* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: Freak Weather


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Australian drought
Permalink  
 


Australia suffers worst drought in 1,000 years
Depleted reservoirs, failed crops and arid farmland spark global warming tussle
Australia's blistering summer has only just begun but reservoir levels are dropping fast, crop forecasts have been slashed, and great swaths of the continent are entering what scientists yesterday called a "one in a thousand years drought".

Read more

Australia's worst drought on record got tougher, Thursday, April 19, 2007, when Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that there won't be enough water to allow irrigation along the country's largest river system unless there's significant rainfall over the next month.

Read more

__________________


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Australian rainfall
Permalink  
 


Links between the sun's magnetic pulse and Earth's climatic systems point to heavy rainfall later this year and in 2008, which could break Australia's worst drought in 100 years, new scientific research says.
The theory, which has been submitted for publication in the journal Solar Terrestrial Physics, is based on correlations between Australian rainfall and 11-year peaks in the sun's magnetic emissions, and switches in the sun's poles, which also occur every 11 years. The last flip occurred in 2001.
Eastern Australia this year and next is seen following a similar path to the particularly wet years of 1924 and 1925.

"If it keeps tracking...we would therefore expect average and above rainfall for eastern Australia. The sunspots are starting to increase again and as it increases over the year historically that's been a time of above average rainfall" - Associated Professor Robert Baker, University of New England.

According to Baker's theory, 2009 would be the next period of potential drought in Australia.

Source Reuters

__________________


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Freak Weather
Permalink  
 


With climate change making conditions more unpredictable, national weather services from across the European Union have joined forces to create www.meteoalarm.eu — a new Web site providing up-to-the-minute information on "extreme weather" across the continent.

__________________


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Five archaeologists were ripped from terra firma by a freak tornado that whipped its way through Lincolnshire yesterday.

The archaeologists and archaeology students, working at a sand and gravel pit at Baston, were sheltering from the thunderstorm in a temporary canteen when the building was picked up and tossed 70 feet by the wind.
Four of the group were taken to hospital with "minor injuries". All have now been discharged.
ITV reports that youth worker Denham Hughes, saw the tornado develop

"It went very dark and got a bit scary even before the rotating clouds progressed into a funnel and moved north. I could see sheets of metal and planks being sucked up 200ft into it as it got faster and faster and the bottom and top split and then joined up again."

A spokesman for the Met Office told the Cambridge Evening News (CEN) that the tornado was a funnel cloud, "a tornadic development that doesn't make contact with the ground.. The weather conditions were just right for this phenomenon to occur".

The thunderstorm also left 6,000 homes without power across the region.
We're just surprised the BBC's forecasting arm, renowned for spotting weather extremes, didn't predict this one.

__________________
«First  <  17 8 9 | Page of 9  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.



Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard