Britain, Ireland brace for blast of Hurricane Katia

Waves crash over the seafront as a train travels past in Saltcoats, west Scotland Tuesday.  (Reuters/David Moir)

DUBLIN—Tropical Storm Katia shut down roads, bridges and sporting events Monday in Ireland and Britain, where residents braced for the strongest wind gusts in 15 years.

Forecasters in both countries said Monday's gusts would top 125 km/h as the storm — previously a hurricane as it roared across the Atlantic — made driving, shipfaring and even walking dangerous in broad swathes of Ireland, Scotland and northern England.

Most ferry services between Ireland and Britain were cancelled, and fishing boats along the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Scotland were warned to head into port.

Britain's government forecasting service, the Met Office, told the public to be ready for the strongest winds since October 1996, when the tail end of Hurricane Lili killed five Britons and caused an estimated $250 million of damage there.

The Met Office said winds were averaging 88 km/h while the strongest reported gust so far was 128 km/h at a mountain station in North Wales. Gusts in the Northern Ireland border town of Castlederg reached 118 km/h.

Heavy rainfall was expected to hit the north of Ireland and central Scotland, where Transport Minister Keith Brown reassured travellers that emergency crews were ready to handle accidents, road blockages and power outages.

“Robust contingency arrangements are in place so people should not panic,” Brown said.

The Tour of Britain cycling race cancelled Monday's planned second stage across northern England after deeming the course's most exposed and elevated points too dangerous.

Ireland, which is regularly buffeted by strong Atlantic winds, also warned of exceptionally dangerous driving conditions and the risk of widespread coastal flooding. Towns along Ireland's Atlantic coast last experienced heavy flooding in November 2010.

A bridge spanning a bay in County Donegal, northwest Ireland, was closed Monday as a precaution, while fallen trees obstructed roads in several other parts of the island, including Limerick in the southwest.

Ireland's Electricity Supply Board said its engineers were trying to restore power to about 11,000 homes along the Irish Republic's border with Northern Ireland. Another 2,000 homes in Dublin lost power because of toppled electricity lines.

Authorities in Norway, Sweden and Denmark said they expected gale-force winds to arrive there Tuesday.

Ireland and Britain periodically catch the tail-end of Atlantic hurricanes as they travel northeast with the Gulf Stream and weaken into tropical storms.

The Met Office said Britain and Ireland felt the winds of one former hurricane in 2009, three in 2006, two in 2000, one in 1998 and one in 1996, when Lili's winds topped 145 km/h and brought widespread disruption to Britain and Ireland.

Katia is the second major hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, forming two weeks ago near the west African islands of Cape Verde. Katia travelled in a C-shape route toward the Caribbean and the eastern United States but didn't reach landfall there, then headed northeast to Europe.

- Associated Press

Katia weakens to tropical storm, expected to regain strength

In this satellite Images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Hurricane Katia is seen Sept. 1, 2011 in the Atlantic Ocean.(Photo by NOAA via Getty Images)

MIAMI - Katia has weakened to a tropical storm as it moves across the Atlantic but forecasters say they expect it to strengthen again over the next two days.

Katia was about 1,497 kilometres east of the Leeward Islands and moving west near 30 kph with maximum sustained winds late Thursday afternoon near 113 kph, a 8 kph decrease. It could become a major hurricane this weekend.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said it's too early to tell if Katia will hit the U.S. It is expected to pass north of the Caribbean.

Meanwhile two other storm systems were developing over open water, but forecasters said it was too soon to tell if any might hit land.

Forecasters said there was an 80 per cent chance a tropical depression could form in the Gulf of Mexico. It was unclear where that system would head, but it could bring much-needed relief to drought-plagued Texas.

The Gulf system already has prompted two major petroleum producers to remove crews from a handful of production platforms. Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil said they would also cut off a small amount of production. Both moves affect only a fraction of production.

The hurricane centre said a slow-moving low pressure system about 579 km north of Bermuda stood a 50 per cent chance in the next two days of becoming a tropical cyclone, the first step toward a tropical storm.

Also, a tropical depression in the eastern Pacific has weakened over southwestern Mexico and is expected to dissipate Thursday night.

