Twisters in the US

Over the past few weeks, there have been many major weather events: tornadoes and floods in the US, dry weather in the UK, and Monsoon rains arriving in southern Asia. The biggest event out of these few has got to be the tornadoes in America.

 From the 1st of January up to the 29th of May this year in the US, there have been 1,383 recorded tornadoes as of over 960 were confirmed. Tornadoes are recorded on the Enhanced Fujita Scale which ranges from 0-5 right. 4 of the 995 were EF5, and 3 of the 4 occurred between the 25 and 28 of April. The most famous of these tornadoes was the one that struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama on the 27th April, killing at least 41 people. Left. A record 188 tornadoes in 24 hours were recorded on the 28th of May.

More recently, at 5:15 pm on the 22nd of May, a large and intense, multi-vortex tornado struck the City of Joplin in Missouri. A multi-vortex tornado is an especially damaging tornado with two or more funnels present at the same time. They often rotate about a common centre or each other. So basically, it's a tornado made up of a few funnels rather than the normal: one. The main hospital was severely damaged and many businesses and houses were too, some were even blown away. The Weather Channel video showed entire communities flattened. The death toll is 139 and 1,000+ injured. This was the worst tornado to hit the area for more than 130 years.

The figures are astonishing: this April is by far the most active recorded doubling the previous record with 650 tornadoes touching down. However, the first three weeks of may were unusually calm, especially since May is typically the most active month. This was not the case for long as another outbreak occurred on the 21st-26th of May which included the Joplin tornado.

My next post will be a summary of the weather of May 2011. Hope you are enjoying them so far and I hope that there will be plenty more to come.

It's not as boring as you may think...

Although the weather has seemed to be rather boring and settled over the past few weeks, it has just been a continuation of the current dry spell we have been in for nearly two months now. The Channel Island of Jersey' fire service has issued a wildfire alert. This is because of the record-breaking temperatures that were seen in April, combined with next to zero rainfall. However, this is not the case for just this particular location, it is a similar situation across much of Southern and Eastern England and even Europe. The reason for this lack of rainfall and high pressure, is that although there are plenty of low pressure systems around, they are in the North. As they move South, high pressure situated over Europe blocks the low pressure and the rain fades out to nothing as it moves south. During April the high pressure had a much more dominant effect over much of the country because there was high pressure situated over Scandinavia (For Amos that is the group of countries in the North of Europe) as well as in the South. A picture of a reservoir in England (right) during the current dry spell.

For most of us, the dry and warm weather is not set to end, with temperatures becoming warmer again through next week. The BBC weather centre bring out an extended forecast every Monday so I will be looking to that for further information on whether there is the chance of a rainy spell over the next few months. If there is not rain soon, it looks as if it will be another summer full of droughts and hosepipe-bans. Hopefully it will rain soon, but it looks as if this will not be the case.

Now for some international weather news. The Ukrainian national broadcaster has suspended its live weather forecasts after the uproar caused by remarks made by forecaster Lyudmila Savchenko. She was live on the radio when she made remarks about the gloomy political climate in Ukraine. She said in the fatal broadcast:
"You cannot remain indifferent to the beauty, complete with the delicate scents of lilacs and lilies of the valley, the melodic trills of birds, sometimes it seems like the nature is compensation for the disorder, lawlessness and injustice in our country." Forecasts will now be pre-recorded and edited before broadcast.

I am relieved that we did not die in a lethal earthquake that was due to shake the Earth at 6pm this evening. Mr. Camping failed once again. We will all live to see another day and be able to continue with our lives. I hope to keep you updated with the latest weather news and quirky stories. If you do not feel that the information is satisfactory or if you have any questions feel free to call me on 07817 383 918.  



 

Home and abroad weather round-up

The main weather story of last week was the floods on the Mississippi river. I talked about that in my last post. So here's an update on that story: US army engineers have opened the Morganza Spillway which will release 600,000 cubic feet of water every second when all of the gates are opened. Just one bay was  opened on Saturday which realeased10,000 cubic ft of water per second and within 30 mins 100 acres of land were under a foot of water. They opened the spillway in order to protect large cities further down the Mississippi river (e.g. Baton Rouge and New Orleans). US Army Corps of Engineers threatened that if the spillway was not opened, New Orleans could be flooded by 20ft (6m) of water. People in New Orleans are wary of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, and do not want another round of flooding.

An interesting story from the UK is that the dry weather has boosted the asparagus crop enormously. Richard Thomas, who farms in Blidworth, Nottinghamshire has said to the BBC that he has harvested 50 tonnes to date, which is 30 tonnes more than normal. This makes up for the sugar beet crop which was affected by this year's harsh winter which cost Mr. Thomas 21,000 pounds. The dry weather also means that British strawberries are already appearing on the supermarket shelves. However it is also bad news for potato growers because the crop has not been able to grow.


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This week in weather

For some reason, not yet discovered by man, my blog was removed from Blogger. So I am going to have to forget about April and wait until the end of May. If you wanted to know about the weather in April, then go and complain to the idiots at Blogger.

Although most of the weather in the UK was boring this week, this story most certainly is not. A girl in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales was struck by lightning while sitting on her windowsill watching a storm over her house. What she did not realize was that the metal part of her window was the highest point in the area. Lightning striked the window, and travelled down her arm and out through her foot. She did not even realize what had happened until a few minutes later her Father pointed out a lightning shaped mark on her shoulder and a mark on her foot where the lightning bolt had travelled out. Watch an interview with the girl here: 

Girl struck by lightning.

Now for extreme and interesting weather from around the world: There have been severe floods by the Mississippi river after huge snow melt and an unusually stormy winter and wet spring. The river reached 58.48 feet which breaks the record for the 58.04 feet set in 1937. However, many people have not been fazed by this and people in Natchez, Mississippi, even state that i is a draw for tourism, because people will want to come and see the historic event. The river height is expected to peak on the 21st of May.  

A an interesting fact from Britain this week is that MP's have said that the Uk needs a snow supremo to avoid another winter of chaos at airports. They also called for another 10M funding in order to improve the Metoffice' long-range forecasts. They have already started work for the coming winter. We will see if this winter will prove a chance for this funding to be exercised.