[Gerofil]

Assim estão hoje as temperaturas no Canadá:

[IMG][/IMG]

[Mário Barros]

Tá fresquinho hein ?? O Canadá tem tido cá uma dose de frio e neve nos ultimos tempos que é obra.

[Gerofil]

Graves inundações no noroeste dos Estados Unidos, milhares de pessoas foram evacuadas

Graves inundações atingiram quarta-feira o Estado de Washington, noroeste dos Estados Unidos, onde vários milhares de pessoas foram chamados a abandonar as suas casas devido à rápida subida das águas, segundo as autoridades e os meios de comunicação social locais. Entre quarta-feira e hoje, as cadeias das Cascatas e os Montes Olímpicos devem receber entre 20 a 30 centímetros de chuva, susceptíveis de fazer derreter uma parte da espessa camada de neve que caiu desde Dezembro na região, segundo o gabinete da governadora Chris Gregoire.
"Inundações de grande amplitude estão prestes a acontecer em oito a dez rios no oeste do Estado de Washington, com níveis recorde previstos para o rio Puyallup, perto de Orting, e para o Newaukum, perto de Chehalis", revelou a mesma fonte. Orting (6.000 habitantes) e Chehalis (7.000) situam-se, respectivamente, 60 quilómetros a Sul e 130 quilómetros a sudoeste da grande cidade do Estado, Seattle.
Milhares de pessoas na região de Orting, até 26.000 segundo a cadeia de televisão local KOMO, receberam ordem para abandonar as suas casas antes de serem atingidos pela subida das águas. As autoridades esperam que os níveis de cheia sejam excedidos largamente na madrugada de quarta-feira para hoje. Onze condados do Estado foram englobados quarta-feira à noite num alerta às inundações lançado pelo serviço meteorológico nacional (NWS).
A KOMO mostrou imagens recolhidas de helicóptero na região do condado de Snohomish, a norte Seattle, onde casas, algumas ainda habitadas, e automóveis emergiam no meio de extensões de água enlameada. Dezenas de estradas inundadas estão intransitáveis. As autoridades fecharam quarta-feira à noite, pouco antes das 18:00 (02:00 de hoje em Lisboa), o principal eixo norte-sul da região, a auto-estrada 5, que liga Seattle a Oregon, indicou o departamento dos Transportes do Estado. A linha de comboio Amtrak, entre Seattle e Portland (Oregon), também foi fechada, segundo o Seattle Times. Todo o noroeste do Estado ficou assim isolado do resto dos Estados Unidos, porque os eixos Oeste-Este foram encerrados na cadeia das Cascatas devido a riscos de avalancha.
Desde o início Dezembro, o Estado de Washington recebeu quantidades impressionantes de neve, que chegou a atingir os dois metros em Spokane, uma cidade de 200.000 habitantes situada 450 quilómetros a leste de Seattle, e a 700 metros de altitude. Nesta região, a governadora anunciou ter mobilizado 200 membros da Guarda nacional para ajudar a retirar a neve dos tectos, a fim de evitar os riscos de desmoronamento das construções.

© 2009 LUSA

[Gerofil]

Inundações isolam a região de Seattle do resto dos Estados Unidos

A região Seattle (noroeste) ficou quinta-feira isolada do resto dos Estados Unidos devido às graves inundações que forçaram cerca de 30.000 pessoas a abandonar as suas casas, segundo as autoridades locais. Devido às chuvas torrenciais e ao degelo, a rápida subida das águas cortou todas as vias de comunicação terrestres entre o noroeste do Estado de Washington, onde vivem cerca de três milhões de pessoas, e o Sul, para o Estado vizinho Oregon. Nenhuma vítima foi assinalada.
A auto-estrada 5, principal eixo norte-sul habitualmente percorrido por 10.000 camiões por dia, está cortada, bem como a linha de caminho de ferro entre Seattle e Portland, Oregon. As três únicas estradas que ligam Seattle ao leste do Estado também foram fechadas, desta vez devido a fortes riscos de avalancha sobre a cadeia das Cascatas. A única maneira de deixar Seattle quinta-feira era por via aérea.
A circulação de mercadorias ficou "totalmente paralisada", explicou a secretária aos Transportes do Estado, Paula Hammond. Escassez em pão e ovos foram assinaladas em Spokane, 450 quilómetros a leste Seattle. Todos os rios da região do Puget Sound, o estreito golfo que liga Seattle ao oceano Pacífico, excederam a sua quota de cheia, deixando alguns bairros debaixo de água. Na região de Orting, 60 quilómetros a Sul de Seattle, mais de 30.000 pessoas tiveram de abandonar as suas casas sendo acolhidas em refúgios, montados pela Cruz Vermelha, segundo um cálculo baseado em números dos serviços de urgência locais.
Entre quarta e quinta-feira, o Estado recebeu entre 20 a 30 centímetros de chuva, o que fez derreter parte da espessa camada de neve, até dois metros, que caiu desde Dezembro na região, de acordo com o serviço meteorológico nacional (NWS). Só na cidade costeira de South Bend caíram 37 centímetros de chuva apenas na quarta-feira. "Trata-se de um dos episódios de inundações mais memorável", afirmou um meteorologista do NWS, Doug McDonnal.
O Estado de Washington é conhecido pela a humidade do seu clima, mas "o número de inundações que tivemos estes últimos anos é incrível", acrescentou.
© 2009 LUSA

[AnDré]

Muito se tem falado de frio... Ora vamos lá aquecer um pouco as coisas.

Mas quais anomalias de -10ºC ou +10ºC, qual quê?! O que está a dar são anomalias de +20 a +30ºC

O norte do Canadá, viveu na última semana verdadeiros dias de primavera, com temperaturas positivas, quando o normal seriam estar uns -30ºC.

O calor havia de ir para algum sitio.

[Dan]

Uma violenta tempestade de gelo afectou o estado de Kentucky

Deadly ice storm leaves 1.3 million powerless



usatoday

Kentucky Facing Record Power Outage in Ice Storm Aftermath



foxnews

[MSantos]

Estas tempestades de gelo têm efeitos devastadores

[João Soares]

Tempestades de gelo, são um fenomeno incrivel, mas aterrador no que toca a destruição devido ao peso do gelo

[StormFairy]

Algumas fotos da Neve na Quinta onde mora uma das minhas irmãs em New Jersey USA

1ª Grande lição : NUNCA sair com gelo na estrada sem no minimo por as correntes...


Lá veio a ajuda


E algo que é é indispensável ao meu cunhado, de outra forma não saía de casa de manhã.




Panorâmica da frente da Quinta

[Chasing Thunder]

Tornado kills 8 people in Oklahoma

DALLAS (Reuters) – A tornado killed eight people when it struck a small town in Oklahoma and up to 30 people were missing, local officials said on Wednesday.

The tornado, one of three to hit the state on Tuesday night, cut a half-mile (0.8-km) swath through Lone Grove, halfway between Oklahoma City and Dallas, Texas, said Michelann Ooten of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

"Eight fatalities have been confirmed ... and 14 injured," Ooten told Reuters.

Local media said the death toll could climb as high as 15.

Ken Grace, the sheriff for Carter County which includes Lone Grove, said rescuers were searching the rubble.

"There may be up to 30 people missing," he told Reuters by telephone.

[Luis França]

Storm Chaser Believes Global Warming Responsible for Early Activity in Tornado Alley

ARLINGTON, TX - 22-year veteran storm chaser Martin Lisius tracked the supercell thunderstorm that produced tornadoes in the Texas-Oklahoma Red River area yesterday. He believes that global warming is causing earlier severe weather activity on the US Southern Plains.

"Over the past several years, I've seen an earlier arrival of spring, particularly in North Texas and Oklahoma," Lisius said. "March used to be what we considered the start of tornado season here, but February is looking more like March did. I'm even planting my tomatoes a little earlier each year."

Lisius believes global warming is responsible for warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico, the fuel that drives severe weather in Tornado Alley each spring. He says yesterday's outbreak of violent weather was caused by an intense upper level system that clashed with Gulf air that was warmer and moister than usual for February.

[Minho]

Gravity wave" powered late-season snowstorm

"Gravity wave" powered late-season snowstorm

By Anthony R. Wood

Inquirer Staff Writer

Near the height of the most disruptive storm of the winter, one that became a daylong nuisance throughout the region, high drama was playing out in the skies above South Jersey.

Just before midnight Sunday, meteorologists said, a band of rapidly rising air - part of what is known as a "gravity wave" - developed in the upper atmosphere from eastern Virginia into eastern New Jersey. And this was a particularly potent one.

For the next few hours, it generated heavy snow in South Jersey, with 10.5 inches in Hammonton by daybreak, and powerful wind gusts of 60 m.p.h. in Atlantic City and 59 m.p.h. in Cape May. By early morning, 20,000 customers would be without power. In all, New Jersey state police would report 500 accidents, and Gov. Corzine would say the storm could cost the state up to $7 million.

Meanwhile, the wave temporarily would shut off snow to areas to the west, said Louis W. Uccellini, director of the National Center for Environmental Prediction, considered by government and private meteorologists as one of the nation's foremost experts on winter storms.

We now know that the snow did come back as the storm entered a second phase at daybreak. It featured occasionally heavy snow throughout the morning just about everywhere, and a stinging north wind that blew the white powder back over roads, cut visibility, and sculpted modest drifts. All the while, temperatures hovered in the road-salt-resistant 20s. The snow even set a modest record in Philadelphia.

It won't get past the mid-20s today, but the ever-strengthening March sun should melt some of the snow and restore black to the roads. With a hard overnight freeze expected, many schools planned to open late this morning, but that could be viewed as progress.

Once again yesterday, all Philadelphia schools were closed, as were hundreds of others. The city gave up on trash collection, and said to expect a one-day delay in trash and recycling pickups the remainder of the week.

With the storm affecting an area from southern Virginia to southeastern Canada, "a few hundred" flights in and out of Philadelphia International Airport were canceled, spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendal said.

SEPTA reported daylong 15-minute delays on Regional Rail, and Amtrak had to cancel or cut back on a dozen Northeast Corridor trains, spokeswoman Karina Romero said.

Its biggest problem was on a train from Boston to Newport News, Va., she said. The train got stuck behind a derailed freight train just south of Richmond. The weather got so bad that the train couldn't back up and go to snowy Richmond. The 140 passengers ended up arriving 16 1/2 hours late in Newport News. No one was injured, or happy.

Though the snow stopped for a few hours during the early morning in most areas here, giving the plows a chance to make progress, motorists had more than their share of adventures. The snow's revival came just in time for the morning commute, and persisted even through a noontime sun.

Shortly after 11 a.m., a tractor-trailer jackknifed on the Schuylkill Expressway near Gladwyne, forcing the closing of westbound lanes for more than an hour. Another jackknife incident closed two southbound lanes of I-295 in Burlington County around 10 a.m., and a disabled truck blocked the Vineland, N.J., exit of Route 55 for a while.

The storm might have failed to rise to the direst predictions, but the snow totals were impressive - generally, 6 to 8 inches in the Pennsylvania suburbs, more in South Jersey - and of some statistical note.

Officially, the 8.3 inches measured Sunday night and yesterday at Philadelphia International was the second-highest of the season, bested only by the 8.4 of Feb. 3 and 4. The 5.6 inches measured yesterday broke the March 2 daily record, 5 inches, set in 1914.

And while this won't be remembered as a particularly ferocious winter, it is the first in more than 30 years to have two snowfalls of 8-plus inches.

All that said, Radnor's Laurie Katz, 52, was not impressed. "I grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire," said Katz as she worked an elliptical trainer at Club la Maison in Wayne. "This was nothing to me."

The effects of the storm might have been worse in the western suburbs if not for the gravity wave over New Jersey that held down nighttime accumulations, Uccellini said.

He said the atmosphere in a storm behaves not unlike a stormy ocean, with rising and falling waves. Snow forms when warm air rises over cold air, and when air is rapidly rising, it snows heavily. Meanwhile, the area to the west of the wave crest has to sink, aided by the pull of gravity, and that has a drying effect.

Gravity waves are a relatively recent discovery, Uccellini said, and not easy to forecast - or find. "Those waves are superimposed on the larger-scale feature, and they are very hard to track," he said.

Once this particular wave became established, snowfall diminished to the west. For example, while snow was hammering the eastern shore of Maryland and South Jersey, Washington, D.C., actually canceled its snow emergency. As Philadelphia did, however, Washington ended up getting more snow during the day yesterday.

Without the waves, the accumulation amounts likely would have been spread more evenly.

As it turned out, the strongest winds and widespread power outages were confined to areas near the Shore, along with the highest snow totals, up to 13 inches.

By contrast, Peco Energy reported only scattered outages in the suburbs. The most significant one occurred in Chester, where power was knocked out at the municipal building for 21/2 hours starting at 6:30 a.m.

No more significant snows or high winds are in the forecast.

But with the weather turning progressively warmer through the weeks, the outlook calls for outbreaks of wet pants legs - and very dirty vehicles.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local...snowstorm.html




March's Fierce Snowstorm Winds Down

For most residents along the eastern seaboard who battled a fierce storm today with record snowfall, gusting winds, deadly roads and widespread power outages, the worst is over, according to forecasters.

The massive snowstorm that barreled across the northeast and southern states will give way to gusting winds and cold temperatures overnight, according to AccuWeather.com. Heavy snowfall will continue to plague Maine and parts of New England into Tuesday.

"This is like a classic winter storm," National Weather Service meteorologist Ross Dickman said from his post on New York's Long Island. "We haven't had a significant storm like this in a little bit of time."

Airline passengers are still stranded after hundreds of flights across the country were cancelled because of the heavy snowfall. In Newark, N.J., 209 flights were cancelled, along with more than 120 in Boston and more than 400 at New York City's two airports.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Weather/sto...6993410&page=1

[Vince]

Uma localidade teve que ser evacuada devido a um fenómeno curioso. Ventos fortes arrastaram gelo do Lago Huron (Grandes Lagos) para dentro das localidades danificando as habitações.