- Associated Press

New flood dangers as U.S. East Coast tries to recover from Irene’s lashing

  
Henry Rhines tries to salvage anything he can from the debris field that was once his home in Columbia, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011.(AP Photo/The News & Observer, Shawn Rocco)

NEWFANE, VERMONT—As emergency airlift operations brought ready-to-eat meals and water to Vermont residents left isolated and desperate, states along the Eastern Seaboard continued to be battered by the after effects of Irene, the destructive hurricane turned tropical storm.

Dangerously damaged infrastructure, 2.5 million people without power and thousands of water-logged homes and businesses continued to overshadow the lives of residents and officials from North Carolina through New England, where the storm has been blamed for at least 44 deaths in 13 states.

But new dangers developed in New Jersey and Connecticut, where once benign rivers rose menacingly high. New Jersey ordered new evacuations.

The Passaic River in northeastern New Jersey crested Tuesday — causing extensive flooding along its course and forcing a round of evacuations and rescues in Paterson, the state’s third-largest city.

“Been in Paterson all my life, I’m 62 years old, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said resident Gloria Moses as she gathered with others at the edge of what used to be a network of streets, now covered by a lake.

Flooding continued to besiege Paterson, Little Falls and Montville Township on Wednesday morning, even after the state’s rain-swollen rivers crested and slowly receded.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, after touring Wayne, through which the Passaic also flows, said Tuesday night he saw “just extraordinary despair.”

He said inland flooding would probably continue another 48 hours and additional shelters were still being opened.

In Connecticut, the Connecticut River was 23 feet above flood stage on Tuesday afternoon and still rising.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy toured hard-hit coastal areas — including a peninsula in Fairfield that was lined with heavily damaged homes on Long Island Sound.

Communities on the East Coast continued recovery efforts Tuesday, with people moving out of emergency shelters in western Massachusetts, farmers in New York’s battered Schoharie Valley assessing crop losses and an insurance agent in Pawtucket, R.I., fielding dozens of calls from customers making damage claims.

“The majority of the claims are trees down,” said Melanie Loiselle-Mongeon. “Trees on houses, on fences, on decks, on cars.”

In Vermont, officials focused on providing basic necessities to residents who in many cases still have no power, no telephone service and no way to get in or out of their towns.

On Tuesday night, 11 towns — Cavendish, Granville, Hancock, Killington, Mendon, Marlboro, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Stockbridge, Strafford and Wardsboro — were cut off from the outside.

But by Wednesday morning, all but one of the communities — Wardsboro— had been reached by ground crews, emergency management officials said.

And it’s hoped that Wardsboro can be reached Wednesday morning, said Emergency Management spokesman Robert Stirewalt

He said the crude roads are not for general use and are only passable by emergency vehicles.

Vermont National Guard choppers made three drops in Killington-Mendon, Pittsfield and Rochester Tuesday while 10 other towns received truck deliveries of food, blankets, tarps and water.

Eight Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters from the Illinois National Guard are expected to arrive Wednesday to bolster the number of flights.

Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate told CBS’s “The Early Show” a drawdown in assistance funds will have no negative impact on the agency’s efforts to help stricken Eastern Seaboard states. The agency has less than $800 million left in its disaster coffers.

“We’re going to do what we’re supposed to do,” he said in the interview Wednesday morning.

“We start with lifesaving and look at the critical needs, the power outages and recovery. We are still in very much a rescue operation. Yesterday, still, rescue operations were going on here in New York.”

Fugate said FEMA’s current focus is on Hurricane Irene recovery efforts and said it must also gird for any new disasters.

“We don’t know what’s coming down the line,” he said.

Up to 11 inches of rain triggered the deluges, which knocked houses off their foundations, destroyed covered bridges and caused earthquake-style damage to infrastructure all over the state. Three people were killed and a fourth is still missing.

About 260 roads in Vermont were closed because of storm damage, along with about 30 highway bridges. Only a handful of them have been reopened.

Vermont Deputy Transportation Secretary Sue Minter said the infrastructure damage was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Residents trapped in inaccessible communities used cellphones and computers to reach out to others.

“As soon as we can get help, we need help,” resident Liam McKinley said by cellphone from a mountain above flood-stricken Rochester on Tuesday. He said the town’s restaurants and a supermarket were giving food away rather than let it spoil, and townspeople were helping each other.

“We’ve been fine so far. The worst part is not being able to communicate with the rest of the state and know when people are coming in,” McKinley said.

