Global Weather News - 12 October 2005

[senorpepr]

China launches second manned space mission; launches in snow
China's second manned spacecraft has blasted off from a remote north-western launch site, just two years after the country joined an elite club of space powers.
Astronauts Fei Junlong, 40, and Nie Haisheng, 41, have been handpicked from 14 fighter pilots.
They had been in the running for China's first manned space launch in 2003.
Their mission is due to last five days.
"There is nothing to worry about," state television quoted the two as saying before the launch as a light snow fell.
"We will accomplish the mission resolutely. See you in Beijing."
Premier Wen Jiabao and other leaders were at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, deep in the desert of western Gansu province, to witness the launch.
"You will once again show that the Chinese people have the will, confidence and capability to mount scientific peaks ceaselessly," Mr Wen told the astronauts.
In the Chinese capital, President Hu Jintao and Vice-President Zeng Qinghong watched the lift-off at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Centre.
China is determined to become a serious space player and set up a National Astronaut Training Centre in Beijing this week.
The Xinhua news agency says it is only the third such facility in the world.
"We should never slacken our efforts to explore the mystery of space," Mr Nie said.
State television has been filled with images of spacecraft and astronauts for the past few days.
China's first man in space was Colonel Yang Liwei, who orbited Earth 14 times aboard Shenzhou V craft in October 2003.
The former Soviet Union and the United States put their first men into space in 1961.
Bad weather hits quake-stricken Pakistan
Snow has fallen on peaks near the earthquake-devastated areas of Pakistan, adding to the misery of survivors.
Thousands of people are facing a fifth freezing night without shelter and only some have blankets.
Heavy rain and hail grounded helicopters and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies Tuesday, imposing more misery on hungry, shivering earthquake survivors as the United Nations warned of potentially lethal outbreaks of measles, cholera and diarrhea.
The official death toll from the quake stands at 23,000 but 4 million people have been affected and 1 million are estimated to be in acute need.
In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a man at a camp that has been cut from aid since the powerful earthquake struck on Saturday says the situation is indescribable.
The tremor brought down the mountainside, crushing people, homes and their precious horses.
"I find that we are alone now," he said. "We have nothing. We are finished."
"No work has so far been done, no facility here. Water is not available. You can smell the dead bodies, stinking," says another.
But there is despair even where aid is getting through.
"I have been living here with my children for the last two days. I have small children, there is nowhere for me to go. What can I do?" says one woman.
Bad weather and poor planning are not helping the effort.
Helicopters are still the main way to deliver aid and trucks that do get through cause mayhem and are targets for looters.
The search for survivors goes on.
"It is amazing how long people can survive in these conditions," says a British rescue worker, "So we'll keep on trying as long as we can."
The labors are mostly fruitless now, yet there is still hope.
A French rescue team has dug a four-year-old boy alive out of the rubble of his school in Balakot.
As soon as he was released he was swept into his father's arms, where he was smothered in kisses.
Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, says his country's people are doing their best.
"We as a nation are going through a challenging time but at the same time we are encouraged at the way the people of Pakistan have faced this major tragedy," he said.
"Let me also say that we are overwhelmed by the support we are getting from within the country and outside the country and are thankful to those countries, friends and individuals who have made our task easier."
His Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, says their warring countries have been brought closer together.
"Our two countries have suffered and our Government is very keen to do all it can not only to help people on our side of the Line of Control (LoC) but also to be of assistance to the people of Pakistan in general," he said.
Relief organizations such as United Nations agencies, the Red Cross, World Vision and Oxfam are in the field dispensing aid and facing the anguish.
World Vision's Greg Campbell says the affected people are desperate.
"These people have lost their houses," he said.
"Many of them have lost a large number of their family and they're in desperate need of help.
"It's very cold up there and if you don't have somewhere to live and don't have blankets and warm clothes it's a very difficult environment."
He says the rescue phase of the operation is almost over.
"Now we're getting three days into it, I think the survivors that are pulled out from the rubble now are going to be highly celebrated and very fortunate.
"And unfortunately I suspect that over time we're going to see less and less of that happening."
Saturday's 7.6-magnitude quake was centered in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Kashmir has turned into a graveyard, said Sikander Hayat Khan, prime minister of Pakistani Kashmir.
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan Oct 12, 2005 — Helicopters flying in clear skies delivered aid to earthquake survivors Wednesday, a day after rain and hail grounded efforts.
