"This is UNUSUAL" said a spokesman for the Weather Service. "There's no sugar-coating anything here." The extreme drought afflicting the U.S. Southwest in recent weeks has caused water main breaks to quadruple in Oklahoma City to up to 20 a day. In Minneapolis, the Minnesota Twins and the Cleveland Indians began a day-night doubleheader, while taking precautions as the heat index crawled above 100. Ironically, the teams were making up an April contest that was postponed because of extreme cold and rain. "How about that? The afternoon game here in 100-plus heat index is the makeup game to a game that we had to rain out in 45-degree spitting rain. Only in Minnesota can we go to those extremes, but that is the name of the game here."
The heat was building in Chicago, Illinois, where temperatures were expected to peak later this week. The city learned a lesson during a blistering 1995 heat wave blamed for the deaths of as many as 800 people, many of them elderly in homes without air conditioning. "That was a really rare event. We're definitely going to see heat and humidity, but that was an unprecedented event." The city took precautions such as opening cooling centers. Other cities echoed warnings and braced for what could be a week or more of high temperatures.
Des Moines, Iowa, was experiencing its MOST PROLONGED HEAT WAVE IN 20 YEARS. Excessive heat was forecast to bake the United States from the heartland to the Carolinas - excluding parts of the Northeast and southern Florida - through July 29.
Persistent high temperatures were particularly dangerous to residents not accustomed to the combination of heat and humidity. Air-conditioning may be the rule in southern states, but many homes in the northern Plains and Midwest do not have it. Overnight temperatures were not expected to dip low enough to offer a reprieve.
"When you have high humidity, the body's ability to cool down is limited." In Texas, where a drought has withered crops and sparked wildfires, wildlife rescuers noted adult deer were abandoning their fawns because they were unable to feed them.
Arthur Schopenhauer
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
5.1 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.5 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.2 KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
5.3 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Yesterday -
7/18/11 -
5.2 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.4 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
5.0 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS.
5.2 NORTHWEST OF KURIL ISLANDS
5.0 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
5.2 TAIWAN REGION
5.0 NEGROS, PHILIPPINES
VOLCANOES -
Two fresh eruptions at Indonesia's Mount Lokon - Indonesia's Mount Lokon, which is located on the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi, on Monday erupted twice, as thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate the area. The eruptions show high and unpredictable activity from the volatile mountain, experts said. The second blast at Mount Lokon was the larger of the two.
TROPICAL STORMS -
-TROPICAL STORM 04E (DORA) was located in the Pacific off the coast of Guatemala, heading northwest in the direction of Baja, California.
- TYPHOON 08W (MA-ON) was LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 400 NM WEST-SOUTHWEST OF TOKYO, JAPAN.
-TROPICAL STORM BRET was located in the Atlantic Ocean, off the east coast of Florida.
Tropical storm Bret is slowly swirling northeast of the Bahamas while rainfall, cloud cover and storms still impact Abaco and parts of the northern and central Bahamas. Meteorologists are tracking the storm as it moves at three miles per hour. Bret is growing stronger as it swirls in the Atlantic Ocean, but is forecast to stay away from the US East Coast. July 18, the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that Bret had maximum sustained winds of 50 miles (85 kilometers) per hour with higher gusts.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
CANADA - Storm collapses stage at Ottawa Bluesfest injuring 5. A severe storm hit the large venue of Bluesfest on Sunday while the band Cheap Trick was on stage. The musicians were knocked off of their feet, but were not among the 5 that were injured. (video showing the stage topple)
EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / WILDFIRES / CLIMATE CHANGE -
GEORGIA - Rains keep wildfire just shy of 300,000 acres. A vast wildfire burning since April in the Okefenokee Swamp smoldered just shy of 300,000 acres Monday after weekend rains slowed its growth, and authorities said they expect little relief from the tropical storm churning off the Atlantic coast.
CANADA - Residents in southwestern Ontario expected hot, sticky conditions to continue Monday, after soaring temperatures reached RECORD-BREAKING levels over the weekend. Torontonians expected a daytime high of 30 degrees Celsius.
HEALTH THREATS -
AUSTRALIA is in the grip of a grim flu outbreak, with the number of influenza cases four times higher than a year ago. Experts believe the rise could be linked to the sudden deluge of wet weather and floods earlier this year when there was an UNUSUALLY high number of flu cases recorded. Wet conditions were ideal for flu virus to survive, with people crowding indoors and not getting as much of immune system-boosting Vitamin D because of a lack of sun exposure. Particularly high rates of influenza have hit NSW, Queensland and South Australia with the H1N1 virus (popularly known as swine flu) and influenza B the most common strains.
Figures from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System show 7931 cases of influenza have been confirmed nationally so far this year, about four times higher than the 1989 cases recorded between January and July 2010. The number of flu cases seen around the time of the floods in early 2011 were significantly higher than in 2010. Since May alone, the number of cases have leapt by more than 200 per cent. There were 2454 cases recorded in June and there have been 1345 so far for July. More increases were likely to be on the way as Australia heads into its traditional peak flu season of August to October. While there has been a sharp rise in flu cases this year, it is not a pandemic because no new strain of the influenza virus has been detected. It is estimated that influenza and its associated complications kill about 2500 Australians a year.
