ARIZONA
The biggest dust storm in living memory rolls into Phoenix on
July 5, 2011, reducing visibility to zero. Desert thunderstorms kicked
up the mile-high wall of dust and sand.
SWITZERLAND
Frozen spray from Lake Geneva entombs cars, trees, and a
promenade during a severe cold spell in February 2012. An unusual dip in
the polar jet stream, which looped as far south as Africa, brought
Arctic air and deep snows to Europe, killing several hundred people.
Excerpt:
"There’s been a change in the weather. Extreme events like the
Nashville flood—described by officials as a once-in-a-millennium
occurrence—are happening more frequently than they used to. A month
before Nashville, torrential downpours dumped 11 inches of rain on Rio
de Janeiro in 24 hours, triggering mud slides that buried hundreds.
About three months after Nashville, record rains in Pakistan caused
flooding that affected more than 20 million people. In late 2011 floods
in Thailand submerged hundreds of factories near Bangkok, creating a
worldwide shortage of computer hard drives.
And it’s not just heavy rains that are making headlines. During
the past decade we’ve also seen severe droughts in places like Texas,
Australia, and Russia, as well as in East Africa, where tens of
thousands have taken refuge in camps. Deadly heat waves have hit Europe,
and record numbers of tornadoes have ripped across the United States.
Losses from such events helped push the cost of weather disasters in
2011 to an estimated $150 billion worldwide, a roughly 25 percent jump
from the previous year. In the U.S. last year a record 14 events caused a
billion dollars or more of damage each, far exceeding the previous
record of nine such disasters in 2008.
What’s going on? Are these extreme events signals of a dangerous,
human-made shift in Earth’s climate? Or are we just going through a
natural stretch of bad luck?
The short answer is: probably both. The primary forces driving
recent disasters have been natural climate cycles, especially El Niño
and La Niña. Scientists have learned..."
READ MORE HERE:
SEE FULL PHOTO GALLERY OF WILD WEATHER HERE...
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/09/extreme-weather/extreme-weather-photography#/01-deluge-falls-during-thunderstorm-montana-670.jpg
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