Relief supplies poured into Pakistan from about 30 countries, including from longtime archrival India.
Rescuers on Wednesday pulled a dust-covered 5-year-old out of the rubble, a shot of good news as hopes faded of finding other earthquake survivors. "I want to drink," the girl whispered.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2005 – Coalition forces are continuing to provide earthquake rescue, recovery and relief in Pakistan, and the Defense Department is establishing a Humanitarian Coordination Center in Islamabad to coordinate military support for the effort, U.S. Central Command and Combined Forces Command Afghanistan officials announced today.
"Our total focus is on relieving the suffering in Pakistan, help them stabilize and, in the longer term, recovery," said Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who leads Combined Forces Command Afghanistan. Eikenberry is in Islamabad overseeing the initial U.S. military response to the disaster.
Meanwhile, DoD announced today that Navy Rear Adm. Michael A. LeFever has been designated to establish a Humanitarian Coordination Center in Islamabad. LeFever will coordinate DoD support to the State Department, other U.S. government agencies and the Pakistan government over the longer term in response to the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake, officials said.
In support of that effort, CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from Combined Joint Task Force 76 took off from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan again today to ferry supplies and injured people to and from the earthquake-stricken areas, officials said. Additionally, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster III aircraft will transport 30 pallets of relief supplies today to a Pakistan army airfield near Islamabad.
The immediate DoD assistance has flowed into Pakistan from throughout the region, including 12 pallets of food and medicine from U.S. supplies in Qatar and Kuwait, and heavy-lift and supply helicopters from Bahrain and Afghanistan, officials said. Additional C-17 aircraft are scheduled to arrive today.
On Oct. 10, five Chinooks and three Black Hawks from Combined Joint Task Force 76 flew from Bagram to Islamabad, Pakistan, to help with recovery operations.
Additionally, a C-17 aircraft and its crew from the 7th Airlift Squadron based at McChord Air Force Base, Wash., delivered 12 pallets, weighing almost 90,000 pounds, of food, water, medicine and blankets from Bagram, officials said. So far, 18 pallets of relief supplies have been transported by air to Pakistan, along with essential personnel needed to help with recovery operations.
Coalition personnel are working with Pakistan military officials to determine where help is most needed, officials said.
DoD is identifying and will deploy additional capabilities to assist the State Department and the affected countries, including the helicopters, engineering and heavy-lift capabilities, medical support and humanitarian assistance, officials said.
Together with other agencies of the U.S. government rendering assistance, DoD will work with the Pakistan government to assess what help can be made immediately and in the longer term, officials said.
Savage golfball sized hailstorm sweeps over Gold Coast of Australia

Hundreds of homes and cars have been damaged by a severe hail and thunderstorm on Queensland's Gold Coast.
The storm swept through northern parts of the region this afternoon, leaving a trail of destruction.
Diane Curwood from Helensvale says there was little warning.
"It sounded like horses galloping towards me and the rain hit and hail the size of golf balls and some of them actually were as big as cricket balls," she said.
More than 300 State Emergency Service (SES) crews are responding to hundreds of calls for assistance.
Gold Coast SES controller Peter Linnell says the Southport centre received more than 200 calls within 90 minutes of the storm.
"We have whole roofs removed," he said.
"We have had cricket ball [sized] hail come down, smash roofs to pieces, windows, cars, everything through that corridor," he said.
Some of the worst-hit areas include Helensvale, Coomera, Oxenford, Pacific Pines and Arundel.
SES volunteers are traveling from Beaudesert, Logan and Ipswich to help.
[size=18]WET US NORTHEAST[/size]
ALSTEAD, N.H. - Officers went door to door Tuesday checking on families, and at least four people were missing after deadly flooding that tore up highways, swept away houses and tossed boulders and vehicles around like toys.
At least 10 people died in the heavy weekend downpours or in rain-related traffic accidents from Pennsylvania to Maine. About 1,000 New Hampshire residents fled their homes in what Gov. John Lynch called the worst flooding in a quarter century.
Even as hard-hit communities tried to dry out, the National Weather Service cautioned that more flooding could be on the way if rainfall exceeded the 1 to 2 inches predicted through Wednesday. Flood watches were announced for several locations until Wednesday morning.
State transportation Commissioner Carol Murray estimated it will take months to repair the damage in hard-hit southwestern New Hampshire.
