Key Facts Of The Day 4/4

Storms and Flooding

• Severe thunderstorms, including tornadoes, to target the South again through Wednesday, including areas still recovering from a pair of outbreaks the past two weeks.

  • Monday night, a line of severe thunderstorms is expected to sweep eastward across east Texas into northern and western Louisiana, southern Arkansas and Mississippi.

  • Severe thunderstorms are most likely Tuesday from parts of Mississippi eastward into Alabama, Georgia and southern South Carolina.

  • Severe thunderstorms capable of damaging winds and a few tornadoes are expected ahead of the cold front Wednesday afternoon and evening in much of the Southeast from the Tennessee Valley to the Deep South.

• The National Weather Service on Friday confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in southeastern Durham County, North Carolina during Thursday’s severe storms.

  • Winds ripped part of the roof off of Pfizer’s office building in the Research Triangle Park.

  • Strong winds and heavy rain also caused damage and crashes across the Triangle on Thursday afternoon.

  • At least 55 flights were delayed out of Raleigh-Durham International Airport and 10 flights were canceled.

  • About 700 customers lost power in Raleigh during the storms.

• Communities in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania spent the day cleaning up after powerful storms on Thursday.

  • The National Weather Service confirms that one person was injured as storms moved through the area on Thursday.

  • According to the National Weather Service, 80 to 90 MPH winds ripped through the small community.

• According to a new assessment by The Office of Management and Budget, climate change could cost the U.S. budget $2 trillion a year by the end of the century.

  • The analysis also found that the federal government could spend an additional $25 billion to $128 billion annually on expenditures such as coastal disaster relief, flood, crop, and healthcare insurance, wildfire suppression and flooding at federal facilities.

  • U.S. military bases, including Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and Tyndall Air Force base in Florida, have suffered billions of dollars in damage in recent years from floods and hurricanes.

Wildfires

• As of Monday, there are currently 25 large active wildfires that have burned 175,633 acres across AZ, FL, GA, KS, KY, OK, NC, TN, TX, and VA. As of Monday, 15,807 wildfires have burned 683,727 acres across the country.

• As of Monday, the Crittenberg Complex in Texas has burned 33,175 acres and is 90% contained.

• As of Monday, the Hatcher Mountain-Indigo Lane Fire in Tennessee has burned 3,700 acres and is 95% contained.

• The Office of Management and Budget said increased wildfires could boost federal fire suppression costs between $1.55 billion to $9.6 billion annually.

• Global warming is greatly increasing the risk that extreme wildfires in the American West are followed by heavy rainfall, highlighting the need for better preparations for hazards, like mudslides and flash floods, that can cause devastation.

  • Fires ravage forests, wreck homes and kill people and animals, but they also destroy vegetation and make soil less permeable, making it easier for even short bursts of heavy rain to cause flooding and runaway flows of mud and debris.

  • Rains after wildfires can also contaminate drinking water by filling rivers and basins with sediment from eroded hillsides.

  • By the end of the century, more than half of days with extremely high wildfire risk in parts of the Pacific Northwest, Idaho, Nevada and Utah could be followed by severe downpours within a year.

Extreme Heat

• The new U.N. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concludes that the chances of meeting the most aggressive Paris Agreement temperature target — 1.5 degrees celsius of warming above pre industrial levels — is slipping out of reach.

  • The report calls for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025.

  • During the last decade, average annual greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history.

  • Without the enactment of more stringent emissions reduction policies, the world is headed for median global warming of 3.2 degrees celsius by 2100.

    • This much warming would have severe consequences for people and ecosystems, potentially destabilizing large parts of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and even rendering parts of the globe unlivable for parts of each year due to extreme heat.

  • The report finds far greater investments are needed to scale up renewable energy technologies, with current investments falling short by three to six times compared to what is needed to limit warming.

  • Limiting warming to 2 degrees celsius or below, as called for under the Paris Agreement, will effectively render fossil fuel assets, such as untapped reserves and power plants already in use, unusable.

    • About 30% of oil, 50% of gas, and 80% of coal reserves would be unusable if warming is to be limited to the Paris Agreement’s 2 degrees target.

• California’s mountain snowpack has dwindled to alarmingly low levels, at 38% of the average, after a record dry start to the year.

  • Snow levels at Phillips Station, near Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains, were at 4% of average for April 1.

  • The low snowpack means some California farmers won’t be getting water from their contracts this year.

  • The state expects farmers to leave much more land fallow this year compared to last due to water shortages.

  • Across the western U.S., drought has dried up reservoirs, raised the wildfire risk, and will probably lead to more widespread heat waves this summer.

New Reports And Data

• An April 2022 report found that  climate change could cost the U.S. budget $2 trillion a year by the end of the century.

• An April 2022 study found that although the number of flash droughts has remained stable during the past two decades, more of them are coming on faster.

• An April 2022 study found that the dangerous pairing of disasters may become more common in the American West as rains trigger runaway surges of mud and debris in areas damaged by wildfire.