Flooding in Ecuador '12

Ecuador is a small country that is right at the equator and west of Brazil.

I lived in the city of Guayaquil  for roughly 7 years with my family, and today after reading a headline about serious flooding, I had memories of me navigating through flooding roads in 1998.  The flood I saw caught me by surprise, I promised myself that I would find a way to track the weather so that myself and my family would not be caught unprepared for strong storms.  Now fourteen years later, I read a storm from a online weather new source, the exact area I used to live in and other parts of Ecuador is seeing terrible life threatening weather and the news is reporting about twenty people have died.   However I learned that this part of the country does see regular flooding, just that it was worsened by the effects of El Niño and La Niña.

Here is a video from another area in Ecuador, this is a small town far from the major cities.

Looking back at 2011's Weather

2011 has been a busy year for weather events.  I can think of four events that I will mention later, that made significant impact on us here in the South Eastern PA and surrounding states.
I remember last summer that we had very little rain, grass on yards all across Montgomery County were all turning brown.  This year was different, I lost count of how many flood warnings we had.  Now we have  a moist and mild winter, only in the last two days have I see the temps drop below freezing.

In my research, I found that there were several Tornadoes that touched down in areas outside of Montgomery County, most were in Western, Central and North Eastern PA.  There was a Tornado in Delaware and a few in New Jersey.  So here is my list of basic weather events affected us here locally.

• Tropical Storm Irene - Irene was a major Hurricane which was strong enough to take 44 lives from Puerto Rico to then sweep through  the US East coast.  Five victims were in PA alone, and from looking a reports several had trees fall on it's victims, others were car accidents and one poor lady was dragged away from flood waters after her car stalled near the Wissahickon Creek.

Here is a pic I took that clearly shows how much flood water rose from Irene and Lee.  The water pushed debris about 10 feet and had trash sitting in a tree.

• Tropical Storm Lee:  Lee hit our area back on September 9th, the flooding was so bad that our President had to declare PA in as in a State of Emergency.  With that federal assistance was available to flood victims.  The flooding affected the Susquehanna river and even Hersey Park was so flooded that several animals in a Zoo there could not be saved and perished from the flood.  Lee claimed 7 lives in PA alone.  The worst of all was the fact that Lee came right after the flooding from Irene.

•  The Virgina Earthquake:  August 23rd, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude Earthquake that we felt.  I have experienced several minor quakes when I lived in South America, but this was a big surprise to me! I was sitting at the office on the 4th floor and I could feel the building being pushed around.

•  October Snow:  A freak early snow event, that caused 6 deaths and 200,000 reported power outages.  I wrote a few days before stating that the snow won't stick to the warm ground.  Well of course I was wrong.

Here a snap shot from the snow in October;

Finally I wanted to say that I look forward to writing more blog posts for 2012, stay safe and if anyone needs any safety information for weather events, please email me at;  feedback@theweathervane.us

A Weather Ready Nation

The Nation Weather service, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other organizations, have been working together on a large scale plan to prepare our country to be a “Weather Ready Nation”. 

 During the next ten years, a major plan is being constructed in time for the 150 year anniversary of the National Weather Service.  Building a Weather Ready nation would involve using the latest technology, preparation, education and training, to help insure protection of lives and would benefit our economy. 

Evidence of climate change is all around us, being prepared to protect lives is a priority, and there is also the need to protect our Nation’s water supply.  New technology, using tools such as computers, Doppler radar, and satellites, would be used by scientists and meteorologists, to monitor our climate both on Earth and space weather, will help to enhance our ability to detect and study significant possible weather events with better accuracy.  Advancement in information technology using such tools as the internet, computer software, social networks and smartphone technology will help to bridge gaps in vital communication and weather alert status information.

Will we be ready for strong weather events such as Hurricanes, tornadoes, or as the NWS states a High Impact Event?

What is a High-Impact Event?

No standard, nationwide criteria define a high-impact event.  It may impact millions of people or one sector, and it may vary in timing or location.  It is any weather-dependent event that significantly impacts safety, health, the environment, economic productivity, or homeland security, such as:

• Major events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and tsunamis

• Persistent drought

• Thunderstorms in a congested air space

• Rains that trigger flooding and cause agricultural run-off, leading to harmful algal blooms and dead zones

• Geomagnetic storms that disrupt energy distribution and communication systems

• Snow squalls at rush hour

• An above-average hot day

• Coastal inundation

• Changes in Arctic climate

For more detailed information, please read the Strategic plan 2011,  here ; http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/stratplan/files/2011.06_nws_strategic_plan.pdf

Billion Dollar Weather Disasters

Climate change is taking it's toll, every year the varying cycles or oscillations, whether it is "La Nina" or "El Nino" alternately causes floods, drought and or heightened storm activity.

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, has released data from years of it climate data.

Here is the first graph showing information from 1980 to the present.  (click image below to enlarge)

The next image shows number of significant events, notice that PA has 17-24 events. Looking at the previous graph you can see that the number of events has increased in the last 25 years.

Looking at this information, it would be wise not to ignore the possibility of a serious weather event.
This week alone, Scotland had category 5 hurricane force winds, we are talking of winds from 100 to 165 Miles per hour!     (Data from NOAA http://www.noaa.gov/extreme2011/compare.html  )


Now I would like to ask folks to take a pic of any local weather event and send them by email to us.  We would like to post the pic and give credit to our readers.  Send your weather pics  to: feedback@theweathervane.us

In the email please include the folowing;

• Your name (the photographer,)
• If you want us to post the picture with your name publicly (your permission) or anonymous
• The time and date of the weather event
• Basic location of the picture taken, (Intersection, town city, state)