Weather & Earth Science News

Back from Essan after a very good workparty in fine weather - and no midges!   So a bit of a catch up with the news today .... With below average temps again in May, Spring will be the coldest in 50 years, Met Office says Lleyn peninsular hit by earthquake of 3.8 magnitude (note: the BBC can't spell!) Three people swept away, killed in severe San Antonio flooding More tornadoes touch down in Oklahoma and Arkansas amid severe storm system Hurricane Barbara weakens to tropical storm, kills 2 people .  And could it become a storm with two names: will Pacific Barbara morph into Atlantic Andrea to give us the first named tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season? Tornado leaves trail of devastation in Italy In France there are further flood warnings in place for southwest whilst the bad weather means that, unsually, Pyrenean ski slopes are open in June Floods kill cyclist and block roads in Germany Earlier in the week, in Norway, f...

This will be the last news blog until the end of next week as I'm away home to Moidart tomorrow. No surprise to hear that spring on track to be coldest for 30 years - despite what many think and want, it can't be warmer than average every year ..... Personal stories and images from Moore as five tornado victims still missing after storm found alive whilst mayor of Moore pushes for shelter law And beautiful pictures of a very foggy Chicago as it gets blanketed in morning mist Gretna border closes as North Dakota grapples with flood In Norway, hundreds evacuated and damage spreads as flood waters rise A weakening of the QBO may be a tropical upper atmosphere 'fingerprint' of global warming Volcano project scours Iceland  for early warning signals Good idea, wrong location: Ministers approve plans for world's biggest wave farm in Western Isles but at present the inforastructure isn't in place to carry the electricity p...

Oklahoma tornado: search for survivors nears end - with some good news in that the death toll has been downgraded to 24, including 9 children.  Meanwhile, severe weather moves to the eastern third of the US . After a cold spring, apples and pears shaping up enjoy strong harvest Cairngorm Mountain's snowsport's season finished - a little earlier than in recent years Norway flood warnings issued, railways hit NZ turns into a lightning rod Hong Kong stock market opens after heavy rain halted trading And more flooding hits southern China World's largest tropical glacier shrinks High blood pressure is linked to cold, wet weather Origins of human culture linked to rapid climate change - though I'm not sure that that is anything new, climate change long having been the 'mother of invention' for homo sapiens. And concnerns grow on the impacts of climate change and wildfire

Don't let anyone ever tell you Britain has bad weather.   Britain almost never has bad weather.   This is bad weather ....... :( Oklahoma tornado: dozens killed in Moore The dead include many pupils from an infant school flattened by the mile and a half wide tornado.  The death toll looks likely to rise with many still missing.   Seven children found drowned in pool amid fears 24 more classmates may have persished Current live coverage here * * * * * France sees tornado, snow and stormy weather 'Freak' spring storms dumps record 58cm of snow on Gander, Newfoundland Waterspouts twirl in Auckland In Western Australia, remote Lombadina community under water after 180mm deluge In Bangalore, six trees fall in 60 minutes as evening rain floods city whilst heat wave cripples North India Worst drought in decades brings crisis of unprecedented proportions, says Namibian president Northern hemisphere losing last dry snow region, says C...

Oklahoma ravaged by deadly tornadoes with the usual run of pictures from the Daily Mail as man, 79, killed and at least 21 injured as tornadoes hit Kansas and Oklahoma .   With the storm system continuing, the lastest is that a new tornado strikes Missouri as rash of central US twisters kills 1 . Apparently, flooding hits northeast as one month's rainfall of nearly two inches falls in just 24 hours - I'm pretty sure most parts of the NE see more than 50mm of rain in May (even Evesham has an ave of 53mm) and the highest total for the NE that I can find for the 24 hour period to 15.00 on Saturday is 40mm at Albermarle, near Newcastle.   So more like and inch and a half.....   Notwithstanding which, it was a wet day up there and there was local flooding as a consequence. Late snow hits Iberian peninsular Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming 'not as likely' - in other words, the world is warming, but not so fast as it was previously th...

