Financial Post (January 13)
“The peculiar clemency of Europe’s winter weather this year is proving a game changer for the region’s prevailing economic and investment trends. A halving in natural gas prices over the past month alone reflects one of the mildest winters on record in the region and takes significant sting out of the Russian gas shock that followed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year.”
Tags: Clemency, Economic, Europe, Game changer, Halving, Invasion, Investment, Mildest, Natural gas, Prices, Russia, Weather, Winter, Winters
Bloomberg (October 6)
“Even after $100 billion, self-driving cars are going nowhere. They were supposed to be the future,” but “the losses get bigger.” Several decades in, there remain few actual self-driving vehicles, mostly “confined to a handful of places in the Sun Belt, because they still can’t handle weather patterns trickier than Partly Cloudy. State-of-the-art robot cars also struggle with construction, animals, traffic cones, crossing guards, and … left turns.”
Tags: $100 billion, Animals, Construction, Crossing guards, Going nowhere, Left turns, Losses, Self-driving cars, Sun Belt, Traffic cones, Weather
NBC News (September 3)
“The weather records for the New York City metropolitan area fell almost as quickly as the rain Wednesday night. The National Weather Service issued its first flash flood emergency ever for the city, and in Central Park, 3.2 inches of rain fell in an hour, setting a record. Newark, New Jersey, matched it, getting 3.2 inches of rain in an hour. Wednesday was the wettest day on record in Newark, with total rainfall of 8.4 inches…. Both cities experienced 1-in-500-year rainfall events. The result was one of the deadliest and most destructive flash flood events to hit the tri-state area, with at least 41 people dead by Thursday evening.”
Tags: 1-in-500-year, Central Park, Deadliest, Destructive, Emergency, Flash flood, New Jersey, Newark, NYC, Rain, Rainfall, Records, Weather
Moscow Times (August 9)
“Smoke from wildfires burning across Russia’s largest and coldest region has reached the North Pole for what is believed to be the first time in known history.” The forest fires have been “fueled by hot weather and a 150-year record drought” and “already emitted a record 505 megatons of carbon dioxide.”
Tags: Burning, CO2, Drought, First time, Forest fires, Fueled, History, Hot, North Pole, Record, Russia, Smoke, Weather, Wildfires
US News and World Report (July 17)
“Just as the European Union was announcing plans to spend billions of euros to contain climate change, massive clouds gathered over Germany and nearby nations to unleash an unprecedented storm that left death and destruction in its wake.” Both politicians and weather forecasters were left “shocked at the ferocity of the precipitation that caused flash flooding that claimed more than 150 lives.”
Tags: Climate change, Death, Destruction, EU, Euros, Ferocity, Forecasters, Germany, Politicians, Precipitation, Shocked, Storm, Unprecedented, Weather
CBC News (June 27)
A heat wave in British Columbia “is shattering temperature records and meteorologists expect the weather to get even hotter over the next couple of days. Lytton, B.C., broke the record Sunday afternoon for the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada with a measurement of 46.6 C, according to Environment Canada.”
Tags: British Columbia, Canada, Heat wave, Hotter, Lytton, Meteorologists, Shattering, Temperature records, Weather
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (February 16)
“Once again, Texans are suffering because of a failure of disaster planning and investment to prepare for the worst. First, it was the pandemic…. This time, it’s an unprecedented — but, importantly, not unpredictable — stretch of cold weather and storms blanketing the entire state.” The resulting power outages could have been prevented. “There must be accountability. People must be fired. Companies must be fined and required to do better. Winterization of power plants must be a priority.”
Tags: Accountability, Cold, Disaster planning, Failure, Fined, Fired, Investment, Pandemic, Power outages, Prepare, Storms, Suffering, Texans, Unprecedented, Weather, Winterization
San Francisco Chronicle (September 14)
“Recent research shows that warmer weather and less precipitation has more than doubled the frequency of autumn days with extreme fire danger in California. The situation is expected to worsen.” Tackling climate change would help as would better forest management, but climate change complicates thinning the forests. “The state’s fire season has grown by an estimated 75 days in recent decades,” narrowing the window then “crews can safely light fires to manage forest health.”
Tags: California, Climate change, Fire danger, Forest health, Forests, Precipitation, Research, Thinning, Weather, Worsen
The Economist (October 20)
“Some 4,500 satellites circle Earth, providing communications services and navigational tools, monitoring weather, observing the universe, spying and doing more besides. Getting them there was once the business of the superpowers’ armed forces and space agencies. Now it is mostly done by companies and the governments of developing countries.”
Tags: Communications, Companies, Developing countries, Earth, Governments, Navigational tools, Satellites, Space agencies, Spying, Superpowers, Weather
BBC (September 29)
All of South Australia blacked out when a vicious storm struck, toppling approximately 20 transmission towers and leveling nearly 80,000 lightning strikes, some of these damaged power plants and facilities. The unprecedented weather “has very quickly turned into an Australian political storm, with the state’s dependency on renewable energy now being debated with the full force and bluster of a tornado.”
Tags: Black out, Damage, Dependency, Lightning, Political storm, Power plants, Renewable energy, South Australia, Storm, Transmission towers, Weather