YouTube

Strong winds push ice into beachfront homes along Saginaw Bay
by Tom Gilchrist and Pati LaLonde | The Bay City Times
Monday March 09, 2009, 9:24 AM

Tim Boutell said he and his wife heard the screech of "metal on metal," and then screamed themselves Sunday night as walls of ice pushed toward their Kawkawlin Township home along Saginaw Bay.

"About 9 p.m. my wife, Beth, heard some noise and I kind of disregarded it until she went downstairs to peek outside, and she obviously screamed. And then I looked out and saw the ice piled up and moving toward the house," said Tim Boutell, 50, owner of one of about 36 Bay County homes evacuated due to invading ice.

Boutell said he told his daughters, who were watching TV, to get up, get a bag and get out.

"Then (we) went down knocking on the doors of a few older folks who lived out here," Tim Boutell said. "We got them out, and then got out."

Residents evacuated about 36 homes near the shore of Saginaw Bay on Sunday night as wind-driven ice floes crushed into houses, according to police.

Ice had entered as far as 12 feet inside some of the homes, according to troopers at the Michigan State Police post at Bay City. Troopers didn't report any injuries.

Dispatchers sent police to the scene in Kawkawlin Township along Linwood Beach Road, near Boutell Road, at 10:30 p.m. after residents along Linwood, Killarney and Brissette beaches began calling.

As residents began evacuated their homes, state police troopers were assisted by the Kawkawlin Township Fire Department and workers from Consumers Energy, who turned off gas to some houses. Residents were advised to shut off the main power to their homes.

Strong, persistent northeast winds on Sunday caused the ice damage. National Weather Service meteorologists said winds came from the northeast - from 15 to 32 mph - for 11 consecutive hours, from 1 p.m. Sunday to midnight.

The ice was moving about 20 feet every half hour and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

One Linwood Beach home that was evacuated last night had piles of ice sitting in the living room as the sun came up this morning. The ice busted through a front window, spilling chunks of ice inside the home.

But the ice seemed to pick and choose where it attacked.

At one spot, a boat hoist is a crumbled mass of metal. Next door, another hoist is virtually unscathed.

With mountains of ice in their front yards, John Grendel and Dave Wagner consider themselves lucky.

Wagner, a Michigan State Police trooper, said it was amazing how fast the mountain of ice came to shore. Both he and Grendel had kept an eye on the ice all day Sunday as the wind came from the east.

"(The ice) came up a little during the day," said Grendel.

But around 8:30 p.m., he walked outside and saw ice piling up on the shore. He sent his wife, Hope, and three children into town. He began alerting neighbors.

"It looked like glaciers coming in," he said.

And although their homes are safe now, both men say the even makes you realize what's important.

"In this day and age, there is nothing material that's important," Grendel said. "It's all about family."

[Gerofil]

Inundações nos EUA obrigam populações a abandonar casas

Vídeo

Está declarado o estado de emergência no Dacota do Norte e em parte do Minnesota. Os dois Estados americanos são atingidos por fortes inundações que em alguma zonas levarão as águas a subir maisde 12 metros.
As autoridades mobilizaram 1.700 homens da guarda nacional para verificar diques e barragens e prestar ajuda às populações. Muitas pessoas tiveram que deixar as suas casas. Outras preparam-se para fazer o mesmo. “Pusémos lá em cima tudo o que gostamos, fotografias, quadros, coisas que não podemos substituir. Não arranjámos uma carrinha de mudanças, mas o resto das coisas não tem importância, é mobília que podemos substituir. Portanto, se for preciso, sim, estamos prontos a partir”, disse Janeen Kobrinsky, residente na cidade de Fargo. Em muitas localidades, centenas de voluntários juntaram-se às equipas da cruz vermelha para ajudarem a erguer barreiras de sacos de areia.
Os meteorologistas dizem que as baixas temperaturas deverão evitar que a neve das montanhas comece a derreter e agrave a situação. No entanto, as águas não deverão começar a recuar antes de quarta-feira.

Euronews

[Gerofil]

Neve atinge Dakota do Norte, afetada por enchentes

Depois de ser tomada pelas águas do Rio Vermelho, a cidade americana de Fargo é atingida por uma tempestade de neve. A nevasca começou quando o gelo do inverno começava a derreter.
A neve piora a situação na cidade do estado da Dakota do Norte. A região já passa pela pior inundação em 112 anos. De acordo com engenheiros, a nevasca pode gerar ondas que vão enfraquecer as barreiras de sacos de areia, usadas para proteger Fargo. A cidade de Moorhead, na margem oposta do Rio Vermelho, no estado de Minnesota, também está ameaçada. Os diques do Rio Vermelho têm 77 km de extensão e correm o risco de se romperem, o que poderia deixar desabrigadas cerca de 100 mil pessoas. A cheia do rio foi causada pelo degelo das águas na semana passada, com a chegada da primavera no hemisfério norte.

Band.com.br