Wendy Pratt, another of the few townspeople able to communicate with the outside world, posted an update on Facebook using a generator and a satellite Internet connection. She sketched a picture of both devastation and New England neighbourliness.

“People have lost their homes, their belongings, businesses ... the cemetery was flooded and caskets were lost down the river. So many areas of complete devastation,” Pratt wrote. “In town there is no cell service or internet service—all phones in town are out. We had a big town meeting at the church at 4 this afternoon to get any updates.”

In Woodstock, Vt., Michael Ricci spent the day clearing debris from his backyard along the Ottauquechee River. What had been a meticulously mowed, sloping grass lawn and gorgeous flower beds was now a muddy expanse littered with debris, including wooden boards, propane tanks and a deer hunting target.

“The things we saw go down the river were just incredible,” Ricci said. “Sheds, picnic tables, propane tanks, furnaces, refrigerators. We weren’t prepared for that. We had prepared for wind and what we ended up with was more water than I could possibly, possibly have imagined.” He said the water in his yard was almost up to the house, or about 15 to 20 feet above normal.

Volunteers in Windham, N.Y., helped 26-year-old Antonia Schreiber salvage the floors of the 200-year-old Victorian cottage she had transformed into a luxury day spa.

The ski town, high in the Catskill Mountains, was left under several feet of brick-red water Sunday night after a stony creek, the Batavia Kill, grew to a raging river fueled by a foot of rain.

“Friends, loved ones, people I don’t even know showed up with trucks, bulldozers and hugs,” she said as men and women scraped and mopped around her. “The magnitude of generosity and good will is just overwhelming.”

While East Coast residents measured the cost of the storm in waterlogged cars and ruined furniture, official predictions were more dire.

In North Carolina, where Irene blew ashore along the Outer Banks on Saturday before heading for New York and New England, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the hurricane destroyed more than 1,100 homes and caused at least $70 million in damage.

Early Wednesday, President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in New York, freeing up federal recovery funds for people in eight counties. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs.

On Tuesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had sent a list trying to expedite the declaration. He said the list of Irene-related costs already exceeded the $25 million threshold for aid to governments, businesses, farmers and residents.

Malloy, the Connecticut governor, said it was unclear how many millions of dollars in damage the storm had caused. He said he is pressing federal officials to help tally the toll on the state’s infrastructure.

Total losses from the storm along the U.S. Atlantic Coast — including damage and expenses incurred by governments — are likely to be about $7 billion, according to Jan Vermeiren, CEO of Silver Spring, Md.-based risk consultant Kinetic Analysis Corp., which uses computer models to estimate storm losses.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate will tour New York and New Jersey Wednesday to view the damage firsthand. Trips to other states affected by the storm are being planned.

- John Curran Associated Press

Tropical Storm Harvey makes landfall over Belize

MIAMI-Tropical Storm Harvey has made landfall over Belize and is weakening as it heads to northern Guatemala.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Saturday that Harvey was centred about 72 kilometres south of Belize City, moving west-northwest at about 13 mph (21 kph). Maximum sustained winds were 50 mph (80 kph), down from 60 mph (97 kph) when it made landfall.

The storm is expected to bring as much as six inches (15 centimetres) of rain to parts of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Forecasters say flash floods and mudslides are possible.

-Associated Press

Southwestern U.S. headed for a ‘perpetual drought’

A family looks on as a dust storm converges on downtown Phoenix, July 5, 2011. (Mark J. Rebilas/US PRESSWIRE)

A 160-kilometre wide dust storm, corn shrivelling in Georgia fields and Texas blackouts are all harbingers of an unstoppable force geophysicists call "perpetual drought."

At least the terrible Dust Bowl years of the 1930s in North America ended, Dr. Richard Seager told the Toronto Star on Thursday. This one won’t.

The U.S. Drought Monitor computer tracking tags the parched conditions in Texas and Oklahoma as an extraordinary drought, with the rest of the stretch from Arizona to Florida not much better.

Losses in Texas alone, to cattle and wheat, could reach $3 billion U.S., state officials said. Rainfall in Oklahoma is 28 per cent of normal.

In parts of Arizona, it’s half of what it should be. The July 5 dust storm, the worst in 30 years, shut down Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport and coated the city in a crust of dirt.

All 254 counties of Texas have been declared natural disaster areas. In some place, salt buildup on power lines not swept away by rain has caused blackouts.

