loan Corp.

"People of color, African American communities, indigenous communities in the beginning and then immigrant communities as they came to the United States were not given a choice about where they could live, where they could raise their families, where they could work," Yoshitani says. "Those choices were made for them and that legacy continues today."
"They can't escape it"
In the majority of the cities NPR mapped, poverty was linked to heat, adding a second layer of risk to an already at-risk population. This is not only because poverty itself is a health hazard, but because poverty is also tied to other factors that can make it harder to get cool.

"People with money, of course, can do that a lot better than people with less money," says Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

He says no one is immune to climate change, but wealthier people can more easily control their exposure to heat by using air conditioning - which on its own contributes to climate change - or even by moving to a cooler part of the city.

"On the other hand, the folks with less money, they're going to be in their one home. And they're going to have to deal with the conditions in their one home," Benjamin says. "If they're going to be in an area where it's real hot, they're going to have to find other ways to adapt, but they can't escape it."

The urban poor, already often in hotter environments and already at higher risk for health problems, will have a harder time escaping climate change.

"It is the most significant public health problem that we have. It's going to be here for a long time. And it's getting worse," Benjamin says.
"This is ours"
There are strategies to cool down a city: investing in public transit, designing roofs that reflect sunlight, and planting more trees, among others.

In Baltimore, the city is working to combat urban heat. The government has installed cool roofs, turned vacant lots into community green space and strategically planted and maintained trees in low-income neighborhoods, among other initiatives. But the city's own arborist told the Howard Center that Baltimore is not on track to meet its goal of increasing the tree canopy to 40% by 2037.

"We're doing a lot with a little," says Anne Draddy, the city's sustainability coordinator.

The neighborhood where Shakira Franklin lives has increased its tree canopy over time. But by 2015, it still was among the city's lowest. Franklin says she's not optimistic the city will be able to cool down her neighborhood anytime soon.

"The city has a lot of responsibility. And I think that we would be close to the bottom of the list to be honest," she says.

There's a grassy vacant lot near her apartment where Franklin often takes a break from her job as a landscaping crew supervisor at Bon Secours Community Works, a nearby community organization owned by Bon Secours Health System.

It's one of the few places in the neighborhood with a lot of shade - mainly from a large tree Franklin calls the mother shade. She helped come up with the idea to build a free splash park in the lot for residents to cool down in the heat. Now Bon Secours is taking on the project.

"This was me taking my stand," Franklin says. "I didn't sit around and wait for everybody to say, 'Well, who's going to redo the park?' "

Daniel Greenspan, an architectural fellow working on the project, says they're about halfway to their current fundraising goal - with plans to buy the lot from the city.

On a hot Saturday this summer, Bon Secours and the neighborhood's community association threw a party in the lot. Children ran through streams of water from a pop-up fountain, while adults discussed and voted on potential designs for the new park.

"Our kids, they deserve it," says Franklin, who has two children. "I just feel like it's a long time coming to just have something to say that we built this here for us. This is ours."

Franklin says the park would become a refuge for people who can't escape the heat - and it will indeed be a place to cool off in this neighborhood. But worldwide, heat waves are getting hotter and more frequent, and the past five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

Methodology
To determine the link between heat and income in U.S. cities, NPR used NASA/U.S. Geological Survey satellite imagery and U.S. Census American Community Survey data. An The software also downloaded thermal imagery for each city from NASA's Landsat 8 satellite, looking for days since 2011 in June, July and August when there was less than 4% cloud cover. NPR reviewed each of the satellite images and removed images that contained clouds or other obscuring features over the city of interest. In cases when there were multiple clear images of a city, we used the thermal reading that showed a greater contrast between the warm and cool parts of the area of interest. In cases where there were no acceptable images, we manually searched for additional satellite images and found acceptable images from Landsat 8 for every city except for Hialeah and Miami, Fla., and Honolulu, which are frequently covered by clouds. For each city, NPR aligned the satellite surface temperature data with the census tracts. For each census tract, the software trimmed the geography to only what is contained within the city of interest's boundaries, then removed any lakes, rivers, ocean, etc. It calculated a median temperature reading for each census tract. When all of the tracts in a city were completed, it calculated a correlation coefficient (R) of the tracts to find the relationship between income and heat. The satellite data measure temperature at a surface, such as the ground or a rooftop. We used this measurement rather than ambient temperature, which measures the air about 2 meters above the ground. Measuring air is a more accurate measure of how people experience heat, but satellite data are more widely available than air temperature data. Using that data allowed us to provide a more complete snapshot of temperature trends across many cities. View NPR's full data and code on Github. To determine the relationship between heat and poverty in Baltimore, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism used block-by-block temperature data showing variations in Baltimore's urban heat island captured by researchers at Portland State University and the Science Museum of Virginia on Aug. 29, 2018. For each "community statistical area" in Baltimore, the Howard Center computed a median temperature and joined it to a U.S. Census American Community Survey data set with the poverty rate for each area and then calculated the correlation coefficient (R). NPR's Nora Eckert and Nick Underwood; and the Howard Center's Sean Mussenden, Roxanne Ready and Theresa Diffendal contributed to this report. open-source computer program developed by NPR downloaded median household income data for census tracts in the 100 most populated American cities, as well as geographic boundaries for census tracts. NPR combined these data with TIGER/Line shapefiles of the cities.

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As Rising Heat Bakes U.S. Cities, The Poor Often Feel It Most

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When Shakira Franklin drives from West Baltimore to her job near the city's Inner Harbor, she can feel the summer heat ease up like a fist loosening its grip. "I can actually feel me riding out of the heat.

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Some updated information on the path and wake of destruction of Hurricane Dorian.

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Hurricane Dorian is now a Category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. After bringing intensely destructive winds and deadly flooding to the Bahamas, Dorian is "ambling" to the north-northwest, roughly paralleling Florida's northern coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Dorian is about 90 miles east-northeast of Daytona Beach, moving at 8 mph, the NHC says in its 10 a.m. ET update. The storm is predicted to pivot toward the north-northeast - and around the same time, it's expected to close some of the distance to the shore. Dorian's core "will move dangerously close to the Florida east coast and the Georgia coast through tonight," the NHC says.

Dorian is blamed for at least seven deaths in the Bahamas, but that toll is still being tallied, due to the scale of the severe destruction wrought there by a massive storm surge and strong winds.

On the U.S. southeast coast, a precarious 24-hour period will begin early Thursday, when the hurricane's center is forecast to move "near or over the coast of South Carolina and North Carolina Thursday through Friday morning.

A storm surge warning is in effect for a huge area of the coastline, from Sebastian Inlet, Fla., through Georgia and South Carolina and up to Surf City, N.C. According to the NHC, in addition to the storm surge, "Very heavy rainfall totals of up 15 inches are possible."

Dangerous winds are also threatening a large area: Dorian is now sending hurricane-force winds outward up to 60 miles from its center; its tropical-storm-force winds extend for up to 175 miles.

In the Bahamas, the response to the terrible damage includes rescue efforts from the U.S. Coast Guard and the British navy. The push to get relief supplies to the area is also drawing on aid groups. As of Wednesday morning, the international airport in Freeport was still flooded.

"People are getting desperate, because their roofs are ripped off and their food supplies got damaged or thrown all over the place" in the chain's Abaco Islands, NPR's Jason Beaubien reports from Nassau.

The Bahamas' government was finally able to discontinue all tropical storm warnings early Wednesday - three days after it hit the island chain as a Category 5 storm, and nearly a week after the Bahamas issued its first hurricane alert last Thursday morning.

"All clear!" the Bahamas' emergency agency announced on Wednesday. But it also warned that residents should still be on their guard against a number of possible threats, from downed power lines and trees to severe flooding and the potential for tornadoes.

Dorian has defied numerous forecasts, including initial predictions that it would buzz across Florida's central east coast. Instead, its center has refused to make landfall. After booming into a Category 5 storm with gusts far above 200 mph, Dorian has lost some strength - but forecasters warn it can still cause more damage.

"Some weakening is expected during the next couple of days, and Dorian is expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next few days," the NHC says.

On South Carolina's coast, people have been ordered to evacuate or take shelter ahead of Dorian's arrival. But as often happens in such cases, not everyone plans to leave. The mandatory evacuation order took effect at noon Tuesday. But late Tuesday afternoon, Myrtle Beach was still fairly crowded, South Carolina Public Radio's Scott Morgan reports.

The beachgoers included North Carolina native Torie Kaveniss, who told Morgan she lives far enough from the water that she's not very concerned.

"I live a mile inland, so I'm not really where I'm super worried about it," she said. "If I lived on the beach here I'd probably be taking a little more precaution."

In neighboring Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp has ordered a state of emergency that includes 21 coastal counties. At least six counties are under a mandatory evacuation order.

In Florida, people who seem to have avoided a direct hit by Dorian are now mounting supply drives to bring aid and relief materials to the Bahamas. A two-day supply drive in West Palm Beach is seeking first-aid kits, flashlights and other materials.

In Miami's large Bahamian community, churches and the local government are working to send relief supplies to help ease those trapped on Grand Bahama and Abaco.

"Having lived through similar storms myself in the Bahamas, it's really a harrowing, life-changing experience," Father Jonathan Archer of Christ Episcopal Church told member station WLRN. "We're getting a lot of food, a lot of water, but we certainly need a lot more batteries, flashlights, tarp, rope."

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Hurricane Dorian 'Ambling' Parallel To Florida Coast, Leaving The Bahamas Reeling

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Hurricane Dorian is now a Category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. After bringing intensely destructive winds and deadly flooding to the Bahamas, Dorian is "ambling" to the north-northwest, roughly paralleling Florida's northern coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

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NHC for latest Hurricane Dorian Forecasts

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NHC for latest Hurricane Dorian Forecasts

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Head to the National Hurricane Center for the latest forecasts for Hurricane Dorian.
Click on Dorian on the map for details.

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Dorian is now officially hurricane strength. It just hit Puerto Rico and is on track to impact the U.S. mainland as a major hurricane.

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Updated at 5:10 a.m. ET Thursday
Hurricane Dorian is "expected to become a major hurricane on Friday," according to the National Hurricane Center.

Maximum sustained winds at 5 a.m. ET Thursday were 85 mph - a Category 1 hurricane - with higher gusts, according to the center's most recent update. Dorian was about 150 miles north northwest of Puerto Rico, moving about 13 mph toward the northwest.

Dorian's sustained winds topped80 mph, hitting Puerto Rico and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands before heading northwest. Forecasters are now warning that the storm will strengthen into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, defined as sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

"Heavy rains are expected to occur over portions of the Bahamas, Florida, and elsewhere in the Southeastern United States later this week and into early next week," forecasters said.

"All indications are that by this Labor Day weekend, a powerful hurricane will be near or over the Florida peninsula," the National Hurricane Center said at 5 a.m. ET.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for 26 counties in the possible path of the hurricane.

"The Hurricane Warning for Vieques, Culebra, and the U.S. Virgin Islands has been discontinued," the National Hurricane Center report said earlier. "The Hurricane Watch and Tropical Storm Warning for Puerto Rico have been discontinued."

Dorian caused only limited damage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"We're happy because there are no damages to report," Culebra Mayor William Solís told The Associated Press. He said only one community on his island lost power.

Current predictions show Dorian's center hitting Florida's coast late Sunday/early Monday.

The hurricane center has said it's too early to give an exact location where the eye will come ashore, and everyone in the affected area should make emergency preparations.

The NHC said the northern Bahamas and coastal sections of the Southeast United States could see 4 to 8 inches of rain, with 10 inches possible in isolated areas. "This rainfall may cause life-threatening flash floods," it said.

NHC Director Ken Graham cautioned that anyone on the Southeastern U.S. coast from Florida up through Georgia and South Carolina should watch for potential hazards.

Earlier, President Trump had declared an emergency in the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ordering the Federal Emergency Management Agency late Tuesday to provide "equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency."

Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced thanked Trump for approving the declaration, saying it would "allow federal aid to arrive more quickly" after the storm passes.

Trump approved an emergency declaration for the Virgin Islands on Wednesday.

In a statement about its preparations, FEMA said that its "stock on the island compared to 2017 levels includes three times as many generators, nine times as many meals, five times as many liters of water and 16 times as many blue tarps."

Meanwhile, the fifth named storm of the 2019 Atlantic season formed late Tuesday, as Tropical Storm Erin's winds reached 40 mph. The storm, which was several hundred miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., was downgraded to a tropical depression on Wednesday. Erin is expected to remain on a north-northeastern track, likely arriving at Canada's coast late this week.
NPR's Windsor Johnston contributed to this report.

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Florida Governor Declares State Of Emergency As Hurricane Dorian Gains Force

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Updated at 5:10 a.m. ET Thursday Hurricane Dorian is "expected to become a major hurricane on Friday," according to the National Hurricane Center. Maximum sustained winds at 5 a.m. ET Thursday were 85 mph - a Category 1 hurricane - with higher gusts, according to the center's most recent update.

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What is our world like as we face climate catastrophe.

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This fictional short story is part of ourSpeculative Journalism Issue, where we imagine stories from a West under climate stress in 2068.
They arrived in July of 2062, the time of year when the salmon memorials begin. The two E-series Black Hawks hugged the fire-scarred spruce of the Chugach National Forest, pounding into a parched blueberry field. Two dozen paramilitary police, members of the Old Bears, grabbed their gear, leaped from the choppers and disappeared into the treeline. It would be their final mission.

The Old Bears, an internationally funded joint task force developed to hunt down and arrest fugitive climate criminals, were led by Lieutenant Colonel Aoife Viejo. They hiked through the rawboned lowland forests for nearly two hours toward Katalla, a remote smuggling hub controlled by the United Provinces of Alaska Militia (UPAM). Their target was 84-year-old Stephen Brower, a former physician and Republican senator from Massachusetts who would later be convicted of crimes against the environment, specifically for "denying and downplaying life-threatening climate change impacts for personal gain." Intelligence sources said Brower had been living near Katalla for more than a year with his wife, his daughter, her husband, their twins, two armed guards and a courier who came and went regularly.

"The plan was Gabe LaBatte (reconnaissance) would secure the area, while (Judicial Officer) Katrina Winogrand served papers, and Jake Cross (intelligence) and I covered Winogrand, in case anything went sideways," said Aoife Viejo. The goal, as usual, was to capture the climate criminal and his collaborators peacefully so they could stand trial at The Hague or Fort Sill. But as the Old Bears made their way along the Katalla Slough that morning, through blackened bogs, drying streams and patches of withered prickly rose, their movements were captured by trail cams, alerting militia rebels in the area. "That's when the trouble started," recalled Viejo.

The team emerged from the treeline on the east side of a makeshift airstrip a kilometer from Katalla. Five commandos - Viejo, LaBatte, Cross and two relatively new recruits, Tina Cannon and Roberto Lowry - ran south along the edge of the woods, then west across the airstrip toward a collapsed wooden barn. The remaining commandos fanned out across the perimeter of the strip. Intelligence had suggested that there was an underground bunker with an air-filtration system underneath the old barn. The Brower family had been living there while they negotiated safe passage to the Kuril Islands, where they would be safe from extradition.

The Browers surrendered without incident; that much has been made public by the Chugach Commission. But what happened when the prisoners emerged from their bunker remains under inquiry. According to reports, 32 militia rebels hidden along the north and west end of the airstrip opened fire on the Old Bears. Cannon was hit in the neck and jaw, dying instantly. LaBatte died within minutes after a bullet tore through his thigh, severing his femoral artery. Brower's son-in-law and both twins were killed in the crossfire. Viejo's body armor protected her chest and stomach from multiple gunshots, while Winogrand, Cross, Brower and his wife managed to crawl to safety in the ensuing firefight.

For the next 46 minutes, an intense gun battle raged. Twenty-two UPAM rebels and seven Old Bears were killed. Investigators have yet to rule on the incident, but sources close to the commission say the evidence increasingly points to friendly fire as the cause of the Old Bear deaths. Nearly a dozen UPAM rebels may have faced "summary executions," which could lead to charges against Viejo, the task force's commander.

"We were able to find, and capture, these assholes on the wrong side of history."

Viejo says she still feels guilty about the raid, two years later. "I just have a lot of time to think about it." But despite the deaths, the investigations, the public scrutiny and controversy, Viejo regards the mission as a success. "We were just amazed by the wealth of information we recovered," she said. "Phones, DNA Fountain sticks, holo-drives with bank information and future eco-terrorism plots. It was the motherlode."

In the following weeks, climate task force teams across the globe were able to decrypt eco-terrorist networks and make sweeping arrests. "We were able to find, and capture, these assholes on the wrong side of history," she says.

The episode would seem to mark the end of Viejo's military career, and, perhaps, the end of what many consider the Green Revolution's darker side. It is widely accepted that The Storms of 2033 and the YARS pandemic played central roles in the global Green Revolution, both in terms of inflicting catastrophic, climate-related financial damage on the United States and in providing the international pressure necessary to permanently outlaw carbon emissions. But in the aftermath, as celebrations broke out around the world, the authorities took a controversial approach to eco-justice. In 2038, international courts began prosecuting high-level climate change deniers, including politicians, corporate leaders, journalists and scientists - individuals who "in writing, or by word, publicly denied, diminished or downplayed the impacts of human-caused climate change." By the end of 2040, an estimated 75 climate criminals remained at large, but as of this year, only eight remain unaccounted for, thanks largely to the half-dozen sanctioned paramilitary groups around the world tasked with tracking and arresting fugitives.

With only a handful of climate criminals still at large, and amid mounting pressure to disarm the task forces, the Old Bears and their sister organizations are disbanding after nearly three decades on the hunt. Little in their training has prepared them for their next challenge: retirement.

I FIRST MET VIEJO IN THE FALL OF 2067 in downtown Niinéniiniicíe, in a café packed with young writers, old radicals, provocative fliers, job hunters and pastries. It was the first of many visits and a lengthy correspondence - a running conversation about life before, and after, the Green Revolution, as well as about her cat (Councilman Beans), her niece, and how she went from cutting-horse competitor to internationally famous and now-retired climate-criminal hunter.

At that first interview, Viejo told me that she would not discuss the details of the Brower raid due to the ongoing investigation. If I wanted to get that story, she said, I could read the volumes of court documents, testimonies, appeals, correspondence, depositions and redacted paperwork currently available from the courts of the Autonomous Federation of Tribal Territories' mobile infantry judiciary, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals and the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Having been hauled in front of a half-dozen tribunals already, with more to come, Viejo said she was in no mood to be grilled again. As far as she's concerned, the Browers' arrests, as well as the intelligence gathered in the raid, made the collateral damage a tragic but necessary price to pay.

Viejo has called Niinéniiniicíe home for more than 20 years. "I got here when the houses were empty and the rents were cheap. A global pandemic really drops property values." Regionally speaking, it's the most influential metropolis in the Autonomous Federation of Tribal Territories. Its life as a colonial city has been almost entirely rewritten - to see pieces of the gold-domed, neoclassical capitol building, once a defining feature of the downtown, one must visit the Niinéniiniicíe Documentation Center for the History of Capitalism. Historians and schoolchildren interested in the region's role in fostering climate crimes can visit the overgrown remains of the Cherokee Generating Station.

North of Niinéniiniicíe, past the ghost towns and overgrown suburbs, a network of smart grids and renewable energy projects blankets the plains. To the east lie the contested territories of the Oceti Sakowin and Osage; to the south, the Pueblo districts; to the north, the Plains Confederacy; and to the west, just over the mountains, the last remaining rebel-held province in the region.

Since it was transferred to tribal control in 2052, Niinéniiniicíe has become known as the city of reinvention. Its entertainment, education, technology, art, politics, tourism, fashion, economy and sports have attracted both tribal citizens and people of settler heritage. Politicians, artists, ambassadors and socialites have moved here, drawn by the good weather and cultural amenities - evening patio cocktail parties that begin with the summer solstice and, for those who can afford the manmade powder, the skiing that begins just before winter solstice. Musicians come to play in the city's clubs, while college graduates fresh from the Ivies - Sinte Gleska, the Institute of American Indian Arts and Chief Dull Knife College - vie for jobs in the booming negative-emissions tech industry. Today, Niinéniiniicíe is the center of the Indigenous universe, rivaled only by Pāpāwai and S'ólh Téméxw.

Viejo's celebrity sees her slipping as quietly as possible between her home, her favorite coffee shops and bars, and the Sixkiller Academy, where her niece, Tsah Doe, attends school. The two have been living together for over a year - Rhett, Viejo's only son, is on a peacekeeping deployment in Araucanía - and the relationship with Tsah Doe, Viejo says, has given her days structure but also has been surprisingly challenging. "The day starts early: I make breakfast, we negotiate what she'll wear that day, then walk to school. I come home, clean up, then nap - with Councilman Beans, of course. Then I pick Tsah Doe up, make dinner. Wash, rinse and repeat the next day." Tsah Doe enjoys swimming or horse-riding lessons, visits friends and takes English and Mandarin language classes. "She plays well on her own," says Viejo. "But if you think heavily armed climate criminals on the lam are tough customers, try getting (Tsah Doe) to bed when My Painted Pony is on the TV."

"But if you think heavily armed climate criminals on the lam are tough customers, try getting (Tsah Doe) to bed when My Painted Pony is on the TV."

Before Viejo became famous, she rode horses. When she was 5, her mother, Alex, moved the family to North Texas to be closer to her parents. Viejo's grandmother, Elizabeth Rose, was a doctor, and her grandfather, Lee, a former pilot. "Back then, that area was known as the 'cutting horse capital of the world,' " said Viejo. "That's how I got into it - riding horses. My grandfather made me do it." By the age of 12, Viejo had gone from youth rookie on the local cutting-horse circuit to taking top marks as a novice. Her goal was to go pro. "It's all I wanted to do," she recalled. "Then YARS hit."

According to the most recent World Health Organization estimates, Yamal Acute Respiratory Syndrome killed approximately 1.8 billion around the world in three pandemic waves between the spring of 2031 and the summer of 2033, touching nearly every person on the planet in one way or another. Viejo lost her riding coaches, then her mother and grandfather. When the pandemic was finally under control, The Storms made landfall. "I remember watching it on the TV with my grandma. We were eating lasagna that day the hurricane hit D.C. It was like watching a monster movie. I saw the White House crumble, Congress flattened. My grandma couldn't believe it; she didn't know what to do or if we would even be safe. I think she was like a lot of people back then, wondering what kind of world we were living in, realizing that this was really the end, that all the droughts and wildfires and hurricanes were just warnings. I felt bad, but I think my grandma felt worse, and you could see that feeling on everyone. That hopelessness. It was scary."

In the wake of The Storms, the question of autonomy, reparations and eco-justice created a kind of power vacuum. With refugees on the move throughout the United States and tribal nations closing their borders, a new leader, Georgette Oak, became head of the rapidly growing Autonomous Federation of Tribal Territories. "Oak wasn't just the architect of what we now know as the AFTT," said Sipho Kings, editor and chief at the Mail & Guardian. "He was responsible for attracting movements with harder, more revolutionary leanings, notably the Popular Front for Indigenous Liberation (PFIL)." In 2034, the PFIL declared itself a liberation organization and announced that its enemies were not only American colonialism and imperialism, but also global partner regimes that oppressed Indigenous populations. The group was instantly outlawed. After it began dynamiting government buildings in what were then unceded tribal territories, the group quickly earned notoriety as "terrorists."

"Young people could feel the change in the air: It was a call for revolution, and people around the world were affected by it, sympathetic to a war against American imperialism and capitalism led by Indigenous people."

"It was fabulous publicity," said Lillian Bolano, Vine Deloria professor of history at Harvard University. "Suddenly, Indigenous liberation was on the front page of every newspaper on the planet. Young people could feel the change in the air: It was a call for revolution, and people around the world were affected by it, sympathetic to a war against American imperialism and capitalism led by Indigenous people."

After carbon emissions were outlawed and climate criminal tribunals established, Viejo and others gravitated to the AFTT and the PFIL. "I can remember the feelings I had when I was a kid, and my mom or my grand-dad read to me at night and told me stories about the world. When it was still green. When you could still swim in the ocean or see snow in the mountains. I would look at nature photographs in magazines and see birds and animals that don't exist anymore, and they were clear and glossy, and I would look at them for hours and dream about what it was like to see everything in real life. What it was like to see a rainforest, or a glacier. I didn't have the words then, but I remember the feeling of knowing that those places were dying.

"Now I understand that the feeling was shame - shame and anger. I think that is really why I've done what I've done, and I don't need a pardon for it. When the courts started making arrests, police were grabbing guys, like, every other day. In Sweden or Australia or Canada - all these exotic places I had only ever seen on television or in my magazines - these guys were driving around in expensive cars with their families and living in climate-controlled buildings with hydroponic crops and expensive bottled water like nothing was happening. Like the world was OK. And when they went into hiding? That's when I joined up. I wanted to help grab these assholes, but I settled for dynamiting (Bureau of Indian Affairs) offices."

In the summer of 2033, Viejo made contact with the PFIL. Viejo refused to discuss her time with the organization. Those stories, she says, are a matter of Tribal Security.

IN FALL OF 2040, THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE voted overwhelmingly to demand that the United States end its "colonial administration" of North America and return all unceded lands to tribal nations and Indigenous communities. That same year, the PFIL and other liberation movements became bona fide AFTT armed forces, the Olympic Games in southern Chile were cancelled, and the Bast Council agreed to unrestricted transport of people and goods throughout Africa and Europe. One other thing happened: Aoife Viejo became incredibly famous.

Viejo did so unwillingly. She first appeared in AFTT propaganda materials, promoting the PFIL's transition from rebel group to standing army, then took on a more involved role with the Office of Tribal Information. "I didn't have a choice in that," she said. "It was just part of the job." When it was announced that the AFTT would fund a climate criminal task force, with Viejo leading it, she was quickly dispatched to talk shows and radio programs. Her image appeared on everything from cereal boxes to magazine covers. Her "adventures" appeared in comic books, her personal life became fodder for public consumption.

"I've always felt like that was a kind of an analogy for my life at the time. Lying in a pool of blood on the streets of Me-Kwa-Mooks wearing crazy-model makeup."

By 26, Viejo was a household name. As the face of the AFTT, she quickly became an icon of "self-determination and sovereignty." While her involvement with AFTT propelled her to fame, the notoriety also destroyed her marriage to Woody Stone, an entomologist with the Federation's reforestation division, and made her a target for the constellation of oil and gas militias, settler secession movements and white nationalist groups opposed to the International Court of Justice's ruling.

At 29, she survived her first assassination attempt, an FBI-orchestrated shooting outside her Niinéniiniicíe apartment. She spent two months recovering with her ex-husband, Woody. "We spent the whole time playing cards, eating cherries and drinking rum," she says. The second attempt, a bombing on her 31st birthday planned by the American reconstruction militia Sons of Liberty, earned her a nine-month vacation to the still-frigid shores of Kalaallit Nunaat, where she and Woody conceived their only son, Rhett. The third attempt, a stabbing coordinated by the Soldiers of Washington, an anti-Indigenous colonial group, occurred at 35 after a glamour photo shoot for Indian Country Weekend. "I've always felt like that was a kind of an analogy for my life at the time," she said. "Lying in a pool of blood on the streets of Me-Kwa-Mooks wearing crazy-model makeup. That kind of shit usually only happens when you hang out in Diné Bikéyah."

Controversy - and violence - were simply part of Viejo's job, it seemed. "Everyone thought that with the Green Revolution and the land returns that the world would be a nice place, that we'd all be running around, hugging beavers and kissing buffalos," she said. "It's not like that."

IN SPRING 2038, WHEN VIEJO WAS ONLY 18 YEARS OLD, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Perry Inhofe became the first climate criminal prosecuted by international courts. The author of the now-banned book The International Hoax: How the Climate Change Conspiracy Threatens America, Inhofe was notorious in the early part of the 21st century for his vehement denial of human-caused climate change, his anti-climate policy, his acceptance of millions of dollars in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, and his penchant for political theater. (Bringing snow to the U.N. in a cooler in an attempt to prove that global warming was fake still ranks as one of his most ludicrous stunts.) Inhofe received a sentence of 362 years for climate crimes. His original handwritten confession is on view at the Niinéniiniicíe Documentation Center for the History of Capitalism, displayed next to a photo of children outside one of the many YARS crematoriums.

Mark Horner, former executive director of the Committee for a Productive Future (CPAF), was the second person to be tried. An anti-climate science think tank bankrolled by oil and gas companies, CPAF was well-known for its stable of lobbyists and for deliberately spreading disinformation in both the U.S. and the E.U. Horner received a life sentence, as did his closest CPAF collaborators and contributors - at least those who were caught.

As international courts issued arrest warrants for climate deniers around the world, those who could afford to go on the lam did. A few reactionary governments and critics called the arrests "an unnecessary act of retribution" and condemned the paramilitary police forces deputized to arrest climate deniers.

In The Pacific, Adam Overlook explicitly rejected the use of paramilitary climate police and called for a return to national autonomy to curb international abuses of power. "One problem victims of environmental crimes seem to forget in this so-called 'golden age of justice' is that by placing all climate crimes on the shoulders and in the hearts of pernicious oil executives or crooked Republicans, we are able to assuage our own guilt and believe that climate change wasn't a communal effort. That there was nothing ever wrong with our own behavior. That there was, in fact, a bad man in a black hat the whole time, and once he was arrested, we law-abiding citizens could restore order to the world, and crush such cruel designs and malicious plots."

"Nobody wants to go to the U.S. anyway. It's what folks used to call 'a shithole country.' "

Viejo herself is no stranger to personal criticism. Shortly before its collapse, The New York Times called her "a violent thug who has already murdered American democracy and now returned to kick its corpse for fun," while the Philadelphia Inquirer 's editorial board continues to demand her "immediate arrest for violations of international human rights covenants." U.S. security services have a standing order to arrest or kill Viejo on sight, should she enter U.S. territory - a threat Viejo shrugs off. "Nobody wants to go to the U.S. anyway," she says. "It's what folks used to call 'a shithole country.' "

As raids and arrests have become more violent, pressure has been mounting globally to dismantle groups like the Old Bears. The Citronen Club, a Danish-funded task force, faced criminal charges after a botched arrest attempt led to the deaths of 23 civilians on a bus in Aalborg, while in Chile, climate-criminal hunters were eventually arrested after investigators learned that the task force hunted and killed friends and family of climate deniers for "sport." The Old Bear deaths and investigations have served as a turning point for international attitudes, but Viejo stands by her and her colleagues' actions.

Yet temperatures continue to rise - and there's the rub. Despite the outlawing of emissions and a complete switch to renewables, post-Industrial Revolution carbon dioxide is still in the atmosphere cycling through the earth's system. Scientists don't know how long it will take for the planet to return to safe levels of carbon dioxide and say it could take centuries. "It was already too late when we started (the Green Revolution)," said Viejo.

SINCE RETURNING TO CIVILIAN LIFE, Viejo has been primarily concerned with finding work. Her search took an unusual turn three weeks ago.

To the east, the capital of the remaining United States, Washington, D.C., remains a colossal mess of ravaged neoclassical buildings and overgrown row houses. The city's thoroughfares are as decrepit as they are dangerous, much like the streets of Charlotte, New York, Philadelphia and the few remaining metropolises on what's left of the United States.

Nearly two decades after the collapse of the U.S. economy, the former republic struggles with abysmal health statistics, social ills, and psychological challenges. Alcohol-related deaths among white people are the highest of any minority group, while white men are imprisoned at five times the rate of their Indigenous counterparts. The unemployment rate for white men still is approximately 15 times the rate in the Tribal Territories - up 15% since 2062 - and at least 40% of white families live in abject poverty. Rolling blackouts have done no favors to the flat-lined economies of the flailing nation.

Last year, Autonomous Federation of Tribal Territories airlift planes transported more than 3.5 million tons of food to the U.S. in "Operation Independence." The planes originally returned with passengers hoping to become citizens of the Territories, but this spring, strained diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Federation put a temporary halt to accepting refugees. Tribes remain divided on the matter, but continue to fly goods and products into the U.S. By the end of the year, it's estimated that 275,000 missions will have been flown to Washington, D.C., Boston and New York, feeding nearly 16 million people.

According to AFTT officials, the ongoing effort will now be led by Viejo, thanks to the end of the Chugach Commission's nearly seven-year investigation, which was dismissed on a technicality a few weeks ago, after the testimony of surviving Old Bears were inadmissible. Katrina Winogrand, Jack Cross and Aoife Viejo, the courts argue, had not been fully informed of their rights before they spoke with investigators directly after the firefight. Viejo avoided a dishonorable discharge and can continue her military career with Operation Independence.

Speaking by phone, Viejo said she was relieved by the acquittal, but remained tight-lipped about her feelings toward investigators, media inquiries and speculation. She acknowledged that she was not free from blame. "I was in charge, so that responsibility is on me. They were my friends. I'll have to carry their deaths." She said she did not know how long she would feel that way.

"When I was a kid, I shot a ground dove with a pellet gun to see what would happen, maybe just because I could. Knocked it right off a telephone line. But it didn't die - I only hit it in the wing. Instead, it flopped around and tried to fly away with its good wing. It was hurt and scared but still pretty fast, so I chased after it, for almost a block, just hoping I could find a way to say I was sorry. To take back what I had done. I had never felt so ashamed in my life. I still do." Viejo paused for a long moment, then continued. "I think about that a lot, and my friends who died. I pray for them. I tell them that I still need their help and guidance and strength. I tell them I'm still trying to get something right here. I'm still trying to figure out what that is."

Tristan Ahtone is an associate editor for High Country News, leading its tribal affairs desk. He realizes how much trouble we're in as a species every time he enters an airport. Email him a t [email protected] or submit a letter to the editor. Follow @Tahtone

SOURCES: Anderson, K., & Peters, G. (2016). The trouble with negative emissions. Science, 354(6309), 182-183.

Lowe, J. A., Huntingford, C., Raper, S. C., Jones, C. D., Liddicoat, S. K., & Gohar, L. K. (2009). How difficult is it to recover from dangerous levels of global warming? Environmental Research Letters, 4(1), 014012.

Ricke, K. L., Millar, R. J., & Macmartin, D. G. (2017). Constraints on global temperature target overshoot. Scientific Reports, 7(1).

More from Climate Change

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This fictional short story is part of ourSpeculative Journalism Issue, where we imagine stories from a West under climate stress in 2068. They arrived in July of 2062, the time of year when the salmon memorials begin. The two E-series Black Hawks hugged the fire-scarred spruce of the Chugach National Forest, pounding into a parched blueberry field.

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Fani has been recorded at just shy of Cat 5 Hurricane strength.

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Above: Infrared image of Tropical Cyclone Fani as of 1610Z (12:10 pm EDT) Thursday, May 2, 2019. Image credit: @SSECRealEarth/University of Wisconsin-Madison.

After powering to top-end Category 4 strength, Tropical Cyclone Fani is taking a bead on the northeast coast of India as one of the most intense storms on record to threaten the region, prompting more than a million people to evacuate. Fani's top sustained winds had increased to 155 mph-just 2 mph shy of Category 5-as of 12Z (8 am EDT) Thursday, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). Fani could briefly intensify to Category 5 strength before an expected landfall on Friday morning local time, or IST (Thursday night EDT) within 50 miles of the city of Puri (population 200,000). Update: As of 18Z Thursday, JTWC reported that Fani's top winds remained at 155 mph. Some weakening is expected before landfall in the Puri area around 9 to 10 AM local time Friday, but Fani will still arrive as an extremely dangerous cyclone.

Satellite images on Thursday morning EDT show a forbidding cyclone, with a crisp eye about 15 miles wide surrounded by a core of intense thunderstorms. With warm sea-surface temperatures in its path, and very favorable upper-level outflow, conditions are nearly ideal for Fani to maintain most or all of its strength in the remaining time before landfall.

JTWC predicts that Fani will still be a powerful Category 4 storm just before landfall. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) is predicting a landfall intensity of Category 3. Regardless of any potential weakening before landfall, Fani will push destructive winds and a potentially catastrophic storm surge across the coast of India's Odisha state near and east of Puri. Because of the geography of the Bay of Bengal, which funnels and concentrates storm surge toward its north end, dangerous surge from Fani may extend to the West Bengal coast, potentially affecting areas from the coast toward Kolkata (metro area 14 million).

Correction: More than 300,000 people have already been evacuated from parts of Odisha, according to the state government, which said it plans to evacuate more than 1 million people. An estimated 10,000 villages and 52 towns are in the path of Fani, as reported by the Times of India.

See the weather.com article for more on preparations ahead of Fani. In addition, the India desk of weather.com has a continually updated page with live updates on Fani from an Indian perspective.

Surge, wind, and rain forecast for Fani

The official forecast from the IMD as of 12Z Thursday was for surge levels of up to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) across low-lying areas of Ganjam, Khurda, Puri & Jagatsinghpur Districts. It appears the surge forecast is based on model output that preceded Fani's most recent strengthening, so the actual peak surge near and just east of landfall may be considerably larger. The imminent new moon is also likely contributing to higher-than-usual high tides. High tide at Puri will be at 7:28 am IST Friday, which is quite close to the expected time of landfall. The tidal range between high and low tide was about 4.6 feet on Thursday, so arrival at high tide would add considerable impact to Fani's storm surge.

Fani will be weakening rapidly as it moves north-northeast on Friday evening local time, moving near or just inland from the far northeast India coastline. Despite the weakening, some amount of the storm surge put into motion by Fani can be expected to progress to the northwest end of the Bay of Bengal. The megacity of Kolkata sits almost 100 miles inland from the coast, on the east side of the Hooghly River. The coastal plain from Kolkata to the bay is lined with tidal creeks and riverine channels that allow the impacts of a major surge to reach well inland. High tide in Kolkata is 12:46 pm Friday IST in Kolkata. The tidal range is huge, about 10.1 feet, so any additional surge component from Fani would most likely be felt around high tide.

Fani's winds are likely to cause severe damage in a concentrated area just east of the landfall location, in the storm's more dangerous right-hand quadrant. Hurricane-force winds are expected to extend up to 30-40 miles east of where Fani's center comes ashore. If landfall is just west of Puri, that could put the city in line for some of Fani's worst wind impact. Villages along the coast well east of Puri will be highly vulnerable as well.

IMD is warning of a wide array of potential wind-related destruction in coastal and near-coastal parts of Odisha and West Bengal state. Some wind impacts will extend as far north and as far inland as the Kolkata area, where sustained tropical-storm force winds are possible. Among the expected wind-related outcomes in the hardest-hit areas:

-Total destruction of thatched houses
-Extenstive damage to kutcha houses (huts made of mud, wood, straw, and dry leaves), and some damage to more sturdy building
-Bending and uprooting of power and communication poles
-Major damage to roads and flooding of escape routes
-Widespread damage to standing crops and plantations

Torrential rains will accompany Fani, with the largest amounts-likely more than 10" locally-expected near the landfall location. Widespread 3" to 6" amounts will fall along Fani's path inland, extending into northern Bangladesh. Rainfall could exacerbate surge-related flooding in some parts of far northeast India.

Figure 4. Predicted rainfall accumulation (in millimeters) near the expected landfall location of Tropical Cyclone Fani through Friday, May 3, 2019. Amounts could exceed 250 mm (9.84") near the landfall location, which may end up slightly east of the rainfall maximum shown here. Image credit: TWC Met Team.

Fani is one of the strongest cyclones on record in the Bay of Bengal

According to NOAA's historical hurricane database, Fani is the sixth strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal. The only five stronger storms were all Category 5s. Two of these made landfall at Category 5 strength: the 1999 Odisha cyclone and Tropical Cyclone Gay of November 1989.

Only six Bay of Bengal tropical cyclones have hit India at hurricane strength since 2000. The deadliest to hit India in the last couple of decades was the 1999 Odisha Cyclone, which struck near the city of Bhubaneswar on October 29, 1999, as a Category 5 storm with 160-mph winds. Arriving at a near-perpendicular angle, the cyclone drove a storm surge of 26 feet (8 meters) onto the coast. The storm then stalled just inland, dumping torrential rains on portions of India already saturated from the landfall of Category 4 Tropical Cyclone 04B just twelve days before. The catastrophe killed 9,658 people and left $2.5 billion in damage (1999 dollars), making it India's most expensive and fourth deadliest tropical cyclone in the past 100 years.

Cyclone season in the Bay of Bengal peaks during April-May and October-November, on either side of the monsoon season. Fani is an unusual springtime threat for eastern India, as most of the April and May cyclones in this region move east or northeast toward Bangladesh and Myanmar. In eastern India, most of the worst cyclones have struck during the fall months.
Dr. Jeff Masters contributed to this post.

Vue impressionnante du cyclone #Fani captée par le satellite japonais Himawari-8 au coucher de soleil vers 12h UTC. pic.twitter.com/BQm4gzAob9
- Keraunos (@KeraunosObs) May 2, 2019

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Potentially Catastrophic Cyclone Fani Nears Landfall in India with 155-mph Winds by Bob Henson | Category 6

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Above: Infrared image of Tropical Cyclone Fani as of 1610Z (12:10 pm EDT) Thursday, May 2, 2019. Image credit: @SSECRealEarth/University of Wisconsin-Madison. After powering to top-end Category 4 strength, Tropical Cyclone Fani is taking a bead on the northeast coast of India as one of the most intense storms on record to threaten the region, prompting more than a million people to evacuate.

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A large earthquake in Manila, Philippines caused a skyscraper's rooftop pool to spill water in a dramatic way!

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The Philippines was rocked with a 6.3 earthquake this morning that sent buildings swaying and people running for safety. But one of the most bizarre videos of the earthquake so far has to be this footage of water pouring out of a residential skyscraper in Manila's Binondo district. According to local reports, that water is from a penthouse swimming pool.

The building, called the Anchor Skysuites, is relatively new and didn't officially open until 2015. It's one of the tallest buildings in the area and is credited as the tallest building in any Chinatown around the world outside of China.

The video, credited to Michael Rivo, was just one of many videos capturing the terrifying experience. Another video shows the opposite angle of the building, as water cascades down. Thankfully, the earthquake didn't cause a tsunami. At least not from the ocean.

Manila Bulletin Online published two of the videos on YouTube, showing that the water only makes it halfway down the 625-foot structure before turning into a wind-swept mist.

The earthquake was centered about 37 miles northwest of Manila, and at least five people have died so far. A local airport terminal has been shut down and there's major disruption to the area's transportation lines.

The region experiences frequent earthquakes, and thankfully, this earthquake wasn't as devastating as some in the recent past. Roughly 4,791 people died in 1976 during a 7.9 earthquake in the area and 1,666 died in 1990 during a 7.8 earthquake.

[ Filipino Times]

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Skyscraper's Rooftop Pool Spills Everywhere as Earthquake Rocks Manila

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The Philippines was rocked with a 6.3 earthquake this morning that sent buildings swaying and people running for safety. But one of the most bizarre videos of the earthquake so far has to be this footage of water pouring out of a residential skyscraper in Manila's Binondo district.

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Earthquakes continue throughout the southwestern part of the Salt Lake Valley.

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The latest, a 3.1 magnitude, struck Saturday at 2:31 a.m.

The largest earthquake in the area - the "mainshock" - occurred at 5:09 a.m. on Feb 15, registering a 3.7. According to the stations, 13 quakes occurred before that; the largest was a 3.2 foreshock that came 7 minutes before the main shock.

Of the 90-plus aftershocks, one hit 2.5 Wednesday at 8:08 p.m. No injuries and no significant damage have been reported from any of the quakes.

According to seismologist James Pechmann at UUSS, the quakes continued on Friday; there was a 1.0 magnitude shake at 1:28 a.m.

Pechmann reiterated that, while small quakes do not necessarily portend the big one is about to strike, they also don't act as a "safety valve" to "relieve pressure" and lessen the chances of a much larger earthquake.

According the UUSS, there are small earthquakes in Utah every day, "although most of them are too small or too far from population centers to be felt." And, while it's "possible" that the Bluffdale quakes are occurring on the Wasatch Fault, "it is also possible that they are occurring on a minor, unnamed fault."

UUSS did warn that the Bluffdale area quakes "serve as a reminder that Utah is earthquake country and a large, damaging earthquake could occur at any time. Therefore, everyone living in Utah should strive to be prepared for large earthquakes."

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Earthquake tally near Bluffdale keeps rising; 106 in 11 days

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The latest, a 3.1 magnitude, struck Saturday at 2:31 a.m. The largest earthquake in the area - the "mainshock" - occurred at 5:09 a.m. on Feb 15, registering a 3.7. According to the stations, 13 quakes occurred before that; the largest was a 3.2 foreshock that came 7 minutes before the main shock.

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While the basics of tornado formation have been understood for decades, the details are a bit more elusive.

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WASHINGTON - Tornadoes may form from the ground up, rather than the top down.

That could sound counterintuitive. Many people may picture a funnel cloud emerging from the bottom of a dark mass of thunderstorms and then extending to the ground, atmospheric scientist Jana Houser said December 13 in a news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting.

Scientists have long debated where the wind rotations that lead to twisters in these thunderstorms begin. Now Houser, of Ohio University in Athens, and her colleagues have new data that upend this "top-down" idea of tornadogenesis.

The supercell thunderstorms that can spawn tornadoes form where a powerful updraft of warm, moist air - such as air moving northward from the Gulf of Mexico - gets trapped beneath a layer of colder, drier air - such as air moving southward from Canada. That's an inherently unstable condition, but the other necessary ingredient for tornadoes to form is wind shear: fast-moving winds that move the air masses, causing them to rotate horizontally. Air then rising through the supercell can tip the rotation from horizontal to vertical - creating conditions ripe for a tornado.

But the very moment of twister birth remains largely elusive. Tornadoes can form within just 30 to 90 seconds, so research on how they start is often limited by not quite getting to the right place at the right time to watch a twister actually being born - and her team was no exception, Houser said.

But using a rapid-scanning Doppler radar mounted at the back of a truck, the team managed to capture the full evolution of four tornadoes, including two powerful twisters that struck near El Reno, Okla., one on May 24, 2011, and another on May 31, 2013.

The radar, which collects data every 16 seconds, showed that rotating winds for the 2011 storm appeared to start at multiple levels in the atmosphere at once, rather than starting high up and moving downward. For the 2013 storm, tornado-strength rotation actually began at the lowest measured elevation, about 20 meters above the ground. By 60 seconds later, the rotation was at a height of about 3.5 kilometers. Crowdsourced still and video images of the El Reno storm also revealed a funnel near the ground - even before the radar was able to capture it.

Houser team's discovery that the 2013 storm had a funnel long before the radar saw rotation is "a pretty compelling finding," says Leigh Orf, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But, he says, that twister was such a particularly "unusual, rare, weird, bizarre storm" that he would hesitate to use it as an indicator of typical tornado behavior.

"In my scientific view, there are likely different modes of tornadogenesis," Orf says. He notes that his own simulations of the 2011 storm match Houser's finding that that particular tornado seemed to develop rapidly spinning winds at multiple altitudes at once.

Forecasters typically scan supercell thunderstorms, looking for telltale signs that a tornado might be imminent. Because the deadly funnel clouds form so quickly, understanding how tornadoes form is important - and increasingly so in the United States where tornadoes appear to be becoming more powerful.

These twisters are also staying on the ground, on average, for more time than they did just a few decades ago. That gives tornadoes more time to do damage, James Elsner, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, reported in a separate study at the meeting.

In that study, also published November 10 at EarthArXiv.org, Elsner calculated that the overall power in gigawatts released by tornadoes in the United States has increased, at a rate of about 5.5 percent per year. Using a statistical model for tornado power, based on reports of nearly 28,000 tornadoes from 1994 to 2016, he found that although the overall number of tornadoes hasn't increased, the twisters are forming in bigger bunches. In these clusters, there is a higher proportion of tornadoes rated at the highest intensities, such as EF4 or EF5 tornadoes.

That shift, Elsner says, is linked to rising ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean Sea. With more heat and moisture available in the atmosphere due to global warming, tornadoes, perhaps not surprisingly, can pack a more powerful punch, he says.

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New research may upend what we know about how tornadoes form

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WASHINGTON - Tornadoes may form from the ground up, rather than the top down. That could sound counterintuitive. Many people may picture a funnel cloud emerging from the bottom of a dark mass of thunderstorms and then extending to the ground, atmospheric scientist Jana Houser said December 13 in a news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting.

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7.0 Quake Strikes Anchorage: Here Is Everything You Need To Know

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As has been widely reported, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck fairly deep below Anchorage on Friday morning, at 08:29 local time. Images of corrupted roadways and videos of violently shaking buildings have been ricocheting across social media channels. Scientists are currently scrambling to explain precisely what caused the quake, while also keeping their eye on misinformation spreading on the Web.

This article will attempt to sum up everything that is known about the event so far, based solely on expert seismological testimony as well as everything the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is saying at the time of writing. It'll also explain what may happen next, why, while debunking any rumours that may emerge from the Internet's dark ooze as the hours go by.
What Happened?
According to the USGS, this powerful quake - initially coming in as a magnitude 6.6, but quickly upgraded to a 7.0 - struck just 13 kilometres (about 8 miles) north of Anchorage at a depth of 40.9 kilometres (roughly 25 miles).

A tsunami warning for the Cook Inlet and Southern Kenai Peninsula was initially issued, and local authorities were reportedly telling people to prepare to seek higher ground. However, the warning was quickly rescinded after it became clear no tsunami threat existed. One was originally issued out of an abundance of caution, and because the chance a tsunami was created couldn't be 100 percent ruled out.

Preliminary analyses suggest the most intense shaking took place just north of Anchorage, registering as an VIII (out of X) on the modified Mercalli scale, which describes surface shaking. A VIII rating means that the perceived shaking could be described as "severe" and the potential damage would range from moderate to heavy. Anchorage itself got a mixture of intensities, but the highest came in at a VII, which delineates "very strong" shaking and moderate potential damage.

This is another ground motion visualization showing the motion of the ground recorded by the USArray during the Anchorage earthquake ( https://t.co/RIcNz4bgWq). #AnchorageEarthquake #earthquake pic.twitter.com/5ZbzvXOj5l

- IRIS Earthquake Sci (@IRIS_EPO) December 1, 2018

What's The Damage?
Judging by the images and testimonies being shared on social media, infrastructural damage is widespread. It's not clear how severe or persistent the damage is and will be, but fragmenting roads and school buildings being carved up to an extent suggests that the city took a fairly heavy beating from the tectonic rumblings below. Alaska's Governor, Bill Walker, has issued a declaration of disaster.

The USGS suspects that, based on the seismic data it's received, there's a 64 percent chance that economic losses range from $10 million to $1 billion. Remember, though, that these are estimates, so we'll have to wait to find out what the final total actually amounts to, which won't be known for some time.

Conversely, the USGS currently estimates that there's a 69 percent chance that one fatality had occurred. This is good news: putting it another way, the agency says "there is a low likelihood of casualties." At present, there have been no reports of any deaths.

This highlights the fact that magnitude, although important, isn't the only thing that matters when it comes to an earthquake's destructive potential. I've already written a detailed post here on why this is the case, but let me sum it up again here to make things clear.

In crude terms, magnitude just denotes how much energy the earthquake has released from its source, and that's it. Plenty of other factors come into play: the geographic location of the quake, the shaking intensity of the event, the depth of the quake, the architectural designs of the affected buildings, the local population's education and awareness of seismological dangers, the region's sediment layers, the availability of resources for the recovery and rescue efforts, and the ability of the quake to trigger secondary geological dangers - like landslides or tsunamis - all matter.

In this case, the earthquake was pretty deep, which somewhat reduced its ability to violently shake the buildings. This depth may also explain why the shaking was fairly widespread throughout the region, although that's little more than an educated guess at this point. Anchorage is also no stranger to earthquakes (more on that in a moment) and, as reported by National Geographic, the buildings there are generally designed to handle fairly intense shaking. This is why the damage, although bad, isn't as catastrophic as you might have expected for a magnitude 7.0 quake.

At the same time, it appears that at least a few people acted appropriately during the shaking, based on some of the footage bouncing around Twitter. Again, I've written a detailed piece on what you should do in the event of a quake here, but the basics are that you should immediately drop to the floor, cover yourself under a sturdy desk or table, and hold on until the shaking has stopped, and that appears to be what several in Anchorage did.

There's no way to tell how many people took this course of action when the quake occurred, but it's somewhat comforting to see the official advice being at least partly adhered to on social media channels. Remember, for the most part, it's the flying debris that kills people in earthquakes, not collapsing buildings, although this ratio varies somewhat depending on where in the world you are.
What Caused This Earthquake?
As I mentioned earlier, Anchorage is no stranger to earthquakes. The USGS's excellent summary of the tectonics of the region is well worth your time, but let me break it down for you with some extra context.

This quake took place at a point where the Pacific plate is moving towards and descending (subducting) under the North American plate at the Alaska-Aleutians Trench, a fair way south of the epicentre of this particular event. The grinding of these plates means that seismic events are commonplace throughout the region; in the last century, fourteen magnitude 6.0 or higher quakes have occurred, with at least two damaging quakes being of a similar depth to the November 30 th Anchorage event.

This is a colossal and intricate tectonic setting, where more than one type of earthquake can occur. Boiling it down a little, you could say that there are two types of faulting that can cause quakes here: thrust, and normal faulting.

Thrust faulting tends to happen at shallower depths, where the Pacific Plate is early on in its adventures diving down into the mantle, and the plate is overall in a state of compression. This type of faulting, where one chunk of rock moves upwards over another, certainly causes shakes, including t he most powerful in recorded US history: the magnitude 9.2 event of March 1964, whose rumbles in the Prince William Sound area generated a considerable tsunami.

In this case, however, it's not the antagonist. The detected movement related to this quake, as well as its depth and location, gave geoscientists - including Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at the University of Southampton - a suspicion that the faulting was normal. This tends to occur further along the plate, but still at relatively shallow depths, where the plate is bending.

Think of it like an eraser: when you bend one, the top half is stretching and extending. On the younger, shallower part of a descending tectonic slab, this creates normal faults. This involves a chunk of rock following gravity's lead and falling downwards relative to another.

That's what happened beneath Anchorage. The USGS's data indicates that this normal faulting took place away from the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates. Instead, the fault slipped somewhere within the Pacific Plate further down the line, making this a within-slab or "intraslab" earthquake.

It's worth noting that intraslab earthquakes are happening constantly at low or modest magnitudes, but they often involve thrust faulting at shallow depths. This one was a (potentially) rarer normal fault intraslab quake, which tend to be extremely energetic. Several in various locations throughout the world, from Iran to Mexico, are suspected of being so powerful that the quake actually severed their respective tectonic plates in two. As I explain here, those events were deeply curious for several reasons, but that's a different story for another time.
What Will Happen Next?
In some ways, this is hard to say. The topography, sedimentology and geography here is complicated, but the USGS' current analyses suggest several things, so let's go through them individually.

The first is that any landslides triggered by this quake "are expected to be limited in number and/or spatial extent." In addition, few people live in areas that could be affected by landslides, although damage and deaths in these areas "are still possible."

On the other hand, liquefaction - when unconsolidated soils, aided by water, move like a fluid in the event of earthquakes - is estimated to be "significant in severity and/or spatial extent." Fortunately, there are also a limited number of people living in areas at risk from liquefaction.

Again, these are estimates. They're not written in stone, so authorities on the ground are carefully watching as the situation unfolds.

At the time of writing, aftershocks are occurring at a range of magnitudes. There have been 67 at a magnitude 3.0 or above so far, and more are expected. Let's quickly go through some definitions before I explain why.

The magnitude 7.0 event was probably the mainshock, the most powerful quake in a sequence. Aftershocks are defined as smaller earthquakes taking place post-mainshock. The USGS's models estimate that there is a 3 percent chance that one or more aftershocks will be larger than the magnitude 7.0 mainshock in the coming week, which means it is extremely probable the 7.0 event will remain the mainshock.

Aftershocks shouldn't be underestimated though: they can take people by surprise and still cause infrastructural damage.

With that in mind, the USGS reckons that over the next week there will be anywhere between 84 and 610 aftershocks coming in at a magnitude 3.0 or above, which are strong enough to be felt if near the epicentre. There is also an 88 percent chance that there will be an earthquake of a magnitude 5.0 or higher during the same time period. This is entirely expected: the mainshock certainly involved the greatest rupture, but the normal fault, and perhaps others nearby, will keep slipping and releasing pent up stress over time.

The USGS carefully points out that "no-one can predict the exact time or place of any earthquake, including aftershocks." Saying that, their models are pretty good at giving decent aftershock forecasts. Without a doubt, Anchorage will continue to shake for some time to come until the fault stops slipping at some undetermined point in the future.
What Does This Earthquake Not Signify?
As always happens after a major quake strikes near a populated area, some amount of bullshit will be spread around the Web about what it means, and what the future holds. So, let's pre-empt a few of these rumours and nip them in the bud.

No, this isn't a sign of the Big One, either up in the Pacific Northwest or down on California's San Andreas Fault. Yes, on a very small scale - geologically speaking - earthquakes on one fault can trigger other faults nearby to slip and produce more earthquakes. Lucy Jones, seismologist extraordinaire at Caltech, just said as much on Twitter, but here's the important bit she hastens to add: this only applies to faults at a distance of around 3-4 times that of the primary fault itself.

In this case, the quake could trigger other, smaller quakes in faults within a 160-kilometre (100-mile) radius. That's it. You aren't going to initiate any catastrophes on those more famous faults or tectonic plate boundaries.

Yes, this earthquake also took place on the so-called Ring of Fire, but Anchorage's quake isn't a harbinger of some sort of massive "shift" or apocalyptic, Pacific Ocean-wide disaster.

The Ring of Fire refers to the horseshoe-shaped network of major tectonic boundaries around the Pacific Ocean. This is a vast and complex network, and as all the tectonic plates involved are continuously shifting around and causing each other trouble, earthquakes and volcanism will continuously take place along it. In fact, the Ring of Fire features 75 percent of the world's volcanoes, and 90 percent of the world's earthquakes. This 7.0 event in Alaska, then, is par for the course.

(Speaking of volcanoes, Alaska is home to plenty of active, fuming fiery mountains, sure - but this quake was purely tectonic in nature. It didn't involve volcanic processes at all, unlike that bonkers seismic wave that emanated from the waters near Madagascar earlier on this month.)

At the same time, the distances involved with the Ring of Fire are huge, and the plate boundaries aren't some sort of fragile house of cards. One major quake in Alaska will have zero effect on a fault across the ocean or even one elsewhere on the same continent. If another major quake occurs on the Ring of Fire in the next few days, some tabloids newspapers will attempt to sell you that there is, in fact, a connection.

You know what it's really called? A coincidence.

I haven't spotted these frequently reheated pieces of misinformation doing the rounds yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they cropped up. Sadly, another common villain has managed to make an unwelcome appearance already: some nefarious social media accounts are predicting that a larger quake in the region is imminent.

Earlier on, I mentioned that the USGS estimated that there's a roughly 3 percent chance of an earthquake of a magnitude 7.0 taking place in the area within the next seven days. That is a possibility, but a very low one, and certainly isn't the same as anyone making confident predictions about such a major quake.

You don't have to take my word for it. Mike West, Alaska's state seismologist, took to Twitter a few hours ago to stress that the rumours about a larger quake, featuring a precise timeframe and an absolutely certainty of occurrence, are "entirely unfounded."

Noting that aftershocks will continue for some time, West added that "anytime an earthquake of this size occurs, there is a low but non-zero chance that another earthquake of similar or larger size could occur. This is true this time as well. However, detailed rumours about any particular earthquake are simply not true."

The University of Alaska in Fairbanks project to study Earth's ionosphere, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research (or HAARP) scientific endeavour, often draws the attention of conspiracy theorists. As spotted by Earther's Maddie Stone, it seems that they've also acted pre-emptively to quash such nonsense in this situation. HAARP's Twitter account declared that not only were they not operating at the time of the quake, but HAARP certainly "did not cause the earthquake."

If you disagree with this in any way, you can just get into the bloody sea.
What Can I Do To Help?
If you're a citizen of the Web, the answer is evergreen. When it comes to earthquakes, eruptions and so forth, make sure you are only disseminating accurate information. Check your sources: ignore the tabloids, avoid clickbait, and see what scientists and reliable journalists are saying. If you see someone spreading an unfounded rumour, shoot it down and supply the facts instead, preferably with links to scientifically valid source material.

Misinformation isn't just misleading - it can endanger lives as people affected by the disaster look online to try and decide what their next course of action will be. Be part of the solution: trust in scientist, share wisely, and keep your wits about you.

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7.0 Quake Strikes Anchorage: Here Is Everything You Need To Know

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As has been widely reported, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck fairly deep below Anchorage on Friday morning, at 08:29 local time. Images of corrupted roadways and videos of violently shaking buildings have been ricocheting across social media channels. Scientists are currently scrambling to explain precisely what caused the quake, while also keeping their eye on misinformation spreading on the Web.

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The deadliest wildfire season ever continues to rage in California. Dry conditions along with high winds have fanned the flames and lead, sadly, to significant death and destruction.

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Fire extent

Nov. 8, 6 p.m.

The Camp Fire is the deadliest and most destructive wildfire ever in California. This is what happened on the day the blaze ignited.

Around 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 8, the fire starts in a secluded area near the Feather River. It spreads to about 10 acres by 6:51 a.m. Firefighters are trying to reach the fire.

The first evacuation order is tweeted by the Butte County sheriff at 7:23 a.m. for Pulga, a nearby community.

The fire accelerates, consuming the equivalent of a football field every second, according to Cal Fire.

Around 8 a.m., the fire reaches the town of Paradise, which receives its first evacuation alert.

Also at about 8 a.m., the managers of Ridgewood Mobile Home Park go door to door, urging residents to evacuate the retirement community.

At about 10:30 a.m., Jason Portillo, 18, and his mother, Lidia Rosales, 50, evacuate their home. "It looked like it was nighttime. With the headlights on, we could see the orange and black clouds all around," Mr. Portillo said.

Satellite imagery captured at 10:45 a.m. shows the fire engulfing about 20,000 acres.

By 2:30 p.m., evacuation orders have been issued for all of Paradise, the neighboring town of Magalia and surrounding areas.

The Wiggins family - John, 61, and Catherine, 57, and their son, Dominic, 17 - flees with important documents and mementos.

At 6 p.m., less than 12 hours after it started, the Camp Fire has traveled about 17 miles, burning an area of nearly 55,000 acres.

Fire extent at 10:45 a.m.

Here is what happened on Nov. 8, the day that the Camp Fire started.

The fire starts at about 6:30 a.m. in this secluded area.
Around 8 a.m., the fire reaches Paradise.

By 2:30 p.m., evacuation orders have been issued for all of Paradise and Magalia.

At 6 p.m., the fire has traveled about 17 miles, burning 55,000 acres.

Fire extent at 10:45 a.m.

With its evergreen forests and beautiful vistas, Paradise, population 26,000, has long been a haven for seniors and retirees, many of them residents of mobile homes.

The mountain town has likewise attracted families with children as a respite from the crippling costs that have made many California cities unaffordable.

Peter Dasilva/EPA, via Shutterstock

It is in this lush terrain that the stage is set for a fiery disaster - the cul-de-sacs and winding wooded roads into the backcountry of Butte County.

Another defining element: the clock. It starts ticking around 7 a.m. for Jeffory Newton and his wife, Kathy - shortly after the fire breaks out near Poe Dam, about eight miles from them. Asleep at their home on Marin Court in Magalia, they are awakened by a text from their daughter, en route to work at a Paradise hospital. "I can see flames," the text reads.

The Newtons scramble, and their escape effort extends to family members. They first stop at their daughter's house to rouse her son, then to a son's house on Juno Court. The creeping, harrowing trip out in two vehicles takes four hours.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

By 8 a.m. the first flames reach Paradise, where Ben Raulerson lives on Pearson Road. Mr. Raulerson, 44, is cursed with a bad car battery this morning. He gets a jump, but it is not enough.

The car dies again just as he and his mother-in-law are pulling out; she runs to the road and waves for help, and a man driving a pickup truck - Mr. Raulerson never learned his name - stops, most likely saving their lives.

"It was hell on earth getting out of there," Mr. Raulerson said. "If we'd stayed 10 minutes longer we would have been burned."

The home of James Betts, 33, was near the Jack in the Box restaurant at Skyway and Oliver Road in Paradise. As the fire spread across town, it felt as if it was coming from two directions by the time he and seven others, including a pregnant woman, tried to leave on foot.

They, too, were saved by a good Samaritan who stopped and took them all in his truck. Mr. Betts looked back and saw his house on fire.

The New York Times | Source: Cal Fire damage assessments, as of Friday, Nov. 16.

By 10:45 a.m., flames are engulfing Ridgewood Mobile Home Park, the retirement community. That is when the evacuation order reaches the incorporated area where Robert Catalano and his girlfriend, Chris Jennings, live on Rich Bar Road.

Mr. Catalano, 65, checks on a friend, and then goes back home, intending to wet down the roof before leaving, but the power is already out, so the pump in his well no longer works.

The fire destroys just about everything they own. But they survive, making it down Centerville Road to Honey Run, and then onto the bumper-to-bumper maelstrom of Skyway.

Skyway - a four-lane arterial that links the high pine country of the foothills and the valley cities like Chico - is a blessing to commuters and day-trippers. But on this day it becomes a place of desperation where people are stuck, creeping through gridlock as the flames close in.

Vehicles crash in the dense smoke, or run out of gas and are abandoned on the shoulder, making the passage harder still by narrowing the lanes for those still coming down. Skyway becomes a symbol of the fire, the name itself embedded in the story of the day.

Camp Fire continues to burn 10 days after it started, now expanding mainly on its eastern edges. Officials said on Saturday that the fire was about half contained. At least 76 people had been confirmed dead, and more than a thousand were still missing.

Follow The New York Times's maps tracking the spread of the fires and California's air quality.

Sources: Microsoft (building footprints); U.S. Geological Survey (fire perimeter); Landsat 8 (10:45 a.m. fire perimeter)

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'Hell on Earth': The First 12 Hours of California's Deadliest Wildfire

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Fire extent Nov. 8, 6 p.m. The Camp Fire is the deadliest and most destructive wildfire ever in California. This is what happened on the day the blaze ignited. Around 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 8, the fire starts in a secluded area near the Feather River.

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Category 5 Super Typhon Yutu just made a devastating passage over the U.S. Mariana Island.

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Above: Infrared Himawari image of Super Typhoon Yutu at 10:10 am EDT October 24, 2018. At the time, Yutu was a Category 5 storm with 180 mph winds, and its northern eyewall was affecting Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas. Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB.

Earth's strongest storm of 2018, Super Typhoon Yutu, was pounding the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands late Wednesday morning (U.S. EDT) with sustained winds of 180 mph, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). At 10 am EDT, the northern eyewall of Yutu was over Tinian Island, which will likely experience catastrophic damage. Yutu is Earth's tenth Category 5 storm of 2018, an astonishing total that has only been exceeded only once on record (twelve, in 1997). Yutu is tied with Super Typhoon Mangkhut, which also had 180 mph winds, as the strongest storm of 2018.

The U.S. Northern Mariana Islands is a U.S. commonwealth, separate from the U.S. territory of Guam. Close to two-thirds of residents of the Northern Marianas are U.S. citizens, according to a 2015 report from the commonwealth government. The three main islands are:

Saipan: population 52,263 (2017 estimate)
Tinian: population 3,136 (2010 estimate)
Rota: population 2,477 (2010 estimate)

At 10:32 am EDT Wednesday, Saipan reported sustained winds of 68 mph, gusting to 95 mph. The airport on Tinian stopped transmitting data 13 hours previous to that. The radar on Guam has been sending data only intermittently, due to an overheated-fan issue. Although Guam and Rota are on the storm's weaker left-hand (south) side, they could still experience high wind and heavy squalls, especially Rota.

Yutu is a large typhoon, with typhoon-force winds that extent out up to 85 miles from the center, and tropical storm-force winds that extend out up to 240 miles.

Figure 1. Last frame from the Guam radar of Super Typhoon Yutu before a fan failure occurred.

Prayers up for the Islands in the path of this monstrous Typhoon #Yutu. This thing is pushing the upper limits of how strong a Tropical Cyclone can get. pic.twitter.com/FB3ascfXMg
- Alex Wallace (@TWCAlexWallace) October 24, 2018

#Tinian and #Saipan are receiving a direct hit from Super Typhoon #Yutu - #Himawari rapid scan band 13 IR pic.twitter.com/9zUlYCNgY9
- Dan Lindsey (@DanLindsey77) October 24, 2018

Catastrophic impacts expected on Saipan and Tinian

Tinian will experience a full landfall, including the eyewall winds of Yutu and catastrophic damage; Saipan lies a bit farther to the north, and may experience lower Category 4 winds, although the eyewall may affect southern Saipan. Here is the damage one can expect in Category 5 winds, according to the National Hurricane Center (note that construction in the Mariana Islands is typically built to high standards due to the frequent typhoons they get, so damage may not be this extreme):

High percentage of framed homes destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse.

Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas.

Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months.

Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.

NWS-Guam is forecasting seas to increase to 30 to 40 feet near the center of Yutu as it passes, with high surf and rip currents throughout the Marianas through at least Thursday. They predict the following peak storm surge inundations:

Here are the expected rainfall totals from Yutu through Thursday:

This rainfall is likely to trigger dangerous flash flooding and dangerous landslides in higher terrain. A flash flood watch has been issued in the islands through late Thursday night.

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Category 5 Super Typhoon Yutu Pounding U.S. Northern Mariana Islands by Dr. Jeff Masters | Category 6

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Above: Infrared Himawari image of Super Typhoon Yutu at 10:10 am EDT October 24, 2018. At the time, Yutu was a Category 5 storm with 180 mph winds, and its northern eyewall was affecting Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas. Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB. Earth's strongest storm of 2018, Super Typhoon Yutu, was pounding the U.S.

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Is it possible to build to withstand a Category 5 Hurricane? One home in Mexico Beach tells us the answer to that might be yes.

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The elevated house that the owners call the Sand Palace, on 36th Street in Mexico Beach, Fla., came through Hurricane Michael almost unscathed. Credit Credit Johnny Milano for The New York Times

MEXICO BEACH, Fla. - As they built their dream house last year on the shimmering sands of the Gulf of Mexico, Russell King and his nephew, Dr. Lebron Lackey, painstakingly documented every detail of the elevated construction, from the 40-foot pilings buried into the ground to the types of screws drilled into the walls. They picked gleaming paints from a palette of shore colors, chose salt-tolerant species to plant in the beach dunes and christened their creation the Sand Palace of Mexico Beach.

They also installed an outdoor security camera. Its video footage became the only view of their property as Hurricane Michael thundered ashore last week, the most intense storm recorded in the history of the Florida Panhandle.

The camera showed a horrifying tunnel of gray fury worsening by the hour as Dr. Lackey, a 54-year-old radiologist, stared helplessly from more than 400 miles away at the corner of his roof.

Image

The house, built of reinforced concrete, is elevated on tall pilings to allow a storm surge to pass underneath with little damage. Dell Medford, left, helped Russell King, one of the owners, clear away debris and inspect the house. Credit Johnny Milano for The New York Times

"It would buck like an airplane wing," he said from his residence in Cleveland, Tenn. "I kept expecting to see it tear off."

But it didn't. When The New York Times published an analysis of aerial images showing a mile-long stretch of Mexico Beach where at least three-quarters of the buildings were damaged, Dr. Lackey saw his sand palace still standing, majestic amid the apocalyptic wreckage, the last surviving beachfront house on his block.

"We wanted to build it for the big one," he said. "We just never knew we'd find the big one so fast."
[Hurricane Michael also hit communities in the Carolinas that were still reeling from Hurricane Florence.]

The story of how the sand palace made it through Michael while most of its neighbors collapsed is one about building in hurricane-prone Florida, and how construction regulations failed to imagine the Category 4 monster's catastrophic destruction.

This footage taken from a helicopter shows how Hurricane Michael's powerful winds wiped out many parts of Mexico Beach, Fla. Published On Credit Credit Image by Chris O'Meara/Associated Press

Florida's building code, put into effect in 2002, is famously stringent when it comes to windstorm resistance for homes built along the hurricane-prone Atlantic shoreline. But it is less so for structures along the Panhandle, a region historically unaffected by storms as strong as the ones that have slammed into South Florida.

After Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 beast, ravaged Miami-Dade County in 1992, new construction in the southern portion of the state was required to withstand 175-mile-an-hour winds. In the coastal Panhandle counties affected by Michael, the requirement is lower, for 120 to 150 miles an hour, and the rules for certain kinds of reinforcement have applied to houses built more than a mile from shore only since 2007. Many of the residences and businesses rubbed out by Michael in Mexico Beach were far older; rebuilding them to conform to the new code will be expensive, and could price out some of the working-class people who historically have flocked to Mexico Beach.

Mr. King wouldn't say how much he and Dr. Lackey spent to fortify the beachside home, which public records show has been assessed for tax purposes at a value of $400,000. Their architect, Charles A. Gaskin, said that building a house the way they did roughly doubles the cost per square foot, compared with ordinary building practices.

Other experts had different views of the expense required. An estimate published in Forbes in 2012 said implementing an array of storm-resistance measures, including some of those advised by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, would add more than $30,000 to the cost of a typical house.

"Every time something like this happens, you have to say to yourself, 'Is there something we can do better?'" Gov. Rick Scott told reporters, as public officials were called upon once again to examine the state's building standards.

"When I saw this hurricane's wind speeds, I knew: You could only hope there would not be too many fatalities," said Charlie Danger, a retired Miami-Dade building chief who crusaded for stricter windstorm codes. "It pays to rebuild structures that withstand something like that. You minimize the loss of life - and the loss of infrastructure. If you lose the infrastructure, you lose everything."

Dr. Lackey said he and Mr. King, who jointly own the Mexico Beach house, did not even refer to the minimum wind resistance required in Bay County. They built the sand palace to withstand 250 mile-an-hour winds.

The house was fashioned from poured concrete, reinforced by steel cables and rebar, with additional concrete bolstering the corners of the house. The space under the roof was minimized so that wind could not sneak in underneath and lift it off. The home's elevation, on high pilings, was meant to keep it above the surge of seawater that usually accompanies powerful hurricanes.

"We're thinking that we need to build a house that would survive for generations," Dr. Lackey said.

"I believe the planet's getting warmer and the storms are getting stronger," said Mr. King, 68, an attorney. "We didn't used to have storms like this. So people who live on the coast have to be ready for it."

Though the family had the relief of knowing their house, which they rent out when they are not using it themselves for vacations, had remained standing, Mr. King needed to see for himself what damage the hurricane had done. He left Tennessee at 4 a.m. Saturday and drove his dark blue Ford F-150 pickup south for more than seven hours - far longer than the trip would ordinarily take, because of closed roads and recovery-crew gridlock - to reach his property at the end of 36th Street.

The siding that had wrapped around a stairway providing access to the elevated house was gone, and so were the stairs. But that was by design: The family's architect used breakaway walls that would tear free without ripping off any more of the structure. Now there was just a gaping hole and part of a handrail, leaving the five-bedroom, five-bathroom house accessible only by ladder.

Up climbed Mr. King, awed by the fact that the structure had otherwise suffered only a little water damage and one cracked shower window. Even their in-home elevator appeared untouched.

"We can clean this up in a month," he said. "But other folks, I don't know. Look at what these people suffered."

The duplexes next door were wiped out. Three homes across the street were leveled down to concrete slabs. A fourth house, standing but with much of the roof and some walls caved in, was being searched by a rescue team; two renters were unaccounted for, according to Mr. King. That house, too, he said, had been built with hurricanes in mind.

"It was supposed to be a fortress like this," Mr. King said, staring in disbelief.

He said he previously owned a house on 42nd Street that still had watermarks in it from Hurricane Opal, the 1995 storm that until a few days ago had been a local benchmark for powerful cyclones. From his deck, Mr. King pointed: "It was down there, and it's gone."

The house was designed to withstand much stronger winds than state building codes require in the Florida Panhandle. Credit Johnny Milano for The New York Times

"That's the famous Mexico Beach pier," he added, nodding toward a few decapitated wood pilings sticking out of the water.

Up 36th Street, north of U.S. Highway 98, the main drag, more small houses had survived the wind but were gutted by the water, even though they were several blocks inland from the beach. John Hamilton spent a weekend afternoon shoveling dark muck out of the house belonging to his sister-in-law, Sandra Richards, and her husband, Jeff Richards, who live in Eufaula, Ala., but have vacationed in Mexico Beach for decades.

Paper towels in the highest kitchen cabinets were soaked. Fans on the ceiling, more than eight feet up, were caked in mud.

"I can't believe I'm not just crying my eyes out," Ms. Richards said as her sister, Laura Hamilton, used a broken piece of door as a dustpan. "It's incomprehensible."

Mr. Richards noted that the couple built the house with hurricane-resistant windows in 2004, after the new statewide code went into effect. "Look at the windows: They're all here," he said. "If the doors had held, we probably would have been all right."

"All those Mexico Beach houses that were built in the 1970s, they're gone," Ms. Richards said.

Dr. Lackey said much of the small town's charm came from its older houses and relative lack of overdevelopment, compared with bigger tourist destinations further west along the coast. Over the Fourth of July holiday, which Mexico Beach celebrated with fireworks at the pier, Dr. Lackey's 5-year-old son, Keaton, learned how to snorkel off the beach in front of the house.

"There was a Subway - that was the one franchise eatery in town," he said. "There was no traffic lights. It was nicknamed 'Mayberry by the Sea.'"

Mr. King said he assumed Michael would spare the town, as other hurricanes had done.

"I said, 'It'll veer off. They always do. They go to Cancun or someplace,'" he said.

As the storm took aim, though, their most recent renters brought the patio furniture indoors and oversaw a specialist hired by Dr. Lackey and Mr. King to seal the doors the day before landfall - the sort of measure Dr. Lackey readily acknowledges may be unaffordable for most people during an emergency. The renters ate at a beloved local seafood restaurant, Toucan's, and then evacuated from town.

"They were probably the last people to eat there," Dr. Lackey said of Toucan's, which did not survive.

A few days after the storm, the inside of the sand palace, immaculately decorated, remained surprisingly cool, a feature of its concrete walls. Mr. King said he hoped recovery crews from the Federal Emergency Management Agency could benefit from using their standing structure.

"If FEMA wants the house, they can have it for a few weeks," he said. "I'm not going to complain about nothing."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Among Storm's Ruins Stands One House, Built 'for the Big One'. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Among the Ruins of Mexico Beach Stands One House, Built 'for the Big One'

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MEXICO BEACH, Fla. - As they built their dream house last year on the shimmering sands of the Gulf of Mexico, Russell King and his nephew, Dr. Lebron Lackey, painstakingly documented every detail of the elevated construction, from the 40-foot pilings buried into the ground to the types of screws drilled into the walls.

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What are Climate impacts we expect in the future?

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Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed - initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world's most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands' representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming "genocide."

The alarming new report you may have read about this week from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - which examines just how much better 1.5 degrees of warming would be than 2 - echoes the charge. "Amplifies" may be the better term. Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares, should the world warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which it will do as soon as 2040, if current trends continue. Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world's food supply would become dramatically less secure. Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world's economy, agriculture, and culture that "there is no documented historical precedent." The New York Times declared that the report showed a "strong risk" of climate crisis in the coming decades; in Grist, Eric Holthaus wrote that "civilization is at stake."

If you are alarmed by those sentences, you should be - they are horrifying. But it is, actually, worse than that - considerably worse. That is because the new report's worst-case scenario is, actually, a best case. In fact, it is a beyond-best-case scenario. What has been called a genocidal level of warming is already our inevitable future. The question is how much worse than that it will get.

Barring the arrival of dramatic new carbon-sucking technologies, which are so far from scalability at present that they are best described as fantasies of industrial absolution, it will not be possible to keep warming below two degrees Celsius - the level the new report describes as a climate catastrophe. As a planet, we are coursing along a trajectory that brings us north of four degrees by the end of the century. The IPCC is right that two degrees marks a world of climate catastrophe. Four degrees is twice as bad as that. And that is where we are headed, at present - a climate hell twice as hellish as the one the IPCC says, rightly, we must avoid at all costs. But the real meaning of the report is not "climate change is much worse than you think," because anyone who knows the state of the research will find nothing surprising in it. The real meaning is, "you now have permission to freak out."

As recently as a year ago, when I published a magazine cover story exploring worst-case scenarios for climate change, alarmism of this kind was considered anathema to many scientists, who believed that storytelling that focused on the scary possibilities was just as damaging to public engagement as denial. There have been a few scary developments in climate research over the past year - more methane from Arctic lakes and permafrost than expected, which could accelerate warming; an unprecedented heat wave, arctic wildfires, and hurricanes rolling through both of the world's major oceans this past summer. But by and large the consensus is the same: We are on track for four degrees of warming, more than twice as much as most scientists believe is possible to endure without inflicting climate suffering on hundreds of millions or threatening at least parts of the social and political infrastructure we call, grandly, "civilization." The only thing that changed, this week, is that the scientists, finally, have hit the panic button.

Because the numbers are so small, we tend to trivialize the differences between one degree and two, two degrees and four. Human experience and memory offers no good analogy for how we should think about those thresholds, but with degrees of warming, as with world wars or recurrences of cancer, you don't want to see even one.

At two degrees, the melting of ice sheets will pass a tipping point of collapse, flooding dozens of the world's major cities this century. At that amount of warming, it is estimated, global GDP, per capita, will be cut by 13 percent. Four hundred million more people will suffer from water scarcity, and even in the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands each summer. It will be worse in the planet's equatorial band. In India, where many cities now numbering in the many millions would become unliveably hot, there would be 32 times as many extreme heat waves, each lasting five times as long and exposing, in total, 93 times more people. This is two degrees - practically speaking, our absolute best-case climate scenario.

At three degrees, southern Europe will be in permanent drought. The average drought in Central America would last 19 months and in the Caribbean 21 months. In northern Africa, the figure is 60 months - five years. The areas burned each year by wildfires would double in the Mediterranean and sextuple in the United States. Beyond the sea-level rise, which will already be swallowing cities from Miami Beach to Jakarta, damages just from river flooding will grow 30-fold in Bangladesh, 20-fold in India, and as much as 60-fold in the U.K. This is three degrees - better than we'd do if all the nations of the world honored their Paris commitments, which none of them are. Practically speaking, barring those dramatic tech deus ex machinas, this seems to me about as positive a realistic outcome as it is rational to expect.

At four degrees, there would be eight million cases of dengue fever each year in Latin America alone. Global grain yields could fall by as much as 50 percent, producing annual or close-to-annual food crises. The global economy would be more than 30 percent smaller than it would be without climate change, and we would see at least half again as much conflict and warfare as we do today. Possibly more. Our current trajectory, remember, takes us higher still, and while there are many reasons to think we will bend that curve soon - the plummeting cost of renewable energy, the growing global consensus about phasing out coal - it is worth remembering that, whatever you may have heard about the green revolution and the price of solar, at present, global carbon emissions are still growing.

None of the above is news - most of that data is drawn from this single, conventional-wisdom fact sheet. In fact, nothing in the IPCC report is news, either; not to the scientific community or to climate activists or even to anyone who's been a close reader of new research about warming over the last few years. That is what the IPCC does: It does not introduce new findings or even new perspectives, but rather corrals the messy mass of existing, pedigreed scientific research into consensus assessments designed to deliver to the policymakers of the world an absolutely unquestionable account of the state of knowledge. Almost since the panel was convened, in 1988, it has been criticized for being too cautious in its assessment of the problem - a large body of temperamentally cautious scientists zeroing on those predictions they can all agree on (and which, they may have hoped, policymakers might find workable). The panel's Wikipedia page has separate subsections for "Outdatedness of reports" and "Conservative nature of IPCC reports."

Which is why it is so remarkable that the tone of this report is so alarmist - it's not that the news about climate has changed, but that the scientific community is finally discarding caution in describing the implications of its own finding.

They have also, thankfully, offered a practical suggestion, proposing the imposition of a carbon tax many, many times higher than those currently in use or being considered - they propose raising the cost of a ton of carbon possibly as high $5,000 by 2030, a price they suggest may have to grow to $27,000 per ton by 2100. Today, the average price of carbon across 42 major economies is just $8 per ton. The new Nobel laureate in economics, William Nordhaus, made his name by almost inventing the economic study of climate change, and his preferred carbon tax is $40 per ton - which would probably land us at about 3.5 degrees of warming. He considers that grotesque level "optimal."

But a carbon tax is only a spark to action, not action itself. And the action needed is at a scale and a speed almost unimaginable to most of us. The IPCC report called it unprecedented. Other activists often see one precedent, in all of human history, citing the model of how the United States prepared for World War II, and calling for a global mobilization of that kind - all of the world's rivalrous societies and nationalistic governments and self-interested industries organized around the common pursuit of a stable and comfortable climate as though warming was an existential threat.

It is. And the World War II mobilization metaphor is not hyperbole. To avoid warming of the kind the IPCC now calls catastrophic requires a complete rebuilding of the entire energy infrastructure of the world, a thorough reworking of agricultural practices and diet to entirely eliminate carbon emissions from farming, and a battery of cultural changes to the way those of us in the wealthy West, at least, conduct our lives. And we need to do all of that in two, or possibly three, decades. As a comparison, simply the last phase of the recent three-stop extension of New York City's Second Avenue subway line took 12 years. All told, from the first groundbreaking, the project took 45 years.

That is not to say it's over or we're doomed. Stalling warming below four degrees is better than surpassing it, keeping temperatures below three is better still, and the closer we get to two degrees the more miraculous. That is because climate change isn't binary, and doesn't just kick in, full force, at any particular temperature level; it's a function that gets worse over time as long as we produce greenhouse gases. How long we continue to is, really, up to us, which is to say it will be determined in the province of politics, which is to say public panic like that produced by the IPCC report can be a very productive form of policy pressure.

There are also those far-fetched alternatives I mentioned - carbon capture and solar geoengineering - but each is far from workable at the moment and, even in theory, come with really scary drawbacks. But even if the technology becomes dramatically cheaper and more efficient over the next few years, you would need to build them out across the globe, as well - whole plantations sucking carbon almost everywhere on the planet. It will take quite a long time to build those, in other words, even if they worked, and we simply don't have that many years left to act.

A few weeks ago, as the IPCC report loomed, I had lunch with a prominent climate scientist who'd been involved in earlier reports and has done considerable work on local preparedness as well. I asked if he thought New York would eventually build a sea wall or surge barrier to protect the city from sea-level rise and flooding. Yes, he said, Manhattan will be protected, at any cost. But major infrastructure projects like these take decades - typically about 30 years. Even if we began building today, he said, the barrier would not be finished in time to save Howard Beach and other parts of southern Queens and Brooklyn. Soon enough, he said, you'll see the city adjust accordingly - halting new infrastructure projects there, eventually pulling back from even quotidian maintenance like sewer repairs and generally signaling to current residents that they will not be able to leave behind their homes, when they die, to their children. And of course a sea wall to protect New York only encloses the narrows of New York Harbor, leaving all of Long Island exposed.

This is just the threat from sea level, and just one (very rich) metropolitan area. The world is much bigger than that, but so is climate change. It is also very fast, with more than half the carbon humanity has ever emitted into the atmosphere having come in just the last 25 years, since Al Gore published his first book on climate change. Monday's IPCC may seem like a dramatic departure, and it is. But there is going to be much more like it coming. So long as we continue to squander what little time we have, the news will only get worse from here.

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UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It's Actually Worse Than That.

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Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed - initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world's most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands' representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming "genocide."

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Reports are coming in of widespread destruction throughout the Florida panhandle from Hurricane Michael, with additional flooding impacts inland in Georgia.

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When Hurricane Michael made landfall as a high-end Category 4 storm on the Florida Panhandle Wednesday, buildings along the coast were smashed to pieces, storm-surge flooding lapped at the eaves of beach houses and an Air Force base sustained extensive damage. Two people have died in the storm, which continued to zip across Georgia and the Carolinas Thursday morning.

One death was reported in the Panhandle. A Greensboro man was killed when a tree crashed on his home, according to Gadsden County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Anglie Hightower. In southern Georgia, an 11-year-old girl was killed when a carport hit her home in Seminole County.

In Florida, from Panama City through Mexico Beach - where the storm made landfall - and into Apalachicola, houses were swamped or blown apart, roofs were ripped off, boats sank and trees toppled in the high winds. Aerial images at Mexico Beach Thursday morning showed extreme damage, with homes swept completely off their foundations and destroyed and few properties left standing along the coast.

"We are deploying a massive wave of response and those efforts are already underway," Florida Gov. Rick Scott said during a Thursday morning press conference. "Help is coming by air, land and sea."
(MORE: What's Next for Michael)
As of 8:30 a.m. EDT Thursday, the total number of customers without power in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas topped 900,000, according to PowerOutage.us.

Florida

Search and rescue missions underway: FEMA Administrator Brock Long told reporters Thursday morning that the goal is to send crews into the hardest-hit areas to perform search and rescue missions. "The power's not going to be on for a while," he said.

Stretch of Interstate 10 closed: An 80-mile stretch of I-10 was closed Thursday morning as the Florida Highway Patrol worked to clear debris from the roadway. The closure impacted a stretch of the freeway from west of Tallahassee to Lake Seminole, the report added.

Major damage reported at Tyndall Air Force Base: The base, which sits across the bay from Panama City, posted on its Facebook page that the base sustained extensive damage. A wind gust of 129 mph was measured at the base. No injuries were reported. Base personnel had been ordered to evacuate on Monday. The Facebook post said evacuees should plan on being away for an extended time.

Devastation reported in Mexico Beach: Images from Mexico Beach showed widespread devastation with homes reduced to kindling and roofs lying in the middle of U.S. 98. Storm surge lapped at roof eaves. Patricia Mulligan was in a condo on Mexico Beach when Michael slammed into the town. "You can't drive a car anywhere, you can't do anything because it's littered with houses, pieces of houses," Mulligan told the New York Times. She said her brother's condo was destroyed as were other units nearby. "They're not there. It's gone," she said.
(MORE: How to Help the Victims of Hurricane Michael)
Storm tracker shocked by damage: "It's hard to convey in words the scale of the catastrophe in Panama City. The whole city looks like a nuke was dropped on it. I'm literally shocked at the scale of the destruction," tweeted chaser Josh Morgerman.

Panama City residents feel wrath of Michael: Vance Beu, 29, was staying with his mother at her Panama City apartment when a pine tree slashed through the roof. Beu said the roar of the storm sounded like a jet engine as the winds accelerated. "It was terrifying, honestly. There was a lot of noise. We thought the windows were going to break at any time. We had the inside windows kind of barricaded in with mattresses," Beu said.

News outlets work through power loss: In Panama City Beach, WJHG-TV employees were told they could evacuate the station if they felt unsafe, but a few remained inside the building, according to reporter Danielle Ellis. The station lost power a few hours later. The Panama City News Herald lost power and stayed in operation using a backup generator, but did not have internet access at the office.

Port St. Joe Mayor rides out the storm: Mayor Bo Patterson remained in his home seven blocks from the beach during the storm. "It feels like you don't know when the next tree is going to fall on top of you because it's blowing so ferociously," he told Reuters by telephone. "It's very, very scary. We have trees being uprooted, heavy, heavy rain."

Apalachicola suffers heavy damage: Sally Crown, who rode out the storm in her house, ventured out after the storm had passed. "It's absolutely horrendous. Catastrophic," she said. "There's flooding. Boats on the highway. A house on the highway. Houses that have been there forever are just shattered."

Trees downed across capital city: Officials in Tallahassee tweeted that initial assessments of storm damage were showing lots of downed power lines, power poles, and trees. Virtually the entire city was without power on Thursday. No major injuries were reported in the city.

Georgia

Thousands lose power: After its assault on Florida, Michael's wind and rain pelted southern and central Georgia, knocking out power and downing trees in the southwestern corner of the state. Early Thursday morning, about 350,000 homes and business were without power.

Numerous tornadoes reported: Crawford County officials say a possible tornado damaged five homes near Roberta, but no injuries were reported. Tornadoes might have also been spawned near Roberta, Perry and Fort Valley in central Georgia. Farther north, a reported tornado touched down Wednesday evening in the Atlanta area. No reports of injuries or damage were immediately available.

Alabama

Injuries reported in Dothan: At least three people were injured in Dothan when a tree fell on a home Wednesday afternoon, WSFA.com reported. One of the victims was in critical condition, the report added.

Widespread power outages: More than 60,000 homes and businesses in southern Alabama were without power early Thursday.

The Carolinas

Another storm brings flooding: Just weeks after being slammed by Hurricane Florence, the Carolinas are yet again seeing impacts from a tropical system. On Thursday morning, flooding was reported in parts of western North Carolina after hours of heavy rain overwhelmed rivers and streams. Several roads in Boone, North Carolina, were impacted the floodwaters Thursday morning, the city's police department tweeted.

Students sent home early: South of Asheville, schools in Henderson and Polk counties were closed Thursday because of the storm. Watauga County also sent students home shortly after they arrived Thursday morning.

