June 2012: Earth's 4th warmest June; heavy rains in Beijing kill 37
June 2012 was the globe's 4th warmest June on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NASA rated May 2012 the 3rd warmest on record. June 2012 global land temperatures were the warmest on record; this makes three months in a row--April, May, and June--in which record-high monthly land temperature records were set. Global ocean temperatures were the 10th warmest on record. June 2012 was the 328th consecutive month with global temperatures warmer than the 20th century average; the last time global temperatures were below average was February 1985. We've now had three consecutive top-five warmest months on record; April 2012 was the 5th warmest April on record, and May 2012 was the 2nd warmest May on record. The increase in global temperatures relative to average, compared to March 2012 (16th warmest March on record) is due, in part, to warming waters in the Eastern Pacific, where a La Niña event ended in April, and borderline El Niño conditions now exist. Global satellite-measured temperatures in June for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were 4th or 3rd warmest in the 34-year record, according to Remote Sensing Systems and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during June 2012 was the smallest in the 46-year period of record. Wunderground's weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, has a comprehensive post on the notable weather events of June in his June 2012 Global Weather Extremes Summary. Notably:
- The U.K. suffered through its wettest June since at least 1910, and coolest such since 1991.
- The monsoon season has been especially devastating so far along the banks of the Brahmaputra River in northeast India and Bangladesh. Over 2000 villages have been flooded and at least 190 deaths reported so far. Almost 20 million people in all have been displaced.
- The Korean Peninsula continued to endure its worst drought in at least 105 years.
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for June 2012. In the Northern Hemisphere, most areas experienced much higher-than-average monthly temperatures, including most of North America and Eurasia, and northern Africa. Only northern and western Europe, and the northwestern United States were notably cooler than average. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) .
Arctic sea ice has greatest June loss on record
Arctic sea ice saw its greatest-ever decrease during the month of June, and ice extent averaged over the entire month was the 2nd lowest for June in the 35-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The last three Junes (2010 - 2012) have had the three smallest ice extents for the month, with June 2012 being the 21st consecutive June and the 133rd consecutive month with below-average Arctic sea ice extent. During much of June 2012 and extending into the first half of July, the Arctic Dipole pattern set up. This atmospheric circulation pattern features a surface high pressure system in the Arctic north of Alaska, and a low pressure system on the Eurasian side of the Arctic. This results in winds blowing from south to north over Siberia, pushing warm air into the central Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Dipole pattern occurred in all summer months of 2007 and helped support the record 2007 summer reduction in sea ice extent. The Arctic Dipole pattern has broken down over the past few days, and is expected to be absent through early August. This should slow Arctic sea ice loss, and ice extent may no longer be at record low levels by the first week of August.
Figure 2. Arctic sea ice area in 2012 as of July 22 (yellow line) compared to all the other years since satellite observations began in 1979. Ice area in 2012 during most of June and July has been the lowest on record. The previous record low years were 2007 and 2011. Note that sea ice area (as shown here) and sea ice extent (as measured by the National Snow and Ice Data Center) are not the same thing, but one can use either to quantify sea ice, and both show very similar behavior. Image credit: University of Illinois Cryosphere Today.
Three new billion-dollar weather disasters in June
The globe experienced three new billion-dollar weather disasters in June, bringing the total for the year to nine, said insurance broker Aon Benfield in their June Catastrophe Report. The most expensive disaster in June occurred in China, where heavy rains between the between June 20 - 29 affected northern, central, eastern and southern sections of the country. The rains left at least 50 people dead in 17 separate provinces, and caused damage estimated at CNY17.4 billion (USD2.73 billion). The U.S. suffered two billion-dollar severe weather events in June, bringing the total number of such events to six for the year. The record for most billion-dollar disasters in a year in the U.S. is fourteen (according to NOAA/NCDC) or seventeen (according to Aon Benfield.) The most costly event in June 2012 came across portions of Texas and New Mexico, where severe thunderstorms pelted areas (including the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region) with golf ball and baseball-sized hail. The Insurance Council of Texas said that more than 100,000 claims were filed and total insured losses in the state would exceed $1 billion, with total losses near $1.75 billion. A separate hail event in Colorado and Wyoming caused more than $700 million in insured losses, and $1.25 billion in total losses.
