WEEKLY WATER NEWS

24-28 April 2006

Water in the Earth System will return for Fall 2006 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 28 August 2006. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Water in the News:

• Monitoring east African drought from space -- NASA scientists with Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMSS) mission recently released two images generated from vegetation data obtained from the sun-synchronous SPOT (Satellite Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre) satellites that show the impact of the current drought upon the vegetation across east Africa. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• An Alaskan glacier portrait from space -- NASA posted a composite image made by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus sensor onboard the Landsat 7 orbiting satellite that shows the magnitude of Alaska's largest glacier, the Malaspina Glacier, which is located near Yakutat, in the northern section of Alaska's southeast Panhandle. [NASA]
• March 2006 contained water woes -- Scientists at the National Climatic Data Center recently released preliminary statistics for the recently-concluded month of March that indicate some sections of the nation experiencing record rainfall, while many other states reported their driest March on record. Mt. Waialeale on Hawaii's island of Kauai received 93.7 inches of rain during March 2006, which is the all-time record rainfall for any month at that location, while New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Florida along the East Coast experienced their driest March since sufficiently complete climate records began in 1895. In addition, severe drought persisted across the southern Plains and the Southwest. [NOAA News]
• First set of tsunami buoys deployed in the Atlantic Basin -- NOAA officials announced that five Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) buoys have been deployed off the East and Gulf Coasts of the US and in the Caribbean as part of an expanded tsunami warning system. These buoys, the first to be placed in the Atlantic Basin, are similar to the 11 DART stations in the eastern Pacific and Gulf of Alaska. [NOAA News]
• Gulf Coast restoration efforts begin -- Several projects have commenced that are designed to restore Gulf Coast wetlands affected by human development and last year's devastating hurricanes:
  • A nearly $18 million wetlands restoration contract has been awarded to an Arkansas construction company by the NOAA Restoration Center and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to create and protect 1500 acres of intertidal wetlands and intermediate marsh southwest of New Orleans as part of the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection & Restoration Act. [NOAA News]
  • An estuarine marsh gardening project has begun in Alabama and Mississippi as part of the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program's Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan in an effort to establish or rehabilitate salt marshes and submerged grass beds in the Mobile Bay area. [Dauphin Inland Sea Lab]
• "Cool free stuff for students and teachers" -- NOAA's National Ocean Service has unveiled a special "NOAA Kids Page" that provides links to free NOAA Science educational and instructional material for both students and teachers. [NOS NOAA]
• This year's endangered rivers list released -- American Rivers, a conservation group, recently released its 2006 list of most endangered rivers in the US, which reported that the Pajaro River in central California and a section of the Upper Yellowstone in Montana were the most endangered rivers. [American Rivers] [ENN]
• Mars could have been wet -- Scientists constructing a mineralogical map of the Martian surface from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter suggest that the Martian planet could have been wet during three epochs in its 4.5 billion year history. [National Geographic News Online]
• Subglacial rivers discovered -- Based upon examination of small changes in the elevation of the Antarctic ice shelf from data collected by the European Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite, a British team of scientists discovered large subglacial rivers that flowed for hundreds of miles under the Antarctic ice sheet. [ESA] This discovery could cause a change in plans for drilling through the ice to investigate subglacial lakes for the presence of ancient ice. [EurekAlert!]
• Rain could affect deep subterranean processes -- A geophysicist from the University of Toronto suggests that erosion caused by rainfall could directly affect the movement of continental plates deep underneath mountain ranges. [University of Toronto]
• May is National Wetlands Month -- The US Environmental Protection Agency, along with other federal agencies and environmental groups, has announced that May has been designated as American Wetlands Month in an effort to increase public awareness of the importance for protecting and preserving the nation's wetlands. This year's theme is "It Pays to Save Wetlands". [NOAA Fisheries Service Restoration Center] [Note: This source is a pdf document, requiring Adobe Acrobat Reader. EJH]
• 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:

• 24 April 1987...Showers and thunderstorms produced heavy rain in the Middle Atlantic Coast Region. Up to 7 in. of rain drenched Virginia in three days. Morgantown, WV received 4.27 in. in 24 hrs, and flooding was reported in south central West Virginia. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 24 April 1990...The Bogan River forced many residents to the second floors of two story buildings as the river topped sandbags protecting Nyngan, New South Wales, Australia. All of Nyngan was flooded to a depth of up to 20 ft. in 4 to 6 hours and all 2500 residents were evacuated by helicopter or bus on the 25^th. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 April 1995...Up to 6 in. of snow fell on the summits of Mauna Kea (13,796 ft elevation) and Mauna Loa (13,680 ft) on Hawaii's Big Island. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 25 April 1984...A late season snowstorm struck the Northern Rockies and the Northern Plains. The four-day storm that ended on the 28^th produced some unusually heavy snowfall totals. The town of Lead, located in the Black Hills of western South Dakota, was buried under 67 in. of snow. Red Lodge, located in the mountains of southern Montana, reported 72 in. of snow. Up to 60 in. blanketed the mountains of northern Wyoming. This storm was rated the worst late season storm of record for much of the affected area. (25^th-28^th) (Storm Data) (The Weather Channel)
• 27 April 1968...Hail and winds badly damaged homes and trailers at Prescott, AZ. As many as 200 telephone lines were knocked out of service. The cooperative weather observer noted the hail was "icicle" in shape, with a one-inch diameters and lengths to six inches. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 27 April 1988...Mount Washington, NH reported seven ft of snow in ten days, pushing their snowfall total for the month to 89.9 in., surpassing the previous record of 89.3 in. set in 1975. Records have been kept at the Observatory on the summit since December 1932. (The National Weather Summary) (Intellicast)
• 27 April 1989...Thunderstorms produced severe weather from the Lower and Middle Mississippi Valley to Virginia and the Carolinas. Hail up to 4.5 in. in diameter caused $5 million damage around Omaha, NE. Three inches of rain in a relatively short period of time caused flooding of streets with 3 ft of water reported at some intersections. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
• 28 April 1973...The all-time record crest of the Mississippi River at St. Louis, MO was recorded at 43.3 ft, exceeding the former 1884 mark by 1.9 ft. (Intellicast)
• 29 April 1905...A thunderstorm dumped 2 in. of rain in ten minutes on the town of Taylor, in southeastern Texas, with a total of 2.35 in. of rain in fifteen minutes. (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 29 April 1910...North America's deadliest rock slide was caused by snowmelt followed by temperatures near zero degrees Fahrenheit that caused water in the rock joints under Turtle Mountain in the Canadian Rockies to freeze and expand. Ninety million tons of limestone fell some 3000 ft onto Frank, AB. As many as 70 people died as the result of the rockslide. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 29 April 1973...The Mississippi River reached a crest of 43.4 ft at St. Louis, MO, breaking the previous record of 42 ft established in 1785. (David Ludlum)
• 30 April 1888...World's deadliest hailstorm occurred at Moradabad, India as enormous hailstones killed 230 persons and many livestock. An additional 16 people died in another town. (The Weather Doctor)
• 30 April 1988...The Australian coast between Wollongong and Sydney received 9.8 inches of rain in a 24-hour period that caused landslides and washed out roads and rail tracks. (The Weather Doctor)
• 30 April 1991...Southeast Bangladesh was devastated by a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of approximately 150 mph during the early morning. A 20- ft storm surge inundated offshore islands south of Chittagong, taking water from the Bay of Bengal inland for miles. This cyclone resulted in up to 200,000 deaths and $1.4 billion damage. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)

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