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This is the warmest October on record in what could prove to be the warmest year on record.
The main locus for this, the Arctic, is out of the headlines.
Meanwhile records are falling every day.
Welcome to the future!
The hot streak continues: Earth just had its warmest October on record
Please note, the only main land area with a colder temperature anomoly is western Russia
These floods were mentioned in brief on a news broadcast at 5 am this morning on Radio NZ. They are not getting much coverage elsewhere. Pull up the bedcovers and go back to sleep - unless you are one of the ones being washed away!
70
coffins “washed away” as floods and landslides hit Europe
At
least four people have been killed after landslides triggered by
torrential rain slammed into buildings on either side of the
Swiss-Italian border
Fiтle Photo
16
November, 2014
In the rain-drenched southern Ticino region of Switzerland, two people died and one was critically injured when a mudslide slammed into a small residential building.
On the other side of the border, a pensioner and his granddaughter were killed when another landslide engulfed a house on the Italian shores of Lake Maggiore. Three other family members survived.
Those landslides were the latest of many to recently have hit northern Italy and southern Switzerland amid incessant rainfall over recent week.
The Italian Liguria region has been doused with as much rain in the first 15 days of November as it normally gets in an entire year.
Meanwhile, an estimated 70 coffins were washed away after 50 metres of retaining wall in a cemetery in the Bolzaneto district of Genoa collapsed.
Local residents reported skulls and other bones washing up on the banks of the Polcevera river.
Photos from the EPA agency showed firefighters digging to recover coffins carried away by the rushing water…
Tragedies
The latest tragedies came a day after storms in southern France left five dead, when their cars were swept away in flooding.
In one heartbreaking case, rescue workers managed late Friday to drag a father from his car, lodged on a bridge submerged by torrential rains, only to see the vehicle with his wife and two young sons still inside torn away by the raging water.
In Switzerland, the bodies of two local women, aged 34 and 38, were pulled Sunday from the rubble of the three-story apartment building in Davesco-Soragno, near Lugano, after being hit by the mudslide shortly before 2:30 am (0130 GMT), police said.
A 44-year-old Italian man, who was living with one of the women, had been dug out and taken to hospital in a critical condition, police told reporters.
Four others in the building at the time it collapsed had escaped with only minor injuries, while the final resident had not been home.
A wall above the building had crumbled under the rain and set off the landslide, police said.
That tragedy came 10 days after a young mother and her three-year-old daughter were killed when a landslide swept away their house in the same region.
After weeks of heavy rain, southern Ticino has been hit by severe flooding, which worsened when Lake Lugano burst its banks in several places and Lake Maggiore threatened to do the same.
Source: AP/Press Association Images ... Milan, yesterday
Digging with are hands
Just across Lake Maggiore, a 70-year-old man died today after his house was partially buried in a “sea of mud” unleashed after the rain-doused hill behind the building gave way.
Rescue workers managed to drag his 16-year-old granddaughter from the rubble after more than four hours of digging but she died later in hospital.
Her parents and grandmother survived. The family’s small, two-storey villa was the only property affected in Cerro, a hamlet on the outskirts of Laveno Mombello, a popular holiday spot.
A neighbour described how he had been awoken during the night by a huge bang “like fireworks”, and seeing rescue workers and the girl’s parents “digging with spades, even with their bare hands”.
“It was a horrific scene,” the neighbour told Italian television.
The tragedy means a total of 11 people have died in Italy in accidents related to the freak weather conditions in just over a month.
That toll is expected to rise to 12 later today as rescue workers continued to search for a man whose car was swept off the road by a torrent of water near the Italian Riviera’s main city, Genoa.
Source: AP/Press Association Images ... The Garibaldi railway station is flooded after persistent rain in Milan.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, speaking from the G20 summit in Australia, said the havoc wreaked by the heavy rain was the result of years of neglect of infrastructure.
Post by Emanuela Mazzone.
“We have had 20 years of land management that needs to be scrapped,” he said
Deadly
floods sweep southeastern France
Four people died in two
separate accidents after their cars were swept away by floodwaters on
Friday night in the southern French region of Le Gard, according to
local authorities.
16
November, 2014
The tragic scenario was repeated on another bridge nearby and the 50-year-old driver lost his life when his car was swept away by rising waters.
Local authorities maintained that the circumstances that caused the accidents were “extremely localised”, adding that the situation in Le Gard remained safer than in neighbouring regions, which have been battered by days of heavy rainfall.
Four neighbouring departments were under serious “orange” flood alerts until late Saturday afternoon. An orange alert is the second-highest flood warning level. Le Gard, however, was only ever under a less-severe “yellow” warning, where residents are advised to stay alert and monitor the situation, especially if undertaking “activities sensitive to the weather risk or close to a river or waterway.”
Heavy rain in the region was expected to continue through mid-Saturday, according to Météo France, which has predicted between 40 to 80mm of rainfall for the Vaucluse and Bouches-du-Rhône regions.
Météo France has also predicted up to 140mm of rainfall for the Var and Alpes-Maritimes regions, which are already waterlogged after days of bad weather.
Moreover, the two seaside regions were placed under a yellow alert for large waves, which are expected to reach up to two metres on Saturday morning.
Post by Emanuela Mazzone.
