Extreme events 2020 - Formosahut forum

Starting to think there's more to it than just global warming. Even in this year of record heat in Australia the winter lows were also significantly below average. Perhaps what's unfolding can best be characterised as increased erraticness.

Anyway, first entry in the file is a record blizzard in Canada that dropped nearly 80cm of snow.

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This dust storm was associated with the widespread rain storms over the weekend in that some places further inland got the wind, but no rain. I wonder if cattle eating the plains down to the bare dirt has exacerbated it?

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video of driving into a dust storm:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1218816321615302656

I can't imagine driving in to that.

Amidst the collapse of the planet there are some great photos...

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Winter storm in Spain that killed 13:

"Storm Gloria swept into the Balearic Islands - which include the holiday island of Majorca - last weekend with torrential rain whipped up by winds of 100km/h (62mph).

Huge waves forced some residents to evacuate while rivers burst their banks and boats were torn from their moorings.

The storm then struck Catalonia, Valencia and the southern regions of Murcia and Andalusia with rain and snow (!), leaving a trail of damage"

Good God. That first one is truly apocalyptic.

I came across the following subreddit while researching the new virus, nCoV: https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/. Not something to browse if you're feeling depressed about the state of civilization.

EDIT: I was referring to that earlier post with the girl running towards the abyss.

Storms in Brazil: 54 dead, 30 000 flee homes

Although the rain doesn't seem excessive by Taiwan standards, it depends on how well a particular place is geared up for it. They (only) had 170 mm over 24 hrs but that was the highest recorded in 110 years so guess they weren't prepared for it.

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Wow. It's sort of like places that don't get much snow getting completely shut down by 1-2".

Check out these temps - this is not from some desert in the middle of Australia - these are the outskirts of Sydney!!!

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That's insane. A colleague who had once worked in Saudi Arabia once told me that they cancelled school when it hit 45. So even they would consider these high temperatures.

This is the result of what looked like a cyclone on the weather map (rotating but wasn't named) in the south island of NZ

According to reports, 1.1 metres of rain has fallen in Fiordland in the past three days. (they do get 10 metres a year so it's not that unusual)

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"Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015."

I'm beginning to think a neat project might be to map climate change projections with reality.

I wonder if I could convince my school to give me a class for this. I highly doubt it.

I'm beginning to think a neat project might be to map climate change projections with reality.

I wonder if I could convince my school to give me a class for this. I highly doubt it.

Worth a try - great idea! Would be curious to see how we're travelling compared to projections.

Like to see one for the political spectrum as well - not a projection as such - just a real time heat map. Problem would be how to grade a particular political doctrine.

'Bomb cyclone' floods in Wales. “They are the highest levels we’ve ever recorded on the River Wye and those records go back 200 years,” he told Sky News.

Annoyingly this article (and others i've read) doesn't give the key data of how many mil they got over what time frame.

Got this from Tom Steyer in the Dem debate - supposedly California is having it's driest Feb in 150 years. Given the fire problems there in recent years then that's not a record you want to be breaking.

Hottest European winter on record - smashed old record by a whopping 1.4C. That's like someone suddenly running the 100 metres in 8 seconds.

It's the summer time when climate change really starts to get gnarly so we'll see how it goes then.

I have a feeling the west coast of the US will not be a fun place to visit this summer. Maybe it's a good thing that the virus will likely be keeping us here in Japan.

I have a feeling the west coast of the US will not be a fun place to visit this summer. Maybe it's a good thing that the virus will likely be keeping us here in Japan.

That was prescient. Temps forecast to hit 50C in southern California!!!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53618473

A new world record for hottest ever temp of 54.4C recorded at Death Valley (which seems to hold most of the top 10 places as well).

Comes in the middle of a heatwave for the US west coast.

"Six people have died in some of California's largest-ever wildfires that have fouled the air with heavy smoke across much of the western US."

The Camp Fires of 2018 (which included the incineration of Paradise) didn't even happen until Nov 8, so we can expect a long, hard fire season for the folks living in country California.

Looking at transcripts from the 911 calls coming our of Paradise an d Concow around 7.30am, there appears to be catastrophic miscalculations made by the experts. This includes not believing frantic people that were ringing up to report the fires. They were told they were:
"not in any danger"
"there’s nothing right now, it’s near Pulga, which is way up Highway 70"
(someone reporting thick smoke and orange glow) "Ma’am, unless you see flames then it’s just the sun shining through it."
"they will let you know if you need to evacuate."

Less than 30 minutes later the town of Paradise was on fire.

Yes, they were extreme conditions but there were also a whole stack of deadly mistakes made around that fire - let's hope they've learned something from them.

"High temperatures, low humidity, lightning and wind gusts up to 105 kilometres per hour "may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behaviour," said the National Weather Service."