“The current drought has been running for less than a year,” said Seager of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. The cyclical arrival of the La Niña weather pattern brought it and will eventually move on.

But more ominous and catastrophic is the permanent spike in temperatures that is making southwestern North American too feeble to bounce back.

“Beyond the year-to-year variability, the entire region from California to the southern plains is getting dryer. It may not be more severe than what we have now, but it will be more persistent,” Seager said.

By the middle of this century, he said, the drought state of the southern United States will be permanent.

“There will still be wet years. There will be dry years. But the net flux, which supplies the moisture to the soil, is going to reduce from 20 to 40 per cent.”

Unlike the Dirty Thirties drought, which lasted seven years, the decade-long drought in the 1950s or even the “megadroughts” of the 13^th and 16^th centuries — all of them La Niña phenomena — this one is triggered by man-made gases.

“As long as the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stays where it is, we have a new equilibrium,” said Seager.

Even if all CO² emissions dropped to zero overnight “significant drying would still occur.”

And while farmers have compensated for dry spells since the 1930s with irrigation, it’s an expensive and gasoline-burning way to spread water around.

“As the century progresses, it will be harder and harder to keep the productivity up.”

- Lesley Ciarula Taylor, Staff Reporter

Predicting hurricanes under goes a sea change

Climatologists say they have cracked the code for predicting hurricanes up to 10 years in the future.

And in what is certain to be controversial, they’ve done it by using a climate prediction model that factors in internal as well as external factors.

That means “external” factors such as greenhouse gases, volcanoes or aerosol sprays are part of the reason for the increase in one of nature’s most destructive forces.

Igor kills 80-year-old man in Nfld.

Storm drains were unable to cope as heavy rains from Hurricane Igor hit St.John's, N.L. on Tuesday, Sept.21, 2010.  (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Daly)

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Police in Newfoundland say high winds and heavy seas continue to limit the search for an 80-year-old man swept out to sea during hurricane Igor.

RCMP Sgt. Boyd Merrill said Wednesday an eyewitness has confirmed the incident where the road beneath the man collapsed on Tuesday in the Random Island area, about 100 kilometres northwest of St. John's.

"The man was actually standing there with another person when he was swept away so that witness, his relative, gave the report to us," said Merrill.

Merrill said locals continue to search for any sign of the man but outside help can't reach the area.

"There's no way to get to Random Island, physically we can't get there," said Merrill. "The sea is too high, the wind is too strong and there's no road."

Meanwhile, Premier Danny Williams will visit various communities to survey the extensive storm damage.

At least 30 communities, including Clarenville and Marystown, have declared states of emergency because of flooding caused by the storm.

In Marystown, Mayor Sam Synard said Tuesday more than 200 millimetres of rain fell in 20 hours, washing sections of road into the sea.

At the height of its fury, Igor packed a peak wind gust of 163 kilometres an hour at Sagona Island.

Dozens of roads were washed out during the storm, which left around 50,000 utility customers without power at times.

The Burin Peninsula was cut off from the rest of the province after a bridge leading to the Trans-Canada Highway was damaged.

--The Canadian Press

High winds from hurricane Igor topples trees in St. John's. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Paul Daly)

Nova Scotia, Newfoundland brace for Igor

 

A boat is swamped with water at Flatts Inlet in Smith's parish while Hurricane Igor comes ashore in Bermuda, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

HALIFAX—A tropical storm watch was issued for parts of Newfoundland early Monday as a weakening hurricane Igor brushed past Bermuda.

Igor, which was barely a Category 1 hurricane, pelted Bermuda with driving rain and powerful wind, but there were no early reports of major damage.

Environment Canada posted the tropical storm watch for St. John's, the Avalon Peninsula and the Burin Peninsula.

It said Igor would bring strong northerly winds possibly gusting to 100 km/h by Tuesday morning before moderating somewhat by evening.

Igor and an unrelated trough of low pressure could bring total rainfall of 50 to 100 millimetres in most of central and eastern Newfoundland, but the Avalon Peninsula could receive up to 150 millimetres.

Environment Canada said swells of up to two to three metres ahead of Igor would pound the Atlantic coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland for several days.

Meanwhile, Calgary-based Husky Energy started to evacuate two semi-submersible drill rigs working the White Rose offshore oilfield.