Three deaths were confirmed in New Hampshire. Cheshire County Sheriff Richard Foote said 14 people were unaccounted-for, but the state fish and game department said later that four people remained missing.
“It is a difficult number to pin down with precision,” Lynch said. “There may be people missing that we just don’t know about yet.”
“Officers are actually going door-to-door in Alstead and Acworth to determine what is going on with each family,” he said. “These are homes that have been inaccessible.”
The most severe flooding in the state was in and around Keene, where some major roads were under as much as 4 to 6 feet of water, officials said. The city had no electricity and reverberated with the sounds of generators and pumps Monday when Gov. Lynch visited.
George Butler, whose sister and brother-in-law, Sally and Tim Canfield, were among the missing, told The Keene Sentinel the couple had twice disregarded advice to leave their home in Alstead, north of Keene. Butler said when he walked through the woods later Sunday to look, the house was gone.
“They probably didn’t know what hit them because the house is just gone,” Butler said. “There’s not even a foundation.”
Floodwaters tore up pavement and dug gullies 12 feet deep and 20 feet wide for miles. The destruction was one of numerous obstacles to restoring power and telephone service.
“Five miles of utility poles were taken out along Route 123 in Alstead and there’s no road left. So where do we put the poles?” asked David Graves of National Grid, which owns the local power utility.
Lynch has asked for a federal disaster declaration, which would make the state eligible for federal reconstruction help.
From Friday evening through Sunday, rainstorms dumped as much as 9 to 10 inches on New England and the mid-Atlantic states. In New Hampshire, the storm dropped 10.8 inches in Hinsdale and 10.5 inches in Keene.
Dams that overflowed or came close during the weekend were in good shape Monday, but authorities were worried about more rain and were carefully watching the Warner and Contoocook rivers.
“At the moment, we are satisfied that they’re all in good shape,” state emergency management Director Bruce Cheney said. “Our concern is that additional water may change that.”
Up to 11 inches of rain drenched western Massachusetts over the weekend, sending water from the Green River pouring into the Wedgewood Gardens mobile home park, wrecking about 40 trailers.
Sally Steiner spent Monday collecting the bits of her life not washed away by the flood that destroyed her mobile home: Part of a ravioli maker. Nail clippers. A corkscrew and nutcracker. All added to the muddy pile on a picnic table in front of what had been her home since July.
Her diamond ring was still missing, perhaps mixed with the shards of broken glass that filled her trailer when it was pushed off its cinderblock foundation and sent crashing into the mobile home next door. At least her grandmother’s collection of cups and saucers was intact.
“I don’t care about the clothes and the furniture,” Steiner said. “It’s really the little things that remind you of your family that you hold dear.”
Firefighters went from trailer to trailer, banging on doors and ordering residents to evacuate as the water rose. Norman Schell waded through ankle-deep water to escape.
“It was a lake with a strong current running through it,” he said.
The region’s dead included 6-year-old Michael Hackett, who slipped into New York’s rain-swollen Hoosic River on Sunday, and his mother’s boyfriend, 39-year-old Robert Scanlon, who jumped in to try to save the boy. Their bodies were found Monday.
A man and woman, both 20, died after driving over a washed-out bridge in New Hampshire on Sunday. Their bodies were found in their car in the Little Sugar River.
The body of an unidentified man was recovered from a cornfield near a river in Langton, N.H., and his death appeared to be flood-related. And a 67-year-old kayaker on New Hampshire’s North Branch River was feared dead after he was washed away while clinging to a tree as rescue workers tried to reach him.
Rain also was cited in traffic accidents over the weekend that killed three people in Maine, a woman in Pennsylvania and a toddler in New Jersey.
[size=18]New mudslide kills 3 in Guatemala[/size]
At least three people have died and some 300 persons have been evacuated as a fresh mudslide hit western Guatemala.
The death toll from last weekend's devastating mudslides, which were triggered by torrential rains unleashed by tropical storm Stan, has topped 2,000.
The latest mudslide hit the indigenous community of San Pedro Sacatepequez, 250 kilometers west of the capital.
Emergency workers are checking the area for other possible victims.
SANTIAGO ATITLAN, Guatemala (AP) - Authorities reaching new communities previously cutoff from the outside world by flood waters raised the number of Guatemalans whose homes were damaged, destroyed, or threatened by new rain fall to 200,000.
Emergency response teams were able to assess the damage to isolated villages deep in the mountains of San Marcos province, near the border with Mexico, for the first time Tuesday - nearly a week after relentless rain triggered flooding and mudslides.
