El Nino forms in Pacific Ocean

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- El Nino, an extreme warming of equatorial waters in the Pacific Ocean that wreaks havoc with world weather conditions, has formed and will last into 2007, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.

El Nino has already helped make the Atlantic hurricane season milder than expected, said a NOAA forecaster.

"The weak El Nino is helping to explain why the hurricane season is less than we expected. El Ninos tend to suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic," said Gerry Bell, a hurricane forecaster for NOAA.

The NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said the El Nino probably will spur warmer-than-average temperatures this winter over western and central Canada and the western and northern United States.

It said El Nino also will cause wetter-than-average conditions in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Florida, and spark dry conditions in the Ohio valley, the Pacific Northwest and most U.S. islands in the tropical Pacific.

In Asia and South America, the last severe El Nino killed hundreds of people and caused billions of dollars in damage as crops shriveled across the Asia-Pacific basin. This El Nino has caused drier-than-average conditions across Indonesia, Malaysia and most of the Philippines.

El Nino, which means "little boy" in Spanish, hits once every three years or so. Anchovy fishermen in South America noticed the phenomenon in the 19th century and named it for the Christ child since it appeared around Christmas, and it normally peaks late in the year.

This was hottest summer since 1936, report says

The USA sweated this year through its hottest summer in 70 years, with temperatures not seen since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, according to a government report.
From June 1 to Aug. 31, as summer is defined by the National Climatic Data Center, the continental USA had an average temperature of 74.5 degrees, based on readings from hundreds of weather stations nationwide. It was the second-hottest summer temperature the government has recorded since it started keeping track in 1895. The only one warmer — by about two-tenths of a degree — was in 1936.

Nevada had its hottest recorded summer, the report said. Nationwide, the first eight months of 2006 were the warmest January-to-August period on record.

That's likely the result of long-term warming trends and unusual weather patterns that trapped hot air over much of the country this summer, said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the data center's Climate Monitoring Branch. "It's not unprecedented, but the trend is definitely toward warmer weather," he said Wednesday.

In July, a widespread heat wave caused more than 200 deaths nationwide, including more than 160 in California. The state is now reviewing those deaths to prevent fatalities in future heat waves, spokeswoman Norma Arceosaid. The hot weather also intensified a drought in many parts of the Plains and drove record electricity usage.

One reason, Lawrimore said, is that temperatures stayed warmer than usual at night in many parts of the country. "It's the 100-degree afternoons that people notice, but more of the country was affected by the high minimum temperatures," he said.

That warm weather could continue this winter in the northern and western USA because El Niño has returned, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in an advisory Wednesday. El Niño, the Pacific Ocean warming pattern that alters weather systems worldwide, will also make the Gulf Coast and Florida wetter than normal this winter and the Ohio Valley and the Pacific Northwest drier.

The weak El Niño also helps explain why this year's Atlantic hurricane season has been less severe than expected, said Gerry Bell, the agency's lead hurricane forecaster. "But El Niño's only one factor. People shouldn't let their guard down, because we're still going to see hurricanes."

Helene forms; Gordon becomes Category 3

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Helene was moving quickly in the open Atlantic on Thursday, while Hurricane Gordon gained strength but posed no threat, forecasters said.

Hurricane Florence, meanwhile, brought high winds and heavy rain to Newfoundland in Canada.

Helene had top sustained winds near 40 mph, just above the 39-mph threshold for a tropical storm. The eighth-named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed late Wednesday night.

At 5 a.m. EDT, it was located 695 miles west of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and moving west over warm Atlantic waters at 22 mph, forecasters said. A gradual turn toward the west-northwest was expected over the next 24 hours.

Gordon was upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane late Wednesday when its top sustained winds jumped to 120 mph, up from 110 mph earlier in the day, forecasters said.

I have been wondering what my boy Ioke got upto back when he met Wake Island...

Ioke damaged 70% of buildings on Wake Island

HONOLULU - The Central Pacific's biggest storm in a decade damaged 70 percent of the buildings on Wake Island when it slammed ashore last month, the U.S. Air Force said Wednesday.

Typhoon Ioke left the U.S. military research and refueling outpost without running water, and damaged power lines and a power grid. The buildings are being powered by generators, said Maj. Clare Reed, a spokeswoman for the 15th Airlift Wing.

The runway made it through intact, but it is missing its lights, the Air Force said.

On Monday, an Air Force response team that set sail by Navy ship from Guam reached the island and cleared the runway for planes to land, enabling a C-17 to fly to the island from Hawaii with 60 airmen and military contractors who have started assessing what repairs the facilities will need, Reed said.

The Category 5 storm passed almost directly over the 2.5-square mile atoll on Aug. 31 with sustained winds of up to 155 miles per hour and gusts of up to 190 mph. All 188 residents, mostly military contractors and Air Force personnel, were evacuated.

Ioke was the first Category 5 storm to develop in the central Pacific since record keeping began in the early 1960s. It was also the most powerful storm to pass through the region since hurricanes Emilia and Gilma, which both hit in July 1994. Wake Island lies some 2,300 miles west of Honolulu and 1,500 miles east of Guam.

Researchers looking into dying aspens

LOGAN, Utah - Aspen trees have been dying off, leaving dwindling numbers of the white-barked fixture of the Western mountain landscape. Nobody is quite sure why.

Montana wildfire doubles in size

LIVINGSTON, Mont. - A wildfire in an area peppered with property owned by celebrities nearly doubled in size Wednesday, prompting evacuation orders for about 325 homes.

The fire was estimated at 18,845 acres, or about 29 square miles, information officer Al Nash said. It had been reported at 9,360 acres, or about 15 square miles, the night before.

“It’s not a surprise that the fire has become much more active as the day heated up and the winds picked up,” Nash said.

45-year high
As of Wednesday, blazes in 2006 had torched 8.69 million acres, or 13,584 square miles, just above last year’s total of 13,573 square miles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. Reliable records were not kept before 1960, officials said. The annual average over the past 10 years is 4.9 million acres.

Tuvurvur volcano : A New Britain Islander paddles his dugout canoe across Karavia Bay as Tuvurvur volcano billows hot ash over the Gazelle Peninsula and the devastated city of Rabaul. (AFP/Torsten Blackwood)

Tropical Storm Lane lashes Mexico's Pacific coast

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Tropical Storm Lane hit Mexico's Pacific coast with winds and rain Thursday, flooding streets in Acapulco before setting a course for the hurricane-battered tip of the Baja California Peninsula.

The storm was centered about 105 mph (165 kph) south of Manzanillo and was moving parallel to the coast at 13 mph (20 kph). It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph).

A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were issued for a stretch of coast southeast of the resort of Puerto Vallarta. The storm was expected to strengthen to a hurricane on Friday, then hit land near Cabo San Lucas late Saturday.

It dumped rain and whipped up waves in Acapulco, where authorities closed the port to small boats Wednesday. Streets were covered in up to 16 inches (40 centimeters) of water, including the beachside Costera Miguel Aleman, which runs past many of the resort's luxury hotels.

There was also some flooding at the Acapulco airport, although service was not interrupted.

The storm was following the same path as Hurricane John, which hit Mexico's Pacific Coast early this month before slamming into Baja California, killing five people.

Forecasters warned that Tropical Storm Lane could dump up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, causing life-threatening mudslides and flooding.

God is just the most Powerful Anything - that's for sure.
Twisting and Turning those 4 Elements all over the place.
It is Judgement Day - and God is right on for calling America a 'prostitute', for whoring herself all over the world. Right On, that's what I say.

And of course, it's the Apocalypse, so everyone gets the Wrath.
It's all over the World. It's all over.

Eight killed by storm as floods continue to punish Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - At least eight people, including a family of seven, were killed in a fierce rainstorm that pounded eastern Ethiopia as floods continued to ravage the country, officials said.

The new fatalities brought the nationwide toll from unusually heavy seasonal rains and flash floods since last month to at least 647 and came in Dire Dawa, which is still recovering from deadly August flooding, they said.

The seven-member family was killed when rains late on Wednesday collapsed their small shack in the town, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Addis Ababa, regional police spokesman Biniam Fikru said.

"The house broke down because of the heavy brain and killed the whole family," he told AFP from Dire Dawa, adding that an eighth person, an 18-year-old boy died after being electrocuted by a fallen power line.

Dire Dawa was the first Ethiopian municipality to be hit by the fatal flash floods in early August when two rivers burst their banks, killing at least 256 people, and displacing more than 10,000.

No new inundations were reported from Wednesday's storm but the United Nations said this week devastating floods continued to wreak havoc across Ethiopia, affecting some 357,000 people.

More than 136,000 of those have been left homeless, swamping temporary shelter sites and hampering aid deliveries, particularly in northern Amhara region, where nearly 100,000, 37,000 of them displaced, are affected, it said.

Floods leave thousands homeless in West Africa

NIAMEY, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Floods have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in Niger and Burkina Faso, leaving them prone to deadly diseases like cholera and malaria, officials in the West African countries said on Thursday.

Torrential rains and flash floods destroyed mud brick buildings and left more than 32,000 people homeless in Niger, one of the world's poorest countries on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert, the government said.

At least four people have been killed in the former French colony, with the highest rainfall since records began in 1923 registered in the oasis town of Bilma, more than 1,300 km (800 miles) northeast of the capital Niamey.

Meteorologists say the rainfall in Bilma, where more than 4,000 people were forced from their homes, has been more than in the last 10 years combined. In one night 63 mm (2.5 inches) fell.

"Aside from the loss of homes, the floods cause crop damage, the loss of livestock, illnesses such as cholera and malaria, and cut off remote regions," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

The government in Niger, where 3.6 million people -- more than a third of the population -- were left short of food last year following drought and a locust plague, was distributing tents, blankets, mosquito nets and medicine.