Spokeswoman Colleen McConnell said all 88 workers aboard the GFS Grand Banks were removed from the rig by Sunday.

As well, the 110 workers aboard the Henry Goodrich were expected to be airlifted to St. John's, N.L., by Monday.

The company's floating production platform, the Sea Rose, had 88 people aboard on Saturday. Some were removed Sunday and others were expected to follow Monday, McConnell said.

--The Canadian Press

 
High winds and rising surf come ashore at Long Bay Beach as Hurricane Igor approaches Bermuda September 19, 2010. (REUTERS/Kat Jackson)

Karl upgraded to hurricane

Fishermen try to secure their boats as tropical storm Karl arrives in the town of Mahahual, southern Mexico, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Israel Leal)

MIAMI - Karl has become a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico after dumping heavy rains on the Yucatan Peninsula as a tropical storm.

A hurricane warning was issued Thursday for Mexico's coast from Palma Sola to Cabo Rojo. Also, a tropical storm warning has been issued for the coast for north of Cabo Rojo to La Cruz and for the area south of Palma Sola to Veracruz.

Karl's maximum sustained winds are near 120 km/h. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says additional strengthening is possible and Karl could approach major hurricane strength before reaching Mexico's coast.

Karl is located about 500 kilometre east-southeast of Tuxpan, Mexico, and is moving west near 19 kph.

The Associated press

What causes a hurricane?

What makes a tropical depression turn into a hurricane?

It’s a question that has puzzled hurricane chasers and scientists alike for years.

But now Ed Zipser, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah, is hoping that research he and a team of scientists are doing this month will unlock the key to this mystery.

The quest to understand the inner workings of tropical storms or depressions and figure out what turns them into full-blown hurricanes is like the quest for the “holy grail” for atmospheric scientists, Zipser said.

But he’s hoping that the experiments he and others are conducting over the next few weeks of hurricane season will provide insights into which physical processes or environmental factors are key triggers in hurricane formation and intensification.

Other factors that the scientists will look at include: whether lightning can be used as a predictor of a storm’s intensity; what role dust from the Sahara plays; and what role does humidity, temperature, precipitation and clouds play?

Tracking the path of hurricanes has been easy in recent years thanks to satellites and supercomputers.

But figuring out which tropical storms or depressions turn into full-blown hurricanes is more guessing game than science.

There are two theories behind the genesis and intensification of a hurricane, Zipser said.

One suggests that the large-scale environment around the storm or tropical depression revs it up and turns it into an intense hurricane.

The other model suggests that small-scale formations or activity about 100 kilometres from the centre are the systems that intensify the hurricane.

“What we don’t know is, if you have strong thunderstorms near the centre of the storm is that making it worse,” said Zipser in an interview with the Star.

“That’s one of the things we’re going to try to find out in this program. We’re trying to understand the relative roles of the large-scale and small-scale environment around and in the hurricane.”

Equally important to the research is the question: Why do some storms simply fail to ignite, and crash and burn into obscurity, never becoming a hurricane.

Zipser, who is one of three scientists helping lead the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment, hopes this summer there will finally be a definitive answer to the inner workings of a hurricane.

But much will depend on Mother Nature, he said. “What we hope is that we have two or three storms that intensify and then three storms that look pregnant and fail to intensify.”

The experiment, which is being described as the largest-ever hurricane research project, is using three NASA planes, multiple images from NASA satellites, and four planes from research partners the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency and the National Science Foundation.

The plan is to use all this flight power to track the storms or hurricanes for 24 hours straight. One of the planes is NASA’s Global Hawk, an unmanned drone plane used by the U.S. Air Force that can fly continuously over a storm system for up to 16 hours. The other planes include a WB-57 and a DC-8.

The team will also be using some state-of-the-art hurricane observation instrumentation – a microwave radiometer and radar will provide insight into the “hot towers” of convection found in cyclones, and a NASA designed and built laser radar will provide measurements of wind speed in three dimensions, including vertically.

“The plan is to take accurate measurements on large-scale and small-scale processes and do it from multiple airplanes several times a day,” explains Zipser.

Zipser and others are hoping the study, which begins Saturday and wraps up on Sept. 25, will provide a more precise view of what is going on below the cloud tops and near the eye of the storm.

-- Debra Black, Staff Reporter