Weather & Earth Science News

In Zimbabwe: temperatures soar to record highs September's average temperature for Sydney beats 33-year record as Australia's record hot year continues Saturday saw flooding in Westcountry after storm 'brewed up' in France Storm whips up chaos on B.C. coast Typhoon Wutip: many missing as Chinese boats sunk Cambodia's flood kills 28, affects 73,600 families Warning over turbine applications near Dark Sky park in Galloway And the BBC publish a selection of reactions to the UN climate Report

Plenty of media reports on the release of the Working Group 1 Summary for Policeymakers, so here's a round-up of stories from some of the usual suspects: Science Daily : Human influence on climate clear, IPCC report says The BBC give us: UN Climate Report: key findings - btw I am disappointed there is little emphasis on precipitation pattern change, which IMO has a far more reaching impact on humans than temperature changes alone. From the Daily Mail : it's not as bad as we thought - but global warming is still as disaster, warn UN experts Climate change report: extreme weather to become more common says the Daily Telegraph , which also runs a story on a slightly different angle:  IPCC Report: Britain could cool is Gulf Stream slows And the Guardian gives us live reaction to IPCC conclusions with some quite interesting and conflicting comments there. UN climate panel endorses ceiling on global emissions is the headline from the New York Times And the...

As Pakistan earthquake death toll jumps to 348 there are reports that Pakistan quake island off Gwadar 'emits flammable gas' - it appears to be a mud volcano . Mexico's Alcapulco hit by heavy rain and fresh floods Britain has its best crop of apples and pumpkins for years because of wet spring and hot summer .   It't been another week of mainly benign weather here (no rain in my garden for 10 days now), although apparently that's all about to change because now we face a weekend of hail and storm chaos with ' typhoon like conditions ' !!!!!   Because there may be a few showers and maybe some thunder affecting parts of southern England on Saturday .....  Yep, it's Nathan Rao again. In Sweden, cold snap on the way after first snow accident and across the border, first snow arrives as police advise Finns to prepare cars for winter. Wild weather from snow to severe fire danger hits Canberra and NSW whilst in Victoria wild winds caus...

Antarctic sea ice hit 35-year record high Saturday - and this despite the warmest August on record,so it's not because it's been cold.... Mexico storm death toll rises to 110 (and some reports this morning now saying 123) Body of 79-year-old floods victim found beside Colorado river Nebraska flooding: problems persist along South Platte River Tornado cuts destructive path in NZ whilst storm moves over northern regions Brazil: tornado leaves two dead, 64 injured In Nigeria, seven feared dead as rain wreaks havoc in Ibadan Landslides, floods kill 22 in Zamables , in the Philippines Tibetan glaciers are shrinking at their summits whilst the trail of melting Swiss glacier shows climate change in action in the Alps In Siberia, scientists discover world's 'best preserved' woolly mammoth trunk With the IPCC AR5 due out latest this week, human role in warming 'more certain' - UN climate chief And wind and rain belts to...

Typhoon Usagi kills at least 25 people in China whilst earlier, super typhoon cuts power, unleashes landslides in northern Philippines After last week's Mexico storms: village landslide missing 'probably dead' School holiday heatwave sets Queensland on high alert for bushfires and drought Global Warming pause 'central' to IPCC report - or rather, that's what some people want it to be.   Certainly, be good to see a better explanation of how natural factors still affect climate and global temperature, as we have seen in recent years with negative PDO and reduced solar activity, as well as other things (including perhaps increased pollution) countering some of the predicted warming from CO2 emissions and related feedbacks.    The big question for those sceptical of AGW is: why aren't we cooling then? Are ideas to cool the planet realistic? - more to the point, are they at risk of falling foul of the law of unintended consequences? ...