53 killed by rain and floods in S China There could be a bumper crop of apples because of cold spring but it also means UK's rare spring butterflies put on a late show Spring floods in Latvia the most powerful and destructive in the last two decades Japanese cloud seeding tests work for second year in a row Global warming has not stalled, insists world's best known climate scientist - and he's right. And a good piece by Graham Readfearn on how zombie climate sceptic theories survive only in newspapers and on TV Antarctica's 'bleeding glacier' is kind of terrifying - of course, 'they' tell us it's just caused by simple microbes in an iron-rich environment, but we all know it's really Shoggoths ...... Alert after Alaskan volcano erupts Earthquake rattles residents in Ontario, Quebec   and an earthquake measuring 2.8 on the Richter Scale hits parts of Highlands causing consternation in Poolewe Weather on outer planets only ...

On Wednesday, 13 tornadoes wallop North Texas; 6 dead .  As usual, lots of photos of the desruction from the Dail Mail as mother of four describers her horrific ordeal in aftermath of Texas tornadoes .  And there are 7 still missing from deadly storm Snow-covered Shropshire hills are a white surprise as two inches of snow, a month's rainfall in a day and 65mph winds hit Britain .   We had about a third of a month's rainfall (and no snow nor strong winds) and the month's total here is close to average.  In Wales, Minera mudslide clean-up begins Omaha goes from record low temperature to record high temperature in two days whilst in Minnesota, 100-degree temp in Austin shatters all-time May record .  In contrast, record low temperatures recorded over interior Alaska (though these are only date records). There's a sunny summer forecast for desperate Danes - interesting to see Denmark has had above average rainfall every summer since 2001.  ...

Well we managed 14mm yesterday and another 3-4mm this morning bringing us up to about 23mm for the month - still below average for the first half of May ......  But elsewhere, snow and winds of 65mph hit Devon and Cornwall and there was also snow on high ground in Wales with flooding call-outs in Wrexham and Carmarthenshire .   Radar suggests some places may have seen around 200mm of rain. At the weekend, teenagers rescued girl from swollen river and forsook rain-swept Ten Tors challenge to help dozens of competitors to safety In the Tyrol, melting snow causes massive landslide onto mountain roads - it's not clear why rescue services fear a car may be underneath it. Last year's drought dried up tornadoes in southern Wisconsin and it's been a low tornado count across the United States so far in 2013 Cyclone Mahasen: Bangladesh orders coastal evacuations New rround of rain wreaks havoc in Central China EU funded Scientists produce their '...

Wall of ice destroys Manitoba homes, cottages and there are amazing images and video footage as 'ice tsunamis' sweep into homes in Minnesota as well. After a bright sunny start in Evesham today, it's set to turn very wet and rather cool and there's even a small risk of snow later ......  Models predict over an inch of rain here, though in the past they've tended to overestimate what actually falls in the Vale.   But we need about 20mm just to bring us up to about average for the month.  Spring on hold as snow forecast for parts of Wales and Scotland .  And to counter media claims 'forecasters' are predicting a wash-out summer, the Met Office point out why it's too early to write-off summer .   Doesn't mean it won't be another normal wet summer though.  But let's also not forget 1975 - and the summer that followed. Summer heat forecast for south Finland and there's record heat forecast for Moscow for today.   Hungary hit ...

Carbon dioxide at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory reached new milestone: tops 400 parts per million - cue lots of blog posts about why is it so cold then .......  Now ceases to astound me how many people think global CO2 levels are the only thing that affects local weather! As cyclone twins form in the Indian Ocean   one cyclone approached west Burma, raising alarms for IDPs In the Adelaide hills, Nature's fury turns autumn into inferno China overflows as the rain sets in , with video footage of China flash flood rescue moments before truck swept away Wet snow leaves Siberia areas in the dark Climate change shifts migrating birds' wintering grounds - they're staying further north.   And it's a no-win situation for agricultural expansion in the Amazon .  Deforestation reduces rainfall, increases temps and means a reduction in crop yields?  Well there's a surprise!

