Category Archives: Extreme weather

Hurricane Laura brings 150mph winds to Louisiana with more ‘catastrophic conditions’ to come

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Six fatalities recorded in Louisiana, including a teen girl who died after a tree fell on her home and a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning

Hurricane Laura, the most powerful hurricane to strike the US this year, moved across Louisiana on a northerly path on Thursday, after threatening an “unsurvivable storm surge” on the coast and tropical force weather as far as Tennessee.

The storm slammed into western Louisiana overnight with gusts of up to 150mph and could cause “catastrophic conditions”, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Not until 11 hours after landfall did it finally weaken.

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‘Devastation everywhere’: Louisiana city wakes up to storm’s aftermath

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Lake Charles felt the full force of Hurricane Laura and now residents who rode out the disaster are picking up the pieces

Classie Ballou lives on the fifth floor of Chateau du Lac, an eight-story retirement home in the Louisiana city of Lake Charles. “I made it through Rita,” he said from a park bench in the rubble of downtown as he reflected on the fury of Hurricane Laura that had just roared through his home town. “Honestly, I thought it wasn’t going to be that bad.”

He shook his head. “If I were doing it over, I would leave.”

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Hurricane Laura: Louisiana braces for impact as 150mph storm makes landfall – US politics live

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As Hurricane Laura has weakened slightly, the national weather service in Houston has been able to relax slightly some of the warnings that were in place, and has reduced the scope of the areas facing southeast Texas.

Here's the latest advisory on Hurricane Laura (4AM CDT). Laura has weakened slightly as it moves northward over Louisiana, but remains as a major hurricane with max sustained winds of 120 mph.

Warnings across southeast Texas have been reduced. pic.twitter.com/7vWFC7tLvv

Back to Hurricane Laura, here’s a map of the expected trajectory of the storm, with an indication of when we might expect areas to be affected.

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August brings fierce heat to Europe and storms to Atlantic

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Weather conditions this month include soaring temperatures and earliest-forming ‘J’ storm

A heatwave has brought sweltering conditions to much of north-west Europe and the UK this month. Temperatures have exceeded 30C (86F) across France for several days, climbing to the low 40s in the south-west of the country. The heat has exacerbated a drought, with 72 of 96 regional departments subject to water restrictions.

Europe is not alone in experiencing intense heat. High temperatures in California have resulted in increased demand for electricity as residents increasingly rely on air conditioning.

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California wildfire spawns ‘firenado’ as tornado warning issued amid heatwave

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Large wildfires can heat air so much that huge clouds develop and in strong winds these can rotate and sometimes produce a tornado

A wildfire in northern California spawned at least one fire tornado – or “firenado” – on Saturday, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning as the state continues to endure a heatwave and wildfires.

“Extremely dangerous fire behavior noted on the #LoyaltonFire! Rotating columns and potential for fire whirls,” NWS Reno tweeted on Saturday.

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Greek floods: death toll rises as rescue teams search for survivors

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At least eight people dead after storm sparks flash floods on island of Evia

The body of a man missing after a storm sparked flash floods on the Greek island of Evia over the weekend has been recovered, Greece’s coastguard has said, bringing the death toll from the storm to eight.

Rescue crews had been searching for the 72-year-old since Sunday when he was reported missing after flooding swept away cars and sent residents of some villages scrambling to their roofs to await rescue.

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UK weather: a month’s rain could fall in two hours as heatwave breaks

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Fears of flash flooding in parts of country, while experts warn extreme heat could become the norm

Over a month’s worth of rain could fall within two hours on parts of Britain this week, causing flash flooding, while an ongoing heatwave is set to break records.

Police and the coastguard issued warnings over the weekend as two people died – a woman after a collision between a jet ski and a boat in north Wales, and a man believed to have drowned in a lake at a Norfolk beauty spot.

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Hurricane Isaias makes landfall in North Carolina

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Flooding fears as eye of the storm hits the coast with maximum sustained winds of 85mph

Isaias has made landfall in the Carolinas as a category 1 hurricane, bringing with it maximum sustained winds of 85mph (140km/h) and the threat of devastating floods.

The eye of Isaias hit the coast on Monday night near Ocean Isle beach in southern North Carolina, the National Hurricane Center said, hours after being upgraded from a tropical storm.

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Climate change made Siberian heatwave 600 times more likely – study

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Scientists say human fingerprint on record temperatures has rarely if ever been clearer

The record-breaking heatwave in the Siberian Arctic was made at least 600 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to a study.

Between January and June, temperatures in the far north of Russia were more than 5C above average, causing permafrost to melt, buildings to collapse, and sparking an unusually early and intense start to the forest fires season. On 20 June, a monitoring station in Verkhoyansk registered a record high of 38C.

