organization:national weather service

Extreme weather has made half of America look like Tornado Alley - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/05/29/extreme-weather-has-made-half-america-look-like-tornado-alley

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/ysoGXHNsJWq4J-JYTyYbHmyCXbk=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/WEW5NJUCJ4I6TNMF4NVRNJJRVI.jpg

Tornadoes have been popping up every day in the U.S. as if coming off an assembly line. They’re part of an explosion of extreme weather events, including record flooding, record cold and record heat. Wednesday brought more of the same, with tornado watches in the Midwest and Atlantic seaboard and 37 million Americans facing an “enhanced” risk of severe weather, according to the National Weather Service.

All of which raises the question: Is this climate change, or just an unusually bad year?

For years, scientists have warned that climate change caused by human activity — primarily the burning of fossil fuels and the spike in atmospheric greenhouse gases — would make extreme weather events more likely. But tornadoes have never fit neatly into the climate change narrative. They’re eccentric and quirky. Until this year, the U.S. was in something of a tornado drought.

Twisters seem to follow a boom-and-bust cycle. There weren’t many tornadoes in 2018. So far this century, two years — 2008 and 2011 — jump off the charts, each with more than 2,000 reported tornadoes. This year, there have been nearly 1,000.

The immediate driver of the violent weather is the jet stream, the powerful winds at high altitudes that sweep west to east across North America. The jet stream since May 14 has created conditions ripe for twisters. Seven deaths have been reported so far in the tornado assault of May. That’s a low death toll compared to some tornado seasons, but the steady, percussive nature of the storms — the daily pounding — has been anomalous.

The Economic Cost Of Devastating Hurricanes And Other Extreme Weather Events Is Even Worse Than We Thought
▻https://theconversation.com/the-economic-cost-of-devastating-hurricanes-and-other-extreme-weath

https://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/full/public/2017/09/14/gettyimages-846582652_0.jpg

June marks the official start of hurricane season. If recent history is any guide, it will prove to be another destructive year thanks to the worsening impact of climate change.

But beyond more intense hurricanes and explosive wildfires, the warming climate has been blamed for causing a sharp uptick in all types of extreme weather events across the country, such as severe flooding across the U.S. this spring and extensive drought in the Southwest in recent years.

#climat #tornades #etats-unis

Dangerous North Atlantic Storm Impacting Shipping Lanes – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/dangerous-north-atlantic-storm-impacting-shipping-lanes

http://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/A_sfc_full_ocean_color.jpg

A developing hurricane force storm low over the west-central North Atlantic continues to move eastward at 35 knots producing winds of 55-75 knots with significant wave heights up to 12 meters (40 feet) within 180 NM south and 120 NM west of the center. Over the next 24 hours max winds will be between 50-75 knots with significant wave heights to 15 meters (50 feet) within 240 NM in the western semi-circle.

Puerto Rico Puts Its Prisons in Flood Zones | The Marshall Project
▻https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/09/21/puerto-rico-puts-its-prisons-in-flood-zones

https://s3.amazonaws.com/tmp-production-story-assets/floodingpr092017/assets/data/placeholderdesktop.png

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico early Wednesday morning as a category 4 storm. With winds measuring 155 miles per hour, by mid-day local media were reporting that all of Puerto Rico had lost power. The whole island, home to 3.4 million people, is currently under a flash flood warning, and the National Weather Service in San Juan is advising people to move to higher ground.

While it will be difficult for most people to move to safety, it will be harder still for people who are incarcerated in Puerto Rico’s 29 territorial and federal prisons. As you can see from our map, the prisons are clustered around eight complexes across the island, most along the coast and near high-risk flood areas.

During last month’s flooding in Houston following Hurricane Harvey, nearly 6,000 inmates in five Texas prisons were evacuated. The same happened in south and central Florida, where over 7,000 prisoners were moved across the state in anticipation of Hurricane Irma.

Puerto Rico was still recovering from Hurricane Irma, less than two weeks ago, which spared the island the brunt of the fierce weather but did leave mounds of debris and about 63 percent of the island, about 1.5 million power clients, without electricity. Now Hurricane Maria has cut off communication with most government officials and the re

Lightning is zapping fewer Americans, not more | The Sumter Item
▻http://www.theitem.com/stories/lightning-is-zapping-fewer-americans-not-more,293867

http://theitem.ostsubmedia.communityq.com/uploads/original/1502847027_8b83.jpg

Lightning - once one of nature’s biggest killers - is claiming far fewer lives in the United States, mostly because we’ve learned to get out of the way.
In the 1940s, when there were fewer people, lightning killed more than 300 people annually. So far this year, 13 people have died after being struck, on pace for a record low of 17 deaths. Taking the growing population into account, the lightning death rate has shrunk more than forty-fold since record-keeping began in 1940.
[…]
ightning strikes have not changed - they hit about the same amount as they used to, said Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor Paul Markowski.
A big difference: Fewer of us are outside during bad weather. If we’re not huddled indoors, we’re often in cars. Vehicles with metal roofs - not convertibles - are safe from lightning, experts say.
“As a society we spend less time outside,” said Harold Brooks, a scientist at the National Weather Service’s National Severe Storms Laboratory. “Especially farmers. There aren’t just many farmers around.”

#foudre

The Science Behind Arizona’s Record-Setting Heat Wave
▻https://psmag.com/environment/terrifying-heat-waves-in-arizona

- The United States Border Patrol stepped up safety messages, saying “it is physically impossible for the average person to carry enough water to survive.”

– The National Weather Service also warned against walking pets outdoors, saying that at pavement temperatures above 162 degrees (consistent with air temperatures of 102 [= 39°C]), skin is instantly destroyed.

Also on Monday, American Airlines canceled 38 flights previously scheduled for Phoenix on Tuesday—simply because it will be too hot to fly. It’s not necessarily that the pilots and ground crew will need extra rest, it’s that the planes’ wings themselves weren’t designed to perform under such conditions. Hotter air is thinner, and provides less lift, making it difficult for planes to take off.

As for here in Tucson, where I live, it’s so hot right now, I can’t think straight. Even indoors, a heat like this consumes you. “Cold” water from the tap is hot to the touch. You feel trapped; your daily routine changes to accommodate the inferno.

[...] In short, the background signal of global warming makes the entire atmosphere thinner and less dense, supporting stronger high-pressure centers like the one camped out over Arizona this week, which then tend to get stuck in place—cranking up the thermostat over a multi-state region.

#climat

One-Fifth of the US Is About to Get Broiled
By Katie Herzog, Grist
18 June 16
▻http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/37519-one-fifth-of-the-us-is-about-to-get-broiled

Take a deep breath, western United States America, You’re about to be on fire.

Parts of Arizona, Nevada, and California are expected to reach 120 degrees next week, or the approximate temperature of Hell. The area subject to high temps is vast — and vastly populated — and includes L.A., Phoenix, San Diego, Tucson, and Las Vegas. In fact, 66 million people are expected to fall under a hot weather advisory next week, or about a fifth of the U.S. population, NBC reports.

While 120 degrees is unimaginably hot, we’re already surpassing temperature records around the U.S. this week: Columbia, Missouri, and Des Moines, Iowa, both hit a record 99 degrees on Wednesday, and heat advisories have been issued from Louisiana to the West Coast. And it’s only June.

Soaring temperatures are especially concerning in light of the wildfires raking the Southwest, where thousands of acres are already burning. Hundreds of people had to evacuate in California, Arizona, and New Mexico this week, where the San Mateo Mountains fire has already burned over 30,000 acres.

Extreme temperatures and wildfires are becoming more and more common as global climate change increases. The National Weather Service warns that next week’s heat wave could be deadly, and has advised residents to stay indoors, drink a lot of water, and find air conditioning where you can.

#climat #Etats-Unis

How #Typography Can Save Your Life — Pacific Standard
▻https://psmag.com/how-typography-can-save-your-life-ac7e90ea1cf3

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*JyeNGWH52HkiHZbiIM1SGQ.jpeg

After decades of silently shouting at the top of its lungs, the National Weather Service recently announced that it’s going to stop publishing its forecasts and weather warnings in ALL CAPS. Beginning May 11, for the first time ever, we’ll start seeing mixed-case letters.
The weather service’s caps-lock habit didn’t happen entirely by choice. Old equipment left over from early weather service days of the late 1800s could only handle capital letters. Unfortunately, people have since learned to recognize those capital letters AS YELLING. It’s taken a long time for the weather service (and its customers) to update all their hardware and software, but now they’re finally ready to enter the 20th century.

For type nerds everywhere, this is a triumphant typographic victory the likes of which we haven’t seen since Massimo Vignelli re-designed the New York City subway sign system. OK, maybe that’s a stretch, but type choices are a big deal — and can, in fact, have life or death consequences.

#typo #design

National Weather Service will stop using all caps in its forecasts
▻http://www.noaa.gov/national-weather-service-will-stop-using-all-caps-its-forecasts

Selon une carte des conditions météorologiques (vents, courants océaniques, concentrations chimiques) du US National Weather Service, une concentration inhabituelle de monoxyde de carbone se tient juste au-dessus des zones de Cascadia et San Andreas (Pacifique) depuis quelques jours.
▻http://www.brujitafr.fr/2016/03/selon-une-carte-des-conditions-meteorologiques-vents-courants-oceaniques-c

See current wind, weather, ocean, and pollution conditions, as forecast by supercomputers, on an interactive animated map. Updated every three hours. Voici d’abord la carte en question qui montre les relevés actuels, lesquels sont actualisés aux 3 heures:...

The Big Uneasy (Living on Earth)
►http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=11-P13-00034&segmentID=2

Six years ago Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf of Mexico. The National Weather Service said that Katrina was the deadliest and costliest Hurricane in the U.S. But a new documentary, “The Big Uneasy,” argues that much of the damage could have been prevented with better planning and engineering. Bruce Gellerman speaks with actor Harry Shearer who wrote and directed the film, about major flaws in the New Orleans levee system that led to the flooding of the city.