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More microbursts are coming
- fncndhdhc 10y agoBloomberg is trying to invent new, scarier sounding terminology, and honestly it's quite silly. What they're referring to are microbursts.
- stormbrew 10y agoGoogling it I see a bunch of references going back at least a year, so I don't think bloomberg is to blame for this one.
- jrockway 10y agoNew Yorkers are wimps when it comes to anything weather. There's a small thunderstorm? We call it a "doozie". Some snow in the forecast? We shut down the entire regional transportation system. I'm originally from Chicago so I find it all very amusing. I don't recall the L ever shutting down, nor do I remember any news articles about thunderstorms unless there were tornados inside the city limits.
- zzalpha 10y agoNo, it's more that regional climate varies and different areas have invested in and prepared for different types of weather events. For example, I live in an area that traditionally receives moderate rain and snow during the winter. This past winter, though, we had very little snow while in the past week a major freeway has flooded twice due to heavy rains. Of course, this is one year and doesn't, on its own, make a trend, but if this continues we'll need to alter how we behave, and possibly how out infrastructure is designed, in order to adjust. And unfortunately when the climate is changing rapidly, it's suddenly very expensive to alter your coping strategies to adjust to the new normal.
- ams6110 10y agoI've noticed this trend to be more and more alarmist about what used to be normal weather. For example, I've lived in the midwest USA most of my life. Every July and August is hot and humid, with many days in the 90-degree (F) range. This used to just be normal summer weather and unremarkable. Now, anything over 85 degrees is a "heat advisory" and over 90 people are advised to stay indoors and avoid activity. They also publish absurd "feels like" temperature e.g. "today's high 91, feels like 117." I'm sorry, in no real world does 91 "feel like" 117.
- sambull 10y agoThe data says otherwise for the midwest. We are going through abrupt climate change, there are global effects and it's accelerating. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/midwest http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/midwest
- jrockway 10y agoWe always had heat advisories in Chicago. When it's 87 degrees overnight, people without air conditioning die. Yes, it happens every summer. But it's a reasonable weather warning; reminding people to stay hydrated, and to try to get somewhere cooler.
- pharrington 10y agoYes, even normal weather has always killed human beings. Having infrastructure to both warn people about real natural danger and give steps for dealing with it is one of the good things our species does.
- justin66 10y ago> I'm sorry, in no real world does 91 "feel like" 117. It does, and there's no voodoo needed to understand why. In a super-humid environment your body's way of dealing with the heat - sweat - just isn't as efficient. On a breezy day in the desert, 117 is... well, it's damn hot, but if you're staying hydrated and take steps to keep from getting sunburned, it's kind of surprising how tolerable it is. In that environment sweat works its magic quickly and effectively. (I live in the midwest and I'd trade fifteen or twenty degrees for the humidity we get this time of year. My first visit to the Nevada desert was kind of an eye-opener)
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoMy girlfriend poked fun at the weathermen going apeshit over 30mph winds earlier in the week. Then she got stuck at Newark on Monday waiting for the storm to pass. Karma.
- themartorana 10y agoTo be fair, the picture linked in the article does look a lot like a bomb going off. http://twitter.com/chopperguyhd/status/755242101835653120/photo/1 http://twitter.com/chopperguyhd/status/755242101835653120/ph...
- mdadm 10y agoWoah. That's almost terrifying to see.
- jcoffland 10y agoI recently saw a sunset that looked a lot like a bomb going off due to refraction over the ocean. That didn't make the sunset dangerous.
- themartorana 10y agoYup, that's the same thing. And say, would you use the word "bomb" to describe it? Oh you did. I never said it made it dangerous, I said the use of the word "bomb" made sense in light of the photo specifically referenced in the article.
- jcoffland 10y agoWhy do you assume I'm attacking your statement?
- ourmandave 10y agoIf they report microbursts as rain bombs, will they also collectively sit around and wait to see what terrorist group claims responsibility?