Don't drive around barricades: Dozens of roads and bridges damaged by Florence are still being repaired, and transportation officials urged travelers to refrain from driving around barricades, according to the State.

State Fair delayed: In Raleigh, organizers for the North Carolina State Fair told WRAL.com that the opening was delayed from Thursday to Friday because of the storm's impacts.
- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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Michael Treks Through Southeast After Leaving Florida Beach Towns in Ruins, Kills 2; Flooding Swamps North Carolina Towns | The Weather Channel

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When Hurricane Michael made landfall as a high-end Category 4 storm on the Florida Panhandle Wednesday, buildings along the coast were smashed to pieces, storm-surge flooding lapped at the eaves of beach houses and an Air Force base sustained extensive damage. Two people have died in the storm, which continued to zip across Georgia and the Carolinas Thursday morning.

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Hurricane Michael is currently forecast to make landfall on the Florida Panhandle as a major hurricane later this week.

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October 8 at 11:07 AM
Hurricane Michael is strengthening as it enters the Gulf of Mexico, and Florida is its target. The storm is expected to become a major Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches the northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday. It will likely be the area's strongest hurricane in thirteen years.

"Michael is forecast to be a dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the northeastern Gulf Coast on Wednesday, and life-threatening storm surge is possible along portions of the Florida Gulf Coast," the National Hurricane Center wrote Monday.

The storm surge, which is the rise on ocean water at the coast above normally dry land, could reach at least 8 to 12 feet, inundating roads, homes, and businesses at the coast.

In addition, "heavy rainfall from Michael could produce life-threatening flash flooding from the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend region into portions of the Carolinas through Thursday," the Hurricane Center warned.

Through Wednesday, the zone of greatest concern spans the Florida Panhandle from Pensacola to Apalachicola, including Destin and Panama City Beach, and the Big Bend area to its east. Serious hurricane effects will not be restricted to coastal areas and may extend further inland, potentially affecting the Tallahassee area.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency for 26 counties in Florida's Panhandle and Big Bend areas. "Families should take the opportunity TODAY to make sure they have three days of food and water, as well as all needed medications," he tweeted. "EVERY FAMILY must be prepared. We can rebuild your home, but we cannot rebuild your life."

The latest

As of 11 a.m. Eastern, Michael's peak winds attained hurricane-strength, climbing to 75 mph, as it moved north at 7 mph. The storm, the 7th Atlantic hurricane of 2018, was starting to form an eye. Over very warm waters and light upper level winds, the Hurricane Center said the storm could rapidly intensify over the next 24 to 36 hours.

At its current rate of speed, tropical storm force winds should reach the northern Gulf Coast as early as Tuesday evening, after which conditions will steadily deteriorate. Landfall is projected during Wednesday - although models differ on whether it will occur early in the day or late in the day.

Hurricane watches have been posted from the Alabama/Florida border to Suwannee River, Florida which is just to the northwest of Cedar Key on Florida's west coast. Tropical storm watches extend farther south through the Tampa Bay area to Anna Maria Island and, to the west, along the Alabama coast.

Storm surge watches are in effect from Navarre, Florida, which is east of Pensacola, to Anna Maria Island Florida, including Tampa Bay.

Storm effects
Storm surge
Michael is projected to strike an area that is exceptionally prone to storm surge due to the adjacent shallow shelf water and the concave shape of the coast. Like a bulldozer, the storm will be able push a vast amount of ocean water inland, potentially inundating homes, roads, and businesses at the coast.

Areas to the east of where the storm center tracks will experience the greatest storm surge, and flooding will be worst around the high tides. High tides are extra high this week because of the New Moon on Tuesday.

Storm surge just east of where the center makes landfall could reach 8 to 12 feet, if the storm comes ashore around high tide.

Weather Underground's Jeff Masters and Bob Henson projected that the surge could even reach 19 feet in a worst case scenario. "There are very shallow waters along the coast where Michael is expected to make landfall, where the continental shelf extends out about 70 - 90 miles from shore," they wrote. "The winds from the storm will thus be able to pile up a large storm surge along the east side of the storm's center.

Rainfall
Rainfall totals up to 12 inches are possible in the Florida panhandle and southern Georgia, which will likely lead to areas of flooding.

During the second half of this week, the heavy rain is forecast to stream northward, unloading 4 to 8 inches through the Southeast, including over the Carolinas, just recovering from Hurricane Florence.

Elsewhere in the tropical Atlantic

Tropical Storm Leslie -- which formed on September 23 -- is still active and probably will be through the weekend. It is forecast to become a hurricane, again, as it heads toward the Azores by the end of the week. And for being around for 16 days, it is presently centered just 115 miles from where it was when it formed.

Finally, a potent African wave is located near the Cabo Verde islands and has a shot at becoming at least a tropical depression this week, if not a tropical storm, before conditions become more hostile by the weekend. The National Hurricane Center is giving it a 50 percent chance of reaching tropical depression status this week, but no models suggest that this will become a threat to land. The next name on the list is Nadine.

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Michael strengthens to a hurricane and is forecast to make landfall in Florida as a 'dangerous' Category 3 midweek

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October 8 at 11:07 AM Hurricane Michael is strengthening as it enters the Gulf of Mexico, and Florida is its target. The storm is expected to become a major Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches the northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday. It will likely be the area's strongest hurricane in thirteen years.

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Coming up next week, the SLCC Tanner Forum is hosting a lecture from Van Jones who is a leader in environmental justice and green jobs (and more!). The talk begins at 7pm with a book signing to follow.

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Van Jones is a CNN political contributor and host of CNN's "The Van Jones Show." A graduate of the University of Tennessee and Yale Law School, he was a special adviser to the Obama White House and is author of three New York Times best-sellers.

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Hurricane Florence Heading Toward the Carolinas

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Hurricane Florence Heading Toward the Carolinas

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Florence has been undergoing rapid intensification in the Atlantic and is now a Category 4 Hurricane as it heads towards the Carolinas. Areas from Norfolk, VA down to Myrtle Beach, SC face incredible danger from winds (near the landfalling location) and devastating storm surge (to the right of the center considering storm motion to be forward). If that wasn't enough, the hurricane is expected to stall once it reaches the U.S. with coastal and inland areas potentially facing record breaking and devastating flooding.

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Dr. Jeff Masters ·

Above: Hurricane Florence as seen from the International Space Station at 9 am EDT Monday, September 10, 2018. Image credit: Ricky Arnold.

Florence has rapidly intensified into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, and appears destined to strengthen into a very dangerous Category 4 hurricane by Tuesday as it heads towards the Southeast U.S. Coast. Florence is likely to make landfall on Thursday evening or Friday morning on the coast of North Carolina or South Carolina, and the odds continue to increase that Florence will stall on Friday and meander near or over the coast for several days, making the hurricane a devastating rainfall and coastal flooding threat.

Florence was about 580 miles south-southeast of Bermuda at 11 am EDT Monday morning, moving west at 13 mph. Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were a warm 29°C (84°F), which is about 2°F above average. Florence was embedded in an atmosphere with dry air (a mid-level relative humidity of 50%). However, with wind shear a light 5 - 10 knots, the hurricane has successfully walled off this dry air, and is now minimally affected by it. Satellite images on Monday morning showed that the storm was significantly more organized, with a prominent eye, a more symmetrical shape, impressive spiral banding, and a strong upper-level outflow channel to the northeast. Florence was a medium-sized hurricane, with tropical storm-force winds that extended out up to 140 miles from the center. This was 25 miles farther than on Sunday morning.

There is no recent hurricane hunter data from the core of the storm, though the NOAA jet is currently engaged in a dropsonde mission to help out the 12Z cycle of models. These will come out between noon and 3 pm EDT today. A NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft will fly a research mission out of Bermuda late Monday morning, and regular hurricane hunter missions by the Air Force will begin on Monday evening. The NOAA jet will fly another dropsonde mission on Tuesday. Special balloon launches are being performed across much of the central and eastern U.S. over the next few days to double the frequency of upper air data for the models to crunch. In short, we should have steadily improving model forecasts of just where Florence will go.

Figure 1. HWRF model winds and pressure forecast for 8 pm EDT Thursday, September 13, from the 6Z Monday run of the model. The HWRF model was our top intensity model from 2017, and predicted that Florence would make landfall near the South Carolina/North Carolina border as a borderline Category 3 or 4 hurricane with winds of 125 mph. Image credit: Levi Cowan, tropicaltidbits.com.

Intensity forecast for Florence: expect a Cat 4 by Tuesday

Florence's environment is very conducive for intensification. The SHIPS model predicts shear will remain low through Wednesday night. SSTs will remain near 29°C (84°F) during this period, and ocean heat content will be high, near 35 - 50 kilojoules per square centimeter. Our top intensity models unanimously predict strengthening of Florence into a Category 4 hurricane by Wednesday, and the storm is also expected to increase in size. Florence will still be embedded in a relatively dry atmosphere, so it is possible the storm could suffer from dry air intrusions that would interfere with the intensification process, but this will likely not occur until Thursday, when wind shear is expected to increase to a moderate 10 - 15 knots.

Figure 2. The 0Z Monday, September 10, 2018 track forecasts by the operational European model for Florence (red line, adjusted by CFAN using a proprietary technique that accounts for storm movement since the time of the model run), along with the track of the average of the 50 members of the European model ensemble (heavy black line), and the track forecasts from the "high probability cluster" (grey lines)-the four European model ensemble members that have performed best with Florence thus far. The forecasts show that the uncertainty in the European model forecast has shrunk considerably, which is likely due to the inclusion of data from last night's dropsonde mission by the NOAA jet. All of these forecasts predict a North or South Carolina landfall. Image credit: CFAN.

Track forecast for Florence: expect a North Carolina or South Carolina landfall

The models continue to come into better agreement on the track and speed of Florence, and on Monday morning, all of the forecasts from our top five models agreed that Florence would hit North Carolina or South Carolina on Thursday evening or Friday morning. The exact location of Florence's landfall is still fuzzy, as the average error in a 3-day and 4-day NHC forecasts are about 120 miles and 160 miles, respectively. While we do still have a few members of the GFS and European ensemble forecasts predicting that Florence will stall just off the coast and never make landfall, I put the odds of a Florence landfall on the U.S. East Coast at 90%.

Figure 3: If the 06Z Monday forecast from the GFS model were to verify exactly-with Florence centered in far eastern NC from Friday through Monday, September 14-17-these are the rainfall amounts that would result, as predicted by the model. Widespread 10"+ amounts would extend from Cape Hatteras to the Richmond, Virginia, area, with the Outer Banks of North Carolina receiving more than 20". This is just one model solution: actual rainfall amounts at any point could be far less (or even greater) depending on Florence's actual track and speed. If the official NHC forecast of a landfall closer to the NC/SC border verifies, this rainfall pattern would shift farther to the southwest. Image credit: tropicaltidbits.com.

Florence: an extreme rainfall threat

Our top five models all agree that the trough of low pressure that was expected to turn the hurricane to the north late this week will be too weak to do so, as a strong ridge of high pressure builds over the Mid-Atlantic. This "blocking ridge" is likely to block Florence's forward progress. Florence is expected to stall and wander near or over the coast for as many as four days, potentially becoming the "Harvey of the East Coast", dumping prodigious amounts of rain. If a significant portion of the storm's circulation remains over water, as occurred last year with Hurricane Harvey's stall over Southeast Texas-or even if Florence were to move into the higher terrain of western North Carolina and then stall-the rain from Florence may break all-time state records for rainfall from a hurricane or tropical storm. North Carolina's state rainfall record from a hurricane is 24.06" from Hurricane Floyd of 1999, South Carolina's is 18.51" from Tropical Storm Jerry of 1995, and Virginia's is 27.00" from Hurricane Camille of 1969. There is also the danger that Florence could make landfall, then emerge back over water and re-intensify, increasing its rainfall potential.

Figure 4. Total soil moisture anomaly (departure from the 1971-2010 average, in millimeters) for the period from August 28 to September 4, 2018. Moist soils over the Mid-Atlantic will increase the likelihood of flooding from Florence. Image credit: NWS/NOAA/CPC.

A soggy late summer has set the stage for major flood concerns. Much of the period since mid-July has been exceptionally wet over parts of the mid-Atlantic. The cities of Hatteras, NC; Washington, DC (Reagan and Dulles airports); and Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport, PA, had their wettest summers on record. For the week ending Tuesday, 4 September, soil moisture was running up to 100 millimeters (4 inches) above normal over large parts of the mid-Atlantic (see Figure 3). Preexisting saturated soils greatly exacerbate the risk of flooding, although they are not an absolute requirement. A weather.com feature notes that, for the period 1962-2012, rainfall was the culprit behind 27% of all tropical cyclones fatalities in the U.S. from 1963 to 2012.

Figure 5. Maximum of the "Maximum Envelope of Waters" (MOM) storm tide image for a composite maximum surge for a large suite of possible mid-strength Category 3 hurricanes (sustained winds of 120 mph) hitting at high tide (a tide level of 2.3) near the North Carolina/South Carolina border. What's plotted here is the storm tide--the height above ground of the storm surge, plus an additional rise in case the storm hits at high tide. Empty brownish grid cells with no coloration show where no inundation is computed to occur. Inundation of 15 -22' can occur in a worst-case scenario along most of the coast. Note that not all sections of the coast will experience this surge level simultaneously; the peak values would occur near and to the right of the storm's center where it makes landfall. The image was created using the National Hurricane Center's Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model. See our storm surge inundation maps for the U.S. coast for more information.

A storm surge of 15 - 20' possible from Florence

The South Carolina and North Carolina coasts are extremely vulnerable to high storm surges, due to the large area of shallow water offshore. Two of the three historical Category 4 hurricanes that have hit this region generated a storm tide 18 - 20 feet: Hugo of 1989 and Hazel of 1954. The other storm--Gracie of 1959--did not (it hit at low tide, significantly reducing the coastal flooding). The storm tide is the combination of the storm surge and the normal lunar tide, measured in height above sea level. The National Hurricane Center uses the terminology "height above ground level" when discussing the storm tide, meaning the height the surge (plus tide) gets above the normal high tide mark. If Florence is a Category 3 or 4 hurricane at landfall, it has the capability of generating a 20-foot surge along a 10 - 40 mile stretch of the coast where the right-hand eyewall comes ashore.

If you live in a hurricane-prone location, now is a good time to make sure you have a preparedness plan in place! Tropical storm-force winds may begin along the coast as early as Thursday morning, so be sure to have all your preparations done by then. If your are asked to evacuate for the storm surge, get out!

We'll have an update later today on the four other serious tropical cyclone threats in the Atlantic and Pacific-and the tropical disturbance headed towards Texas.
Bob Henson contributed to this post.

The Weather Company's primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

Dr. Jeff Masters

Dr. Jeff Masters co-founded Weather Underground in 1995, and flew with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990.

jeff.masters@weather.com

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Dr. Jeff Masters

Section: Hurricanes, Typhoons & Cyclones

Bob Henson

Section: Hurricanes, Typhoons & Cyclones

Dr. Jeff Masters

Section: Hurricanes, Typhoons & Cyclones

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Hurricane Florence Rapidly Intensifying, Likely to Hit North or South Carolina Thursday by Dr. Jeff Masters | Category 6

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Dr. Jeff Masters · Above: Hurricane Florence as seen from the International Space Station at 9 am EDT Monday, September 10, 2018. Image credit: Ricky Arnold. Florence has rapidly intensified into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, and appears destined to strengthen into a very dangerous Category 4 hurricane by Tuesday as it heads towards the Southeast U.S.

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Hurricane Lane posing potential flooding disaster for Hawaii

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Hurricane Lane posing potential flooding disaster for Hawaii

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Hurricane Lane continues to barrel toward Hawaii today. She is already producing torrential rain and flooding throughout parts of the state.

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(This story, originally posted at 10:30 a.m., was updated at 11:05 a.m. based on the latest information from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.)
Dangerous Category 4 Hurricane Lane is pushing ever closer to the Hawaiian Islands and has already begun unloading excessive amounts of rainfall on the Big Island. Water from both torrential rainfall, exceeding 30 inches in some places, and battering waves, up to 25 feet on the south side of the islands, are likely to pose the biggest threat.

The resulting flooding may be devastating.

"The slow movement of Lane also greatly increases the threat for prolonged heavy rainfall and extreme rainfall totals," the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, based in Honolulu, said Thursday. "This is expected to lead to life-threatening flash flooding and landslides over all Hawaiian Islands."

Rick Knabb, the Weather Channel's hurricane expert, called Lane " a potential flooding disaster."

On Thursday morning, the storm was positioned about 200 miles south-southwest of Kona on the Big Island, and packed sustained winds of 130 mph. Tropical storm-force winds extend up to 140 miles from the center and are expected to affect parts of the Big Island on Thursday and especially Thursday night, when hurricane-force winds cannot be ruled out.

But torrential rainfall is proving to be the storm's greatest menace. Already, more than a foot of rain has fallen in some areas of the Big Island, which is under a flash flood warning. Rainfall amounts of up to four inches per hour are predicted.

"Highway 19 on the Big Island is partially blocked in multiple areas due to landslides, rockslides, debris, and water over the road," tweeted Robert Ballard, a meteorologist based in Honolulu. "The road is extremely hazardous."

Useful link: Weather radar for Hawaii

In Hilo, more than a foot has fallen, an amount ranking among the city's top five wettest August days on record.

Hurricane warnings are in effect for not only the Big Island, but also Maui, and, for the first time in 26 years, Oahu. Kauai is under a hurricane watch.

In Maui, conditions are expected to deteriorate late Thursday and, in Oahu, Thursday night into Friday.

The storm's peak winds are forecast to gradually weaken as the storm heads closer to the islands, but it is expected to maintain hurricane strength through at least Friday. Over the weekend, Lane should weaken to a tropical storm and move away from the islands by Sunday.

The storm has some chance to make landfall in Maui or Oahu as it is pulled north Friday, but it is more likely to pass just south of the islands, paralleling the coastline. The exact track has implications for the wind intensity affecting the islands and how extensive the extreme rainfall becomes, but some areas will inevitably face dangerous amounts of rain and life-threatening surf, no matter the storm's course.

"All Hawaiian Islands are on the stronger, wetter side of the hurricane, and the terrain will enhance rainfall and bring water and debris downslope," the Weather Channel's Knabb tweeted.

Standing tall in the tropics and intercepting the vast streams of moisture, the Hawaiian Islands' high terrain has a history of being the recipient of some of the world's most extreme rainfall (one location in Kaui received nearly 50 inches in 24 hours in April). In the case of Hurricane Lane, some areas may receive multiple feet of rain.

"Flooding from these heavy rains will also be possible in areas that are typically not prone to flooding," the National Weather Service in Honolulu wrote.

Some high-resolution models show four to five feet of rain in mountainous locations if the storm tracks close to the islands.

Useful link: Detailed forecast region by region over Hawaiian islands from National Weather Service

The storm's peak winds are on a downtrend, which should continue, but in the scenario in which the center tracks close to or over Maui and/or Oahu, hurricane-force gusts would be possible, especially in the high terrain and in the upper floors of high-rise buildings.

Should hurricane-force winds materialize, they would result in "considerable roof damage to sturdy buildings," severe damage to mobile homes, "many large trees snapped or uprooted," "impassable" roads and power outages, the Weather Service said.

However, there is a higher probability of tropical storm-force winds, which could still cause tree damage, minor structural damage and power outages.

Useful link: Local hurricane statement from National Weather Service

As the storm churns to the north-northwest, it is likely to push "large and potentially damaging surf along exposed west, south and east facing shorelines," according to the hurricane center. The relatively slow motion of the storm will prolong these effects. Towering waves could exceed 20 feet.

The Weather Service is calling for potentially "extreme" effects from this high water, especially for low-lying areas at high tide. "Expect ocean water surging and sweeping over beaches, coastal benches, lava flows, and roadways, creating the potential for significant damage to coastal properties and infrastructure, including roadways," it said. "Coastal evacuations and road closures are possible. Large breaking waves may affect harbor entrances and channels with significant damage possible to docks, piers, ramps, and boats."

While tropical storms and hurricanes regularly roam the waters near Hawaii, direct effects from storms as intense as Lane are unusual, and the island chain's population is unaccustomed to such large storms.

The last hurricane to make landfall in Hawaii was Iniki in 1992, which hit Kauai. Dot, in 1959, was the only other hurricane to strike the state's shores in modern records, also in Kauai.

Given the multiple hazards posed by the storm and Hawaii's vulnerability, emergency management and local officials have pleaded with residents to prepare.

"If you're in the path of #HurricaneLane, get ready now and make sure your family and neighbors do as well," the Federal Emergency Management Agency tweeted Tuesday.

"Everyone on O'ahu should take Hurricane #Lane seriously," tweeted Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell. "Please get your 14-day hurricane kits ready and speak to your family and neighbors to make sure everyone knows what to do."

In response to the calls to action, residents have been hoarding supplies, with reports of long lines and emptying shelves at grocery stores and other retailers.

The American Red Cross of Hawaii tweeted that it is "seeking volunteers who are willing to be on-call to potentially assist in staffing shelters or assessing damage."

Gov. David Ige (D), who issued an emergency proclamation for the islands, said he will allow nonessential state employees to go on administrative leave through Friday.

Hawaii's education department announced that all public schools will be closed Thursday and Friday.

To reduce the risk of storm damage, the Navy is sending ships from Pearl Harbor out to sea, Axios reported.

Lane: A historic hurricane in the Central Pacific

As it moved within 300 miles of the islands, Hurricane Lane became the closest Category 5 storm on record to approach Hawaii before it began to weaken. The next-closest storm of such strength to approach the islands was John in 1994.

It is only the sixth storm to reach Category 5 intensity in the Central Pacific on record, joining Patsy (1959), Emilia (1994), Gilma (1994), John (1994) and Ioke (2006).

The storm's central pressure dropped as low as 929 millibars, making it the most intense hurricane (as measured by pressure) since Patricia in 2015 in the eastern half of the North Pacific Ocean.

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Hurricane Lane edges closer to Hawaii, unleashing 'potential flooding disaster'

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(This story, originally posted at 10:30 a.m., was updated at 11:05 a.m. based on the latest information from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.) Dangerous Category 4 Hurricane Lane is pushing ever closer to the Hawaiian Islands and has already begun unloading excessive amounts of rainfall on the Big Island.

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When you think of damage by weather, most people think of tornadoes and hurricanes. But it turns out that hail is responsible for most property damage by weather.

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Hail Causes the Most Storm Damage Costs Across North America - Eos

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The icy weather phenomenon leads to more than $10 billion in damages each year. Nonetheless, research on hail is lacking, scientists say.

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How is the dryline in the midwest contributing to severe weather?

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Today SLCC participated in the Great Utah ShakeOut, and earthquake preparedness drill. You should have received a notification by text, phone, or e-mail. If you didn't, log in to mySLCC to set your emergency alerts.

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Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drills help people in homes, schools, and organizations worldwide improve preparedness and practice how to be safe during earthquakes. Register to participate in your state or country's drill at www.ShakeOut.org.

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This video explores some recent research on changes to ocean temperatures and the movement of the jet stream and how that could impact storm systems in the midlatitudes.

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A dreaded bomb cyclone hit U.S shores earlier this year, bringing blizzard conditions, coastal flooding and leaving frigid temperatures in its wake. And now we brace for another storm. This severity of winter weather has climate scientists worrying about how this could be linked to changing weather patterns.

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Thunderstorms in Argentina produced extremely large hail.

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The hail started around 4:30 in the afternoon in Cordoba, Argentina. At first, it was "tiny and fun," but then it changed. Hailstones larger than tennis balls began to fall from the sky, eventually growing to mammoth size.

Victoria Druetta hurriedly snagged one giant stone that fell in her neighborhood of Carlos Paz, snapped a photo of it and placed it in her freezer.

"The hail lasted twenty minutes. It was kind of scary," Druetta recalled. "It hit and then exploded and then melted some. It was probably even bigger."

The stone looks to be up to 18 centimeters in diameter - 7.1 inches - at its largest width, which could be a record for the Southern Hemisphere. It's about the same size as an average honeydew melon. The stone's unusual size made it difficult to measure because of its bumpy surface and the fact that it melted a bit before Druetta put it down on a tape measure.

Videos show the behemoth hail stones landing like small meteors.

WOW Severe #hailstorm with enormous hail in Córdoba #Argentina yesterday afternoon.
Video: Red climatica mundial #ExtremeWeather #hail #severeweather pic.twitter.com/zNXeKrSCaQ

- WEATHER/ METEO WORLD (@StormchaserUKEU) February 9, 2018

Hail can only reach this size if thunderstorm updrafts are strong enough to keep it suspended in the air. That would require vertical winds exceeding 120 mph.

As layers of ice glaze onto the growing stone, erratic winds high in the sky can carry it into dry regions. When that happens, the outside of the stone freezes faster than the inside. This has been shown to produce bizarre protrusions, which grow with each successive pass through the cloud. Once the stone becomes too heavy, it falls out of the cloud, sometimes faster than a major league baseball pitch.

In events like this, each hailstone contains so much water that fewer stones end up forming. That's why there's a large gap between where they strike - sometimes landing 20 or more feet apart. In one video, bewildered onlookers hunkered beneath a metal overhang can be heard remarking about "ice the size of sports balls," calling the spectacle "pure insanity." The stones shattering on the pavement sent shards flying 15 feet.

Spanning more than 2,500 miles north to south, Argentina has a wide range of climates - including a severe weather season, which is peaking right now in Southern Hemisphere summer.

Dry air sinking down the east slopes of the Andes meets up with moist flow from the Atlantic Ocean. When the two air masses clash, a battleground can quickly develop. Storms Thursday unleashed torrential rains and damaging winds, flooding streets and whipping up a frenzy. But the real showstopper was the hail.

At over 7 inches, Druetta's stone falls short of the U.S.-record holder, an 8-inch hailstone that fell in Vivian, S.D., on July 23, 2010. That one was eight inches across and weighed 1.93 pounds, making it the largest and heaviest to ever occur in the United States. While that appears to be a world record for size, it was not for weight.

The Argentina stone could claim second place for width, as well as be the biggest on record south of the equator. The World Meteorological Organization has not commented yet on this finding.

pic.twitter.com/6VQg86zXxP

- Giovanni Paolo (@juampi25) February 9, 2018

#Cordoba hailstorm mas seen by #GOES16. Cloud top temps less than -70 C. Note the very distinct overshooting top (circled) casting shadow on anvil. Image courtesy RAMMB @CIRA_CSU. #StormHour pic.twitter.com/4Npnr0p6qk

- Julian Brimelow (@Albatrossoar) February 8, 2018

About at 08/02/2018 16 pm . Look at this video. Location Carlos Paz, Cordoba, Argentina @MatthewCappucci @RT_Digital @RELAMPAGO2018 pic.twitter.com/1n2RGXiuLb

- Granizo Cordoba (@granizoCordoba) February 9, 2018

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Hail larger than softballs pummeled an Argentina city Thursday

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The hail started around 4:30 in the afternoon in Cordoba, Argentina. At first, it was "tiny and fun," but then it changed. Hailstones larger than tennis balls began to fall from the sky, eventually growing to mammoth size.

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The climate is changing. What are the impacts in your neck of the woods?

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To engage in a debate about the reality of climate change is to deny that there is a remarkably wide - and sincere - consensus among those who study the subject most intently.

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How do disaster films depict disasters?

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Nothing's older than a fear of the apocalypse. Popular stories about the apocalypse date back until at least The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian poem featuring a world-ending flood and a vengeful god, written around 2100 BC.

But how have our visions of the end of the world changed through popular media like movies, and what can that tell us about staving it off?

Scientists at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability - including director Peter Kareiva and undergraduate researcher Valerie Carranza - surveyed disaster blockbusters released between 1956 and 2016 to get an idea. These films didn't feature God-ordained destruction, and they had diverse malefactors, including alien invasions, genetically-engineered viruses, evil AI, global war, and "technology run amok." But their survey found that only 10 of the films - or 17 percent - dealt with environmental catastrophe.

The most common villain was corporate greed, with four of the 10 ( The China Syndrome, Silkwood, Erin Brokovich, and The Lorax) featuring "corporations knowingly polluting the environment or shirking environmental precautions for the sake of profit." The other six disaster films, they write, are about a future in which the Earth has become unlivable because of "a myopic society that could not take action to avert environmental catastrophe." The catastrophes in these films are generally understood by the characters, but not properly avoided.

Never, they argue, was the most likely real-life culprit solely to blame for the end of the world: ignorance about the ecological risk factors that could cause global catastrophes. "In Hollywood, environmental disasters are the consequence of human failings, and not the consequence of ignorance or major gaps in scientific understanding." Crucially, none of those films predicate their possible futures on real environmental science or understanding of ecology.

Who cares? They're just movies! But pop culture representations of disaster are important, they argue, because they can prime people to look in the wrong places for "existential threats." Human beings have contributed mightily to climate change, but familiar corporate evildoers aren't as dangerous as mass ignorance.

According to Kareiva:

"We do not want to imply that economic systems or human selfishness are unimportant. There is no question that great harm has been and is being done by what we can only call criminal behavior - either violating existing environmental regulations or lobbying against the passage of regulations even though scientific evidence of harm is compelling. We acknowledge the presence of such behavior, but argue that an engaged public and effective government can mitigate these threats in time to avert global disasters. In contrast, no amount of public engagement or effective governance can mitigate threats that are unknown or underestimated."

The paper uses Johan Rockström's nine planetary boundaries - a framework introduced in 2009 to identify environmental limits that "if crossed, could have disastrous consequences for humanity" - to identify urgent existential threats to the planet. (Thus far, four of the nine have already been crossed.)

The researchers identify climate change, global freshwater cycle changes, and ocean acidification as the most potentially catastrophic, as they involve "substantial lag times between system change and experiencing the consequences of that change."

"no amount of public engagement or effective governance can mitigate threats that are unknown or underestimated"

They use, for example, the destruction that Hurricane Sandy wrought on New York City in 2012. Changes in mean annual temperature and rainfall are not particularly interesting to the average person, or even to the average local government, and only become so when they lead to extreme events - like a hurricane ripping through a city with ill-prepared infrastructure.

"The highly disruptive flooding of New York City associated with Hurricane Sandy represented a flood height that occurred once every 500 years in the 18th century," they write, "and that occurs now once every 25 years, but is expected to occur once every 5 years by 2050." This tremendous change in the frequency of extreme floods "has profound implications for the measures New York City should take to protect its infrastructure and its population," but because it happens so intermittently, the "elevated risk ... will go unnoticed by most people."

While blockbusters are most concerned with corporate greed, over-exploitation of resources, or the unintended consequences of technological innovations, "those are mistakes humans have made repeatedly and will continue to make, but our responses are often sufficient to correct the problem." What should worry us, the researchers write, is our "ecological ignorance" - the disastrous events that we don't plan for because we don't bother to see them coming.

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Blockbuster films ignore the real harbinger of the apocalypse: ignorance of science

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Nothing's older than a fear of the apocalypse. Popular stories about the apocalypse date back until at least The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian poem featuring a world-ending flood and a vengeful god, written around 2100 BC.