onlooker wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/03/peru-suffers-worst-flooding-in-decades/520146/
"An unusual bout of heavy rains powered by El Niño conditions have drenched parts of Peru with 10 times more rainfall than normal," El Niño conditions or the actual El Niño ?
Peru — Mar 25, 2017
Mudslide buries Peruvian village, leaving little to claim
In January, the residents of Barbablanca began noticing steady, unusual rains, and in early March, the downpours became worrying. For two weeks, it rained for more than six hours a day. The residents decided that if rainfall worsened and a mudslide seemed imminent, they would flee up the mountain to higher ground.
The rains pummeling Peru, brought about by a warming of Pacific Ocean waters that climatologists are calling a "coastal El Nino," have left 85 dead, crippled the nation's infrastructure, ruined thousands of fields of crops and destroyed 800 villages, most much like Barbablanca.
Peru is expected to spend at least $3.75 million in repairing bridges and roads, according to the Central Bank, but the economic toll is still accumulating. Another two weeks of rain are forecast and the state meteorological agency expects the ocean warming causing the storms to continue through April.
"This really is the worst disaster for the people of northern Peru in decades," said Michele Detomaso, head of the IFRC team in Peru. "Its severity - and the speed with which waters came in - surpassed the capacities of the population to cope."
Several cities in Peru are underwater, and the 'coastal El Niño' isn't done yet
Peru - March 21, 2017
The precipitation has been caused by what scientists call a “coastal El Niño,” a localized version of the hemispherewide condition. Unusually warm waters just off the Andean nation’s Pacific shore — up to 50 degrees warmer than normal — have triggered the rains in the world’s second-highest mountain range.
The extreme runoff has, in turn, caused devastating problems, above all in Peru’s northern regions, particularly Piura, near the frontier with Ecuador. Downtown areas of several cities, including Piura, and Trujillo, which is Peru’s second-largest urban center, have been underwater for days now.
Meanwhile, up to half a million people have been severely affected. They include some of Peru’s poorest, who made the fatal mistake of squatting on land beside gulches and canyons that open from the Andes onto the coastal plane.
Ironically, in the capital, Lima, the problem ended up being too little water, rather than too much. SEDAPAL, the local water authority, saw its treatment plants overwhelmed by unprecedented volumes of water, heavy with sediment, debris and trash.
As a result, water supplies in this city of 10 million people were cut almost entirely, without notice, from Thursday evening to Monday afternoon. That prompted long queues in the 80-degree heat as municipal water trucks stopped at street corners to fill buckets, bottles and even plastic bathtubs for locals. There were some reports of scuffles and fights in some of the worst-affected neighborhoods.
There has also been a rush on bottled water in supermarkets while the prices of some food staples have soared, with roads into Lima and other major population centers along the coast having been cut off.
onlooker wrote:I wonder how they are discerning El Nino from the extra warmth now present?
Sea surface temperatures in the key monitoring region of the tropical Pacific have been dropping through the summer, and a deep pool of cool water is lurking below the surface. NOAA thinks there is a 55-60% chance of La Niña developing this fall and winter.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Return to Environment, Weather & Climate
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests