Bizarre season of heat, hail and floods

Scotland Glasgow Fair a washout, rain, cloud, cold.
Southern England Hosepipe ban, waders threatened by drought.
France, Spain, Portugal Drought, tinder-box conditions, big forest fires.
Switzerland, eastern France Hailstones the size of walnuts.
Romania Deadly floods.
Italy Bathers flee toxic algae.
Mexico Hurricane Emily.
Taiwan/China Typhoon Haitang.
Niger Drought threatens thousands with starvation.
Bangladesh Record floods.

 

Extreme weather in Europe

FRANCE   51 of 96 regions have water limits.   WEST: water levels are at lowest since the drought of 1976, SOUTH: swarms of locusts       President Chirac has asked farmers abide by restrictions.

SPAIN   worst drought since records began in the 1940s.    Reduced water reservoirs by 80%    Rivers at a third of normal volume. Centre and south believed to have lost half the cereal crop.

PORTUGAL     Taps could soon run dry in the tourist-packed Algarve. Two-thirds of the country is in the grip of a record drought.    Farmland is turning arid, damaging crops and cattle.     Losses are estimated at €1bn.

  

Guide to Mediterranean heatwave

Algeria :   temperatures climb to 50C - Drought is putting crop production by some 2.5 million farmers at risk.

Italy:   The temperature has topped 35C     The country's crops, especially cereals, are at risk drought

 

Drought tightens its deadly grip in Europe

The European Commission said last week cereals production in the bloc was likely to fall 10 percent, or 28 million tonnes, this year due to the dry conditions in many countries.    In Algeria, some 2.5 million farmers are at risk and in Morroco crops have slumped by 57 percent to 3.6 million tonnes.

 

Plague of locusts invades France, devouring crops

"There is nothing we can do for the 700 or 800 farmers affected.   France is now fighting a plague of hundreds of thousands of locusts which are devouring everything from crops to flowers in village window boxes.  The worst invasion by the voracious insects is centered on Saint-Affrique in the Aveyron region where, for the first time since 1987, hundreds of thousands have hatched in the last week.   The locust infestation has come amid the serious drought, although ministers insisted yesterday that it was not as bad as during the heatwave in August 2003 when 15,000 people died.      the drought problem in France is not yet as critical as in Spain, Portugal and Italy,

 

Britain faces drought alert

South-east England is at the fringe of the drought that is affecting parts of western Europe.    The water supply has become after the driest winter and spring in nearly 30 years.   In the eight months from November until June, the counties of Surrey and Sussex had only 58 per cent of their average rainfall for the period; it was their driest winter and spring since 1975-76, and the third driest in nearly 100 years.    once-common wading birds that need wet ground have had a catastrophic breeding season in the South-east.      

 

Scorching Heat Around Europe Causes Deaths And Droughts

parts of western Switzerland were swept Monday afternoon by fierce wind and hailstorms. In Geneva, trees were uprooted and broad stretches of vineyards on the shore of Lake Geneva were destroyed.

 

Famine in Niger - another crisis that could have been prevented

3.5M  face starvation.   Even in a 'normal' year, around one million people require food aid. This year, however, that figure has more than trebled, because of a continuing lack of water. Two harvests have already failed, and anything which did manage to grow has been devoured by locusts.

 

Niger children starving to death

Children are dying of starvation in feeding centres in Niger, where 3.6m people face severe food shortages, aid agencies have warned. Aid agency World Vision warns that 10% of the children in the worst affected areas could die.

 

Climate Only Partly To Blame For Africa Food Woes

From Niger to Zimbabwe, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, crop failure leaves millions hungry. In Southern Africa, the World Food Programme says 10 million will need aid after rains failed.    GENERALLY,  food production is dominated by small-scale subsistence farmers, using rudimentary techniques are vulnerable to climate shocks such as sudden rain failure.

 

Crazy weather strikes across Canada

There has been record flooding and tornado activity in Alberta, violent and destructive thunder-and-lightning storms in Winnipeg, and much of Ontario and parts of Quebec are choked in the swelter of a suffocating heat wave that has produced all-time high temperatures, blackouts and death.

- Windsor: above 30C for 16 days in June, former record of 15 days in 1949.

- Toronto coroner's office has confirmed four heat-related deaths this summer.

- Ontario broke the power consumption record last week - 26,170 megawatts

- Quebec 400,000 people were without electricity on Sunday.

- Alberta has received 150% of its normal seasonal precipitation

- Winnipeg had two thunderstorms Sunday with 100 mm rain, winds that leveled hundreds of trees

 

Winnipeg suffers damage after intense storm

in parts of Manitoba's capital city almost 90 millimetres of rain fell within 40 minutes. Wind speeds hit more than 110 kilometres per hour.       City power outages were "very, very widespread. Most areas in the city have been affected.  There are some areas that have hydro poles that are either sheared off the top, or just brought down at the base of the pole."   This is the province's wettest summer in decades, and has destroyed about 20 per cent of cropland, leaving it too wet to farm.

 

Fires rage in Quebec after hot, dry spell

Quebec is experiencing its worst forest-fire season since 1932, perhaps the third worst year since we began keeping records in 1922.  Fires have burned close to 4,000 square kilometres.