Lightning strike injures 39 in Germany on Thursday Flooding in Nicosia after heavy thunderstorm US tornado activity drop over last 12 months to a 60 year low In Wellington, storm intensity blamed for water woes in city after wild weather strikes top of South In Australia, sky-gazers across the country witness 'ring of fire' eclipse Severe weather strikes the Middle East 5 suffer heatstroke as temperatures fluctuate across Japan - in Nagano going from 4.2c to 28.9c through the course of the day. An ice-free Arctic may be in our future, international researchers say - but their argument may be flawed: just because there was an ice free Arctic in the past when CO2 levels were not much higher than today, does not mean that higher CO2 levels today will lead to an ice free Arctic.  Unless the only factor determining ice cover is CO2.  And I very much doubt it is. A new study shows that cirrus clouds form around mineral dust and metallic pa...

24.6c in my sheltered garden yesterday and officially it reached 23.7c in Crosby, Lancs to make it the warmest day of 2013 so far.   Unfortunately, summer is now over and the first autumn storm is due to hit us tomorrow as weather warning replaces blue skies ......! It's been Iceland's chilliest spring in decades As was forecast, there's been huge rainfall in Perth, SW storm threatens far south coast Skiers make most of pre-season snow in NZ Pacific's Marshall Islands facing drought emergency - some islands have had no rain at all since last year! Cosmic rays could spark Earth's lightning (and presumably that of other planets too?) And geologists find part of hidden continent buried beneath the Atlantic Ocean dating back 100 million years - but no, it's is not Atlantis!

For a very welcome change, it was a glorious bank holiday in across much of the country yesterday and as expected, the Daily Mail has loads of pictures of Britain's blazing bank holiday .  Reached 22.2c in my garden, first time it's hit 20c all year.   And with a gentle breeze it wasn't too hot nor humid.   Very nice.   Today could be even warmer.   But after that it looks all downhill...... But whilst it's been a fine weekend here, north-east France placed under high flood alert as floods, torrential rainfall hit eastern France And some more details from last week where Italian village recovers from earthquake, struck by tornado California wildfire 'contained by Tuesday' (hopefully) In Utah, downpour causes flash flood on St George streets Perth, southern WA braces for first winter storm, packing 125km/h winds Computer models have taken over from Pharoahs' dreams as a warning is issued by the Israeli Water Authority: '...

Shocking cold and snow in central US, first May snow on record in Arkansas Canadian spring floods cause trouble in 4 provinces California firefighters tackling six major wildfires US school cancels classes due to 'exceptionally nice' weather Rare large tornado strikes northern Italy on Friday

This doesn't appear to have made the news, but there was some unusually heavy snow fall on Harris yesterday, as shown in this webcam image captured just after 6pm showing the main road from Tarbet to Stornoway, on the slopes of Clisham at c150m asl:- Not what you normally expect in May!   Oddly, the mainland didn't seem to experience so much snow, not to road level anyway and this morning the only other traffic webcam showing snow is that at the Slochd. Down here it was another fine, warm, spring day with glorious scenes across Britain as country basks in gorgeous sunshine with 21C bank holiday weekend forecast In the US, rare May storm dumps more than a foot of snow in Wisconsin, Minnesota And snow falls in Hokkaido as cold spring continues across Japan The annual Assiniboine River flood threat moves south and east California wildfire shuts famous highway Flash flood overtakes Saudi Arabia, kills sixteen Greater Mekong countries 'lost one-third of f...

A cool but dry April in Evesham - only just warmer than last year but only just over 50% of normal rain.  Thats 4 consecutive months here with below normal rainfall - how long before the drought warnings start?   And a splendid May Day with clear skies this morning after a pleasant cool start.  Lovely!  And the blossom is looking good for the weekend: And the month begins with some goods news as planning rules reform could see windfarm ban in scenic Scotland - with Moidart amongst the many areas covered in a draft map produced by SNH; Scottish wild land map a first, says heritage agency After 8 fatalities this winter, UK mountaineering groups working on avalanche messages for next season. British explorer Philip Goodeve-Docker freezes to death in storm during trek across Arctic - after a 'piteraq' blew the team's tent down Spring snowstorm hits flood-stricken prarie residents in Canada, with snow also expected in parts of the US.  B...