Heaviest rains in Colombia's history trigger deadly landslide; 145 dead or missing
Colombia's heaviest rains in history triggered a landslide in the poor hillside community of Bello on Sunday, killing at least 20 people and leaving 125 missing. This year's unprecedented rainy season had already killed 176 people prior to Sunday, making it one of the deadliest flooding years in Colombia's history, according to the director of Colombia's national disaster management office, Luz Armanda Pulido. In 2009, 110 people died in flooding disasters, and 48 were killed in 2008, according to Colombian Red Cross director of national relief operations Carlos Ivan Marquez. This year's rains are the heaviest in the 42 years since Colombia's weather service was created and began taking data, agency director Ricardo Lozano said. The resulting flooding has destroyed or damaged the homes of 1.6 million people. Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos said the number of homeless from the flooding could reach 2 million, and said "the tragedy the country is going through has no precedents in our history." Neighboring Venezuela has also been hard-hit by this year's severe rainy season--at least 30 people are dead from floods and mudslides, and tens of thousands homeless. More rain is in the forecast--the latest forecast from the GFS model (Figure 2)--calls for an additional 4 - 6 inches (100 - 150 mm) across much of western and northern Colombia in the coming week.
Figure 1. Satellite-observed rainfall over Colombia during the past two weeks shows a region of 100 - 200 mm (4 - 8 inches) has fallen near Medellin, close to where Sunday's landslide in Bello occurred. Image credit: Navy Research Lab, Monterey.
Colombia's rainy season usually peaks in October, then gradually wanes in November and December. The heavy rains are due to the presence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the area encircling the earth near the Equator where winds originating in the northern and southern hemispheres come together. When these great wind belts come together (or "converge", thus the name "Convergence Zone"), the converging air is forced upwards, since it has nowhere else to go. The rising air fuels strong thunderstorm updrafts, creating a band of very heavy storms capable of causing heavy flooding rains. This year is a La Niña year, which means there is a large region of colder than average water off the Pacific coast of Colombia. Colder than average water off the Pacific coast enhances rainfall over Colombia, and this year's La Niña, which is at the borderline between the "moderate" and "strong" categories, is largely to blame for Colombia's deadly rainy season.
Figure 2. Rainfall forecast from today's run of the GFS model predicts that region to the north and west of Bogota, Colombia may see another 100 - 150 mm (4 - 6 inches) during the coming week (red colors.) Image credit: NOAA/CPC.
See also my November 22 post, Colombia rainy season floods kill 136.
I'll have a new post on Wednesday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Evening.
I told the person who ran otta gas and called me a while ago.
E aint fer enough sport.
Itsa cold out dere too.
hopefully we get something this winter.. have a goodnight .. probably b on here sometime tomorrow as well. take it ez
LOL.
...maybe we will see some sleet come 6:30am drive time.
Link
Link
The reason the next one is so cold is that it takes part of the cold vortex lobe moving in tandem w/ the southern stream and stalls it near the lakes, then completely merges it with the srn stream, causing one very large vortex. All that is blocked from the rising heights in Greenland, so the expansive cold thats in southern Canada and the Lakes gets sling-shotted due south, so whats in Michigan is about the same as what arrives in NC and GA just slightly modified. At one point during the middle of the day, the 2m temps are 32 or less right down to the Ga, Fl border (if I recall its 18z Monday or Tues). That would be stunningly cold for Tallahassee and Valdosta.
The 510 height contour engulfs all of NC for a time, another rare treat. Thats only happened in a few outbreaks I can think of 83 , '85, '89 with 850's around -16 or lower for a good time.
Beyond that, the vortex in the northeast remains mostly stationary and a southern stream system may take the low road. Usually, models are too slow with moisture coming east, but they also tend to hold the 50/50 in place too long erroneously. Either way, we've got some interesting options around days 9 or 10 on this run. One final note, the ridging in high latitudes works west to cover Canada. This acts as a split flow, and we'll have a limited supply of cold air, but normally that 5H looks is pretty good for southern Winter events of some type because the westerlies and storm track is displaced very far south.
Thats pretty understandable that I would say..
Am I the only one still up.. lol
National Weather Service Mobile Alabama
1135 PM CST Tuesday Dec 7 2010
Aviation update for 08/06z...expect VFR conditions through
Wednesday...but will be some middle level ceilings(aoa 8k) late tonight
and possibly some light rain oe even flurries over the northern
sections. Low level air mass is dry so may be just virga that falls.
