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Record fires and floods threaten Southwest, upper Midwest

Climate Central: Being put on evacuation notice is a terrible way to spend a weekend, but that's the prospect thousands of residents in both Arizona and parts of the Central U.S. are facing today, albeit from two very different threats. Hundreds of thousands of acres continue to burn in eastern Arizona's Wallow Fire, prompting residents of Springerville and Eagar to evacuate their homes. In drought-ridden Arizona, a week of warm weather and strong winds stoked the Wallow Fire, which is burning near the state's...

Wildfires and no drought relief in sight for Southwest

Climate Central: Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to spare. Across large parts of the Southwest, that is. All along the Mississippi River, from Illinois to Louisiana, record floods continue to drown towns and farmland following the wettest April on record for several states in the Ohio River valley, which has in turn engorged the Mississippi. But while some areas remain under water, other regions have been suffering from the opposite extremes of drought and wildfire. In fact, tinder-dry conditions across...

In Tennessee, heat waves diminish nuclear power output

Climate Central: On July 8, 2010, as the temperature in downtown Decatur, Alabama climbed to a sweltering 98°F, operators at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant a few miles outside of town realized they had only one option to avoid violating their environmental permit: turn down the reactors. For days, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the nuclear plant, had kept a watchful eye on the rising mercury, knowing that more heat outside could spell trouble inside the facility. When the Tennessee River,...

2010 Russian heatwave more extreme than previously thought

Climate Central: It's safe to say the sweltering heat wave that struck western Russia last summer brought the hottest temperatures anyone from the region could remember. After all, the daytime temperatures in Moscow surged past 100°F, and prior to last summer, the city's all-time high temperature had never reached the century mark (with records going back as far as 1879). The Russian heatwave was a record-breaking event by nearly any description. Now, months later, there is a new perspective on just how rare the...