WEEKLY WATER NEWS

DataStreme WES Week Ten: 3-7 April 2006

Water in the News:

(Thurs.) Environmental protection to accompany rebuilding efforts along the Gulf Coast -- Environmental officials from the five Gulf Coast states and from 13 federal agencies unveiled the Governors' Action Plan for Healthy and Resilient Coasts that would strengthen environmental protection along the Gulf of Mexico as part of the recovery and rebuilding efforts in the wake of the hurricanes that damaged the region in 2005. [NOAA News]
(Thurs.) Another major hurricane season foreseen -- Last week, the director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield, told reporters at a hurricane conference in San Juan, PR that the upcoming 2006 hurricane season in the North Atlantic Basin appears likely to be stronger than average, but possibly not quite as active as the record 2005 hurricane season that set records for the numbers of named tropical cyclones (both hurricanes and tropical storms) and for the cost to coastal communities. [USA Today]
(Thurs.) Forecast system for Great Lakes unveiled -- Officials with the NOAA Ocean Service announced last Friday that the Great Lakes Operational Forecast System had become operational on Lakes Superior, Huron and Ontario. This operational forecast system is designed to aid those interests who operate on the lakes by providing information on the present and future conditions of water levels, water currents and water temperatures. [NOAA News]
(Thurs.) A sponge-like device removes mercury from offshore waters -- Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have teamed with a Texas filtration equipment company to develop a novel type of filtration system that removes mercury and other toxic heavy metals from the water used by offshore oil and gas platform drilling operations. [EurekAlert!]
(Thurs.) Algae and ultrasound used to remove mercury -- Researchers at the Ohio State University have devised a technique that uses algae and ultrasound to clean mercury from sediments on waterways. [Ohio State University News]
(Thurs.) Unmanned aircraft systems help monitor the planetary environment -- NOAA scientists and their colleagues are using data routinely gathered by sensors on a variety of unmanned aircraft systems for ocean and atmospheric research, the monitoring of marine sanctuaries, shoreline and coastal water mapping and water resource management. [NOAA Magazine]
(Wed.) Heavy rains cause levees to fail in California -- The recent heavy rain across California caused two levees to break on Tuesday in the central valley, resulting in flooding of areas downstream near Merced and Sacramento. [CNN]
(Tues.) A space-age portrait of the Mosquito Coast -- NASA recently released a high resolution image of the coastal sections of Honduras and Nicaragua called the Mosquito Coast, obtained from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer onboard NASA's Terra satellite. This image shows a variety of colors, which indicate water clarity and sea state. [NASA Earth Observatory]
(Tues.) Flooding results in major loss in life and property across the nation -- The National Weather Service recently released statistics showing that flooding continues to kill more people per year across the nation than lightning, tornadoes and hurricanes. In addition, inland flooding during 2005 associated with landfalling Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in extensive loss of life and property. [NOAA News]
(Tues.) March was good for snow in the Sierras -- A parade of storms from off the Pacific Ocean provided the high Sierras in California and western Nevada with heavy snow, increasing the snowpack considerably. Farmers, municipal water managers and skiers are happy with this above-average snowpack. [USA Today] The ski resort at Alpine Meadows near Lake Tahoe received more than 16 feet of snow at the base of the resort during the month of March, which is a record as the snowiest month in 35 years. [Reno Gazette-Journal]
(Tues.) Canada develops a wintertime runway slickness scale -- Transport Canada and the Canadian aviation industry, along with assistance from the FAA and NASA in the US, have developed the Canadian Runway Friction Index (CRFI) that is designed to help pilots judge how slick the runways are due to ice and snow prior to landing. To date, the FAA has not adopted this system for airports in the US. [USA Today]
(Tues.) Making oxygen on an icy moon -- Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have conducted an experiment at low temperatures and low pressures that attempts to simulate conditions on some of the icy moons of Jupiter and other outer planets that result in the production of oxygen. They have found a four-step process operates where a hydroxyl radical is initially produced, which then produces hydrogen peroxide, then a HO₂ molecule and water, and then finally an oxygen molecule. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Velocity measurements of ocean surface currents now made from satellites -- A radar instrument onboard the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite has been making direct and high resolution measurements of the speed of the surface currents in the world's ocean, utilizing the Doppler principle in collecting backscattered microwave radar signals. [ESA]
(Tues.) Urban interests could be harmed by wetland banking -- A Florida State University law professor claims that the federal wetland mitigation banking policy that permits developers to compensate for damaging or destroying wetlands in one place by buying wetlands elsewhere could result in consequences that could be harmful to urban areas. [EurekAlert!]
Another tropical cyclone hits Australia -- Tropical Cyclone Glenda, the sixth tropical cyclone (the Indian Ocean counterpart of the hurricane) of the season to approach the Western Australia coast, made landfall last Thursday along the West Australian coast north of the state capital, Perth. This cyclone was a category-5 system on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale, following by a week the category-5 Tropical Cyclone Larry that made landfall along the north coast of Queensland. [USA Today] NASA posted a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Glenda prior to landfall, obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer instrument onboard its polar orbiting Terra satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Flooding along the Red River of the North brings back memories -- Recent heavy rain along with warm weather that caused the snow cover to melt rapidly produced flooding along the Red River of the North and its tributaries in the eastern Dakotas and northwest Minnesota. This current flooding reminds residents of the disastrous and historic flooding in 1997. [USA Today]. Unfortunately, a woman drowned on Friday after she stumbled into a ditch filled with water near Grand Forks, ND. [USA Today]
A wet month ends in Paradise -- Residents of the Hawaiian Islands experienced record-breaking rainfall during the just-concluded month of March as a flow of humid and unstable tropical air spread northeastward across the Aloha State. The National Weather Service reported that all-time monthly precipitation records were broken at Mount Waialeale (93.71 inches) and Lihue (35.95 inches), both on the island of Kauai Floods caused a dam failure, mudslides and other problems across the Pacific Paradise. [USA Today]
Flooding reported in Prague -- Heavy rain in the Czech Republic caused rivers to rise toward flood stage in Prague last week. [USA Today]
Dry conditions develop across the Middle Atlantic States -- While attention has focused on the severe drought conditions across the southern Plains that has persisted for several years, portions of the Middle Atlantic States have been experiencing a significant dry spell, which could cause increased fire danger, affect water quality in Chesapeake Bay and cause agricultural problems. The just-concluded month of March was the driest on record for some locations, such as Baltimore, MD. [USA Today] (Editor's note: As of Sunday, the Preliminary Local Climatological Data for March 2006 at Baltimore indicates that 0.18 inches was the final monthly precipitation total. EJH)
Golf course ponds could reverse wetlands decline -- In their national survey, the US Fish and Wildlife Service reported the first gain in the areal coverage of the nation's wetlands in over 50 years, primarily due to more ponds built for golf courses. [ENN]
Estimates of future extreme precipitation events made -- Using several regional European climate models, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and at the University of Reading recently reported that extreme rain events could become more frequent and more intense over Europe during the next 100 years. [EurekAlert!]
Tiny water purification packets could be lifesavers -- Procter & Gamble Company has been collaborating , with the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to develop, manufacture and distribute small and inexpensive packets that contain powdered chemicals which would act as a chemical filter of highly contaminated water and reduce pathogen-induced diarrhea, the leading killer of children in the developing world. [EurekAlert!]
Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including 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.

Concept of the Week: Water in Microclimates

Water is an important component of Earth's planetary-scale climate system, playing a key role in the global radiation balance (e.g., the greenhouse effect) and large-scale transport of heat (e.g., latent heat transfer and ocean currents). The global climate system exhibits considerable spatial variability so that Earth is a mosaic of numerous climate types and water is often an important factor in distinguishing between individual climates. Hence, for example, the climate of a desert differs from that of a rainforest primarily because of differences in precipitation totals and potential evaporation rate.

Climate (long-term average atmospheric conditions) also varies on smaller spatial scales. Here, we consider examples of how the local water and heat energy budgets vary on the scale of microclimates, having horizontal dimensions from less than 1 m to 100 m (3.3 ft to 330 ft) and vertical dimension from Earth's surface to an altitude of 100 m (330 ft).

All other factors being equal, afternoon air temperatures tend to be lower over an irrigated farm field than over a non-irrigated field. Where soils are wet, more of the available heat is used to evaporate water (latent heating) leaving less to raise the temperature of the soil surface and overlying air (sensible heating). In the Northern Hemisphere, snow tends to persist longer and the growing season is shorter on the shaded north- and east-facing hill slopes (facing away from the sun) than on south- and west-facing slopes (facing the sun). In portions of the Rocky Mountains, the sunnier, drier, and warmer south-facing slopes are sparsely vegetated by grasses, ponderosa pine, and juniper. Meanwhile, dense stands of fir and spruce grow on the shaded, moist, and cooler north-facing slopes.

Trees, sand dunes, buildings and other obstacles slow the wind and reduce the wind's ability to transport material (including soil particles) in suspension. Farmers take advantage of this effect by constructing shelterbelts (or "windbreaks") that reduce wind erosion of soil and modify the microclimate. A shelterbelt may consist of a fence or multiple rows of trees or bushes planted upwind of an agricultural field--usually oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction. In the winter, snow-bearing horizontal winds slow as they encounter a shelterbelt. The wind's ability to transport snow diminishes and snow accumulates on the field immediately downwind of the shelterbelt. The air spaces within a snow cover make it a relatively poor conductor of heat so that the snow cover protects the underlying soil from deep penetration of subfreezing temperatures. In areas where winter wheat is grown, the snow cover protects the dormant plants from potentially damaging fluctuations in soil temperature. Snow trapped by shelterbelts also increases the local supply of soil moisture that becomes available during the spring thaw. Furthermore, slowing the wind reduces the evaporation of soil moisture. Significant increases in crop yields can be attributed to the microclimatic effects of shelterbelts.