Yeah, that'll do it! This is shaping up as a major disaster. There are already fires burning so they're going to explode - plus the potential for a bunch more.

I listened to an interview with the head of the union for the fire depts in CA and he mentioned that fires have grown progressively worse over the last three years. COVID is playing a major role in all this as well because it had decreased the number of firefighters available.

I listened to an interview with the head of the union for the fire depts in CA and he mentioned that fires have grown progressively worse over the last three years. COVID is playing a major role in all this as well because it had decreased the number of firefighters available.

Yeah even with climate change i would have expected a bad year once every 3-4 years but seems every year is a bad year.

Meanwhile an emerging fire situation near Darwin, NT in the north of Australia, with existing fires and bad conditions coming tomorrow. Darwin is well above the tropic of Capricorn, an area not known for bushfires. I'll wager my farm that the situation is partly caused by farmers/govt agencies burning off too late - August is the windiest month in the north. Might have been ok to burn off in Aug before but it's not now.

Starting to think we're seeing the 'hair-drier affect' - burst of high temps and big wind drying out areas in short time - making them combustible.

Previously the pattern would be wet winter and spring - moderate fire season - with the cooler wetter theme often drifting into summer. The worst fire years were always drought years. Now it seems it doesn't matter as much - you just need a run of couple of hot dry months with increased wind and you're in business.

I'm not sure what the record is for the most number of natural disasters on the same day but we must be getting close. Hurricane Laura, fires in California and Australia, floods in northern Afghanistan, and typhoon Bavi set to hit Korea.

Its' rare for a typhoon to hold its form that far south but Bavi looks to be doing it, with it's outlet pre-feeding heavy rain directly into the area that the main body of the storm is about to hit - that's a deadly combination.

Apparently they've already had a monster monsoon season in North Korea so this is going compound that the effect even more

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This makes me wonder how in the heck these climate change models, which apparently are turning out to be fairly accurate, work. I mean, if they're accurate, they must be able to predict increases in fire events in certain areas, etc.

California has turned into an absolute mess. I was seriously considering retiring in many of these areas on fire. And it's happening every year. So scratch that off my list.

If these models are so good, wouldn't insurance companies want a peek at the data? Shouldn't we all have access to what these computers are forecasting? Certainly they were funded with public money. Or is this data available now and I'm just too lazy to look for it?

I just found this, which looks promising:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access

Where there's smoke, there's fire!

This makes me wonder how in the heck these climate change models, which apparently are turning out to be fairly accurate, work. I mean, if they're accurate, they must be able to predict increases in fire events in certain areas, etc.

That's a classic example of 'we can't tell people the real truth because of blah blah reason'.
During the last fire season in Australia i noticed that the Fire Bureaus and Government Departments have access to animated typhoon like modelling that they don't release to the public for ... i don't even know what the reason is - fear of causing public panic - some message management thing.

But imagine if typhoon modelling was suddenly withdrawn due to fear of causing panic.

Worrying situation in California unfolding.

"At least 163 people trapped by a fast-spreading wildfire near Central California’s Mammoth Pool Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest had been rescued by the Air National Guard.

"Of those rescued from Mammoth Pool, Minarets, and nearby Cascadel Woods, 20 were hospitalized and some had critical burn injuries."

That's a daring rescue - flying a helicopter in smoky conditions like that takes serious skill and courage.

Unfortunately there are still another 1000 people trapped in the campground with the only road out "compromised". They are not under immediate threat supposedly but you'd want them out as soon as possible.

"California has seen 900 wildfires since Aug. 15, many of them started by an intense series of thousands of lightning strikes. The blazes have burned more than 1.5 million acres (2,343 square miles). There have been eight fire deaths and nearly 3,300 structures destroyed."

California is becoming a crapshoot with regards to travel and camping, much less buying a home. Granted, the fires, though numerous and horrific, actually burn a very small percentage of the forested areas, but they can and do pop up anywhere.

Here's a bit of data that would be interesting to have. Given, say, one acre of land at a specific spot in either the Sierra Nevada or coastal range (Klamath Mountains?) north of the Bay Area, and given that the fire patterns of the last five years will persist or increase as they have increased every year, what is the probability that that acre would get burned in the course of a year?

Another, related question is, are fire insurance premiums rising? That would indicate a rising probability of fire damage.

Given, say, one acre of land at a specific spot in either the Sierra Nevada or coastal range (Klamath Mountains?) north of the Bay Area, and given that the fire patterns of the last five years will persist or increase as they have increased every year, what is the probability that that acre would get burned in the course of a year?

Another, related question is, are fire insurance premiums rising? That would indicate a rising probability of fire damage.