- WillPostForFood 10y agoThey'll say the terrorists are republicans who deny global warming.
- ams6110 10y agoThey are already saying that.
- btown 10y agoWell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis did flood the Nile with tears...
- mrestko 10y agoDidn't you hear? "Climate change is weaponizing the atmosphere."
- dang 10y agoOk, we rewrote the title to be less baity, in accordance with the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). But please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN. This forum is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be an entirely different forum. (This is going in the site guidelines soon.)
- fncndhdhc 10y agoI prefer to be judged on the content of my comments rather than the number of internet points displayed by my name. It allows for much more honesty and sincerity in discussions, and I think those are two qualities that HN could use more of. Also I don't enjoy being profiled and I'll continue to play this game of whack-a-mole regardless of a change in the rules.
- dang 10y agoIt isn't a question of karma, but of community, which you omitted to consider. The suggestion has come up over the years that HN should just have comments without usernames. The answer is that that would be a fundamentally different site, so we're not going to do it. If that's what you prefer, you're welcome to start such a site, but please don't gnaw at the foundations of this one. This has been on my mind because I think it's time for HN to go through a fresh round of defining what it is and what it isn't, and the above is one thing it isn't.
- karmajunkie 10y agoWhat do you suggest for people who need to post stories where the lack of anonymity could have serious ramifications for their lives? This is a serious question. Are those people (or those contributions) simply not intended to be a part of this community?
- gkop 10y ago
- pharrington 10y agoBloomberg isn't inventing the term rainbomb. It is evocative, yes. I feel that sort of colorful language is appropriate for describing an extreme weather event that dumps 8+ inches of rain in less than a day. Rainbomb or microburst, they are apparently quite effective at destroying vital infrastructure. Either way, you can't in good faith condemn the exploitation of color language to describe a destructive and lethal event by pointing out that that destructive and lethal event has a benign name.
- jessaustin 10y agoAs a farmer/rancher, I'm happy not to live in the "1930s" region of that graph. I've never understood why people in North America complain about rain. The land we have that is vulnerable to flooding is tiny in comparison to that which is vulnerable to desertification.
- hogu 10y agoJust curious, are you a father/rancher and a software dev? How did you come across hn?
- quirkot 10y agoHaven't you heard about the dust-up about DRM on tractors? Tech is everywhere, even the unglamorous places
- ianai 10y agoI'm of the opinion that the metropolis is the unglamorous place.
- eksemplar 10y agoYou should see the tech on a modern farm. Self driving farm equipment, drones that scout for deer in the fields and scare them off so they don't get reaped, satellite analysis of fields to analyze the best crop locations and disease/pests. Solar and wind electricity, water filtration and geo cooling/warming. Honestly a not-poor farm makes most city neighborhoods look like the third world in terms of tech.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- nabla9 10y agoThat's heavy precipitation chart, not overall precipitation. Heavy precipitation can flatten your crop. Change in precipitation is not same all in US. Some areas become very dry, some others get more than enough. http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/83000/83624/Precipitation_nca_1991-2012_lrg.jpg http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/83000/8362...
- ianai 10y agoPretty sure Las Vegas would crumble if it ever got a macro burst. Many streets flood with seemingly any rainfall here. When they do flood, large rocks and debris wash onto the streets.
- djKianoosh 10y agoLos Cabos in mexico rarely gets rain and they do get floods whenever they get more than a couple inches of rain. at least thats what the locals told me last time I visited
- kijin 10y agoAmerican cities need to learn a thing or two from Tokyo. 10 inches of rain in one day is a common occurrence in Japan during the summer, so they are prepared to handle it.
- zzalpha 10y agoYou've just described a necessary consequence of uncontrolled climate change: having to change the way we live to cope with the effects. And it's incredibly expensive. And also a luxury of the relative rich west.
