A village of extremes: Wettest place in Britain has suddenly become the driest after no rainfall for a month - 3rd May 2011

Just two years ago, it was given the title of the wettest place in the UK after more than 300mm fell in the space of just 24 hours.

But now Seathwaite Farm in Borrowdale, Cumbria, is as dry as a bone after seeing no downpours for more than a month.

April was the hottest on record for England and Wales, according to the Met Office, with just 21 per cent of expected rainfall.

Temperatures have been the hottest on average since records began 353 years ago.
Seathwaite Farm earned its moniker for being the wettest place in the UK during the devastating Cumbrian floods in November 2009.

A massive 316.4mm of rain poured into the tiny village. The Met Office said it was the highest rainfall ever seen in the UK.

Now residents have contrasting fears - they are worried about a hosepipe ban as the sun continues to beat down on the Lake District hamlet.

Duncan Ellwood, 46, who owns the Grange Bridge Cottage Teashop, said: 'Customers have been chatting about the dry weather in the shop, and wondering if we may be facing another hose pipe ban.

'I have never known an April in Borrowdale to be this dry. In April you expect to be getting lots of showers, but it hasn't rained now in over a month. Read More

US tornado outbreak was 'biggest ever' -- it's official

The outbreak of tornadoes that ravaged the southern US last week was the largest in US recorded history, the National Weather Service has said.

The three-day period from 25-28 April saw 362 tornadoes strike, including some 312 in a single 24-hour period.

The previous record was 148 in two days in April 1974.

The tornadoes and the storm system that spawned them killed at least 350 people in Alabama and six other states. It was the deadliest outbreak since 1936.

The review by US meteorologists came as the southern US states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana and Kentucky continued the huge task of digging out from the destruction.

In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a university town that was the worst-hit single location, officials estimated debris removal alone would cost $70m (£42m) to $100m (£60m).

The storm tore down century-old trees, flattened farm buildings and downed power lines, leaving as many as one million people without electricity in Alabama alone.

On Monday, more than 400,000 people still had no power in that state, emergency officials said.

The most destructive tornado struck Tuscaloosa, killing at least 65 people between there and the city of Birmingham, the National Weather Service said in a statement. (read more)

After the sun, the firestorms: Record-breaking dry spell leads to huge heath blazes in England, Ireland and Scotland - 3rd May 2011

Oubreaks of huge heath fires in England, Scotland and Ireland were a reminder that the recent hot spell has a downside to it.

Hundreds of firemen have been called into action as infernos raged from woods near Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire to the highlands of Scotland and Ireland.

The fires have thrived on bone-dry wood and foliage - and forecasters say there won't be any rain to ease the situation for another 24 hours.

The massive forest blaze near Broadmoor top-security psychiatric hospital saw around 100 firemen in action.

Fierce flames were whipped up by strong winds as two separate blazes took hold - one a mile square.

Roads were closed and hundreds of residents were advised to keep their windows closed because of the dense choking smoke.

The blaze was just half a mile from Broadmoor Hospital which is surrounded by woodland in Crowthorne, Berkshire. It was being tackled by firefighters from Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey, using at least 12 appliances.

It was believed the fire started at saw mill in Swinley, Ascot, last week and travelled underground through peat, emerging in two places in Swinley Forest this yesterday afternoon.

Crews remained at the scene near Woodlands Ride, South Ascot, where the flames were now under control.

A spokesman for the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service said the second fire had been contained in an area measuring 300m by 300m surrounded by tracks. Read More

Two dead as tornado strikes Auckland shopping mall - 3rd May 2011

Two people were killed while 20 others were injured after a tornado smashed Auckland, New Zealand. According to police reports, the twister destroyed the roof of Albany Megacentre shopping mall in North Shore City around three o’clock in the afternoon.

The victims of the catastrophe were brought to North Shore Hospital. Spokesman Paul Patton accounted that at least 20 were injured while another two were sent to Auckland Hospital.

The whirlwind, averaging 200 kilometers per hour, damaged a great number of houses and cars.

Rebel Sports’ Martin Sibrits said the tornado was huge."It was simply unbelievable, it was huge. I could set pieces of iron flying through the air, 100 meters up," he said.

