Natural
disasters and extreme weather
A
year of extremes: severe snow storms, drought and floods ravaged US
in 2015
In
the warmest year on record, Mother Nature wrought havoc across the
country, with large swaths of the west coast ablaze during the summer
and the north-east blanketed in snow for most of the winter
Oliver Milman
Sunday 27 December
2015 12.30 GMT
2015 has been the
warmest year, globally, on record, with the lower 48 states of the US
experiencing their balmiest autumn ever measured.
This kind of
exceptional heat provided an appropriate setting for the Paris
climate summit, where 196 nations agreed to curb greenhouse gas
emissions to avoid the sort of dangerous climate change that
contributes to floods, drought and damaging sea level rises.
But the past year
has also seen a number of severe natural disasters, climate
change-fueled or otherwise, that have battered the US. The Federal
Emergency Management Agency issued 77 disaster declarations in 2015.
Here are some of the disasters that tested Americans this year.
January snow storms
During winter storm
Juno in the Boston’s South End, Mike Poremba walks his dog Cali
past snow-covered cars. Photograph: Boston Globe via Getty Images
For New Yorkers, the
snow in January was something of a near-miss – US National Weather
Service warnings of a “potentially historic blizzard” proved
erroneous. The subway was shut and driving was banned for what turned
out to be just a light coating of snow.
But for those in
Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts, there was no
such escape. Thousands of people lost power, flights were canceled
and sports events were called off as more than 2ft of snow settled in
parts of the region. High winds and coastal flooding, with winds
gusting to 80 mph in Massachusetts, pounded the Atlantic coast. For
many cities in New England, winter storm Juno, as the blizzard was
unofficially dubbed, was one of the heaviest snowstorms on record,
with at least two people dying as an indirect result of the
conditions.
Boston was smothered
by snow, with February its snowiest month on record. In total, around
8ft of snow fell on the city, which ran out of places to dump cleared
snow. This immense downfall prompted several people to throw
themselves from their windows into huge snowdrifts – while videoing
the experience, of course. Mayor Marty Walsh was enraged: “This
isn’t Loon Mountain, this is the city of Boston!”
Tropical storm Bill
Flooding in
Galveston, Texas, as seen from a coast guard helicopter after
Tropical Storm Bill made landfall. Photograph: US coast guard/Reuters
The drought in
California would have been far from the minds of people in Texas and
Oklahoma, who experienced their wettest May on record, only for it to
be followed by Tropical Storm Bill.
The tropical cyclone
formed in the Gulf of Mexico on 16 June and swept northwards after
making landfall in Texas in the following days. A huge amount of rain
was dumped upon Texas and Oklahoma, peaking at 13.2in near El Campo,
Texas. The rain brought flooding that killed two people, rockslides
that closed highways and gusts of over 60 mph.
West coast wildfires
A long-exposure
picture shows a backfire in an attempt to battle the so-called Rocky
fire near Clearlake Oaks, California. Photograph: Noah Berger/EPA
The state of
Washington endured its largest ever wildfire season in 2015, with a
pall of smoke hanging over Seattle acting as a constant reminder of
the flames that burned through more than 1m acres of the state.
The fires were
declared a federal emergency on 21 August, with the US army deployed
to help firefighters tackle the blazes. Three firefighters died in
the course of their duties, while thousands of people were displaced.
A cluster of blazes had destroyed more than 170 homes by 1 September.
The fires followed a prolonged dry period in the state.
Further south, more
than 6,000 fires had taken hold in California by November, burning
through more than 300,000 acres. A state of emergency was declared
due to the intense fires in Amador and Calaveras counties. Seven
people and two firefighters died.
South Carolina
floods
DNR officer Brett
Irvin and Lexington County deputy Dan Rusinyak carry June Loch to dry
land after she was rescued from her home in Columbia, South Carolina.
Photograph: Tim Dominick/Rex Shutterstock
Disastrous flooding
claimed 17 lives in October – 15 in South Carolina and two in North
Carolina. Record rainfall, spurred by low pressure and Hurricane
Joaquin, dumped 20in of rain in some parts of South Carolina. This
led to widespread flooding, causing $12bn in damage, a loss that
governor Nikki Haley called “disturbing”. More than 160,000 homes
were hit by the floods, with around 400,000 people required to boil
their water to avoid an outbreak of disease.
Tornadoes
2015 has been an
unusually quiet year for tornadoes. As of 22 December, only 10 people
had died from tornadoes in the US. That was the fewest deaths in more
than a century and well below the average of the past 10 years, which
stands at 110 deaths per year, according to the National Weather
Service. (Dallas tornadoes and associated traffic accidents, however,
left an additional 11 dead this weekend.)
The periodic El Niño
climate phenomenon, which is currently in effect, is thought to
subdue Atlantic hurricanes, which can then spawn tornadoes. One of
the most destructive tornadoes in 2015 occurred at the River Oaks
mobile home park in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, in March. The strongest
ripped through Rochelle, Illinois, in April.
California drought
Drought is a very
slow-moving disaster – California is in its fourth year of drought
and there haven’t been any destroyed homes or swaths of deaths as a
result. But the impacts are severe. In some parts of California’s
Central Valley – an area that produces around 40% of the US’s
fruits, nuts and vegetables – water-starved farmers have taken to
drilling for water to such a degree that the land is sinking at a
rate of 2 inches a month.
Far-reaching water
consumption cuts have been placed on households but the state is
still losing water – the University of California estimates that
4tn gallons of water have been lost from the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river basins since the drought began in 2011.
The lack of water
has been mirrored by a dearth of snow. In September, scientists
estimated that the amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada was the lowest
in more than 500 years.
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