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Opinion: America Should Harvest a Trillion Gallons of Rainwater

/in , /by /TIME by Justin Talbot and Israel Mirsky

Over the weekend, Burning Man attendees were forced to shelter in place when the usually-parched Black Rock Desert got roughly 3 months’ worth of rain in 24 hours. In August, Tropical Storm Hilary dropped as much rain on some inland areas of Southern California in a single day as they would typically receive in an entire year. In an age of Western megadroughts and dangerous decimation of groundwater throughout the country, recent storms underscore the importance of investing in the capacity to manage, collect, and store water.

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July Was the Planet’s Hottest Month on Record — So Far

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith

A sizzling month marked by record heat waves, major wildfires, melting sea ice and a burgeoning El Niño will go down in the books as the hottest July on record — at least until next year, federal officials said. The planet and its oceans roasted last month as global average temperatures soared 2.02 degrees above average, making July 2023 not only the hottest July ever, but very likely Earth’s warmest month in at least 174 years of record keeping.

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Florida Could Soon Become Uninsurable—and Other States Will Likely Follow

/in , /by /Newsweekby Giulia Carbonaro

Florida is no stranger to extreme weather events, a fact that those living in Sunshine State have always factored in when insuring their homes. But as climate change exacerbates the frequency and severity of events like droughts, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes in the U.S., the reality Floridians and insurers in the state are working with is quickly changing. Florida, according to several experts, is becoming “uninsurable.” And other states, starting from California, might follow suit in the near future.

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Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: The Great Floods of 2023

/in , , /by /Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsby Jessica McKenzie

Another week, another catastrophic, record-setting, history-making flood, this time in Kentucky.

Preliminary assessments indicate rainfall in Graves County last week likely set a new record for most precipitation in a 24-hour period, with 11.28 inches of rain. This would make it yet another “1,000-year” flood event, which had, according to historical projections, less than a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. One of the towns that experienced flash flooding was Mayfield, a community still rebuilding from a 2021 tornado that killed 57 people.

This was just one of the 11 flash flood emergencies in as many days in the United States, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Heather Zons. These events have claimed multiple lives: 2-year-old Mattie Shiels, 9-month-old brother, Conrad, and their mother, Katie Seley drowned after getting swept away by flash flooding in Pennsylvania, during an event that killed at least four others. In New York earlier this month, 43-year-old Pamela Nugent was swept away trying to evacuate a flooded area; 63-year-old Stephen Davoll drowned in his home in Vermont.

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Climate Change Leaves Fingerprints on July Heat Waves Around the Globe, Study Says

/in , , /by /APby Seth Borenstein

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.

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Opinion: Michael Smolens: Poll Says San Diegans Less Concerned about Extreme Weather than Rest of State

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union Tribuneby Michael Smolens

Residents of San Diego and Orange counties say they are less affected by extreme weather than other parts of the state. Still, a strong majority says extreme weather is a big problem or somewhat of a problem for the region. People in the two counties also have less confidence than residents elsewhere in government’s ability to respond to weather-related problems.

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Climate-Heating El Niño Has Arrived and Threatens Lives, Declares UN

/in , , /by /The Guardianby Damian Carrington

The arrival of a climate-heating El Niño event has been declared by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with officials warning that preparation for extreme weather events is vital to save lives and livelihoods. The last major El Niño was in 2016, which remains the hottest year on record. The new El Niño comes on top of the increasing global heating driven by human-caused carbon emissions, an effect the WMO called a “double whammy”.

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El Niño is Likely Returning, Bringing Danger for California and the World. ‘We Need to Be Prepared’

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith

It’s Earth’s original disrupter — a recurring climate pattern so powerful that it can drive global average temperature to record highs, and generate both cliff-crumbling storms and crop-destroying droughts across the planet.

Now, after a long hiatus, El Niño is showing signs of a strong return in 2023.

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Whiplash Again! – Learning from Wet (and Dry) Years

/in , , /by /California WaterBlog by Jay Lund, Deirdre Des Jardins, Kathy Schaefer

“Old superlatives have been dusted off and new ones count to better describe the tragedy, damage, and trauma associated with the State’s latest ‘unusual’ weather experience.” DWR Bulletin 69-83, California High Water 1982-83, p.1

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The Science Behind Atmospheric Rivers

/in , , /by /Earth.orgby Christiana Jansen

Atmospheric rivers are essential for the transportation of precipitation occurring in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. The rapidly changing climate is causing shifts in these long, flowing regions of the atmosphere, resulting in an increasing number of extreme weather events that bring about destruction across the world.

 

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