Climatic contrasts are also evident between forested and non-forested areas. Wind speed diminishes considerably within a forest--as much as 60% to 80% at a distance of only 30 m (100 ft) into a deciduous forest. Weaker winds coupled with reduced solar radiation reaching the forest floor (due to the forest canopy) decreases the amount of evaporation from the forest floor. However, the relatively high rate of transpiration by forest vegetation more than compensates for the reduction in evaporation from the forest floor. Overall, the air in a forest tends to be somewhat more humid than the air over a nearby non-forested area. Even tall field crops such as corn have a similar effect on the microclimate.

Concept of the Week: Questions

In the Northern Hemisphere, snow is likely to persist longer on the shaded [(north-) (south-)] facing slope of a hill.
The relatively high humidity in forested areas is primarily the result of relatively high [(precipitation) (evaporation) (transpiration)] occurring in forested areas.

Historical Events:

3 April 1982...Wind-driven ice from Lake Winnebago in east central Wisconsin piled to 40-ft heights on the lake's eastern shoreline, damaging buildings in the Stockbridge area. Winds reached 80 mph across Wisconsin. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
4 April 1933...Pigeon River Bridge, MN reported 28 in. of snow, which established the state 24-hr snowfall record. (4^th-5^th) (The Weather Channel)
4 April 1973...Sandia Crest, NM reported a snow depth of 95 in., a record for the state of New Mexico. (The Weather Channel)
4 April 1987...New England was in the middle of its second heavy rainstorm in 5 days. This was the same storm that produced record snows in the Appalachians. This storm dumped 4 to 7 in. of rain over the area and this, combined with snowmelt and rivers already at bankfull, produced record flooding, especially in Maine, where 2300 homes were flooded with 215 totally destroyed. Record water levels were reached at many dams. Damage in the state alone reached $100 million. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
4 April 2004…Runoff from 8 to 12 inches of rain that fell over the Davis Mountains of west Texas led to the cracking and collapse of the I-20 bridge over Salt Draw near Toyah. The interstate was closed thanks to a timely flash flood warning. However, five indirect fatalities occurred in a multi-vehicular accident on the US-285 detour near Pecos. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
5 April 1926...A reported 0.65 in. of rain fell in one minute at Opid's Camp, CA (Intellicast)
5 April 1987...After days of heavy rain that drenched eastern New York State with 5 to 8 in., a New York State Thruway bridge over Schoharie Creek collapsed just west of Amsterdam, New York. Ten people died when their vehicles plunged into the flood-swollen creek either with or shortly after the bridge collapse. (Intellicast)
6 April 1900...The worst flood on record in the Brazos River watershed of Texas occurred from the 5^th through the 8^th. An average of 17 in. of rain fell over a 7000-square mi area, while 33 in. fell on Turnersville and an estimated 30 in. at Hearme since the rain gage overflowed at 24 in. More than 30 deaths resulted from the floods. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
6 April 1987...Rain and melting snow caused flooding from New England to Ohio. Flooding in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts was the worst in fifty years, causing $42 million in damage. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
7 April 1952...The breakup of ice along the Missouri River and its tributaries at Bismarck, ND, and above, and on the Big Sioux, created the worst flood conditions in that area in thirty years. U.S. Coast Guard personnel rendered assistance in that major disaster, evacuating stranded persons and providing other needed assistance. (US Coast Guard Historians Office)
8-10 April 1958...A global 48-hour precipitation record was established at Aurere, La Reunion Island , when 97.1 in. of rain from a tropical cyclone fell on the Indian Ocean island. (The Weather Doctor)
8-14 April 1984...Intense Tropical Cyclone Kaimsy crossed and re-crossed the northern portion of Madagascar. Winds exceeding 112 mph destroyed 80 percent of Antseranana and Mahajanga. Rainfall from this system reached 27.99 in. Eighty-two people were killed and 100,000 were made homeless. Damage was greater than 150 million US dollars. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (The Weather Doctor)
9 April 1977...A storm brought 15.50 in. of rain to Jolo, WV in thirty hours. (The Weather Channel)
9-13 April 1991...A 3-mile long ice jam on the St. Johns River in Maine broke up, resulting in a 30-foot wall of ice. The ice crushed cars and destroyed bridges and houses. In Allagash, the sight was described as "surreal" -- "like walking on the moon." (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
9 April 2000...A record April snowfall of 14.6 in. shut down Montreal, Quebec. Snow removal contracts had ended on 1 April. (The Weather Doctor)

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