Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Strange Summer Days 2012

Heat Wave
Thousands of so called “unbreakable” records have been broken over the past few weeks from the High Plains to the East Coast, and north into Canada.  The nature of these broken temperature records have left meteorologist and climatologists struggling to understand if these is only temporary or a sign of things to come being the new normal.

Derecho
Also, adding insult to injury a “super derecho” of violent thunderstorms left a 700 mile trail of destruction across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States. Derecho’s are rare across the mid-Atlantic.    The power was cut to millions of people and thirteen people lost their life.  This storm produced hurricane force winds that gusted up to 91 mph.

The storms destruction included:  power poles snapped, tree limbs in the road, live wires on the ground  and a state of emergency declared in Virginia with 2.5 million without power (Virginia’s largest non-hurricane related power outage in history).  The president of Appalachian Power said “the storm was a major historical disaster.