Pilgrims to the holy city of Mekkah (Mecca), Saudi Arabia must have been astonished on Tuesday afternoon, when the weather transformed from widespread dust with a temperature of 113°F (45°C) to a thunderstorm with rain. Remarkably, the air temperature during the thunderstorm was a sizzling 109°F (43°C), and the relative humidity a scant 18%. It is exceedingly rare to get rain when the temperature rises above 100°F, since those kind of temperatures usually require a high pressure system with sinking air that discourages rainfall. However, on June 4, a sea breeze formed along the shores of the Red Sea, and pushed inland 45 miles (71 km) to Mekkah by mid-afternoon. Moist air flowing eastwards from the Red Sea hit the boundary of the sea breeze and was forced upwards, creating rain-bearing thunderstorms. According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, this is the highest known temperature that rain has fallen at, anywhere in the world. He knows of one other case where rain occurred at 109°F (43°C): in Marrakech, Morocco on July 10, 2010. A thunderstorm that began at 5 pm local time brought rain at a remarkably low humidity of 14%, cooling the temperature down to 91°F within an hour.

Figure 1. Thunderstorms at 109°F? This true-color satellite image of Saudi Arabia taken at 2:10 pm local time (11:10 UTC) shows a line of thunderstorms that developed along the edge of the sea breeze from the Red Sea. Three hours after this image was taken, Mekkah (Mecca) recorded a thunderstorm with rain and a temperature of 109°F (43°C.) Image credit: NASA.

More like a hot shower than a cooling rain?
Thunderstorms often produce big drops of cold rain, since these raindrops form several thousand meters high in the atmosphere, where temperatures are much cooler than near the surface. Some drops even get their start as snow or ice particles, which melt on the way to the surface. Additional cooling of the drops occurs due to evaporation on the way down. However, in the case of the June 4, 2012 Mekkah storm, I think the rain was probably more like a hot shower. Large raindrops, like the kind thunderstorms produce, fall at a speed of about 10 meters per second. A balloon sounding of the upper atmosphere taken at 3 pm local time at a nearby station (Al-Midinah) found that the bottom 1000 meters of the atmosphere was 97°F (36°C) or warmer. Thus, the thunderstorms’ raindrops would have been subjected to 100 seconds of some very hot air on the way to the surface, likely warming them above 100°F by the time they hit the ground. A classic 1948 study of raindrops found that, in many cases, raindrop temperatures start off cold in the first few minutes of a rain shower, then warm up to within 1°C (1.8°F) of the air temperature within a few minutes. With the air temperature a sizzling 109°F (43°C) at the time of the June 4 thunderstorm in Mekkah, the raindrops could easily have been heated to a temperature of over 105°F (41°C) by the time they reached the surface!

How hot can it be and still rain?
If substantial amounts of liquid water are present on the Earth, the planet will experience rain, as long as some mechanism to lift the warm, moist air and cause condensation can be found. If the climate continues to warm as expected, we should see an increasing number of cases where it rains at temperatures well above 100°F. On Saturday, June 2, the temperature in Mekkah hit 51.4°C (124.5°F), a new record for the city, and just 1.1°F (0.6°C) below the all-time hottest temperature record for Saudi Arabia (125.6°F, or 52°C, recorded at Jeddah on June 22, 2010.) I expect that 20 – 40 years from now, we’ll begin seeing occasional cases where rain falls at a temperature above 117°F (47°C) in the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East.

I’ll have a new post by Friday afternoon.

Jeff Masters

A band of thunderstorms prompted Environment Canada to issue tornado warnings for parts of cottage country north of Barrie, including Parry Sound, Rosseau, Killbear Park, Hunstville and Baysville, Wednesday evening.

The warning, issued shortly after 5 p.m., said the severe thunderstorms in the area had the potential to produce large hail, damaging winds and heavy rainfall, as well as tornadoes. The tornado warnings ended just before 7 p.m.

A severe thunderstorm warning was also issued for areas east of Toronto, starting around Pickering.

In Toronto, rain and thunder was reported by 5 p.m., with Environment Canada predicting a risk of thunderstorm through the evening.

There were no weather warnings or watches issued for the Toronto area.

April showers bring May flowers, but what do June hail storms and tornadoes bring? After several days of warm weather, on Wednesday night the Colorado sky opened up and unleashed severe weather upon the state delivering spectacular lightning, large hail balls and even some weak tornadoes around the Front Range.

And apparently it’s not over yet. We’ll get a break Thursday during the day, but 9News reports that around 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon, storms will build again along the Front Range and move east throughout the evening and into the night producing the possibility for more large hail, tornadoes, and high winds.

According to 7News, a number of tornadoes and funnel clouds were reported Wednesday. And at one point last night, hail stopped traffic along I-25 at County Line Road and 3 to 5 inches of rain flooded nearby roads.