Agriculture Secretary Alvaro Aguilar said in an interview that officials had now reached 95 percent of the 515 estimated communities across Guatemala hit by flooding.
The death toll from landslides and flooding stands at 652, but the number of missing whose bodies may never be recovered has risen to nearly 600, meaning more than 1,200 people may have been killed nationwide.
Another 133 people died in El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras due to the heavy rains and hundreds remain missing.
Helping to spark the downpours were weather patterns associated with Hurricane Stan, which came ashore along Mexico's Gulf Coast on Oct. 4, and brought flooding of its own before weakening.
[size=18]VINCE THE FIRST ATLANTIC TROPICAL STORM ON RECORD TO EVER STRIKE SPAIN[/size]
MIAMI (AP) - The former Tropical Storm Vince made a rare European landfall early Tuesday along the southwestern coast of Spain, forecasters said.
The weakening tropical depression with 35-mph winds was the first tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in Spain, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Vince had been the 11th hurricane of the season, and the 20th named storm.
It was not expected to produce the torrential rains, flooding and mudslides Hurricane Stan and its remnants triggered as it crossed Central America last week, forecasters said.
"It doesn't have an awful lot of rain with it," hurricane specialist James Franklin said. "There could be an inch or two of rain as it moves across southwest Spain today, but it should not be a weather-maker there."
At 5 a.m. EDT, the tropical depression was centered along the southwestern coast of Spain near Huelva. It was moving east-northeast at about 24 mph, which forecasters said would take the remnants of Vince farther inland.
The National Hurricane Center discontinued advisories early Tuesday as the depression showed signs it was losing its tropical characteristics.
Vince formed Sunday between the Azores and the Canary Islands in waters that were up to 7 degrees cooler than the 80 degrees typically needed for a tropical storm, said Chris Sisko, a meteorologist at the hurricane center.
Forecasters say this appears to be the farthest east and north that a tropical storm has formed in recorded history in the Atlantic.
[size=18]AMAZON RIVER CALLED A DISASTER AREA[/size]
SAO PAULO, Brazil Oct 11, 2005 — Authorities declared part of the Amazon River a disaster area after a drought left the levels of parts of the river too low for navigation, officials said Tuesday
The government of the jungle state of Amazonas declared the disaster on Monday, freeing up money, food and medicine to scores of river communities that now can be reached only by air, government spokesman Hiel Levy said by phone.
"All these communities are having difficulty finding supplies. We're working to make sure they don't run out," Levy said by phone from Manaus, 1,660 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.
The level of the Amazon rises and falls regularly, but this year the dry season has been more severe than normal. Officials said the water levels in areas about 35 miles upstream from Manaus have dropped several feet to about five feet, making it hazardous for river boats and difficult for fishing, a key occupation.
"We're worried," Manaquiri Mayor Jair Souto told the Associated Press. "We have about 25,000 people whose basic food is fish. We're a community of fishermen."
Officials said Amazonas Gov. Carlos Eduardo de Souza Braga spoke with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva about the problem and sent workers to dig wells to supply isolated communities with drinking water, which previously was drawn from the river.
Water levels are expected to rise in early November at the start of the rainy season.
EARLY OCTOBER SNOWSTORM IN COLORADO
DENVER - An early blast of winter walloped Colorado’s mountains with almost 20 inches of snow, killing three people, making driving conditions treacherous and delaying dozens of flights.
The storm forced motorists to seek shelter as whipping snow on Monday reduced visibility and knocked out power to as many as 80,000 homes. To ski resorts eager to open, the snow was a boon.
Crews were out in force across the Front Range and the eastern plains placing de-icer on the roads to keep freezing temperatures from turning water on roads into ice.
More than 60 people took refuge in Red Cross shelters in Strasburg, Byers and Bennett, including 21-year-old Robert Wade, who was stuck in the snow for four hours after driving off the road in whiteout conditions while towing a 17-foot U-Haul trailer.
“The snow got ridiculous,” he said, later adding: “The U-Haul is pretty hard to handle. I’m used to driving a Toyota Camry. We thought we were in Siberia.”
Interstate 70, the main east-west route across the state, reopened to traffic early Tuesday. The entire highway had been closed for 80 miles between Denver and Limon, where truck stop parking lots were overflowing.
