WEEKLY WATER NEWS

30 April -4 May 2007

Water in the Earth System will return for Fall 2007 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 27 August 2007. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Water in the News:

• More hurricane buoys deployed -- With the start of the 2007 North Atlantic hurricane season one month away, the NOAA Data Buoy Center recently deployed two new instrumented buoys in Atlantic and Caribbean waters off Puerto Rico to help monitor near surface atmospheric and oceanic environmental conditions. These two buoys are the first of eight buoys that are to be deployed this hurricane season across the southwestern North Atlantic to help hurricane forecasters. [NOAA News]
• Hurricane hunter aircraft to make East Coast tour -- In an attempt to increase public awareness to hurricane preparedness along the vulnerable coastal sections of the Atlantic Seaboard, forecasters from the National Hurricane Center will travel on one of NOAA's hurricane hunter aircraft this week. Their five day Hurricane Awareness Tour will start Monday in Kingston, RI and end Friday in Daytona Beach, FL. National Hurricane Preparedness Week will be in three weeks (20-26 May 2007). [NOAA News]
• AIM Mission launched to study noctilucent clouds -- A NASA spacecraft called Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) was recently launched from California that will be dedicated to exploring the noctilucent ice clouds that form in Earth's mesosphere. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• A ray of sunshine with cloudy skies -- A team of researchers have recently completed a project that involved data collected by NASA's CloudSat and CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellites that shows how clouds, especially in the polar regions, affect the climate of these regions. [NASA Earth Observatory] Images accompanying this article appear on the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center website. [NASA GSFC]
• Volunteer opportunities showcased -- The NOAA administrator recently unveiled a new website that serves as a portal displaying the variety of opportunities available within NOAA to those volunteers desiring to support environmental stewardship, such as with the National Weather Service, the Ocean Service and the Fisheries Service. [NOAA News]
• Interesting wave pattern in the Messina Strait -- An image obtained from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite shows an interesting interfering wave pattern that appeared in waters of the Messina Strait between mainland Italy and Sicily [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Effects of drought detected in West Africa -- An image recently obtained from data collected by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite displays the Vegetation Anomaly that indicates a general lack of the development of vegetation across West Africa because of the continuing drought across the region. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• A space-age view of historic Venice -- A photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station shows the watery environment surrounding the historic Italian city of Venice. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Decades-old oil spill remains problem for Cape Cod -- Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found that a marsh on Cape Cod still contains some lingering and chronic biological effects of a fuel oil spill that occurred along the beaches of the Cape in 1969. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Volcanoes linked with ancient global warming -- A team of scientists from Oregon State University, Rutgers University and Denmark's Roskilde University claim that they have found a link between massive volcanic eruptions on Greenland's east coast and the western British Isles approximately 55 million years ago and a 220,000-year Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum period that saw sea surface temperatures increase by 5 Celsius degrees in the tropics and 6 Celsius degrees in the Arctic. They suggest a release of large amounts of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere. [EurekAlert!]
• Subglacial lakes and ice streams under the Antarctic ice -- Scientists using a variety of techniques have found as many as 140 subglacial lakes located under Antarctica's ice sheet along with the flow of water under the ice from one lake to another in what is known as "ice streams." Some of these ice stream flow to the Southern Ocean and could affect sea level. [NASA Earth Observatory] Images taken approximately three years apart of the surface of the West Antarctica's ice sheet by MODIS sensors on NASA's satellites were compared to determine changes in elevation of these surfaces that may be associated with the flow of water in the ice streams. [NASA Earth Observatory] Under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, one of the ice streams is the Recovery Ice Stream. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• International workshop to study Antarctic ice and climate change -- An international workshop of ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) researchers will be held this upcoming week at the Antarctic Marine Geology Research Facility at Florida State University, which houses a large collection of Antarctic sediment cores. One of the new acquisitions to the collection is a deep-sea core obtained from under Antarctica's Ice that provides a nearly 10 million year record of the ice shelf's history. [EurekAlert!]
• Satellites used to monitor warming of the globe -- Participants at the European Space Agency's 2007 Envisat Symposium have seen how the variety of instruments on environmental observation satellites have been able to detected various changes to Earth's environment that have occurred due to increases in the planetary average temperature over the last several decades, including changes in polar ice and glaciers, as well as plankton blooms in the ocean. [ESA]
• Ocean's "twilight zone" may play role in climate change -- A biogeochemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution along with colleagues recently reported on the results from the VERTIGO (Vertical Transport In the Global Ocean) expeditions to the Pacific Ocean that suggest carbon dioxide is often recycled by living organisms within the dimly lit "twilight zone" in the ocean and could reenter the atmosphere relatively quickly. [EurekAlert!]
• 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 of protecting and preserving the nation's wetlands. The theme is "It Pays to Save Wetlands". [EPA-Wetlands]
• 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.

Historical Events:

• 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)
• 1 May 1986...Hailstones up to 11 pounds were reported in China, resulting in the deaths of 16 people and injuries to 125. (The Weather Doctor)
• 1 May 1854...After 66 hours of steady rain, the Connecticut River reached a level of nearly twenty-nine feet (28 feet 10.5 inches) at Hartford, CT (the highest level of record until that time). The record height was reached in the midst of a great New England flood that followed sixty-six hours of steady rain. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 1 May 1883...At Cape Lookout, NC, a storm tide swept over the island drowning sheep and cattle. (Intellicast)
• 3 May 1761...Large tornadoes swept the Charleston, SC harbor when a British Fleet of 40 sails was at anchor. It raised a wave 12 feet high, leaving many vessels on their beam-ends. Four people drowned. (Intellicast)
• 5 May 1945...The U.S. Air Forces vainly attempted to break up an ice jam near Bishop Rock on the Yukon River in the Yukon Territory with 33 250-kg bombs and 44 50-kg bombs. (The Weather Doctor)
• 5 May 1981...Mobile, AL had its worst flash flooding ever as thunderstorms unloaded 8 to 16 in. of rain over the metropolitan area in a couple of hours. Damage was set at $36 million. (Intellicast)
• 5 May 1990...A strong Pacific cold front moving rapidly inland caused weather conditions at the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington State to quickly change from sunny and calm to westerly winds of 60 mph and ten-foot waves. Three recreational fishing boats capsized in heavy seas off Port Angeles resulting in five deaths. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 5 May 1995...A supercell thunderstorm rapidly developed just ahead of a fast moving bow echo squall line and blasted Tarrant County, Texas. Large hail up to 5 in. in diameter, driven by 80-mph winds, caused a tremendous amount of damage. As many as 10,000 people were caught out in the open at Mayfest in Downtown Forth Worth, resulting in 109 injuries from the large hail. Torrential rains of up to 3 in. in 30 minutes and 5 in. in one hour across Dallas caused unprecedented flash flooding, resulting in 16 deaths. Total damage in Forth Worth alone was estimated at $2 billion, making this the costliest thunderstorm event in U.S. history. This was the third severe hailstorm to strike the area in only a little over a month. (Intellicast)
• 6 May 1937...The hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg crashed at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people were killed of the 97 onboard. Static electricity in the air from a nearby thunderstorm may have been a factor in the disaster.

Return to DataStreme WES Website

Prepared by AMS WES Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2007, The American Meteorological Society.