/11
******************************previous************************8
Short term [tonight through Thursday night]...closed upper level
low pressure moving southeast over western Oklahoma will move over
northern Louisiana by late tonight...and then as an open wave across
the forecast area on Wednesday. Surface high pressure axis extending
from Iowa into the northern Gulf of Mexico will lift northeast
through Wednesday afternoon.
The cold air mass will remain in place across the region ahead of
this next system...with lows tonight expected to fall into the
middle/upper 20s...except lower 30s along the immediate coast. Moisture
in the middle and upper levels will increase overnight through
Wednesday afternoon...with a sub-cloud dry level below 850 mb
remaining intact through Wednesday afternoon. Still expect some very
light frozen precipitation to pass through the sub-cloud dry level
late tonight across our northern zones...and primarily north of a
line from Wiggins, MS to Andalusia, Alabama Wednesday morning. A few rain
sprinkles or very light rain showers are possible south of this line
late Wednesday morning as temperatures rise above freezing.
Surface low pressure associated with the upper system will form over
the western Gulf late tonight and move across the southern Gulf on
Wednesday...followed by strong dry surface high pressure building
across the region through Thursday night. High temperatures
Wednesday afternoon will only manage to range from 43 degrees north
to 49 degrees south due to the cloud cover and cold air advection.
Colder temperatures are forecast for Wednesday night...with lows in
the lower 20s north of I-10 and middle/upper 20s to the south.
Temperatures will begin to moderate on Thursday. /22
Long term [friday through tuesday]...a surface low develops over
the Western Plains on Friday and deepens while advances eastward
through Saturday night. There are fairly significant position
differences on this feature between the ECMWF/GFS/Gem...with a blend
of the European model (ecmwf)/Gem favoring the system moving to near the Great Lakes
Saturday night. Regardless...there is fair agreement on a trailing
front associated with this system moving through the forecast area
Saturday night. A return flow ahead of this system allows for
temperatures to return to near seasonable levels on Friday. This
return flow strengthens on Saturday...with both the GFS/European model (ecmwf)
showing a southwest 850 mb flow of 40-50 knots over the forecast
area Saturday afternoon into Saturday night prior to the frontal
passage. This results in very high shear values with 0-1 km
helicities of 250-400 m2/s2. Instability is very limited
however...with 0-3 km MUCAPES generally less than 100 j/kg over the
area per GFS/European model (ecmwf) except for slightly higher values near the
coast. Based on this...am not expecting severe storm development
but will need to continue to closely monitor this for potentially
higher instability. Temperatures return to well below seasonable
levels in the wake of the front.
Apparently. More tunes?
haha.. Im probably heading to bed to watch a movie then sleep..
I hope you have a nice night.
U too.. Night!
Tropical Cyclone Bulletin #6
WELL MARKED LOW PRESSURE, FORMER BOB06-2010
11:30 AM IST December 8 2010
=========================================
At 6:00 AM UTC, Depression BOB06-2010 over coastal Andhra Pradesh has weakened into a well marked low pressure area and now lays over central Andhra Pradesh.
This is the final tropical cyclone bulletin from the India Meteorological Department
Oh, yeah: good morning. The fire is down to embers; I'm gonna stir it up a bit, throw on a couple of small sticks, and get some coffee going. Then I'll stop back by...
OUCH.......Good Morning
Sunday Night
Much colder. Mostly clear. Lows around 24.
Monday
Colder. Mostly sunny. Highs around 38.
Monday Night
Mostly clear. Lows around 19.
Tuesday
Partly cloudy. Highs around 47.
By Friday and Saturday it will be in the 70s.
Man is cold!!! 28.5F in CFL.
That's cold? Yeah right. How does 8 degrees sound to you?
It dropped down to 28 overnight but its been coming up for the last couple of hours as the moister comes in.
Warmer this morning. Low of 31.1. Clouds moving in now from the west.
Yeah...the 2 lakes help some. PWS about 6 miles from here and it's 23.2 there.
Morning where are you at in cfl? I am in zephyrhills next to the green swamp have 21.9
I'm in Apopka, FL.
:(... Yeah that's colder... jeje.
Ok, I know were thats at. Very nice area over there and a big lake to go fishing in.
"""Their starvin back in China so finish what you got"""
"""There's a little yellow island to the north of Katmandu"""
I just finished a MET final and the only question I couldn't figure out was a definition for 'Low Density Rimming'. I found nothing on google or even the AMS glossary. Does anybody know?
first there was secondary then comes prime
waitin on rtn flow
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