GLOBAL WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS

MARCH 2019

UNITED STATES

Four tornadoes ripped through central Alabama, according to the National Weather Service in Birmingham, leaving behind a trail of destruction (3^rd). Authorities in one Alabama county hit hardest by the tornadoes said on Monday morning the death toll was likely to rise from the confirmed 23, as search-and-rescue efforts continued in the south-eastern part of the state. The Lee county sheriff, Jay Jones, said "several people" were still unaccounted for in Beauregard, a community south of the city of Opelika that took the brunt of the assault from a pair of powerful tornadoes that touched down with winds estimated at between 136 mph and 165 mph. The tornado that ripped apart Beauregard was later reclassified as EF-4, meaning winds of 166200 mph, a higher classification that experts said was consistent with the devastation they saw: trailers overturned, homes torn from their foundations and trees uprooted.

Damaging thunderstorms with powerful winds tore across parts of the south-central United States Tuesday night into Wednesday (10^th). Tornado damage was reported in Chaves County, New Mexico, Tuesday night, according to the Chaves County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office said the rain-wrapped tornado moved into the town of Dexter and damaged several homes. Another tornado was reported near Loving, New Mexico. Winds approaching hurricane force were reported Wednesday morning, in Texas, including around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. A 78 mph wind gust was measured at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), while an 80 mph wind gust occurred at Grand Prairie Municipal Airport in Grand Prairie, Texas. A 71 mph gust was recorded at the airport in Addison, Texas. The Dallas Morning News later reported that a wind gust of 109 mph was reported by the Grand Prairie Airport control tower. Structural damage was reported at the Gran Prairie airport, according to local media. Over 140,000 were listed without power in Texas on Wednesday morning, according to website Poweroutage.us. Baseball-sized hail was observed north of Pecos, Texas. Two warehouses were heavily damaged near O'Donnell, Texas, due to wind and a semi-trailer was blown over on Texas State Highway 87. The driver suffered a minor injury.

A winter storm that slammed the Rockies and central Plains contributed to the death of a Colorado State Patrol corporal on Wednesday (13^th). The 'bomb cyclone' packed blizzard conditions, tropical storm-force winds, and hazardous travel. The National Weather Service deemed the storm a "cyclone of historic proportions." As the blizzard developed, heavy snow lashed northern Colorado, including Denver, western Nebraska, eastern Wyoming, central South Dakota, and southeastern North Dakota. The storm strengthened over the High Plains on Wednesday with the rate of intensification resulting in bombogenesis, which occurs when the barometric pressure rapidly plummets. There were gusts close to 100 mph in the snow in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Airlines cancelled almost 2,000 flights and delayed another 2,700 due to the wind and severe weather.

Authorities were using boats and large vehicles on Saturday(17^th) to rescue and evacuate residents in parts of the Midwest where rainwater and snowmelt has poured over frozen ground, overwhelming creeks and rivers. At least one person was dead. In eastern Nebraska, rescue efforts were hampered by reports of levee breaches and washouts of bridges and roads, including part of Nebraska Highway 92, leading in and out of south-west Omaha. Authorities confirmed that a bridge on that highway that crosses the Elkhorn river had been washed out. In Fremont, west of Omaha, the Dodge County sheriff's office issued a mandatory evacuation order for some residents after floodwaters broke a levee along the Platte river. And in Mills county, Iowa, authorities ordered people in some rural areas to evacuate after the Missouri river overtopped levees. The flooding followed days of snow and rain, record-setting in some places, that swept through the west and Midwest. The deluge pushed some waterways to record levels in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. The flooding was the worst in nearly a decade in places. Further east, the Mississippi river saw moderate flooding in Illinois from Rock Island south to Gladstone. Meteorologist Brian Pierce with the National Weather Service's Quad Cities office in Davenport, Iowa, said flooding on the Mississippi could get worse a few weeks as more snow melts in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Seattle is experiencing a string of rare weather following one of the snowiest Februarys on record that has led to record-breaking warmth in the Emerald City. Seattle experienced its warmest winter day on record on Tuesday when temperatures topped out at 79F at 3 p.m. local time, a mark that beat the previous record of 76F, which was set on Monday. Typically, mid-March temperatures in Seattle are 54F. Spring begins on Wednesday. The 79-degree reading also made for the warmest March day on record, according to the National Weather Service, edging out the previous record for the month, 78F, set on March 29, 2004. Tuesday was the hottest March day in the city's history dating back to 1894, when officials began keeping records

Temperature records in Alaska were shattered in March, making it the warmest March to date for many locations in the state. In Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) this was the warmest March on record. March 2019 ended up averaging 10.3 C above the 1981-2010 normal average and 3.6 degC above the previous warmest March on record, which happened to be 2018. This past Saturday was only the third day in the past 99 years that the temperature in Utqiagvik was above freezing with a high of 0.6C.

AUSTRAILIA

At least five properties and multiple other structures have been destroyed and more losses are expected as fires continue to rage across Victoria on Sunday  (3^rd)with temperatures reaching almost 40C. The largest fire was burning in Bunyip state park about 65 km east of Melbourne and fire crews reported assessment of the damage was being hindered by the difficult terrain and active fire. That fire, in the state's Gippsland area, had grown to 6,500 hectares. The fires burning throughout the state were sparked by lightning strikes.

An abnormally hot summer in Australia ended with the warmest March on record, new data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows. The latest monthly climate breakdown shows that despite two severe tropical cyclones in the northern states, temperatures across Australia were 2.13 degC above the average throughout last month in part due to an unusually dry summer in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The record temperatures in March follow records in January, while February was in the top five on record. Last year was Australia's third-warmest year on record. It beat the previous third-place holder, 2017.