Jim Kalina, National Weather Service meteorologist, told The Denver Post that a small tornado was spotted near Denver International Airport (watch video of the tornado above) around 5 p.m., on Wednesday. The National Weather Service also received reports of a tornado in northeastern Colorado around 6:40 p.m. that tore a small tree from the ground and thew it about 20 feet.

o injuries but toll includes downed power lines, countless trees, smashed windows, minor flooding, torn-off shingles

Cam Cleland watched helplessly from his brick farmhouse as 25-metre-tall poplar trees were snapped over like dominoes as a tornado passed through the region Tuesday night.

Located seven kilometres south of Taber, his property would have likely been in direct line of the tornado that pulverized the southern Alberta town.

“I’m just glad it didn’t snap all the big ones that would have fallen on my house,” Cleland said Wednesday, adding 20 to 25 trees were knocked over in total.

Across southern Alberta, there were reports of severe weather that included strong winds, flash flooding, golf ball-sized hail and three unconfirmed reports of tornadoes near Brooks, Bow Island and Vulcan.

However, Taber was clearly the hardest hit.

In town, the damage included four or five downed power lines, countless trees, smashed windows, minor flooding and torn-off shingles.

No one was reported injured in the storm.

Barnwell, located near Taber, had 56.5 millimetres of rain on Tuesday night.

Environment Canada confirmed Wednesday that a tornado hit around eight kilometres south of Taber at 8:42 p.m. Tuesday.

Cleland had just returned home from his son’s baseball practice when he saw the clouds growing increasingly darker.

There was the calm before the storm, then the clouds started lowering in the sky and it went pitch black outside.

Southwest winds started blowing in, reaching 70 or 80 km/h, he said.

“The wind wasn’t pushing the trees over. It was snapping, lifting, then dropping them,” he said.

The storm knocked power out for about 3,000 residents overnight.

One building of note was destroyed near town.

The Porter Tanner Associates hay storing facility four kilometres west of town had its roof blown off, with an employee of the family-run company saying it will likely need to be torn down and rebuilt.

“It’s definitely not a good thing,” said Nelson Porter, adding no one was in the building at the time.

The severe weather storm developed over Montana, which had its own reports of hail, strong winds and a tornado.

“It was a very unstable air mass over Montana and southern Alberta,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Bill McMurtry.

“As the Montana system moved northward, it tapped into the energy available over southern Alberta. There was an unstable air mass but, more importantly, the humidity was quite high and that’s one of the more important ingredients for severe weather.”

It’s too early to categorize how strong the tornado was that hit Taber, McMurtry said.

Hail hit other parts of southern Alberta, but Jamie Puchinger of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development said she had not heard of any reports of crop damage caused by the storm.

The tornado touched down at 8:42 p.m. – a peculiar time, according to Environment Canada. The other three unconfirmed tornadoes hit between 10:30 and 11:05 p.m.

“They can happen (in the evening) but most of them happen late afternoon, early evening,” McMurtry said.

Spokespeople with RCMP detachments in Brooks, Bow Island and Vulcan all confirmed there was no severe damage in their jurisdictions.

All in all, though, Taber residents admit it could have been a lot worse.

“It’s safe to say we dodged another bullet last night,” said Taber Mayor Ray Bryant.

A real estate office and video store on Walter Road, Morley, has been damaged with the roof torn off and one wall collapsed.

Nobody was injured in the building collapse. Several cars may also have been damaged.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that a “tornado” was reported in the Tuart Hill/Morley/Dianella area just after midday.

At 12.45 pm the storm that produced this tornado was in the vicinity of Bickley and moving to the southeast.

Another tornado has been reported near York at around 12.30 pm.

The bureau also issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the area.

Thunderstorm warning

Warning: “For destructive winds and heavy rainfall in, near or between a line Jurien Bay to Beacon to Corrigin to Bunbury to Jurien Bay, including York, Mandurah and the Perth metropolitan area.

“A low pressure system to the southwest of Perth is producing showers and thunderstorms over the southwest of the State with isolated dangerous that could cause significant damage to homes and property. Showers and thunderstorms may also cause heavy rainfall that may cause flash flooding during this afternoon.”

The tornado has ripped powerlines and trees down on Morley Drive between Alexander Drive and Camboon and Wellington Roads.

Western Power crews are on site and are currently assessing the damage.

Approximately 5000 thousand customers have been blacked out and Western Power will be seeking to restore their power as soon as possible.

People are urged to stay away from any fallen power lines and report any damage to 13 13 51.

Trees have also been brought down along Alexander Drive.

Police and emergency services are on site directing traffic.

Drivers are strongly advised to avoid the area if possible.

Other roads in and around the Dianella/Morley area may also have debris or water over the road so drivers are asked to reduce their speed and exercise caution through the area.

China faces a “serious epidemic” of drug-resistant tuberculosis according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of the size of the problem there, said a US-published study on Wednesday.

“In 2007, one third of the patients with new cases of tuberculosis and one half of the patients with previously treated tuberculosis had drug-resistant disease,” said the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Even more, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB in new cases (5.7 percent) was nearly twice the global average, said the study.

Using World Health Organization figures as a basis for comparison, “China has the highest annual number of cases of MDR tuberculosis in the world — a quarter of the cases worldwide,” it added.

“China has a serious epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis.”

The data came from a survey of more than 4,600 Chinese people who were recently diagnosed or treated for TB.

Patients for the study were treated at local TB clinics, not hospitals, and the survey was conducted by the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL) of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control.

According to an accompanying editorial by Johns Hopkins University infectious disease specialist Richard Chaisson, the growth of drug-resistant TB presents an “enormous challenge.”

Even more concerning was the finding that most of the 110,000 drug-resistant cases were in people newly diagnosed with the disease, suggesting that the virulent bacteria are being transmitted from person to person and not developing solely as a result of a person prematurely stopping treatment.

“MDR tuberculosis is linked to inadequate treatment in both the public health system and the hospital system, especially tuberculosis hospitals; however, primary transmission accounts for most cases,” said the study.

Chaisson said the findings highlight the need for faster testing, and for new cases of TB to be tested for signs of drug resistance, not just recurrent forms.

In China, over one million new tuberculosis infections occur each year — a large chunk of the estimated nine million new cases worldwide annually.

Known formally as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB spreads through the air when infected people cough up bacteria. TB kills about 1.5 million people worldwide each year.

Often it can be cured with antibiotics, though drug availability is limited in the developing world and sometimes patients do not follow the entire regimen of treatment, which can encourage the development of resistant strains.

The study was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Health.

Region 1494 (S18W06)
produced an M2/1b at 06/2006Z associated with Type II (est. speed
1148 km/s) and Type IV radio sweeps. An associated CME was first
visible in SOHO LASCO C2 imagery at 06/2036Z. Further analysis will
be conducted as more images become available to determine
geoeffectiveness. A filament eruption was observed in SDO AIA 193
imagery around 05/1945Z near N12W10. The CME was first visible in
STEREO COR 2 imagery at 05/2039Z. The majority of the ejecta appears
to be north of the ecliptic plane, however, there is a weak
Earth-directed component. A model run is in progress to determine
geoeffectiveness. The Penticton 10 cm Flux value was estimated due
to flare enhancement.

2MIN News June7: StarWater & Nature’s Decline

Published on Jun 7, 2012 by Suspicious0bservers

TODAYS LINKS
Japan Fish Death: http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/06/05/something-fishys-going-on-in-a-fishing-…
StarWater: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/06/110613-space-science-star-wat…
Splitting Water: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-chemical-nontoxic-noncorrosive-low-temperature-m…
Tipping Point: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606132308.htm
Climate Vulnerable: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-today-climate-sensitive-carbon-dioxide.html
Biodiversity Loss: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-loss-biodiversity-increasingly-threatens-human.html
Geoengineering: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606092715.htm
Arctic Ice Melt: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-arctic-ice-stage-cold-weather.html
LiDAR: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-uh-team-airborne-lidar-unveil.html
Population Collpase: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/jun/06/yeast-helps-physicists-f…

REPEAT LINKS
Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com/ [Look on the left at the X-ray Flux and Solar Wind Speed/Density]

HAARP: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html [Click online data, and have a little fun]

SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ [Place to find Solar Images and Videos - as seen from earth]

SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater [SOHO; Lasco and EIT - as seen from earth]

Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images [Stereo; Cor, EUVI, HI - as seen from the side]

SunAEON:http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/ [Just click it... trust me]

SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/ [All purpose data viewing site]

iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html [Free Application; for advanced sun watchers]

NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/cme-based/ [CME Evolution]

RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]

LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/operations/heliplots_gsn.php

Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/ [Really? You can't figure out what this one is for?]

BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html [Top left box, look for BIG blue circles]

TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-torcon-index [Tornado Forecast for the day]

GOES Weather: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ [Clouds over America]

INTELLICAST: http://www.intellicast.com/ [Weather site used by many youtubers]

NASA News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/

PHYSORG: http://phys.org/ [GREAT News Site!]

A glowing cloud blossomed into a rainbow over southern China on 5 June, appearing at dusk over Wanning City in southern China in Hainan Province. The glowing ‘rainbow’ was spotted first by a child on a fishing boat, and captured by a local photographer.

The rare effect is created by light refracting off ice crystals in clouds, rather than water particles close to Earth, creating a ‘flying’ rainbow.

‘Late in the afternoon of June 5, a giant piece of colorful cloud appeared over the sky in Shenzhou Peninsula, Wanning City of south China’s Hainan Province. A child on a fishing ship had the luck to observe this spectacular phenomenon.

‘When the sun went down, the colorful cloud dispersed gradually,’ says Ye Xin, of China’s People’s Daily Online.

The phenomenon is caused by light reflecting off tiny ice crystals inside the body of the cloud’s water vapour.

It’s very rarely observed, even compared to other unusual rainbow phenomena such as upside-down rainbows.