Sibrits related that from his position it seemed as if the Placemakers Hardware Store gained the biggest hit. "That place is looking like a bomb site," he recalled.

Mainline Music’s Ross Sims said the tornado sounded like a jet engine."I thought, 'geez that plane is low' but when I looked outside it was this giant big black cloud," Sims said. Read More

Bizarre lights filmed around Sakurajima volano, and during quake aftershocks near Tokyo -- what's going on?

Please note: There are views expressed in the following videos that The Coming Crisis does not necessarily agree with. The videos are presented due to their strange, interesting content and because they raise some questions as to the phenomenon they captured. If you have any further information regarding these incidents, please get in touch with us.

Plan to Breach Levee in Missouri Advances as a Storm Brews

As a huge storm settled over southeastern Missouri on Sunday, the Army Corps of Engineers began the overnight task of filling an 11,000-foot system of buried pipes with an explosive material to blow a two-mile-long gap in the Birds Point levee here. The breach would inundate about 130,000 acres of farmland to relieve pressure on the overburdened system of levees to the north.

"We've been told to go, but we've got two more cells of lightning that need to move through here before we start to pump," Jim Lloyd, the corps' operations team leader, said as he walked through the wind and rain late Sunday afternoon. "We're going to work through the night to get this loaded."

Mr. Lloyd, who had just left a briefing, emphasized that although Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, who commands the Mississippi Valley Division of the corps, had ordered that the explosives be loaded, he had yet to give the final word to blast the levee.

"He'll still have to make the decision," Mr. Lloyd said, adding that although the explosives were extremely stable and would not be primed, the lightning was "going to complicate our lives something fierce."

Earlier in the day, Missouri officials made a last-ditch effort to spare the levee when the state's attorney general turned to the United States Supreme Court, asking it to overturn a day-old order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that had allowed the corps to proceed with the operation. The state was later denied.

But even as the legal fight played out, General Walsh was directing the two barges stationed at a nearby staging area to prepare to move into the final position from which crews could begin injecting the levees with 265 tons of explosives to blast the earthen structure.

"It will be a heaving of soil -- the levee will be excavated very rapidly," said Nick Boone, a mechanical engineer who leads the corps' blasting team. "On this upper end, it's going to look like a waterfall. It's an instant removal, and that's the whole point -- instant relief of the entire system." (read more)

Brown Recluse Spider: Range Could Expand in N. America With Changing Climate

One of the most feared spiders in North America is the subject a new study that aims to predict its distribution and how that distribution may be affected by climate changes.

When provoked, the spider, commonly known as the brown recluse (Loxosceles reclusa), injects powerful venom that can kill the tissues at the site of the bite. This can lead to a painful deep sore and occasional scarring.

But the wounds are not always easy to diagnose. Medical practitioners can confuse the bite with other serious conditions, including Lyme disease and various cancers. The distribution of the spider is poorly understood as well, and medical professionals routinely diagnose brown recluse bites outside of the areas where it is known to exist. (read more)

Mississippi river levee to be blown up -- Judge rules it OK, despite vast damage it will cause (flood waters will divert over New Madrid fault line)

The decision is in the hands of a federal judge who heard arguments over a plan to intentionally break a Mississippi River levee.

Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. heard arguments from attorneys for Missouri and the Army Corps of Engineers Thursday on a corps proposal to blow a 2-mile-wide hole through the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri. The corps says breaking the levee would ease waters rising around the upstream town of Cairo, Ill., near the confluence of the swollen Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

Missouri says the rush of water would ruin prime farmland, flood about 90 homes and displace 200 people.

Near the beginning of the hearing, Limbaugh said he would expedite the case given the circumstances.

Koster's legal team argued the Corps' action would violate Missouri's Clean Water Act and cause "certain damage" to the state and its people.

A Corps economist testified a levee failure here in Cairo could result in $265 million in damage, although the Corps acknowledged it's still holding.

Judge Stephen Limbaugh took the motion under advisement just after 7 p.m. Thursday, and Koster says the judge has a tough call to make.

"It's a hard set of facts and there are a lot of interests that have to be weighed on both sides of the state line and throughout the federal justice system, said Koster. I think the judge took in the information. I think he's got a very difficult decision that he has to make overnight." (read more)

This post was reader contributed.

Looters hamper rescue efforts in tornado-ravaged Alabama - 1st May 2011

Looters are hampering attempts by ordinary residents to get their lives back on track in the tornado-ravaged city state of Alabama

Police imposed an 8pm curfew in the areas affected and military police began patrolling the streets amid reports of burglaries in homes and stolen cars.

Those residents who chose to stayed behind were forced to mount a 24-hour guard to stop their belongings from being taken from their stricken houses.

The lootings cast a shadow over the otherwise positive response from community in Alabama, which was the worst affected by the tragedy.

Military sources confirmed that looting had been taking place but that it was 'far less frequent than we expected'.

'There are some people who are using this as a chance to take something for themselves,' the source said.

Shirley Long, from Tuscaloosa, where 42 people died, was a victim of the scavengers.

She said: ‘The first night they took my jewellery, my watch, my guns. Read More

Kicked while they're down: Storm ravaged southerners to get another lashing from mother nature - 1st May 2011

Residents in the tornado-ravaged South are to be 'kicked while they are down' by another severe storm that could derail the recovery efforts and claim more lives.

A cold front moving East from Texas will bring thunder, lightning and hail over the next few days to areas flattened by the 200mph twisters.

Up to two inches of rain could fall amid 60mph winds - and the temperature will plunge by up to 60F.

The storm effectively puts a time limit on homeowners trawling through the wreckage of their homes before more bad weather comes and destroys what is left.

But it could also lead to more deaths for those left sleeping in the open air or what is left of their property.

On Sunday the weather front stretched from Texas up to Arkansas and the northern part of Mississippi and was expected to move East over the next two days.

By Monday it would be over Birmingham in Alabama and the surrounding area, which has been the worst affected by the disaster.

Charlie Smits, who lost his home in Tuscaloosa, said: 'This is the last thing we need. We're being kicked while we are down.'

On Monday there ill be a 50 per cent chance of rain but that will jump to 70 per cent on Tuesday.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jessica Talley said that most areas will experience half an inch of rain but up to two inches could fall. Read More

Climate change and corn a bad combo in Africa

Corn was thought to be more resistant to rising temperatures than other crops. But results from crop trials in Africa suggest that climate change could hurt corn (Zea mays) production.

Warmer temperatures and drought could be the one-two punch that knocks out corn harvests, warn David Lobell of Stanford University and researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

"Projections of climate change impacts on food production have been hampered by not knowing exactly how crops fair when it gets hot," Lobell said in a Stanford press release. "This study helps to clear that issue up, at least for one important crop."

A modest one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature could result in a loss of harvest for 65 percent of Africa's corn growing regions. If drought hits as well, all of the African corn belt will suffer some loss with 75 percent of the region losing as much as 20 percent of their harvest.

The warning comes after observations of 20,000 corn trials in Sub-Saharan Africa were compared to weather data collected from the same areas.

Results from the study will be published soon in the inaugural issue of Nature Climate Change.

"Essentially, the longer a maize [corn] crop is exposed to temperatures above 30 Celsius, or 86 Fahrenheit, the more the yield declines," said co-author of the study Marianne Banziger of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in the same press release. (read more)

Acidic ocean robs coral of vital building material

CARBON dioxide has pillaged the Great Barrier Reef of a compound that corals and many sea creatures need to grow. The finding, from the first survey of ocean acidification around one of the world's greatest natural landmarks, supports fears that the ecosystem is on its last legs.

Bizarrely, the reef doesn't appear to be suffering from the effects of ocean acidification just yet. But that may be because it is balanced on a knife-edge between health and decay.

Oceans become acidic when they absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere. Once dissolved, the gas reacts with carbonate to form bicarbonate, stripping seawater of the compound that many marine organisms including coral, shrimp and crabs need to build their shells or skeletons.

Bronte Tilbrook at CSIRO in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, measured the concentration of aragonite - a form of calcium carbonate used by some creatures to build shells - at over 200 locations on the reef.

Corals grow well when the amount of aragonite in the water has a saturation level of 4.5. Below that, coral growth declines. Models suggest that if seawater becomes too low in aragonite, organisms with aragonite shells will dissolve. Studies in the Red Sea have found that some species of coral start to dissolve at a saturation of 2.8.

"Almost every bit of water we sampled was below 3.5," says Tilbrook, who presented his findings at Greenhouse 2011 in Cairns this week. Close to the shore, to the south of the reef, the saturation was 3. (read more)

March 2011 Ice Extent Second Lowest on Record

In the Arctic Ocean and adjacent polar seas, the area covered by sea ice grows and shrinks over the course of the year. Sea ice reaches its largest extent at the end of winter (late February to early March) and its smallest extent in September, at the end of summer.

Average Arctic sea ice extent for the month of March 2011 was the second lowest in the satellite record (behind 2006), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The NSIDC reported that sea ice extent reached its yearly maximum on March 7. Covering an estimated 5.65 million square miles (14.64 million square kilometers), the extent tied for the lowest winter maximum extent in the satellite record.

Arctic sea ice maximum extent has decreased by 2.7 percent per decade since 1979, a much smaller decline than the 11.5 percent per decade drop in the September minimum. The relatively small decline in winter maximum extent, however, does not mean the ice is fully recovering each winter from dramatic summer melting.

Strong summer melting in the past decade has reduced the core of thick ice that manages to survive all year long. Spring ice cover has become increasingly dominated by young and generally thinner ice that formed over the previous months. Most of the thin, first-year ice melts again in the summer. (read more)

Exploring the 'oceans crisis' through an alphabet of profanity -- because it's much needed

Just how .......d are the world's oceans?

I've put the dots in that sentence so you can insert the word of your choice.

According to a high-level seminar of experts in Oxford earlier this week, there's one word starting with the letter S that would fit quite well, a longer option beginning Kn - and a few more that are even stronger in meaning.

The S option, by the way, is not "secured".

Scientists are famous for staying in silos and never peering over the edge at what's going on in the world around them.

What marked this week's event - convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean - as something a bit different was the melange of expertise in the same room.

Fisheries experts traded studies with people studying ocean acidification; climate modellers swapped data with ecologists; legal wonks formulated phrases alongside toxicologists.

They debated, discussed, queried, swapped questions and answers. Pretty much everyone said they'd learned something new - and something a bit scary. (read more)

Reginald Epps, The True Miracle of Alabama: Eight-year-old Boy Sucked into Tornado... but LIVES to tell the Tale - 1st May 2011

He is the boy who got sucked up into a tornado – and lived to tell the tale.

Eight-year-old Reginald Epps Jr was picked up off his feet and pulled into the swirling darkness when one of the Alabama twisters tore through his home.

As his family cowered beneath him he was carried through the air some 30ft before being set down again with just cuts and bruises.

'I had just got some flashlights for me and my wife and we were all in the kitchen when we heard the wind pick up. Then the windows at the back of the house blew out, it was like they popped.

'I shouted at RJ to get up and come with us to the bedroom but when we made it in this roar started.

'I looked up and the walls and the roof came away and RJ few off with them.

'It happened in an instant, he just got sucked away from me. I tried to reach up for him but I couldn't stop him. It was like he was on a bit of string being pulled from behind.

'Then I got down on top of James whilst Danielle got on top of Joel to protect them. I got hit by flying glass and other stuff and we held on and prayed for our lives. Read More

Three years to clean up Japan's devestation

The Environment Ministry said Saturday it expects that it will take three years for the three prefectures in the Tohoku region worst hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami to finish removing the massive amount of debris left by the disaster.

Up to around 24.9 million tons of debris mainly from collapsed structures lie scattered near the coasts of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, according to the ministry. The amount is about 1.7 times the debris seen in the 1996 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

The actual amount of debris is expected to be larger as the assumption does not include rubble from wrecked vessels and vehicles.

The removal process is expected to be delayed due to the lack of temporary disposal sites for rubble, the ministry said.

The Iwate Prefectural Government said it will need some 3 million sq. meters of land to temporarily store a total of 6 million tons of debris scattered around the prefecture, but has been able to secure only 40 percent of the land needed so far.

