Floods in Thailand result from rainfall amounts 3 times larger than normal for January:
Heavy and persistent rain across the Malay peninsula caused flash flooding in southern provinces of Thailand on Monday and Tuesday last week. The deluge was caused by the combined effect of the north-east monsoon in the Gulf of Thailand and a low pressure system over northern Malaysia. Some 361mm of rain was recorded at Nakhonsi Thammarat in 36 hours, nearly three times the average January total.
Soryy, make that 3 TIMES the amount of rainfall in just 36 HOURS than is normal in Thailand for the ENTIRE MONTH OF JANUARY. Mea Culpa.
Meanwhile in the good old Us of A and our Socialist neighbor to the North, the weather has been shall we say, a little odd this week. How so you ask? Guess which region was colder: Western Canada or Northern Florida?
[A] snow storm hit the Midwest, not only bringing heavy snow in places, but also blanketing many eastern areas in cold Arctic air. This led to the lowest temperatures of the winter so far, with even Jacksonville in northern Florida recording a minimum of -8C [18 degrees F] overnight on Tuesday. Contrarily, parts of California experienced unusual heat for the time of year. Many places recorded temperatures in excess of 30C [i.e., over 86 degrees F]on Wednesday, setting new date records. Western Canada was also unusually warm with more than 30 date records beaten in Alberta alone, and Calgary reached 15.3C [60 degrees F] on Wednesday.
In western New York, normally we are blanketed by snow this time of year, but right now all I can see out my window is my green green lawn. The temperature outside is (for this time of year) a somewhat warm 41 degrees F. Snowfall for the month of December, 2011 in Rochester NY was 1.8 inches, which is much less than the average of 21 inches of snow for the month. So I guess we were warmer than Northern Florida yesterday! Hope you didn’t book your Gulf Coast vacation for this week.
Now back to your regularly scheduled discussions of Mittens Romney, Lizard Brain Gingrich, Ron (not Rand) Paul, the Frothy Santorum, and some guy named Huntsman. I heard there was a primary in New Hampshire today. My prediction? Barack Obama wins in a landslide.
Shouldn’t that be Mudslide? đŸ™‚
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Thanks for covering the story some don’t find it newsworthy.
Not a surprise.
Just plain crazy and sad.
any effective progress at Durban.
It’s hard to grasp the horrific weather in Thailand.
In Chicago we had sunny and a high of 54 at my location.
This past weather season from spring 2011 to Jan of 2012 has been the most bizarre weather we’ve had in ND in my memory, that spanning several decadences.
We had near continuous rain beginning last spring and into Aug. Nearly everyone I talked to had water in their basements, with one of them not having had basement water in a 100 year history of the home.
At a visit to an NDSU Arboretum Field Day in Aug, at the Absaraka Horticulture Research Farm, there were many areas where the ground water was at the surface. Some of the tree plots are already drowning out.
Then starting in Sept we’ve hardly had an moisture at all, and very little snow, with temperatures being exceptionally mild. I think we’ve had one day’s low dropping below zero so far this winter, and that only hit -1F.
This mild winter would be enjoyable if one was oblivious to the impending global disaster.
Seems like you guys up in ND have had some good bicycle weather as of late. Yeah, it seems like some pretty wacky weather overall. Last 12 months here in the Southeastern US has been quite a roller coaster. We went from record snowfalls in January and February in my little corner of Dixie to urban flooding and record tornado outbreaks in April, to about six weeks of 100+ degree high temps in July and August (along with no rainfall), to mostly mild and continued very dry ever since.
I guess we’re still stuck with La Niña but the Arctic Oscillator (that’s what the meteorologists call it) is extremely positive this year – keeping much of the cold temps bottled up in the Arctic and keeping the storm systems from developing like they normally would. Last winter we had an extreme negative oscillator in the Arctic, which kept temps unusually mild for the Arctic, but give most of us record snowfalls and a lot of very chilly temps. What causes the oscillator to flip is apparently unknown. Something like that.