Mexico storms: death toll up to 97 as Hurricane Manuel makes landfall and loses force And Colorado flood death toll rises, amid oil spills Photo captures stunning Grand Canyon lightning storm Typhoon Usagi moves towards Philippines, Taiwan - it may become the most powerful storm so far ths year A storm just killed 30,000 sheep in Uruguay Arctic sea ice shrinks to sixth-lowest extent on record I like this: Peak District's High Peak Moors to see 50-year restoration plan Challenger rover's methane result challenges life theory - the red planet may be dead after all And some good news: Earth expected to be habitable for another 1.75 billion years

NOAA: August 2013 temperatures fourth highest on record .  No catastrophic ice age yet then.  Full report here Colorado floods: hundreds still missing Heatwave and wildfires worsened Colorado flooding Clean-up in Japan gets underway after deadly storm Heavy rain in Canberra breaks record In Alaska, ancient trees emerge from frozen forest 'tomb' as glaciers melt back revealing the remains 1,200+ year old trees (note: the report mentions the trees are probably the same as those that grow around the glacier today - so this is not evidence it was 'warmer' 1,200 years ago, only that the glacier was smaller 1,200 year ago) Stronger winds may explain puzzling growth of sea ice in Antarctica Oh, and an interesting follow-up to David Rose's misleading 'story' in the Mail on Sunday from the 'Bad Astronomer' Phil Plait: another week, another climate change denial article in The Mail .   Now, whether Rose was just mistaken a...

Deadly Mexico storms kill 42, floods strand thousands  In Japan, after 2 deaths, Typhoon Man-yi downgraded to tropical storm Eight confirmed dead, 1,600 homes destroyed in Colorado floods Freakish amount of rain creates havoc around Sydney Space image shows the devastating impact of flooding in eastern Russia Nice pictures of a beautiful misty morning scenes but snow falls in the Cairngorms as winds forecast to hit 50mph September brings first snow and negative temperatures in Romania's mountains as well World's most vulnerable areas to climate change mapped Space weather may be to blame for some satellite failures According to Ken Ring (who used to - and maybe still does? - maintain that it's always clear skies under a full moon) Ireland will have a white December, but no snow on Christmas Day - that's the first Christmas forecast I've seen this year, though worth noting Ken Ring does not issue forecasts for Britain.  What...

24 dead as Tropical Storm Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid batter Mexico from east and west Powerful Typhoon Man-Yi hits central Japan with 260,000 told to evacuate after Typhoon Man-Yi leaves massive flooding in Kyoto Colorado flooding rescue operation continues  Three people killed, 60 injured in storm in Punjab and Haryana Hot summer boosts butterflies in Britain Pentland Firth tidal turbine project given consent whilst wind farm opponents are living in the stone age, Ed Davey claims - well we will be if we keep on throwing money and electricity generation schemes which wreck the environment but are wholly inefficient and unreliable when it comes to electricity generation!   And as I keep saying, one cover 5,000 square miles in a power station when you can generate the same electricity from a station covering less than 1 square mile?  Perhaps, because there are is less short term profit in the latter? Now, this is not really a new story s...

Colorado flood death toll rises with more pictures from the Mail as floods continue for fourth day - and now its raining again Britain's great climate divide: winters in the north are becoming warmer - whilst in the south it's summers that are getting hotter Tropical Storm Ingrid pelts Gulf Coast of Mexico Spring snow falls in Tasmania as Queensland faces unseasonal heatwave Warm water under Antarctic glacier spurs astonishing rate of melting

Colorado towns are left stranded in deadly floods as thousands warned to evacuate in Boulder, Colorado and with 3 dead, 1 missing, rescue efforts continue amid rain .   More pictures here and also, this being the internet age,  31 instagrams from the wild flood in Colorado And an assessment of the weather conditions that led to catastrophic flooding in Boulder, Colorado from Christopher Burt Meanwhile, in Europe, Romania flash floods kill eight and force evacuations Tropical Storm Gabrielle heading north to Atlantic Canada In NZ, after this week's wild weather: thousands still without power Doppler weather radar traces tornado in Chennai Arctic sea ice nears annual summer minimum - likely to be the 6th lowest on record Are these the scariest cloud formations ever photographed?  asks the Daily Mail.  No, but they're pretty good shots of supercells Five-fold rise seen in UK landslides Unprecedented rate and scale of ocean acidific...

Snow returns to Scotland as forecasters warn of nasty spell of weather around the corner - but it should hopefully improve for the latter part of September Meanwhile, in the US, the Old Farmer's Almanac says get ready for a colder, snowier winter Tropical storm Gabrielle nearing Bermuda In NZ high winds continue to cause havoc After some earlier doubts, it's official: Greenland saw its hottest day ever in July 2013 (though Wattsy's gang will no doubt beg to differ!) And in Argentina, a winter heat wave brings record highs - with the highest September temp in BA since 1944 Life found in the sediments of an Antarctic sub-glacial lake for the first time Water hidden in the Moon may have proto-Earth orgins Interesting new DNA study suggests hunting did not kill off mammoth - though has to be said that a decline in population due to climate change has never really been in doubt: the 'kill' argument is that humans finished off an alr...

