WEEKLY WATER NEWS

25-29 December 2006

DataStreme Water in the Earth System (WES) Water in the Earth System will return for Spring 2007 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 15 January 2007. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS WES Central Staff

Water in the News:

• Deadly flooding hits Malaysia -- Torrential rains last week resulted in flash flooding that claimed at least two lives and displaced more than 60,000 people in southern Malaysia. [USA Today]
• Major winter storm causes pre-holiday woes -- A major winter storm that moved across the country late last week was responsible for blizzard conditions along the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado, where up to 50 inches of snow fell near Denver.
  • Major Interstate highways in Colorado, western Kansas and southern Wyoming were closed. The heavy snow and blizzard conditions forced the Denver International Airport, the nation's sixth busiest, to close, stranding thousands of holiday travelers at the airport and causing disruptions of air travel across much of the nation into the weekend. [USA Today]
  • The blizzard resulted in delayed deliveries of the US Mail during the busy holiday season. [USA Today]
  • An image obtained from sensors on NOAA's GOES-12 satellite made Thursday morning shows clouds associated with the storm across the Plains. [NOAA OSEI] An image made later in the afternoon from the NOAA-18 polar orbiting satellite shows some of the snow cover across the central Rockies along with lingering clouds from the storm. [NOAA OSEI]
  • At least five inches of rain fell across coastal Louisiana late last week from the storm, taxing the pumps that are used to keep the city of New Orleans dry. Some flooding resulted in the Big Easy. [USA Today]
• London fog seen from space -- Trans-Atlantic and European air traffic was disrupted last week as dense fog enveloped the airports serving London, England. An image from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the widespread dense fog that resulted in the stranding of at least 40,000 holiday travelers at Heathrow Airport. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Recent rains help greening process in eastern Africa -- An image of the anomalies between the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for November 2006 and the six-year (2000-2005) November average NDVI generated from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows that the torrential rains across eastern Africa has caused the region's vegetation to green-up following an extended drought. However, these recent rains also caused flooding resulting in deaths. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• National tsunami warning capability is increased -- Last week, NOAA officials announced that six new DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami) stations have been deployed in the southwest Pacific Ocean, which are meant to help detect tsunamis that could develop in the western Pacific and propagate toward the coasts of Hawaii, Alaska and the US mainland. [NOAA News]
• Live coral reefs offer better tsunami protection -- Based upon a computer model of a tsunami strike upon a coast, scientists at Princeton University report that healthy living coral reefs appear to offer the coastal regions better protection from destructive tsunami wavers than unhealthy or dead reefs. [Princeton University News]
• Nutrient pollution increasing along the coast of the Northeastern States -- A research project report titled "Improving Methods and Indicators for Evaluating Coastal Water Eutrophication: A Pilot Study in the Gulf of Maine" was recently released by NOAA that shows increased nutrient pollution in the coastal waters from the Middle Atlantic States northward through New England, including the region's estuaries, bays and harbors. [NOAA News]
• Passage of fisheries bill hailed -- NOAA officials were hailing the recent passage by the US Congress of a bill that would reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which is designed to protect marine ecosystems, as well as helping maintain the national fishing industry. [NOAA News]
• Eye on the tropics -- In the Southern Indian Ocean, a tropical cyclone (the counterpart of a hurricane in the North Atlantic basin) developed early last week and intensified as it moved westward. A visible satellite image made by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows Tropical Cyclone Bondo to the northeast of Madagascar as the system reached Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale. By this past weekend, Tropical Cyclone Bondo was moving to the southwest into the Mozambique Channel. [NOAA OSEI]
• International cooperation leads to new satellite receiving station in India -- NOAA officials and their counterparts in the Indian Space Research Organisation recently announced plans that the SafetyNet™ satellite receiving station would be built in India, designed to collect data obtained from sensors onboard NOAA's planned National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). [NOAA News]
• Deadly flooding hits Malaysia -- Torrential rains last week resulted in flash flooding that claimed at least two lives and displaced more than 60,000 people in southern Malaysia. [USA Today]
• Gauging wetland water levels with satellite radar -- Researchers at Ohio State University demonstrated their use of data from a radar system onboard the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite to determine the water levels in vegetated wetlands in Louisiana estimate the [Ohio State University Research]
• International Polar Year commences -- The Swedish icebreaker Oden recently departed from Punta Arenas, Chile with an international team of scientists and teachers for a two-week research cruise of the Southern Ocean and the coast of Antarctica as the first activity associated with the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. [EurekAlert!]
• Glaciers would produce a greater impact than ice sheets to global sea rise -- Scientists at the University of Colorado-Boulder report that meltwater from glaciers and ice caps would contribute more to rises in global sea level than would shrinking Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Currently, worldwide sea level is rise at approximately three millimeters per year. [EurekAlert!]
• Oceanic tides affect ice flow in West Antarctica -- Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey report that the astronomical tides in the Southern Ocean influence the rate of flow of the Rutford Ice Stream that drains into the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, thereby modulating the size of the ice sheet and ultimately affecting global sea level. [EurekAlert!]
• Offshore wind farms to be built -- Permission was given to build two offshore wind farms in the Thames Estuary off the coast of England that would produce enough electricity to power approximately one million households. [BBC News]
• Nanomaterials may be easily dispersed into the natural environment -- A study led by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology indicates that certain types of nanomaterials, such as multiwalled carbon nanotubes used in industry, can be easily transported into and dispersed within aquatic environments when mixed with natural organic matter in water. [EurekAlert!]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Global Water News Watch -- Other water news sources can be obtained through the SAHRA Project at the University of Arizona [SAHRA Project]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

• 25 December 1974...Tropical Cyclone Tracy (a hurricane in the waters surrounding Australia) made landfall near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Excellent warnings kept the death toll to between 50 and 60, with more than 20,000 people evacuated in the week following the storm. Some areas were totally devastated. Peak wind speeds exceeded 174 mph. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 25 December 1988...A massive winter storm made for a very white Christmas in the western U.S. Las Vegas, NV reported snow on the ground for the first time of record. Periods of snow over a five-day period left several feet of new snow on the ground of ski areas in Colorado, with 68 inches reported at Wolf Creek Pass. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 25-26 December 1927...The worst Christmas blizzard in a century buried the United Kingdom. While most of the country experienced snow, the south bore the brunt of the storm with drifts in places to 15 feet or more. Many roads were blocked with stranded vehicles. (The Weather Doctor)
• 26 December 1836...A snow cornice built out from a chalk cliff at Lewes, England, the result of heavy snow and high wind that began on the 24th. This cornice, which overhung a row of houses, collapsed in the day's sunshine on the 26^th, with eight people dying in the crushed homes. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 26-31 December 1993...The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race off Australia was plagued by hurricane-force wind gusts in excess of 74 mph and 33 foot high seas. Of 104 starters, only 37 yachts finished the race. On the 28^th, one yacht owner spent five hours in the water after being swept overboard. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 26 December 2004…A massive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale approximately 100 miles off the western coast of Sumatra created a tsunami that caused devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The death toll is currently estimated at more than 300,000. Officials say the true toll may never be known, due to rapid burials. Indonesia was worst affected with as many as 219,000 people killed. (Wikipedia)
• 28 December 1879...Seventy-four lives were lost when a passenger train plunged from the track as the middle section of the Tay Bridge at Tayside, England collapsed into the Tay Estuary. The failure of the bridge was believed to have been caused by two or three waterspouts that were sighted close to the bridge immediately before the accident. (The Weather Doctor)
• 28-29 December 1879...An extraordinary snowfall of 17 inches of snow fell in Palestine. In his 1883 report on the climate of Palestine, the U.S. consul reported snow (mainly light and quickly melting) falling on Jerusalem in only 14 of the previous 22 years. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 28-29 December 1955…Thompson Pass received 62.0 inches of snow, which set the all-time 24-hour maximum snowfall record for the state of Alaska. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 30 December 1955...Anchorage, AK reported an all-time record snow depth of 47 inches. (30^th-1^st) (The Weather Channel)
• 30 December 1972...The 86-foot high wave measured by the ship Weather Reporter was the world's highest measured wave. The wave was measured in the North Atlantic Ocean at 59 degrees North latitude and 19 degrees West longitude. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 30 December 1996-6 January 1997...Approximately 25 inches of rain and snowmelt flooded the Truckee River and other rivers along the eastern Sierra. The floodwaters made a temporary lake on the eastern side of Truckee Meadows. The airport at Reno, NV was flooded, with water reaching the fuselage of some airliners. The floods caused more than 500 million dollars in regional damage. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 31 December 1929...Greenland Ranch, in Death Valley, CA, went the entire year without measurable precipitation. (The Weather Channel)
• 31 December 1933...A 24-hour rainfall of 7.36 inches set the stage for the worst flood in Los Angeles and Orange County history. Flooding claimed 44 lives. (David Ludlum)
• 31 December 1962...Perhaps the worst blizzard in the history of the state of Maine finally ended. The storm produced 40 inches in 24 hours at Orono, and a total of 46 inches at Ripogenus Dam. Gale force winds produced snow drifts twenty feet high around Bangor. A disastrous ice storm was over Georgia and South Carolina. It ravaged the two states for days causing more than seven million dollars damage. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 31 December 1987...Torrential rains caused extensive flash flooding over eastern sections of the island of Oahu in Hawaii, resulting in many rock and mudslides. Rainfall totals ranged up to 22.89 inches in a 24-hour period, and property damage was estimated at 35 million dollars. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 31 December 1989...The year and decade ended on a soggy note in the eastern U.S. Thunderstorm rains pushed precipitation totals for the year to 88.32 inches at Baton Rouge, LA and to 75.37 inches at Huntsville, AL, establishing all-time records for those two locations. Dry weather continued in California. Sacramento and San Francisco finished the month without any rain or snow, and Santa Maria reported their driest year of record with just 3.30 inches of precipitation. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

Return to DataStreme WES Website

Prepared by AMS WES Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2006, The American Meteorological Society.