Guess the insurance companies would have an algorithm for that for the first question and 'yes' for the second.

In Australia every area is designated as a fire risk area or not. The premiums reflect that.

This from today's news:
"California is currently experiencing a record heatwave, with Los Angeles reporting its highest ever temperature of 49.4C (121F)."

Up to 2 million acres now - which is a record supposedly.

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Just saw some drone footage of the devastation caused in Oregon - it's heartbreaking - whole towns burnt to the ground.

The number of fatalities is also mounting: 15 dead and "dozens missing", with 4.5m acres burned in 100 fires across 12 states, including Washington.

Only Cat 2 but it's the dreaded 'slow-mover' (3mph) so severe flooding comes into play "from Tallahassee, Florida to Mobile Bay in Alabama."

Crazily, there are four more storms rotating in the Atlantic Ocean theatre.

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On it goes. Now they're expecting winds of 40-60 mph - that's not a typo and supposed to be kph - it's 60 mph - with higher gusts in mountainous areas!

Sounds like it has cooled off a lot but cross that with existing fires from what was already the worst season on record and you've got hell on earth.

The LA Times is reporting wind gusts up to 90mph!!!

That's 145kph! You're not gonna outdrive that.

Even if there weren't fires. that's a serious wind storm - same as a Cat 1 typhoon - almost Cat 2. It's a typhoon on fire basically.

Orange County is the place most at risk according to reports.

Yeah, this is absolutely crazy. I was talking with a co-worker last week who shared the story of a relative in downtown Portland, Oregon who was given notice to be prepared to evacuate on short order during Oregon's fires. And that was downtown Portland, a major city.

It looks like some towns and cities you'd never expect to be facing a fire evacuation order may see that in the coming hours and days.

Despite all the storms in the US theatre, the north west Pacific still takes the title for strongest storm of the year with Super Typhoon Goni.

Media reports 10 dead and widespread destruction.

There's another typhoon (Atsani) just behind it that's forecast to clip the north coast of Philippines.

Interestingly it's been two years in a row without a serious typhoon hitting Taiwan, maybe three. That sequence is gonna end with a bang - look out 2021!

Tropical Depression Eta is not as powerful as several other storms this year, but it may be the deadliest.

As is usually the case with hurricanes/typhoons, it's not the wind that's the most dangerous, it's the rain.

20 killed in Mexico and now 150 buried in mudslides in Guatemala.

It's now heading towards Cuba, then the southern tip of Florida. Strange track - seems almost opposite to normal path. Nov is also pretty late in the season.

Dan, strands of the spaghetti models have it going very close to where you used to live.

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Eta looks to have lost its oomph, and moving quite quickly so hopefully nothing serious.

On the other hand Typhoon Vamco has made landfall in The Philippines following a similar path to the last one. There are reports of flooding and three deaths so far. Manilla

Seems this year the storms have come in pairs striking almost identical areas. Two for Korea (which rarely gets typhoons), two for Louisiana, now two for central PPE.

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Vamco has now killed at least 42 in Philippines with 20 still missing.

As usual, it was the rain, not the wind, that did the damage.

It's now heading for Vietnam which has already suffered a series of flooding events this year.

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The title says it all.

"This summer arrived earlier and has been warmer than past summers, with the average temperature from June to Wednesday reaching a record 29.54°C, Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) said.

Previous records were 29.41°C from July to September last year, 29.38°C from July to September 2014, 29.16°C from June to August 2016 and 28.99°C from June to August 2017, he said. "

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2020/08/29/2003742479

Tags:
Hottest summer on record in Taiwan

Super Typhoon Haishen is forecast to hit southern Japan as a cat 5 in about 48 hours. This could be the strongest storm to hit Japan in decades.

As a side note, the typhoons so far this year seem to be heading north before making it to Taiwan. This is the second major typhoon in the course of a week to hit southern Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, Japan has been experiencing record heat across the country this summer.

Tags:
Super Typhoon Haishen

Cat 5 hitting Japan! That's rare. Seems to be the pattern this year - typhoons heading to Korea/Japan - so far nothing substantial to Taiwan or even Philippines i think.

They're comin thick n fast up that way. Typhoon Haishen looks to be the biggest - maybe the biggest i've ever seen that far north.

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450 mm of rain and 180kph winds - that's some storm!

Media reporting extensive damage, power outages, two fatalities and 25 people missing.

Hardest hit areas include Nice, Brittany, Atlantic coast areas, and Piedmont, in north western Italy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54402096

This could be the most destructive hurricane of a record breaking season. It's forecast to make landfall in Louisiana on Friday evening, Oct 9.

Meanwhile, it's garnering this 'mega-monster' aura as it heads into the gulf. In a mere 33 hours, it has gone from "a 40 mph tropical storm to a 145 mph Category 4" - record rate of intensification for any Atlantic storm. That's your 'storm-on-steroids' right there.

