Recent events reveal that our health care infrastructure is vulnerable to severe weather. These events highlight that when a hospital building fails, so too does the continuum of health care delivery. Patients, staff, and families suffer. This is the primary reason why a closer look is needed at risks and mitigation opportunities for hospitals.
Death From a Clear Blue Sky: Extreme Non-Convective High Winds
From the days of ancient mariners to the modern era of remote sensing , it has been known that it doesn’t take a hurricane, tornado or thunderstorm to create damaging and even deadly winds. The wind-related death of young Declan Sullivan at Notre Dame University is a reminder that non-convective winds can be as dangerous as major storms. What brings hurricane-force winds “out of a clear blue sky?” What can we to to mitigate the harm they can do?
NASA's Hurricane Webpage: A Resource for Worldwide Tropical Cyclones
NASA’s Hurricane Webpage is a resource for meteorologists and weather fans, with updates on tropical cyclones happening around the world, along with satellite images, the latest research, animations, educational tools, scientist profiles, satellite information and historic storm information.
Floods and Droughts in a Changing Climate – Now and the Future
Extreme precipitation events are becoming ever more frequent, as is the area of the globe affected by increased drought. In this article, the author discusses historical trends in floods and drought, future projections, and the requirements of observational networks to monitor changes.
Average Recurrence Interval of Extreme Rainfall in Real-time
Knowing how much rainfall fell at a particular location during a certain amount of time is useful, but expressing the rarity of rainfall in terms of a “return period” provides an objective and useful perspective of the rainfall. Average recurrence interval (ARI) maps of rainfall provide information that is analogous to the 100-year flood, but for rainfall instead.
Will a Warmer World Be Stormier?
Storms act to redistribute heat in the atmosphere. Considerable progress has been made in understanding how future climate change may affect weather. As the climate warms, we might experience fewer storms overall, but more of the strongest storms.
Extreme Weather Theme
Articles published for Earthzine’s Extreme Weather theme (March 21-June 21, 2011) examine aspects of weather extremes from multiple perspectives. Topics explored include severe flooding, killer tornadoes, cyclones, and record heat waves in various regions of the globe.
Call For Papers – It's Not Your Grandfather's Weather or Is It?
Severe flooding, killer tornadoes, cyclones, and record heat waves impact communities around globe. Earthzine is soliciting articles for its 2nd quarter theme issue March 21-June 21, 2011 on Extreme Weather in the 21st Century, a theme that will look at aspects of weather extremes from multiple perspectives. Guest Editor for Weather is Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd.