Extreme weather events

Freak storm batters Moscow, cars swamped by floods

RT,

13 July, 2012

A brief but ferocious thunderstorm flooded the historic center of the Russian capital on Friday. Cars had to plow through more than a foot of water and three people were killed by lightning.

A father and son construction team were killed instantly when a lightning bolt hit a metal pipe on a building site. A young couple on a date was also hit, with an 18 year-old man dying on the spot, while his girlfriend has been hospitalized in serious condition.

The rain lasted less than half an hour, but flooded more than a dozen streets.

Moscow had suffered a whole week of tropically hot weather with none of the evening storms typical for the season. Then, on Friday 13th the heavens opened at once, with lightning striking several times in quick succession.

The rain caused chaos on the most prestigious streets of the city. Car owners scampered to save their cars from the torrents that flowed down from the higher city hills. Several eyewitness videos show cars being carried helplessly by the torrent. Waiters from luxury cafes quickly cleared the tables on the terraces of luxury roadside cafes, and passers-by cowered underneath building marquees.

Meteorologists warn that further storms were possible throughout the weekend.

RIA Novosti / Sergey Demichev

RIA Novosti / Sergey Demichev 

4 missing in British Columbia

landslide after record

rainfall

Canadian rescuers facing risks searched off and on Friday for people missing after a landslide in a remote mountainous area of British Columbia, an emergency official said

Desdemona Despair,

13 July 2012

The search was suspended at times because the disaster site was deemed unstable, emergency officials said.

"It's an ongoing situation," Bill Macpherson of the Regional District of Central Kootenay Emergency Operations Center told CNN.

Four people remained unaccounted for Friday for after three homes were destroyed and several others damaged in Johnsons Landing in the Kootenays, Macpherson said. […]

Two search-and-rescue teams and a number of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were on the scene, along with geotechnical workers and a landslide expert, Macpherson said.

The ground gave way just before noon Thursday in Johnsons Landing. […]

The area has been drenched by a record amount of rain during the past month, but it was not clear whether that was a factor, Macpherson said. Geotechnical staff were trying to determine the landslide's cause.

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Massive landslide in Alaska sweeps over glacier, possibly the largest landslide ever recorded in North America

Even by Alaska standards, the rock slide in Glacier Bay National Park was a huge event.

Desdemona Despair,

13 July 2012

It was a monumental geophysical event that was almost overlooked until a pilot happened to fly over where the cliff collapsed and snapped some photographs nearly a month later.

When the cliff collapsed in the national park in southeast Alaska on June 11, it sent rock and ice coursing down a valley and over a lovely white glacier in what perhaps was the largest landslide recorded in North America.

The rumbling was enough so that it showed up as a 3.4-magnitude earthquake in Alaska. The seismic event also was recorded in Canada. The massive landslide occurred in a remote valley beneath the 11,750-foot Lituya Mountain in the Fairweather Range about six miles from the border with British Columbia.

"I don't know of any that are bigger," Marten Geertsema, a research geomorphologist for the provincial Forest Service in British Columbia, said Thursday, when comparing the landslide to others in North America. […]

Despite the extraordinary size of the landslide, which was estimated at a half-mile wide and 5 1/2 miles long, it went virtually unnoticed until air taxi pilot Drake Olson flew over it on July 2. The landslide, which rolled over the glacier, is not very noticeable to the thousands of cruise ship passengers that visit Glacier Bay National Park near Juneau each summer. That is because it is about 12 to 15 miles up the glacier from the bay.

While this one was huge by North American standards, bigger ones have occurred, including a September 2002 landslide in Russia that extended for 20 miles, Geertsema said. […]

Scientists also are looking at the role of climate change.

"We are seeing an increase in rock slides in mountain areas throughout the world because of permafrost degradation," Geertsema said.

Permafrost is ground that stays perpetually frozen.

Geertsema said Swiss scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that climate change is playing a role in the frequency of rock slides after looking at data from instruments measuring temperature and the widening and narrowing of gaps in the rocks in the Alps.

"It plays an important role," Geertsema said, of climate change. "I think we have been underestimating the role it might play." […]

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Video: Deadly floods follow ‘unprecedented’ rain in Japan – 50,000 flee in Kyushu

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Desdemona Despair,

13 July 2012

At least fifteen people have been killed by flooding and landslides as unprecedented rainfall continues to pound southwestern Japan.

A further 11 people were missing in parts of the region, according to Fox News.

About 48,000 people were ordered to flee the city of Kumamoto. Blackouts hit thousands of homes and transportation infrastructure suffered disruption.

Meteorologists of the Japan Meteorological Agency were quoted as saying that rainfall in parts of Kyushu reached levels that have "never been experienced".

The BBC News website called the rainfall, reportedly as high as 507 mm (20.0 inches) within 24 hours, "unprecedented".

On Friday, data accessed by Accuweather.com indicated additional rainfall as high as 11 cm (4.39 inches) fell across the region while most locations averaged an additional 1-3 cm (0.50-1 inch) of rain.

Unfortunately, unsettled conditions are expected to continue across the region through the weekend with additional scattered showers and even a few thunderstorms.

Meteorologist Steve Travis contributed to this story.