Hang on to your hats (and roofs) if you're in the path of this one.

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And it looks like there's some business behind this one as well. These all form off the coast of W. Africa, and there's yet another that didn't make it on to this screenshot.

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Bloody Hell! Storm factory production line.

Fires, Hurricanes, Covid, Riots - 2020 is seriously biblical.

I bet they'll be shitting themselves in the future when it clicks over to 3030.

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Yeah, and we're only 3/4 of the way through it!

"From 2am, there have been four to five landslides, exploding like bombs and it feels like the whole mountain is about to collapse."

70 dead in floods and landslides in central Vietnam.

Interestingly, Taiwan, Australia, Japan (?) have seen benign conditions so far this year - possibly due to La Nina - while the US, parts of India, China, Vietnam have been copping it.

As we've observed before, global warming is not something that affects the globe in a blanket manner - more like a laser beam that torches a certain area for a year or so before moving onto another location - unless it's California - where it just seems to stay all the time.

Iota is the biggest storm of the the Atlantic season and only the second ever recorded to reach Cat 5 in November - the last one being in 1932.

Nicaragua is in the firing line - having been hit by Eta a couple of weeks ago - a lesser storm in wind speed but a huge rain event that resulted in 200 dead in the country. God knows how they'll cope with this one.

Man, this has been a helluva hurricane season, breaking all kinds of records.

Technically, there are no floods, yet. But almost certainly will be along the east coast of NSW and Qld. The weird thing is its being fed by a cyclone all the way across the other side of the continent (north west Aus). Somehow the weather snakes its way across the desert without raining much, then reconfigures into a deluge on the east coast.

Forecast totals over 250 mil for the whole event which will transpire over several days. That's not a big deal in Taiwan but will challenge the flood defenses of Australia. This in combination with a king tide and huge surf whipped up by offshore winds.

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This is the old-fashioned pincer movement with yesterday's low coming down from the north west transferring its weather to another low forming in the north east. The result is a deluge over northern NSW and southern Qld. According to the chart some areas are 250+ mil since 9am with a large area over 100. That's above the maximum range predicted (about 60mm). And this is just the start - the next two days are expected to be worse.

The event started yesterday morning, raining on and off, then heavily all night and most of today. Guess we've had about 150 mil in that time.

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Torrential rain overnight which exceeded the forecasts. Springbrook, on the NSW - Qld border, copped 472 mm in the 24 hr period to 9am. Several places over 300 mil.

Looking at the satellite, a cyclone has formed off the east coast - they don't call them cyclones in Australia unless they reach a certain wind speed - but it's still a cyclone in any other language. Wind gusts of up to 100 kph are expected and even more torrential rain.

Bear in mind that they rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere - which means it's feeding directly into where i am.

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So far there has been flooding in the area, specifically Murwillumbah, but not too bad, and some coastal erosion at Byron Bay. Having under-predicted the rainfall yesterday, the bureau over-predicted today. Gold Coast was expected to get hammered but was actually fine.

BoM is now predicting up to 200 mil for Northern Rivers tomorrow, but i don't know if it's going to eventuate - will depend on the low coming onshore - it may hang out to sea.

Today has been a lot more moderate, just a rainy day, and the radar looks pretty good - we'll see what happens.

Conditions very much like a small cyclone today, windy (SSE, which is consistent with the clockwise rotation) and heavy rain. The Low has come onshore and we're entering the 'eye' zone now as i write.

The creek is pumping and onto the first level of flood plains but no danger of reaching the house at this stage. Hopefully the rain will start to ease from this point.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55359771

"Rescuers are trying to free more than 1,000 vehicles which have been stranded on a highway for two days after a heavy snow storm struck Japan. Authorities have distributed food, fuel and blankets to the drivers on the Kanetsu expressway, which connects the capital Tokyo to Niigata, in the north."

Stuck in your car for two days! That's worse than lockdown.

Dang! I hadn't heard about this. We have indeed been getting a lot of snow. Apparently it is breaking records: https://www.bbc.com/weather/features/55334191. I wonder if or to what extent this is driven by climate change. The old record was just in 2010. And there seems to be numerous extreme precipitation events happening around the world.

We had a a break in the snow today, but it's due to restart tonight and continue all day tomorrow. I'm starting a two-week winter break, which will give me time to move all the snow that has piled up in my parking spaces.

Tropical Cyclone Yasa has smashed the northern islands of Fiji with winds up to 345 kilometres per hour! That's like a tornado the size of a typhoon.

Four people are dead - devastation in the communities affected.

In terms of wind speed Yasa was one of the fastest on record.

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