As a storm hits NZ 'intense' winds move up the country Wildfires blaze in Australia's New South Wales - rather early in the season, after a dry (and warm) winter Caught on camera: Ilfracombe's St Nicholas chapel struck by lightning last Friday night Atlantic activity finally starts to pep up as Tropical Storm Gabrielle re-forms in the Atlantic and Tropical Storm Humberto strengthens in the Atlantic - with the potential to become the first hurricane of this rather late season In India, 234 dead, 1,129 injured in floods: NDMA Andean water 'sponges' being squeezed by changing climate UK scientists to probe Pine Island Glacier Rainfall in South Pacific was more variable before 20th century West Antarctic ice sheet existed 20 million years earlier than previously thought And Severn Barrage: £25bn plans 'dead in the water' - should have included a few 300ft tall wind turbines in the proposal!

The usual nonsense by David Rose in the Mail, falsely claiming that now it's global cooling! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year .... !   The reality is that after an exceptional melt last year, in part due to unusual weather patterns, the melt this year has, as expected, not been quite so much - though still more than in most years on record and well below the levels that computer models once predicted.  Also worth emphasising that Rose has a very poor graft of basic English or Maths and does not appear to know the difference between 'could' and 'will' or that if you subtract a number from a higher number you end up with less, not more .....!   A more accurate (although they too fail to make it clear in their opening paragraph that, obviously - given it's been melting - there has been no growth in ice cover, just slightly less ice loss) from Abraham and Nuccitelli in their Guardian blog on how Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail ...

Freak hailstorm turns Falmouth into winter wonderland whilst cars swept into floodwater at Saltburn as rain brings chaos to East Cleveland And the ultimate in space weather as it's found interstellar winds buffeting our solar system have shifted direction - is there a storm coming?!

Summer ended in Britain yesterday with the temperature hitting 30.2c at Writtle in Essex making it the hottest September day for 7 years (although it nearly as warm in October 2011).  Earlier in the day though, fog was implicit in a 130 vehicle pile-up on Sheppey .  Today we have proper rain, for the first time in ages ..... And are we really being threatened by 'plague of wasps'?   Well I haven't seen one since I killed a Queen back in the spring ....   Southern California's heat wave continues Tropical Storm Gabrielle downgraded to depression as it brings heavy rain to Puerto Rico Storm rips off roofs in eastern Japan whilst 7,000 residents in western Japan warned to evacuate due to Typhoon Toraji In Patna, India, record rain floods roads In China, cloud seeding popular during hottest summer - how effective it was is another matter And in the Russian far east, siege humour as locals rename their flooded city Komsomolsk-in-Amur with worst still ...

Tornado hits eastern Japan's Saitama and Chiba prefectures, dozens left injured - latest reports say at least 67 injured .  Meanwhile, torrential rains flood western Japan with warnings of more to come. In NZ, NIWA scientists confirm warmest winter on record and with the past 12 months the warmest on record, humans behind record Australian heat, research shows . In Russia, flood evacuation starts in another far eastern city Soot suspect in mid-1800s Alps glacier retreat - and of course is also complicit in glacial retreat around the world today. Paradox of polar ice sheet formation solved Climate change likely to steer away Sandy-like superstorms, study says : so as research currently stands, in a wamring world we'll get possibly fewer storms, though those that do occur will be stronger, but also less likely to make landfall.  Being science and not religion, this may of course change!   Prehistoric climate shift linked to cosmic impact - I thin...

Peru snow state of emergency extended to more regions Manitobans in southeast clean up after massive storm Wildfire becomes fourth largest in Californian history as containment continues 2013 marks western Japan's hottest summer ever Climate change 'driving the spread of crop pests' Oh, and apparently, since it's the first week of September and it's not very cold, wet and windy, then we're all enjoying an ' Indian Summer ' ......  Word of warning to the journalists peddling this nonsense:- Father Christmas knows if you've been naughty .......!