Newszine

Wild Weather Around the World

Weather flash

Temperature Swing

Floridians like to complain about the big temperature differences commonly experienced in the late winter and early spring months. What should we wear when it’s 48 degrees in the morning and 80 in the afternoon? But things could certainly be much worse.

Take Rapid City, South Dakota for example. On Sunday, Mar. 22 the city enjoyed record high temperatures with the thermometer topping out at 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The following day, Rapid City experienced blizzard conditions with 61 mph winds and a low of 21 degrees.

This early spring storm brought a blizzard to central U.S. states such as the Dakotas and Wyoming and severe thunderstorms and tornados to the states of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Mt. Redoubt Eruption

Aviation was affected and an ashfall advisory for the Susitna Valley in Alaska was in place as of Monday, Mar. 23 following Mt. Redoubt’s five eruptions late Sunday into Monday. The mountain volcano, which is about 100 southwest of Anchorage, hasn’t erupted since 1989.

My boyfriend’s brother and his girlfriend live in Anchorage and said they wouldn’t have even known the volcano erupted if they hadn’t heard it on the news. Luckily they weren’t downwind from Redoubt and so they haven’t experienced any ashfall. Ashfall is basically where ash falls to the ground similarly to snow. The ash was even showing up on radar like normal precipitation. People in the affected area are advised to seal windows and door, protect electronics, cover air intakes and open water supplies and limit their driving.

“We would expect Redoubt to have some level of explosive activity for the next weeks or months,” USGS geophysicist John Power said at an early morning news conference Monday.

The United States Geographical Survey estimated the height of the eruption cloud at 50,000 feet and warned that mudflows were possible on the Drift and Crescent rivers, and ashfall was likely near and downwind from the volcano, a cnn.com article reported.

Plane Crash

A recent plane crash in Japan may have been caused by a sudden, violent gust of wind known as wind shear.

A FedEx cargo plane crashed and burned at Tokyo’s main international airport Monday, killing both pilots. The airplane, a MD-11 wide-body aircraft, is known for sometimes being unstable during landing.

An msnbc article reported unusually strong winds of up to about 47 miles per hour were blowing through Narita City, the location of the airport, on Monday morning around the time of the crash, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Strong winds and turbulence have caused other recent incidents at the airport, the article said.

Last month, a flight from the Philippines was jolted by severe turbulence as it circled prior to landing, injuring 50 passengers and crew members.