Fukushima Prefecture is currently piling up debris from the disaster, which is expected to amount to 2.9 million tons, excluding damaged vessels and vehicles, on some 330,000 sq. meters of land at fishing ports and industrial complexes. The Fukushima figures reportedly do not include the radioactive debris, soil and other materials near the crippled nuclear plant that will also have to be disposed of. (read more)

Mississippi flooding as "apocalypse" continues: first tornados, now rising waters -- floods could be the largest in history

The Mississippi River, its tributaries swollen by snowmelt and stormwater, is rising toward a flood level that could equal or exceed anything in its recorded history. The threat to Cairo, Illinois — just below the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers — is so grave that the US Army Corps of Engineers is about to blow up a levee just downstream at Bird’s Point, Missouri, to relieve the flooding in Cairo by deliberately inundating 140,000 acres of farms and towns. The emotional controversy that has arisen over this move obscures a real and rising threat to the economy of the United States.

It seems counterintuitive to blow a levee in the face of a flood, and it is capable of inciting riot to propose to flood farmland to save city blocks, the farm being in one state, the city in another. Tempers are rising. Missouri politicians are demanding that the Corps abandon its plan, and have filed suit in a Federal court to force it to do so. Illinois politicians insist that if the Corps does not act, Cairo will look like New Orleans after Katrina. Yet it has always been the plan of the Corps, which bears responsibility for “managing” and “taming” the mightiest American river, to use Bird’s Point as a floodway in an emergency. The plan is sanctioned by the 1928 Flood Control Act.

But the real threat posed by this historic, gathering flood may well lie several hundred miles to the south, where the Mississippi crosses the Louisiana border. There, as the Corps well knows but dare not discuss, this historic flood threatens to overwhelm one of the frailest defenses industrial humanity has offered to preserve its profits from the immutable processes of nature. This flood has the potential to be a mortal blow to the economy of the United States, and outside the Corp of Engineers virtually no one knows why. (read more)

No mercy: Amazing new video shows cars and planes washed away by Japan tsunami - 30th Apr 2011

Astonishing new footage has been released of Japan’s tsunami showing no mercy as it washes away cars, aeroplanes and anything else in its path.

The coastguard released the video of the devastating March 11 disaster hitting the Sendai airport, in which a rapid river can be seen carrying away debris and vehicles.

Cars, minibuses, light aircraft, vans and helicopters are all taken away following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that prompted a huge 10 metre wave.

More than 14,000 people are known to have died in the horrendous natural disaster last month and a further 12,000 are missing presumed dead.

Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War Two and said earlier this week that it will send 25,000 soldiers into the tsunami disaster zone to recover victims’ bodies. Read More

Arctic coastlines recede by 'several metres' a year

Arctic coastlines are crumbling away and retreating at the rate of two metres or more a year due to the effects of climate change. In some locations, up to 30 metres of the shore has been vanishing every year.

The rapid rate of coastal erosion poses a major threat to local communities and ecosystems, according to a new report by more than 30 scientists from 10 countries. Rising temperatures are melting protective sea ice fringing the coastlines, leaving them more exposed to the elements, the experts say.

The report, State of the Arctic Coast 2010, says 10-year average rates of coastal retreat are "typically in the one to two metres per year range, but vary up to 10 to 30 metres per year in some locations". Worst-hit areas include the Beaufort Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea. (read more)

Photo gallery of Tornado devestation in Southern US -- worst storms in 86 years

As emergency responders continued to tally the dead on Saturday, surviving family members and friends prepared to bury loved ones who perished in what has become the second deadliest single-day tornado outbreak in U.S. history.

Among the victims for whom memorial services are planned in the coming days are three students of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The area has emerged as the focal point for the Wednesday disaster that swept through six southern states and has killed 342 people so far.

According to the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, at least 45 people people died during the storms in Tuscaloosa County, more than in any of the other five southern states that recorded deaths from Wednesday's violent weather.

By early Saturday morning, emergency management officials tallied 254 deaths in Alabama, 34 in Tennessee, 33 in Mississippi, 15 in Georgia, 5 in Virginia and 1 in Arkansas.

Hundreds are unaccounted for in Tuscaloosa alone, though not all have been officially reported missing.

"We're hopeful and prayerful that a large majority of that is just duplicates within our dispatch system," Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox said. "However, we are putting cadaver dog teams through the city in a frantic search to find everyone that is accounted for." (read more)