Key Facts Of The Day 11/16

Hurricane

•  A multiphase snow event is delivering a swath of snowfall from the Midwest to the Northeast.
  • On Monday morning, a storm system formed along a cold front in Oklahoma and Kansas.
    • On Monday, up to 7.3 inches of snow fell in the town of Elk City, Oklahoma.
  • Closings and delays were reported Wednesday morning as New Hampshire’s first winter storm system of the season moved through.
  • A winter storm watch is in effect for the Grand Rapids area which could see up to 18 inches of snow.
• In Volusia County, damages from Hurricane Nicole are estimated at more than $522 million.
  • Volusia County officials said that 29 single-family homes in Wilbur-by-the-Sea had damage and that 17 were deemed unsafe following Hurricane Nicole.
  • Seven single-family homes in nearby Ponce Inlet and three homes in New Smyrna Beach were deemed unsafe by inspectors.
• On Monday, the Florida Medical Examiners Commission reported that 137 deaths were attributed to Hurricane Ian.
• The National Weather Service confirmed two tornadoes from last Friday’s severe storms in Central Virginia.

Wildfires

• As of November 11, there are currently 19 large active wildfires that have burned 11,358 across AZ, GA, KY, NC, OH, TN, TX, and VA. As of November 11, 61,390 wildfires have burned 7,251,835 acres across the country.
• In Arizona, 1 fire has burned 808 acres as of November 11.
• In Georgia, 1 fire has burned 115 acres as of November 11.
• In North Carolina, 1 fire has burned 105 acres as of November 11.
• In Texas, 1 fire has burned 1,500 acres as of November 11.

Extreme Heat

• As water levels fall and states face cuts amid a two-decade-long megadrought, Indigenous tribes are working to ensure their water rights are fully recognized and accessible.
  • There are 30 federally recognized tribes in the river’s basin, and 12 of them, including the Navajo Nation, still have at least some “unresolved” rights, meaning the extent of their rightful claims to water have yet to be agreed upon.
  • The Navajo Nation has rights to almost 700,000 acre-feet of water annually across New Mexico and Utah, along with unresolved claims in Arizona. But, because of a lack of infrastructure, up to 40% of Navajo households don’t have running water.
  • Tribal water use is taken out of state allocations, so states have less incentive to work with tribal leaders or recognize pending water rights claims.
• Microsoft, Meta, and others face rising drought risks to their data centers.
  • Data centers generate massive amounts of heat through their servers because of the enormous amount of power they use and water is the cheapest and most common method used to cool the centers.
  • In just one day, the average data center could use 300,000 gallons of water to cool itself — the same water consumption as 100,000 homes.
• Some farmers in Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri that were hurt by the ongoing drought are now eligible to receive federal loans.

New Reports and Data

• A November 2022 report found that 90% of the counties in the U.S. suffered a weather disaster between 2011 and 2021.
• A November 2022 study found that the flood capacity of dams could be at greater risk of being exceeded, due to out-of-date modeling for potential maximum rainfall.