SOUTH KOREA

Poor air quality has become a rising concern throughout South Korea in recent months as below-normal rainfall and air stagnation have resulted in worsening air quality (6^th). Air quality is often measured by the concentration of dangerous microscopic particulate matter (PM2.5) in the air at any given time. From Tuesday into Wednesday, the PM2.5 measured between 162 and 237 in Seoul, falling into the unhealthy to very unhealthy categories. South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced on Wednesday a proposed joint project with China to create artificial rain in an attempt to lower levels of air pollution both in China and South Korea, according to the Associated Press. The South Korean government is hopeful that creating artificial rain over the Yellow Sea would help air quality in both countries. Government officials were also instructed to end the use of coal-burning power plants that have been operating for more than 30 years as quickly as possible.

AFGHANISTAN

Flash floods, heavy rains and snowfall have killed at least 59 people across Afghanistan during the past two weeks and left thousands homeless, with the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar the worst-hit, an Afghan official said (6^th). Some 5,000 people were displaced in Kandahar alone, the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) said, though a U.N. relief agency reckoned at least 15,300 people in the province had been affected by the calamitous weather. Hashmat Khan Bahaduri, spokesman for ANDMA, said the damage and casualty estimates could rise as some provinces had still to conduct assessments. Afghanistan has also suffered a bad drought in recent years. Kandahar province received 75mm of rainfall last year, much less than the required level of at least 400 a year.

GERMANY

One man is dead after Storm Eberhard caused chaos for travelers and one football team across Germany on Sunday (12-13).  A 47-year-old man died when a tree fell on his car in Bestwig, Germany - about 100 km NE of Cologne, where winds gusted to 63 mph at the city's airport on Sunday.0 Two flights headed to the Cologne-Bonn Airport had to be diverted due to the strong winds. Dozens of flights were cancelled at the Frankfurt International Airport. Disruptions extended to the railways as Deutsche Bahn canceled services in North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday. Additional cancellations followed on Monday as crews worked to clear storm debris from tracks. Downed trees blocked many roads in other areas of Germany hit by the storm. This included the road that connected the village of Thuringia with other areas, effectively cutting off residents from receiving storm aid and supplies. Worsening the situation, power in the village was cut during the storm.

MOZAMBIQUE

More than 1,000 people are feared dead in a devastating cyclone that hit Mozambique on Friday (15^th), the country's president has said. Filipe Nyusi told Mozambican radio he had seen "many bodies floating in the overflowing Pungwe and Busi rivers. "It appears that we can register more than 1,000 deaths, he said, adding that more than 100,000 people were at risk because of severe flooding. At least 215 people have been confirmed dead and hundreds are missing across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe from Tropical Cyclone Idai, according to government agencies and the Red Cross, which said 1.5 million people had been affected. A more precise death toll and the true scale of the damage is not likely to be known soon, as many areas are cut off. "I think this is the biggest natural disaster Mozambique has ever faced. Everything is destroyed, Celso Correia, the environment minister, said. "Our priority now is to save human lives. Residents of the devastated port city of Beira, where the Pungwe and Busi rivers flow into the sea, have had no communications since Idai hit. Many families have been frantically trying to get information about their relatives, but with no phones or internet access, no electricity and great chunks of the main road into Beira washed away and blocked by flooding, all they can do is wait.

INDONESIA

At least 50 people have been killed by flash floods in Indonesia's eastern Papua province (16^th). The floods in Sentani, near the provincial capital of Jayapura, were triggered by torrential rain and subsequent landslides on Saturday, and also left 59 people injured. Dozens of homes were damaged by floodwaters, the national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. The waters had receded but officials were still trying to evacuate people.

NEW ZEALAND

A woman died in New Zealand following a severe downpour that washed away a bridge and prompted a state of emergency in the South Island (26^th) Police said the elderly woman's body had washed up on a riverbank north of the town of Hokitika, in the West Coast region. The once-in-a-century storm saw rainfall of more than 800 mm in some areas. A storm battering the region saw the Waiho Bridge, near the town of Franz Josef, destroyed by a torrential river on Tuesday night. About 50 tourists spent the night in a welfare centre set up in a town hall in the tiny, remote town of Haast.

INDIA

Severe thunderstorms ripped through parts of Nepal, causing widespread damage and killing at least 31 people, the Kathmandu Post reported (31^st). More than 600 other people were injured by the violent storms. Although infrequent, severe thunderstorms can occur in Nepal during March and April as heat builds northward from India and storm systems track into the region from the Middle East. Just across the border in India, temperatures soared to 38C in Lucknow and Patna on Sunday, setting the stage for the storms to develop. People were caught off guard as the storms quickly swept into Bara and Parsa districts on Sunday afternoon.

CHINA

A powerful dust devil blew away an inflatable bouncy in central China's Shangqiu City, killing at least two children. A dramatic video shows an inflatable bouncy castle being blown into the air by the dust devil and nearby people fleeing away quickly as the vortex lifts up various small objects. The terrifying scene occurred at a tourist attraction that was packed with visitors.

TROPICAL

Twin cyclones approaching Western Australia and the Northern Territory (NT) have forced the largest evacuation since Cyclone Tracey in 1974 with remaining residents advised to seek shelter (22^nd). Air evacuations have now been suspended in the NT before Cyclone Trevor's crossing as a category four system. Chief minister Michael Gunner this week announced a state of emergency as the top end embarked on its largest pre-cyclone evacuation in the territory's history. Three Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft on Wednesday and Thursday were evacuating people from Groote Eylandt and McArthur River Mine near Borroloola. Tents were set up at sites in Darwin and Katherine for evacuees and public cyclone shelters prepared.