- maxerickson 10y agoYeah, that's sort of the point. This kind of weather hasn't been happening, so infrastructure hasn't been built to handle it. For infrastructure that will last 50 years, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to build it to withstand events that happen roughly every 500 years. Of course things like nuclear plants and dams have to be built to withstand the most severe events, but not every culvert on a country road.
- ourmandave 10y agoAnd why Atlanta shuts down when there's an 1/4" of snow.
- maxerickson 10y agoEven in northern states they don't bother having the equipment needed to rapidly respond to a big storm. Detroit gets massively shut down every year or two, and lots of counties in Michigan take a couple of days to really clear most roads from a big storm.
- dpeck 10y agoIn fairness it was the ice, which is a whole different beast.
- tedunangst 10y agoThe counter argument is that it's cheaper to do things once than twice. Laying a one foot drainage pipe, then digging it up and replacing with three foot pipe, is way more expensive than just laying three foot pipe to start. Too many public works projects seem to be built right at the edge of confidence.
- jcoffland 10y ago> roughly one in ten record-breaking events would not have occurred without climate change So 90% of these record breaking events are normal. Then why all the hyperbole? Oh right, saying "rain bomb" instead of "microburst" gets more clicks.
- themartorana 10y agoBecause we've moved the climate in one direction or another by 10% already, and we've never polluted so heavily before. That's pretty significant. That stat is also normalized over the past 30 years. Change is accelerating, so it would be more than 10% over the past 10 years.
- jcoffland 10y agoThis does not equate to a 10% change in climate, whatever that even means. > Change is accelerating... What change specifically is accelerating? Your base assumption that things are unquestionably getting worse is unscientific.
- themartorana 10y agoI don't... what? Anyway... Since the new thing is to yell at any post that doesn't provide a link, here - change is accelerating: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-warming-taking-place-at-an-alarming-rate-un-climate-body-warns https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/global-w... But this isn't news. And it's all scientific.
- jcoffland 10y agohttp://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-study-finds-earth-s-ocean-abyss-has-not-warmed/#.V574F65Mvs3 http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-study-finds-eart...
- themartorana 10y ago
- taliesinb 10y agoReminds me of this essay I read yesterday, which painted a pretty startling picture of how insane things could get: http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/how-climate-change-is-rapidly-taking-the-planet-apart/ http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/how-climate-change-is-rap... Here's a snippet showing how rapidly predictions are escalating: * Late 2007: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announces that the planet will see a one degree Celsius temperature increase due to climate change by 2100. * Late 2008: The Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research predicts a 2C increase by 2100. * Mid-2009: The U.N. Environment Programme predicts a 3.5C increase by 2100. Such an increase would remove habitat for human beings on this planet, as nearly all the plankton in the oceans would be destroyed, and associated temperature swings would kill off many land plants. Humans have never lived on a planet at 3.5C above baseline. * October 2009: The Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research releases an updated prediction, suggesting a 4C temperature increase by 2060. * November 2009: The Global Carbon Project, which monitors the global carbon cycle, and the Copenhagen Diagnosis, a climate science report, predict 6C and 7C temperature increases, respectively, by 2100. * December 2010: The U.N. Environment Programme predicts up to a 5C increase by 2050. * 2012: The conservative International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook report for that year states that we are on track to reach a 2C increase by 2017. * November 2013: The International Energy Agency predicts a 3.5C increase by 2035.
- cryoshon 10y agohumanity in general is in deep shit and yet, we waste (and make no mistake, it is a complete waste) our best minds and the bulk of our resources on making people click ads or other similar excursions in nihilism what is needed is a multinational manhattan project for climate change... instead, we move the deck chairs around on the titanic. it's clear we can expect no leadership from governments or corporations on this issue.