Figure 3. Weather disasters costing at least half a billion dollars so far in 2012, according to insurance broker Aon Benfield in their June Catastrophe Report.
Heaviest rains in 60 years deluge Beijing, killing 37
China's latest billion-dollar weather disaster is a torrential rainstorm that hit Beijing Saturday night, dumping the the heaviest rains the city has seen in 60 years, according to Associated Press. The resulting flooding killed 37 people and did $1.6 billion in damage.
Figure 4. A Chinese man uses a signboard to signal motorists driving through flooded street following a heavy rain in Beijing Saturday, July 21, 2012. China's government says the heaviest rains to hit Beijing in six decades. The torrential downpour Saturday night left low-lying streets flooded and knocked down trees. (AP Photo)
Quiet in the Atlantic
There are no threat areas to discuss in the Atlantic, and none of the reliable computer models are developing a tropical cyclone over the next seven days.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Enhanced Infrared (IR) Imagery (4 km Mercator)
2km Storm Relative IR Imagery with BD Enhancement Curve
about midway through imagry shows large thunderstorms develeping right in the middle of the hurricane, I don't know of any major hurricans that develope storms right in the middle of the eye.
ZOOM is active, click on image to zoom.
2km Storm Relative IR Imagery with BD Enhancement Curve Loop
LOL Taz is going to be all on your case. :)
RainbowTop Image
The Typhoon has kept significant structure inland so far, and its impact will take another 12 to 24 to see the full impact in and around Hong Kong.But the surge Levels were forecasted to be a significant and deadly rising tide.
Esp North and East of the Eyes landfall.
All our hopes for those in its path.
Darkness will come to Million's.
I wonder what he is thinking right now about Vicente...?
Our local university found no oil on the sea floor off our shores. Last two years beautiful beaches!
its more than 50 miles inland.. and still a cat 3??? did Vicente forget about landfall?
Typhoon Vicente - 2012.07.23
No.8
Life threatening one! First time not dare to go out to feel the nature by the way!
Why is the Hong Kong radar really slow/I cant get into the site?
Probably along the lines of how the West Pacific El Nino thresh hold conditions, and any warm anomalies, helped contribute to the rapid intensification and any other topographical/oceanic features in the West Pacific at the time that the storm approached landfall.
See Yall in the am.
Just keep in mind that, when you fall from 10 miles up, you don't feel a thing until you hit the ground. If they hit the ground before we do, then they can't demand their money back.
Published on Jul 23, 2012 by penguinsix
T8 as Typhoon Vicente passes 100km away from HK
Published on Jul 23, 2012 by Gpsfreemaps
Typhoon Vicente swept Shenzhen
http://www.gpsfreemaps.com
A dangerous combination of heat and humidity will continue to affect portions of the Central Plains and Central Mississippi River Valley through midweek. Heat Advisories and Excessive Heat Warnings have been issued for this area through Wednesday where afternoon temperatures will continue to soar to over 100 degrees.
THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA...SOUTH MISSISSIPPI AND THE ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS. TONIGHT HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS NOT ANTICIPATED OVERNIGHT. TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY THE CHANCE FOR WIDESPREAD HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS LOW. HOWEVER...THERE WILL BE SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS EACH AFTERNOON WITH OCCASIONAL LIGHTNING...GUSTY WINDS AND BRIEF HEAVY RAINFALL. HEAT COULD BECOME AN ISSUE AS WE HEAD INTO THE MIDDLE AND LATTER PORTIONS OF THE WORK WEEK. AFTERNOON HIGH TEMPERATURES WILL MOVE INTO THE MID TO UPPER 90S AND WITH A VERY HUMID AIRMASS IN PLACE HEAT INDEX VALUES ARE EXPECTED TO APPROACH 105 DEGREES OR HIGHER...ESPECIALLY WEDNESDAY. WEATHER CAN CHANGE VERY RAPIDLY. ALWAYS USE THE LATEST FORECASTS...WATCHES AND WARNINGS FOR PLANNING PURPOSES.
Yes.
Click for da loop
02:01 UTC
Storm Relative 1km Geostationary Visible Imagery
Hmm...
That's all. XD
Yep.
Low shear: Not in the E ATL (30 knots) but it dies off
Warm water: Yes/marginal
Moist air: Yes
Low pressure/vorticy: No low, some vorticy
Time: Yes, lots of time to develop
Model support: Not really
Final summary: Low chance of development.
This is not sarcastic or meant to bemean if it is in some way or fashion.
Currency is entirely insufficient, and in any case where it exists it should be definited in terms of quantifiable resources, and not the other way around.
For example, the dollar should be defined as an exact, unchanging number of Joules of energy, not a fairy tale printing press, nor a sentimental trinket such as gold or silver.
The energy value of a Whopper in U.S. is actually only about 3 or 4 cents when evaluated against the price of electrity, or about 2.5 cents when evaluated against the energy content of a gallon of Gasoline, or perhaps 10 cents when evaluated against the net work obtained from an internal combustion engine burning a gallon of gasoline.
As you can see, the problem with artificially defined currency is that it's "value" is entirely arbitrary, and varies by orders of magnitude from transaction to transaction in both energy quantification and material quantification.
You are missing a key point, and even the Jetsons authors missed this, if you have robots, ranging from nanoscale to macroscopic, which do all the menial labor, far beyond today's levels, then everyone works in research and development, or social services, etc.
There is no mechanic because the machines know ho to repair themselves.
There is no plumber because a mole worth of nano-bots can build the pipes and install them from the carbon and silicon in the dirt on site.
There is no Wal Mart because a few pounds of nano-machines can build whatever you want from the dirt in your back yard (it contains enough trace elements in nano-quantities to make whatever you want, even if it requires rare earths or such.)
The Soviet Union still operated under historical ranges of value systems.
An Omega Point civilization needs no currency, and humans work only in R&D, and if you want a palace your self-replicating nano-bots can build it for you from the dirt at the site for free. They could perhaps even build food proteins and carbohydrates directly from the soil in the same way plants do, but with potentially less material waste (i.e. most of the mass of a Corn plant is not suitable for direct human consumption, and if not for it being convenient to be feed for livestock, it would represent total waste).
Building some solar panels or refining some trace metals available at the site should pay for any additional material or energy resources required.
How do I know this? Nature does it just fine in forests and food crops and fishery stocks to the point that humans consume these things and they replace themselves, with a bit of responsible management anyway.
Overnight A chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 1am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 74. North northwest wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Don't be a party pooper, let me dream. xD
*happiness...
I bet a lot of us share that sentiment. Bill Read once said that was what kept them all awake at night at the NHC. Intensity is still hard too predict. Audrey in 1957 is an example of this somewhat. They went to bed thinking a cat 2 would hit the next evening. They woke up to a cat 4 bearing down on them that morning.
We actually didn't get intense thunderstorms today here in Central Pinellas which is pretty rare lately lol. We have been pounded so many times.
It's funny though, even though rain chances were expected to be much higher today, as soon as I woke up from work and saw the steering flow for convection was south to north, I knew we wouldn't get anything today.
A south to north pattern always leads to almost the entire county of Pinellas not getting any rain at all, yet forecasts over the years never seem to catch this, even though I was clearly aware of this after about being 12 years old or so. It's because the lower atmosphere will quickly stabilize here with daytime heating the trajectory of the wind from south to north over the small peninsula of this county causes the sea breeze to jump across the bay early morning sweeping rain chances away from us even on the most active days.
There are many natural oil seeps under the ocean. IIRC the Gulf leaks per year about what the BP spill released. The BP spill roughly doubled the annual oil input.
There are microbes that eat most of the oil and researchers reported a great increase in their number following the spill. There apparently are no microbes that can eat the heaviest of the oil components. These are the 'tar balls' that wash up on shores. They were around long before we started drilling under water for oil.
--
That's not in defense of drilling underwater (or anywhere) for oil. Just what I think is the science of the spill and recovery.
We need to get off fossil fuels ASAP.
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