An unidentified man and a woman died after a van carrying 11 people crashed into a guardrail about 20 miles northeast of Denver along Interstate 76. The road was icy and slushy at the time and the accident is believed to be weather-related, Colorado State Patrol Trooper Eric Wynn said.
The third death was Ginny McKibben, a 73-year-old former reporter for The Denver Post, who was struck by a falling tree limb while she swept snow outside her home.
Dozens of schools in eastern Colorado and the Denver Metro area were closed Tuesday because of the storm or power outages.
On Monday, hundreds of flights were delayed at Denver International Airport as planes lined up to de-ice before takeoff, airport spokesman Steve Snyder said. At one point, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all Denver-bound flights for 90 minutes, Snyder said.
Ski resorts, eager to open for the year, reported up to 2½ feet of snow in the mountains west of Denver. Byers, where one of the Red Cross shelters is stationed, got 20 inches of the dense snow.
Many trees, still in full leaf, snapped under the weight and in some instances dropped onto power lines, leaving as many as 80,000 Xcel Energy customers without power at one time or another, said Mark Stutz, spokesman for the state’s largest utility.
By early Tuesday, 9,000 customers remained without electricity, he said.
The storm caused a gray, rainy day in Denver, but dropped only a little more than 3 inches on the city.
TUESDAY UPDATE
About 8,000 homeowners and businesses in the south metro area remained without power for a second day Tuesday while utility crews scrambled to fix power lines downed by fallen tree limbs.
Xcel officials said they expect most of its nearly 6,000 customers still without power to be back online by this morning. In all, about 100,000 Xcel customers were affected when a slushy snowstorm gripped the Front Range on Monday, causing road and school closures.
Restoring power to everyone has been a challenge because there hasn't been one big outage, but rather a cluster of outages across Arapahoe and Douglas counties, Xcel spokesman Tom Henley said.
"We're finding more and more individual outages, which takes more time to fix as a whole," Henley said.
An additional 2,000 Intermountain Rural Electric Association customers were still powerless late Tuesday in the Franktown, Elizabeth and Kiowa areas, said Al Sibson, manager of district operations.
The electric association contracted with eight power-line crews to supplement its 14 crews to bring customers back online, but deep snow and rough road conditions in those outlying areas made getting to downed lines difficult, he said.
"We don't have any big outages anywhere - it's all these little ones all over the place," Sibson said. "Right now the areas without power are the ones that were the heaviest hit by the snow. We do have a few broken poles, a few lines down but getting around there is a problem with the deep snow and slushy roads. We're having to use smaller trucks, and some crews are having to walk in to some places."
The power outages interrupted classes for about 5,000 students in Littleton Public Schools, Superintendent Stan Scheer said. Eleven of the district's 25 schools experienced closures, including Arapahoe and Heritage high schools, on Monday. On Tuesday, six of the district's schools remained closed without power.
"It's a hassle, but it's part of living in Colorado," Scheer said. "I'm just thankful we didn't have any students get lost or anybody hurt with power lines or tree limbs falling on them."
Huddled around the fireplace with a battery-operated, 6-inch television Tuesday, one person not complaining much was Lillian Bittlingmaier's husband.
"My husband is 74, and I'm 70 - at our age, we can still snuggle, which he likes," said Bittlingmaier, who lives in Centennial.
ARCTIC SEA ICE LOWEST COVERAGE LAST MONTH EVER RECORDED IN PAST 27 YEARS
Observations showed 2.06 million square miles of sea ice as late as Sept. 19. That’s the lowest measurement of Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, the researchers said. It’s also 20 percent less than the average of end-of-summer ice pack cover measurements recorded since 1978.
At the same time, average air temperatures across most of the Arctic region from January to August 2005 were as much as 5.4 degrees warmer than average temperature over the last 50 years, said the team of researchers from two universities and NASA.
“The melting and retreat trends are accelerating,” Ted Scambos, of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a statement released by the university. The results have not yet been published in a scientific journal.
“The one common thread,” Scambos said, “is that Arctic temperatures over the ice, ocean and surrounding land have increased in recent decades.”
Sea ice records in the Arctic are sketchy before 1978. Since satellite observations began in earnest, researchers said Arctic ice has been retreating at a rate of more than 8 percent per decade.
And, they suspect, the melting may only contribute to even higher arctic temperatures in the future. That’s because the bright white ice tends to reflect more of the sun’s radiation. With more of the dark ocean exposed, the seawater tends to absorb more heat and reduce the amount of solar energy reflected back into space.