Category: Weather

High temperatures, extreme storms, floods, and other natural disasters can lead to casualties and displacement of people. In response to this, many nations have developed safety protocols to protect citizens during extreme weather conditions. 

Emergency services are frequently used in situations where immediate action is required. These services provide vital support and supplies as well as evacuation wherever necessary. Many experts also advise people on how to prepare for severe weather in advance by stocking up on emergency supplies such as food, water, medical supplies, and extra clothes. 

Developing an emergency plan is important when living in regions prone to extreme weather events. This should include things like ways people can communicate with each other if separated, the location of safe havens for sheltering in the house or neighborhood during a storm or flood, etc. Additionally, having a contact list of friends and family members living nearby is recommended in case they need assistance during difficult times. 

Geographic information systems (GIS) are also employed by governments to effectively manage resources before and after natural disasters occur. GIS enables the ability for citizens to access real-time updates about specific vulnerable areas through interactive maps provided by the government’s website or app that display affected locations with precise details about what is happening at each site. It also provides officials with the capability to allocate resources quickly and efficiently so that necessary aid reaches those who need it most as soon as possible. 

Another important aspect of managing extreme weather events is ensuring that critical infrastructure is well-maintained and can withstand potential damage caused by natural disasters. This includes things like bridges, roads, power grids, and water supply systems. Governments have invested heavily in developing and upgrading infrastructure to make it more resilient to extreme weather conditions. 

One of the most effective ways to prepare for extreme weather is through community education and engagement. Governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) regularly organize workshops, seminars, and training sessions to teach people how to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. This can range from simple things like knowing how to turn off the gas or electricity in your home, to more complex skills like administering first aid or performing search and rescue operations. 

Another important aspect of community engagement is raising awareness about climate change and its impacts on extreme weather events. This can be done through public campaigns, social media, and other communication channels. The goal is to help people understand the risks associated with climate change and to encourage them to take action to reduce their carbon footprint and mitigate the effects of global warming. 

Finally, it’s important to recognize that extreme weather events can have a disproportionate impact on marginalized and vulnerable communities. For example, low-income neighborhoods or indigenous communities may be more likely to be located in flood-prone or landslide-prone areas, making them more vulnerable to the effects of extreme weather. Governments and NGOs must work to ensure that these communities have access to the resources and support they need to prepare for and respond to natural disasters.

Overall, governments from around the world are constantly creating innovative solutions to keep their citizens safe from natural disasters like cyclones and earthquakes. By developing safety protocols such as emergency services and geographic information systems (GIS), nations can better prepare for the worst-case scenario so that citizens can be protected during extreme weather conditions without fail.

With studies showing that severe weather is occurring more frequently, it is important that we all do our part to protect ourselves and our communities from the risks associated with extreme weather. Whether you live in an area prone to hurricanes, extreme heat or cold, floods, or wildfires, there are steps every one of us can take to prepare for and mitigate the effects of such events.

Preparation is key when it comes to protecting yourself and your community from extreme weather. You need to stay informed about the latest forecasts and warnings to know what conditions are expected and how best to prepare. Make sure you have sufficient supplies on hand including food, water, medications, and other necessities in case you need to evacuate or stay home during a storm. 

Create an emergency plan outlining who will be responsible for what tasks if there is an emergency situation. This can help ensure everyone knows exactly what they need to do without having to make difficult decisions during a time of crisis.

Everyone should understand the potential dangers that come with different types of extreme weather. For instance, those living in areas prone to flooding should know what areas are most likely to be affected in their area as well as the evacuation routes available should they need them. 

Similarly, understanding a hurricane’s wind speed categories (category 1-5) can provide valuable insight into how quickly one should evacuate as well as how serious the damage may be depending on how strong the winds reach.

Once any sort of extreme weather has passed it is important for people to assess any damages incurred in order for restorative actions such as rebuilding homes or repairing infrastructure can begin promptly. 

Consider ways such instances can be prevented for future occurrences by relying on natural barriers like sand dunes or man-made structures like seawalls or even land management practices such as vegetation restoration activities near riverbanks which stabilize soils reducing flood risk downstream.

Communicating with local authorities prior to and post-event is essential so that assistance can arrive quickly if needed – this could include reporting power outages, road blockages due to flooding or fire alerts among other hazards – while at the same time being aware of possible false alarm scenarios like fake social media posts warning of an impending danger which often tends spread panic more than actually helping mitigate disaster risk.

By taking actionable steps ahead of time through preparation efforts and knowledge-sharing initiatives we can better protect not only ourselves but others around us when it comes time to face any kind of adverse weather conditions whether natural or man-made failure-related events occur

Whenever there’s a large storm or extreme temperatures, the first thing that we typically think to ourselves is “we’ve never had this type of weather before.” We think back to the times when we were children and can only remember one extreme storm like a blizzard or a hurricane, but don’t really remember much else from what the weather was like as a whole several decades ago without seeing the research in front of us.

There have been a lot of reports of the weather getting more extreme each year, which has caused a lot of discussion regarding global climate change. While most scientists agree that the Earth is certainly getting warmer, what about the extremes of the weather? Let’s take a look at what the science says to see if the weather is more extreme now than it was 50 years ago.

Temperature

Throughout the 20th century, the Earth had an average global temperature of 57.0 Fahrenheit (13.9 Celsius), Up until World War II, the Earth’s temperature was much lower than this average century temperature. The coolest years came around 1910 when the temperature was more than 0.4 degrees Celsius cooler than the average, but the increase in production during World War II for machinery changed the tide.

