Key Facts Of The Day 12/20

Storms and Flooding

• On Saturday, nearly 45,000 Consumers Energy customers in Michigan remained without power after strong winds knocked down power lines, trees, and utility poles.

  • More than 190,000 Consumers Energy customers lost power in the storm that began late Wednesday and continued through Thursday, Dec. 16.

  • Consumers Energy said wind gusts reached up to 75 MPH, damaged 2,400 power lines, and snapped nearly 300 poles.

• Polar vortex may expose electric grid vulnerabilities in Maine.

  • ISO New England warns that disruptions to the natural gas supply chain around the world could imperil Maine’s grid should a prolonged cold spell strike.

  • A visit from the polar vortex, a slow-moving mass of frigid Arctic air, could necessitate rolling blackouts or controlled outages.

  • Energy officials have called for a more resilient fuel supply and the expansion of New England’s fuel and transmission infrastructure.

  • Some critics claim the grid and its vulnerabilities would best be served by public control and decentralization.

• The National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center have officially declared the December 15th storm in the Upper Midwest a derecho.

  • This is the first known derecho to occur in the month of December in the United States.

• Last Wednesday, a monstrous line of thunderstorms rapidly moved across a large swath of Iowa creating severe weather threats never before recorded in the state in December.

  • The National Weather Service had only ever issued two tornado warnings in Iowa in December prior to that week. Last Wednesday, forecasters issued more than a dozen in the state.

  • One person died in the storms in Benton County.

  • Western Iowa endured the most hazardous conditions, with destroyed homes in Bayard, a town of 400 people in Guthrie County.

  • Weather officials received reports of downed power lines and building damage in rural areas of the state.

• Ten months after their homes were damaged from February’s winter storm Uri, thousands of Texans are still waiting on their insurance to get repairs done.

Wildfires

• As of Dec. 3, there are currently 13 large active wildfires that have burned 105,279 acres across AK, CA, KY, MT, NC, OK, and WV. As of Dec. 3, 54,350 wildfires have burned 6,802,729 acres across the country.

• Extreme winds fuel fast-moving wildfires in the Texas Panhandle.

  • A wildfire driven by extreme wind has consumed roughly 23,000 acres of grassland in Carson County since Wednesday.

  • Freeze-cured and drought-cured grasses, in addition to relatively low humidity, and above-average temperatures also contributed to the speed of the fire’s advance.

  • No injuries or property damage have been reported, but several homes were evacuated near Skellytown as a precaution.

• At least 400,000 acres burned in the Kansas wildfires, and with those fires, the livelihoods of many were impacted.

  • One local family lost six of their horses and five were severely burned and injured.

  • Ranchers who lost everything still focused on their livestock by trying to bring them whatever comfort they could.

  • Hundreds of cattle were lost in the wildfires.

• Extreme wildfires are taking a toll on the mental health of firefighters.

  • Fire season used to last for four months out of the year, now it’s year-round.

  • Firefighters have one of the highest suicide rates of any occupational group, and that risk may be even higher among wildland firefighters.

Extreme Heat

• Rising temperatures have been eating away at the chances for snowfall in much of the United States, and the forecast is for mild weather again.

• El Paso, Texas, a desert city, has been preparing for droughts for decades, but climate change is pushing its limits of adaptation.

• 2021 brought a wave of extreme weather disasters and scientists say worse lies ahead.

  • This summer, a dome of punishing heat descended on the Pacific Northwest, scorching crops, melting pavement, and cooking a billion sea creatures inside their own shells.

    • Hospitals saw 69 times the usual number of emergency room visits; one facility put patients in body bags filled with ice in a desperate effort to bring their internal temperatures down.

    • More than 1,000 people died.

    • The heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without human influence.

  • The number of days per year with multiple major heat waves has spiked from about 20 in the early 1980s to roughly 150 now.

• The storm from last week brought record warmth to Iowa, with Des Moines and several other areas setting all-time high temperatures for the month.

  • Readings soared into the 70s all the way to the Iowa-Minnesota border.

  • Human-caused climate change is making such warm spells, which enabled the December tornadoes, more likely to occur.

New Reports And Data

• A December 2021 study found that climate change is also intensifying extremes in the oceans.

• A December 2021 study found that the promotion of low-meat diets is more effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to carbon pricing when mitigation policies are based on metrics that reflect methane’s long-term behavior.

• A December 2021 study found that the way fish interact in groups is being upset by ocean acidification and global warming.