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Archive for December, 2015
Boxing Day weather hell: 10,000 homes without power and Brits ‘at risk of death’
Posted by Daily Star: Margi Murphy on December 26th, 2015
Daily Star: Hundreds were told to abandon their homes and prepare for the worst as the Met Office issued ELEVEN red weather warning for in the north of England on Boxing Day.
Families were left unable to even make a cup of tea when the lights went out due to flooding.
Electricity North West confirmed 10,000 homes in Rochdale were currently without power today.
The Army was put on standby for damage control on Christmas Day, as it was forecast that a months worth of rain would soak towns already saturated...
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Climate Change: A Tale of Two Governors
Posted by FCIR: None Given on December 26th, 2015
FCIR: When Charlie Crist was Florida`s attorney general and preparing to run for governor in 2005, he sat down in a private room at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami with U.S. Sen. John McCain.
McCain was gearing up to run for president. The two Republicans talked political campaigns, strategies and endorsements.
As Crist was getting ready to leave, McCain stopped him.
“Charlie, I think there is one more thing you should focus on,” Crist recalled McCain saying.
“What`s that?” Crist asked.
“Climate...
People evacauted as Britain braced for Boxing Day floods
Posted by Times of Malta: None Given on December 26th, 2015
Times of Malta: People have been evacuated from their homes in Lancashire after the Met Office issued a red weather warning - danger to life - for the area. A "take action" weather alert is in place for parts of the county and the Environment Agency has issued seven severe flood warnings for the North West. Residents in Whalley and Ribchester were told to abandon their houses when flood waters poured through the streets after torrential downpours. Forecasters said up to 120mm of rain could fall in some areas...
Cleanup begins from Southern U.S. storms that left 14 dead
Posted by Reuters: Ian Simpson on December 26th, 2015
Reuters: Recovery crews and utility workers began cleaning up widespread damage on Thursday left by severe storms that spawned tornadoes across six states in the U.S. South and Midwest, killing at least 14 people and destroying scores of homes.
Emergency declarations were issued in Mississippi and Tennessee, the two states hardest hit by severe weather on Wednesday that also complicated getaway plans for travelers looking to make the most of the long holiday weekend.
With about 100 million Americans...
Australia counts cost of Christmas bushfires, flames rage on
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 26th, 2015
Reuters: Firefighters struggled on Saturday to contain out of control bushfires that have destroyed dozens of homes in one of Australia's leading tourist areas, and emergency services warned of dangerous conditions and more fires to come in the New Year. Emergency officials in Victoria state said rain overnight helped slow the path of fires that destroyed at least 53 homes on Friday along the picturesque Great Ocean Road, and forced residents to abandon Christmas celebrations to flee for their lives. Although...
Hoping for a Price Surge, Oil Companies Keep Wells in Reserve
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2015
New York Times: The price of oil keeps dropping. But that didn’t stop a work crew from drilling a well recently on what was once a cornfield, carefully guiding the last sections of 13,000 feet of pipe spiraling into the hard Niobrara shale with a diamond-tipped bit.
Their well, one of hundreds drilled by Anadarko Petroleum in eastern Colorado’s Wattenberg field this year, could someday gush as many as 800 barrels of crude oil a day. But Anadarko is not planning to produce a drop of crude from the well for at...
Why Addressing Climate Change Not Enough
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2015
Huffington Post: This post was coauthored by Anne-Emanuelle Birn, MA, ScD, Ben Brisbois, MES, PhD and Timothy H. Holtz, MD, MPH.
The celebratory mood accompanying the recent Paris Accord, in which the entire UN membership agreed to hold global temperature increases to no more than 2°C, is quickly dissipating. As the Accord itself acknowledges, there is a "significant gap" between countries' climate change mitigation pledges and the 2°C goal (not to mention the more aspirational 1.5° C limit). This means that promised...
Scores eastern U.S. cities shatter Christmas Eve warm weather records
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2015
Washington Post: The warm air surging up the East Coast on Christmas Eve will prove nothing short of historic. Dozens of records will fall, some by very large margins.
Temperatures at or above 70 degrees will span from Florida all the way into southern New England covering some 1,200 miles and 20 percent of the Lower 48.
In many places in the East, temperatures will run some 30-40 degrees above normal.
The warmth in a few locations will be so anomalous that low temperatures will challenge existing records...
Eastern U.S. sees warm Christmas, winter storm looms for Plains
Posted by Reuters: Ian Simpson and Steve Gorman on December 25th, 2015
Reuters: Much of the U.S. East Coast basked in unseasonable warmth on Christmas Day with record high temperatures set or tied in several cities, including New York, even as a tornado hit Alabama and a major winter storm loomed for the southern Rockies and Great Plains.
The twister in Birmingham, Alabama, late on Friday afternoon damaged several homes, uprooted trees and caused a handful of minor injuries, police and weather officials reported.
National Weather Service meteorologist Jody Aaron said the...
Warmest Christmas Eve the East Coast has ever seen shattering record
Posted by Mashable: None Given on December 25th, 2015
Mashable: The world's hottest year is ending in the most fitting manner possible: with one of the most significant heat waves on record for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The heat extends more than 1,500 miles, from South Florida northward to eastern Canada, and is being described on social media -- in non-technical terminology -- as a "blowtorch" weather pattern.
Or, in the words of a meteorologist at the National Weather Service forecast office in Portland, Maine: "It is safe to say Santa should wear...