1939 marked the first year in which the global temperature was above the century average, and it wouldn’t drop back down until 1946, the first full year after the war ended. Up until the late 1970s, the temperature remained right around the average, and then the temperature skyrocketed. Things came to a head in 2016 when the global temperature reached a full degree over the average.

One of the ways that we can look at the changing temperatures in terms of extreme is by seeing how many days in particular the temperature reaches ‘heat wave’ temperatures. During the 1960s, a heat wave would typically last for three days on average while there were only two per year. When we got into the 2020s, there were four heat waves per year, and these heat waves averaged six days each. They also got a bit more intense, reaching 0.3 degrees more than they used to at their most intense.

Storms

The amount of precipitation on average has slightly increased over the years, but the amount of extreme precipitation has increased tremendously. For the first nine decades of the 20th century, there was a steady amount of heavy precipitation days, but that number skyrocketed in the 1990s. In fact, nine of the heaviest precipitation days of the 20th century all occurred in the 1990s. Therefore, people in the 1990s were able to say that the weather was getting more extreme than it was even 10 years prior.

It isn’t just regular heavy rainfall or snowfall that has increased with each passing year, but also the amount of tropical storms. Cyclone activity has increased tremendously since the 1970s, with 127 worldwide in 2021 alone, which was down from an all-time high of 150 in 2018. Compare that to 1973, when there were 118 cyclone storms worldwide. In the United States alone. In fact, five of the six years with the most named storms have come since 1995.

Tornadoes

There’s one part of extreme weather that isn’t really all that predictable, and that’s tornadoes. It seems that with the rise of extreme weather events that there would be more tornadoes over the years, but the number has been a bit more sporadic than all of the other measurables. 2016 not only had the highest global temperature on record, but it also had the highest amount of tornadoes.

In the top 10 years that have had the most tornadoes, almost all of the decades of the past 50 years are represented. However, the statistics only date back to the end of World War II, so it’s hard to say that there are more tornadoes in the past 50 years compared to the 50 years prior.

Overall, it’s clear that the warming climate is affecting extreme weather when it comes to heat waves, droughts, and hurricanes/tropical storms. However, it doesn’t have much effect on tornadoes, which is a bit of a surprise. Just as a piece of trivia, though, 1974 is the only recorded year in which there were at least seven tornadoes that reached F5 status.

The weather is something that we think about on a daily basis. It’s one of the last things we check before going to bed so we know what to expect, we bring it up in small talk with strangers, and we plan our days and trips based on it. For this reason, we rely on weather forecasts to be accurate, because nobody wants to spend a lot of money to plan on going to a picnic or a baseball game that ends up getting washed out.

However, we find that the weather forecasts aren’t always accurate. In fact, sometimes they’re very wrong, and the first person that we blame is the local meteorologist. That shouldn’t be the case, however, as the data that they get is the best possible guess that anybody could reasonably make. After all, they’re trying to predict the weather for up to two weeks and things can change in an instant.

So why is it that weather forecasts aren’t always accurate? It turns out that there are several explainable reasons, and hopefully these make it so that your local weatherperson gets less hate mail.

1. Too Broad of a Range

Simply put, weather forecasters are doing the people a service when they give their best predictions for the weather over longer stretches of time. Weather forecasts about 24 hours ahead of time are almost always going to be completely accurate because patterns have already been well-formed and are going in certain directions.

That’s not the case when a forecaster is telling people what to expect in 10 to 14 days. Instead, those are complete guesses based on predictive models and past weather data on that particular day in history. 

That’s why when there’s unseasonable cold weather in the winter, the 10-day forecast might say that it’s going to be much, much warmer, but that might not happen. Experts say that everything that they say in a five-day window is typically going to be what you can truly expect.

2. Weather is Unpredictable

There are a lot of sports betting “experts” out there that say they’re the best to listen to because they’re the most accurate. Well, even the best of the best are only accurate about 60 percent of the time, and that makes plenty of money. People expect weather forecasters to be perfect, however, which really isn’t fair.

The weather can be just as unpredictable as a basketball game, especially in certain climate zones. The weather forecast in San Diego, California is going to be easy to predict since it’s sunny almost every day and stays in a certain temperature range. The same cannot be said for a place like Detroit, Michigan.

Flatter areas are also more difficult to predict as wind speeds vary greatly in these regions. Places like Kansas are notoriously flat and can have wide ranges of temperatures, winds, and more. This is why the part of the country is known as “tornado alley.”

3. It’s a Computer’s Fault

The people that you see on the local news aren’t actually predicting the weather themselves based on what they think. Again, leave that to the sportscasters. Instead, these meteorologists use a computer model to help them predict the weather. As we all know, computers are amazing, but they aren’t always accurate.

There are also different computer models that are used, with some more accurate than others. The United States alone has several, with the consensus combining all of these. The National Weather Service uses Hewlett-Packard supercomputers to help predict weather models, and they keep adding to the computer count to make things more accurate. 

With that said, weather forecasts are actually much more predictable than they were 50, 20, and even 10 years ago. As we know, people demand perfection from everything in life, and that includes weather forecasts. During the 1950s, people didn’t get 24-hour channels dedicated solely to weather, and their complaints about the “weatherman” were confined only to written letters and maybe the occasional heckle on the streets, a la Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film “The Weather Man”.