- meddlepal 10y agoThe problem is that it's very hard to get people to give a shit about macro problems like climate change. People generally own care about a narrow set of issues between the age of 20 and the 55/60 years most of us survive after that. Another problem is that democracies are poorly setup for solving this problem. Democracy responds mostly to the needs of now without concern for the future (different politicians problem, different generation etc, kick the football down the field because someone else can deal with it once I've got mine.) So yea, we're fucked. This along with the coming robot/AI revolution we are likely to see in the middle or later part of the century creates a pretty bleak future for human beings.
- ryanmarsh 10y agoFlooding in Houston over the past 40 years has had more to do with development and flood control projects than changes in rainfall. I really hate when people try to use Houston as an example of the effects of climate change, the behavior of economic clusters, or the effects of zoning. Most of what I've read shows people really have no clue about how those things actually work here.
- cndjcjcd 10y agoIf you want to create your own personal echo chamber, so be it. But I'll still be here to occasionally hold you accountable. Also new account, since you prevented the other one from posting. :^)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- CydeWeys 10y agoThe article questions "when the next one is coming", but it already came, last night in Ellicott City, MD. The whole downtown was wiped out (in an economic sense) by a flash flood caused by six inches of rain falling in three hours.
- tigeba 10y agoI experienced what was eventually classified as a microburst and the effects on the ground were largely indistinguishable from a tornado. I'm not sure the article really made this clear, or if there are multiple, potentially different definitions for the term. This is also an area that frequently experiences tornado activity so we have ample experience with those events for comparison. We had winds that were likely in excess of 125mph and there were around 100+ houses damaged, 6-8 were completely destroyed and 30+ sustained severe damage. Flooding was not an issue but we have unique geography that makes that very unlikely.
- zackya89 10y agoWhen last year was the hottest year on record, and this year is on track to be the hottest year on record, globally that is a cause for concern.
- cmarschner 10y agoI highly recommend the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond on the matter. It is a highly detailed account of what happened in the past when societies collapsed. Most if the time they consumed more resources than what their environment would provide. Many of them then failed, wars and genocides occured that reduced the population to below sustainable levels, or people sinply starved. Others managed to turn around and started to manage resources properly. There's a talk by the author on Youtube that summarizes the book. https://youtu.be/wpkS1xym0HA https://youtu.be/wpkS1xym0HA
- Animats 10y agoHere's what that looks like on the ground. Ellicott City, MD had a flash flood last night. The Patapsco River rose 14 feet in an hour and a half. The area has flooded before, but during hurricanes, for which there's more advance warning. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/severe-flash-flood-strikes-ellicott-city-overturning-cars-and-destroying-businesses/2016/07/31/a8e50184-5720-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/severe-flash-flood-stri...
- mrfusion 10y agoWas that considered a microburst?
- Animats 10y agoUnclear. One site says yes.[1] This just happened last night, so accurate analysis may be a few days away. [1] http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/2016/07/microbursts-cause-flash-flooding-in-new.html http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/2016/07/microbursts-cause...
- mark_l_watson 10y agoI live in the mountains in Central Arizona. A few summers ago we had a microburst in our neighborhood. For 20 minutes it was like a wall of water coming down. The house down hill from us got 3 feet of mud in the living room, major property damage. It took us about 5 hours to repair our yard but no real damage. Meanwhile, a friend living less that a mile away only had very light rain.
- jds375 10y agoThe article makes the argument that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, thus a hotter atmosphere, thus the atmosphere can hold more water. Does that at all explain the increasingly frequent droughts? Could it be due to more water in the water cycle being stuck in the atmosphere instead of on earth's surface?
- x86_64Ubuntu 10y agoWeather is a dynamic system. Just because you have more water in the air doesn't mean you have more water everywhere.
- cheald 10y agoHeh, the Phoenix picture is impressive but that's every July-September for us - it's monsoon season. We get massive, violent storms that last a very short time, dump a massive amount of water on the city, and then are clear skies before you know what even happened. If anything, it's been a particularly tame year this year. We've had a few good storms, but we haven't even gotten close to our annual flash floods.