PA/GETTY
One of the things predicted with a changing climate is more lightning adding to the risk of wildfires
In the Balkans right now -
Strong storm cluster now over N Adriatic and Istra, Croatia
More thunderstorm activity: Island Pašman, Croatia under attack this evening!
Meanwhile the jetstream is going to do its thing in Britain this winter. Remember last winter's floods?
MORE flood woe for Britain? Forecasters' shock warning of WETTEST winter for 30 YEARS
BRITAIN is about to battered by another bout of autumn storms as the country faces one of the wettest winters in 30 years.
PA/GETTY
Britain faces one of the wettest winter in 30 years
15
November, 2014
Some
forecasters warn an unusually strong jet stream charging over the UK
threatens to drag in a succession of deep Atlantic low pressure
systems.
It
has raised fears of another winter flood crisis with Somerset and
Devon already edging closer towards a repeat of last year.
The
Met Office’s three-month contingency outlook warns of the risk of
above-average rainfall through to the end of January - using
probability data from 1981.
Last
year was the wettest winter on record after more than 20 inches of
rain fell across the UK - the highest total since records began in
1910.
Although
this year will have some way to go to beat that, early signals
suggest exceptionally wet weather over the next few months.
The
Met Office said: “Atmospheric patterns which favour above-average
precipitation also tend to increase the frequency of cyclonic weather
systems crossing the UK and thus spells of wet and windy weather may
be more frequent than is typical, particularly in the early part of
the period.”
Met
Office long-range expert professor Adam Scaife added: "These
storms are generated by the jet stream which also carries them
eastwards towards us.
“The
jet stream has recently got stronger and moved north, which could
carry weather systems from the Atlantic right over the UK.”
Army
called in during last winter's flood crisisPA
The
army were called in during last winter's flood crisis in Somerset
However
opinions are still very much divided with other long-range
forecasters predicting a major big freeze this year.
James
Madden, forecaster for Exacta Weather, said weeks of heavy snow and
sub-zero temperatures threaten to grind the country to a halt.
He
said: “An area we need to watch for as we progress throughout this
week is a progressively cooler picture developing from the north.
“There
is also likely to be some snow across higher ground towards the
latter part of this week and into next weekend, and we may also see
some wintry showers developing across some other parts of the
country, in particular, in some parts of northern England and some
western coastal areas at times.”
It
comes as parts of Britain which bore the brunt of torrential
downpours and gales last week brace for more misery this week.
Ferocious
gusts of 93mph were recorded in Devon while heavy rain caused part of
the M25 motorway around London to collapse on Friday.
The
Environment Agency has stepped up warnings across the southwest,
central and eastern parts where river levels are rising and ground is
saturated.
It
has issued 11 flood alerts across the country with one more serious
flood warning in the southwest including Devon and Somerset.
As a matter of interest...The original article has disappeared - perhaps because it isn't true?
Floods displace thousands in Somalia’s Beledweyne
Floods
in Somalia's south-central town of Beledweyne have displaced more
than 21,000 people. The biggest river in the region has broken its
banks, further worsening the humanitarian crisis in the African
nation.
And things are starting to heat up Down Under
Bushfire at Warrimoo in Blue Mountains
An emergency warning, the highest level of bushfire alert, has been issued for an out-of-control blaze burning in the Blue Mountains.
Smoke rises over Warrimoo about 2.30pm on Friday, as seen from Blaxland. Photo: Ethan Hodson
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bushfire-at-warrimoo-in-blue-mountains-20141114-3kcmc.html#ixzz3JH12GXGj
SMH,
14
November, 2014
The
NSW Rural Fire Service said the blaze was burning in a
difficult-to-reach area between Greens Road and Florabella Street in
Warrimoo and has been upgraded to emergency level.
Firefighters
are at Warrimoo Public School as a precaution and were escorting
students to a school bus so they can leave. They said students and
staff were safe.
An
RFS spokesman, Matt Sun, said students had been sheltering in the
school hall as a precaution.
Parents
have been allowed supervised access to their children. The school bus
was expected to leave about 3.15pm.
The
fire was moving from Warrimoo in a south-easterly direction towards
Baden Place at Blaxland, Mr Sun said.
"Fire
is burning in a difficult-to-reach area in bushland in that
vicinity," he said.
"It's
not directly impacting on homes but it is putting up a lot of smoke
and spotting ahead of the fire front."
Mr
Sun said the fire was "putting off embers which could
potentially create spot fires".
About
3.30pm, Mr Sun said the RFS was not planning to backburn the area,
but instead use ground crew and an Aircrane to bring the fire under
control in "hopefully a couple of hours".
He
advised commuters to check transport updates for delays following
reports that the fire was burning "near the railway corridor".
Fire
and Rescue NSW said they had sent nine crews, made up of 36
firefighters, to the fire.
Firefighters
have told residents near Baden Place to leave now if the path is
clear and they are not prepared for the fire.
There
is thick smoke in the area and and residents have been warned to look
out for burning embфers.
Firefighters
have warned residents in Bridge Road, Boynton Street and Bourke
Street in Blaxland to monitor the situation.
Ethan
Hodson said he could smell the fire in neighbouring Blaxland and see
the smoke.
"There's
a yellow tinge to the sky and it's bigger now," he said.
A
Transport Management Centre spokeswoman said smoke was reducing
visibility and one westbound lane of the Great Western Highway was
closed at Blaxland.
Trains
were no longer running between Warrimoo and Blaxland.
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