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Flooding and landslides in Japan leaves scores dead on Kyushu – video

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Torrential rain and floods in the southern island have left at least 50 people dead or missing. Rescue workers are still combing through the wreckage of houses hit by flooding and landslides in after extreme weather hit the region. The death toll on Kyushu is expected to climb further

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Cooking up a solution to Uganda’s deforestation crisis with mud stoves

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Badru Kyewalyanga’s home-produced cooking devices use less wood and mean villagers are breathing cleaner air

People are “constantly cutting down trees”, says Badru Kyewalyanga, as he squelches his bare feet into a thick paste of mud in Mukono, central Uganda. “But they have nowhere else to get firewood. The deforestation rate here is very high.”

With only 10% of Uganda’s rural population connected to the electrical grid, there is little option but to burn wood, leading to one of the worst deforestation rates in the world. Every year, 2.6% of the country’s forests are cut down for fuel, agriculture, and to make way for population growth. If things stay as they are, Uganda will lose all its forest cover in less than 25 years, the country’s National Environment Management Authority says.

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Lightning strikes kill more than 100 in India

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Bihar state records one of the highest daily tolls from lightning in recent years as monsoon begins

At least 107 people have died from lightning strikes in northern and eastern India, officials said, during the early stages of the annual monsoon season.

Some 83 people were killed in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar after being struck by lightning, and another 24 died in northern Uttar Pradesh state. Dozens more were injured, officials said.

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‘Godzilla dust cloud’ from Sahara covers Caribbean in once-in-50-year weather event – video

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A large dust cloud has travelled from the Sahara and blanketed parts of the Caribbean in a weather event not seen for 50 years. Dubbed the 'Godzilla dust cloud', it has limited visibility and lowered air quality throughout the region. The mass of dusty air is known as the Saharan Air Layer and forms over the Sahara desert before typically moving across the North Atlantic in the northern hemisphere’s late spring to early autumn

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Climate crisis: alarm at record-breaking heatwave in Siberia

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Unusually high temperatures in region linked to wildfires, oil spill and moth swarms

A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is “undoubtedly alarming”, climate scientists have said. The freak temperatures have been linked to wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.

On a global scale, the Siberian heat is helping push the world towards its hottest year on record in 2020, despite a temporary dip in carbon emissions owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘The water will come back’: why Kenya’s struggle against flooding is far from over

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Record-breaking rainfall has devastated communities – and with thousands displaced and more rain predicted the picture is bleak

Using a short piece of nylon line with a hook at one end and a long thin stick on the other, a mechanic and a nightclub doorman have only caught one small fish all day.

“I’ve never been a fisherman before,” says Erick Ochieng on the edge of a flooded creek in the port city of Kisumu on the banks of Lake Victoria. “I used to work as a bouncer but nightclubs have closed. Sometimes my family sleeps without eating.”

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‘Make noise and don’t panic’: India tries to ward off locust invasion

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Delhi braces for swarm while farmers in badly-hit north play loud music and honk car horns to try to prevent decimation of fields

Residents of Delhi are bracing themselves for a possible invasion of locusts, which have been ravaging areas in the north of the country.

A change in wind direction could save the city, but Dr K L Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, has warned residents to be prepared to “make a lot of loud noise so that instead of settling, they keep flying and fly past the city. And don’t panic”.

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Super-cyclone Amphan kills up to 20 in India and Bangladesh

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Strong winds tore down electricity pylons, walls and buildings, with full scale of damage still being estimated

The most powerful cyclone to hit Bangladesh and eastern India in more than 20 years tore down homes, carried cars down flooded streets and claimed the lives of up to 20 people.

Authorities began surveying the damage Thursday after millions spent a sleepless night which saw 165km/h (102mph) winds carrying away trees, electricity pylons, walls and roofs, and transformer stations exploding.

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Super cyclone Amphan: evacuations in India and Bangladesh slowed by virus

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Thousands of migrant workers left jobless by Covid-19 pandemic are still on the roads, and evacuations have been hampered by distancing rules

The Bay of Bengal’s fiercest storm this century – super cyclone Amphan – was bearing down on millions of people in eastern India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with forecasts of a potentially devastating and deadly storm surge.

Authorities have scrambled to stage mass evacuations away from the path of Super Cyclone Amphan, which is only the second “super cyclone” to form in the north-eastern Indian Ocean since records began.

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Potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds

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Scientists identify thousands of extreme events, suggesting stark warnings about global heating are already coming to pass

Intolerable bouts of extreme humidity and heat which could threaten human survival are on the rise across the world, suggesting that worst-case scenario warnings about the consequences of global heating are already occurring, a new study has revealed.

Related: One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study

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