Tag: flooding

Elsewhere in Weather News: June 2nd, 2012

Matthieu Leave a comment

Flooding Returns to China

Another round of flooding in China left locals in the province of Guangdong scrambling for higher grounds this past week as floodwaters rose and swept away homes. As opposed to the flooding in north-western China featured in the May 12th post, this flooding took place in the south-east regions about 200km north of Hong Kong and was associated with a low pressure system.

Flooding

Roads turn into rivers as heavy rains fall in Meizhou, Guangdong. (Source: Euro News)

The large city of Meizhou, Guangdong, was caught in the middle of one the most severe floods this year. Some 210,000 residents living in the city were affected and 25,500 had to be evacuated from terrain that is prone to landslides and flooding, prior to these heavy rainfalls. As torrential rains fell, landslides took out more than 1,000 houses and the extensive rains caused over 4,000 hectares of farmland to be lost. In addition to that, six people lost their lives in the floods. The government has estimated the financial tally to be over 30 million dollars, taking in consideration damaged crops and infrastructure as well as services used to fight against the floods.

This rain is the last thing China needs this year, as widespread flooding has been occurring throughout the country. Areas at risk have included the north-west earlier this May, the south-east this past week and coming week. Also, currently, in the central region of China, crews are already prepping dikes since rivers are expected to overflow their banks in the coming summer months. The latter threat is due to saturated grounds combined with forecast medium-range models suggesting one and a half times average rainfall – China’s Ministry of Water Resources are on high alert.

Forecast rainfall

Map showing more rainfall expected in Meizhou next Tuesday morning. (approximate location of Meizhou with red circle, rain in shades of grey). Rain was not only expected on Tuesday but also Monday and Wednesday. (Source: weather-forecast.com)

Rain and Thunderstorms for Next Week

Brad Leave a comment

The soggy spring we’re experiencing in Southern Manitoba just doesn’t seem to be letting up.  With some areas in Southeast Saskatchewan and Southwestern Manitoba already having seen in excess of 2/3s of what they normally receive through an entire year, everybody, including the ground, is ready for a break from the rain.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s in the cards.  A sunny and warm weekend will change into quite an unsettled pattern for the first half of next week.  Read on to find out where and how much rain will fall.


24hr. QPF valid 12Z Monday morning from the 00Z Friday Jun 10 GEMGLB model.

Enjoy the sunshine and warmth today and tomorrow!  Plenty of sunshine is in store for us with daytime highs in the low twenties and fairly light winds.  Most of Sunday will be pleasant as well, but by evening a new system is going to be pushing into Southwest Manitoba.

An trowal will swing through Southern Manitoba Sunday night through Monday, bringing with it another batch of rain and thunderstorms.  By Sunday evening, rain will begin to push into Southwest Manitoba with a chance of thunderstorms developing before midnight.  While much concern exists about the more rainfall for SW Manitoba, it looks currently like the greatest threat for heavy rain exists from areas south of Winnipeg and spreading eastward through the Whiteshell.

As the trowal rotates into our area on Sunday, an area of thunderstorms should rapidly develop on Sunday evening in North Dakota near and east of the triple point of the associated wave.  For those who don’t know what that is, the triple point is the point where the warm front and the cold front meet.  This should develop upscale quite rapidly into a large MCS that will track east northeast and should cross into S. MB overnight.  Currently, it appears that Winnipeg would be on the northern edge of the higher amounts, with it likely that areas south of the city could see 20-40mm of rain.  Areas elsewhere in Southern Manitoba (including the Southwest corner) that are not impacted by the MCS from North Dakota will see between 10 and 20mm of rain through Monday evening.

This system will then pull northward and rotate into Central Manitoba.  Unfortunately, this prolonged period of rain could bring an additional 20-30mm to the absolutely soaked Interlake region, which is battling un-before-seen high lake levels.

Perhaps of even bigger concern is the next system that will barrel into Southern Manitoba on Wednesday evening.  While details are sure to change, this has the potential to be the most significant convective system we’ve experienced this year.  An extremely intense shortwave will head northeast into North Dakota through the day on Wednesday and initiate a large area of convection by Wednesday evening.  This convection will be pulled northward with the shortwave as it slowly becomes captured in an upper low and rests over the western lakes.  


12hr QPF valid 12Z Wednesday morning, June 15 from the 00Z Friday June 10 GEMGLB.

Thunderstorms will develop and intensify through an upper trough and pull northward into the upper low, resulting in prolonged, intense precipitation along a fairly narrow band.  Positioning will be crucial for this system, but with the potential to be dumping 1.5” – 3” of rain through the RRV into the Interlake, this will be a extremely important system to keep an eye on.

So get out and enjoy the sun!  As summer tries to push in next week, the storm track is going to move back into Southern Manitoba and we are likely going to see several impulses move through during the week.