There is a lot of heat on the continent. From the northwest and wildfires, collapsing ice shelves in Canada, deadly storms in the Midwest and devastating storms and tornadoes in the East. None of this is good news and the degree of severity is growing. There have never been category 3 tornadoes within a hurricane. 

What does it take for the USA to realize they are on the wrong path in several areas, be it climate or COVID there doesn't seem to be clear and concise decisions being made that directs Americans to reduce the danger in their lives.

Viruses are part of the mandate for ending the climate crisis. It is known that warming provides OPPORTUNITY for microorganisms to grow and become real problems.

This is from "Physics.org." It is not a horror article, it is about facts and science and the proof that ancient organisms frozen in the permafrost for millennia can actually become active again when warmed to a temperature that permits replication.

..."When you put a seed into soil (click here) that is then frozen for thousands of years, nothing happens," said Jean-Michel Claverie, an emeritus professor of genomics at the School of Medicine of Aix-Marseille University in France.

"But when you warm the earth, the seed will be able to germinate," he added. "That is similar to what happens with a virus."

Claverie's lab has successfully revived Siberian viruses that are at least 30,000 years old.

These reanimated bugs only attack amoebas, but tens of thousands of years ago there were certainly others that aimed higher up the food chain.

"Neanderthals, mammoths, woolly rhinos all got sick, and many died," said Claverie. "Some of the viruses that caused their sicknesses are probably still in the soil."...

When a scientist studys the climate and the crisis it is in right now, these viral scenarios always come up. Why? Because as a scientist the climate crisis has many feedback loops, most are negative, and very few are positive. No matter how one looks at the issues within the world's permafrost there simply is no good scenario that comes from it.

This is the world's permafrost. Get used to thinking it is far better to prevent the melting than any other alternative.

Wearing a COVID-19 face mask and fighting wildfires can be a challenge.

August 14, 2020

Additional evacuations were ordered (click here) then lifted Friday night as the fire burning near Lake Hughes grew to 17,482 acres with 12% containment, after destroying five structures and threatening more over the last three days.

Shortly after 5:30 p.m. Friday, the fire's flare-up forced additional evacuations for the Fairmont area east of Lancaster, where residents were told to evacuate from north of Avenue D/Highway 138, south of Avenue A, west of 150th Street West and east of 200th Street West, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Palmdale Station. The evacuations were lifted by 9:30 p.m.

Mandatory evacuations have been in effect for the area east of Ridge Route Road, west of Lake Hughes Road, north of Pine Canyon Road and Lake Hughes Road, and south of state Route 138, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Ron Shaffer of the Palmdale Station....

August 13, 2020

A wildfire (click here) that started between Hood River and The Dalles on Wednesday quickly grew, leading some residents to evacuate their homes for safety.

The Oregon Department of Forestry first reported the fire near Mosier Creek Road late Wednesday afternoon. The department estimated the fire had grown to 500 acres late that night.

August 13, 2020

By Donald Orr, Meerah Powell, Anna King and Kristian Foden-Vencil

With extreme temperatures (click here) in the forecast this weekend, crews are concerned about a wildfire burning close to a thousand acres in Wasco County as of Saturday morning. The Mosier Creek Fire is burning in a canyon of dry grass and oak trees.

Containment was about 30% Saturday morning. Crews said they benefited from cooler temperatures overnight and low winds that allowed them to re-establish existing fire lines.

Rich Tyler, a representative with the Oregon Fire Marshal’s Office, said crews have been able to dig a line around 75% of the fire. “That does not contain a fire, especially when we’re dealing with wind. It doesn’t take much wind to throw an ember across that line.”

The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center confirmed Thursday that the fire was human-caused. By Thursday afternoon, more than 900 people had evacuated the area, and four structures had burned since the fire started Wednesday afternoon.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Thursday issued an air quality advisory for The Dalles, Mosier and Hood River area due to smoke from the fire. The DEQ said it expects the advisory to last until at least Saturday morning.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act late Wednesday night in response to the fire, which was burning about 500 acres at the time in the Mosier Creek area of the Columbia River Gorge, between Hood River and The Dalles....

Current drought map for USA (click here)

Derecho is third in line in severity behind tornadoes and hurricanes. Straight line winds.

August 13, 2020
By David Pitt and Ryan J. Foley

Iowa Department of Transportation workers help with tree debris removal as grain bins from the Archer Daniels Midland facility are seen severely damaged in Keystone, Iowa, on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. A storm slammed the Midwest with straight line winds of up to 100 miles per hour on Monday, gaining strength as it plowed through Iowa farm fields, flattening corn and bursting grain bins still filled with tens of millions of bushels of last year’s harvest

Des Moines - It will take five days or longer (click here) to restore power to some Iowa homes and businesses that have been without electricity since Monday’s wind storm left damage across the Midwest and killed at least four people, officials said Thursday.

The straight-line winds that toppled trees and power lines across much of Iowa was “unlike anything our company has ever seen,” Alliant Energy spokesman Mike Wagner said. Hundreds of workers were assessing damage and clearing trees that have blocked roads and power lines, he said.

The hardest hit city was Cedar Rapids, where officials said Thursday the damage left by Monday’s derecho was more extensive than the 2008 flood that destroyed much of its downtown....

Archer Daniels Midland has it's headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. It is a global food processing company. This severe storm is defined within the Climate Crisis. This climate crisis can't continue and expect food production to do well.

And the hits just keep on coming.

August 6, 2020
By Adriana Navarro

Toppled trees (click here) and mass power outages plagued much of the Northeast on Wednesday after Tropical Storm Isaias tore inland a day earlier, spreading flooding rain, damaging winds and tornadoes along the Eastern Seaboard -- and killing at least nine in the U.S.

By Tuesday afternoon, at least six possible tornadoes had already spun up in Delaware and another in New Jersey, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center (SPC). The tornadoes follow the destruction stirred up farther south, giving a preview of what Isaias still had to offer as a tropical storm....

I believe this is a new beginning of a maximum of tropical storms. This has been developing over a decade.

Twenty-nine and two tens miles of a tornado path. That is a different kind of tornado as far as I am concerned especially because it was a EF3.

I can't address in it's entirety in this entry, however, there has been a change in hurricanes and tropical storms since at least 2007. There has been increasing turbulence WITHIN THE STORM and not so much a well-defined eye in tropical storms and low rated hurricanes. In other words, what might be normally a Cat 3 hurricane, it is now a Cat 1 storm with increasing numbers of tornadoes within the storm.

Yes, yes, there are always hurricanes at the edges of hurricanes. This is different. It is tornadoes that take up what normally would be found in the eye of the storm. It is a change in climate and low levels of water vapor at the surface of the Earth and the effort to build high-velocity winds. 

I will have to address this more later, perhaps another Sunday Night.

August 11, 2020

By Matthew Cappucci

From the Carolinas to Connecticut, (click here) Tropical Storm Isaias unleashed more than three dozen tornadoes as it swept up the Mid-Atlantic coast one week ago. Among them was a tornado in Delaware, which traveled the greatest distance in the state on record.

Most tornadoes spawned by tropical storms and hurricanes are quick-hitting and weak, but Isaias’s defied the rule. One deadly twister in North Carolina rated EF3 on the 0-to-5 scale for intensity, while several others spent tens of minutes on the ground, carving lengthy paths of damage.

Delaware’s record-breaking tornado tracked from its capital Dover to Middletown — some 29.2 miles away. That path length more than doubles the previous record for a tornado in Delaware of 13 miles, which stemmed from a twister in New Castle County on June 7, 1988....

Most people think about Antarctica and not the Arctic Ocean when ice shelves collapse.

The Arctic Ocean has ice shelves as well. It is where Polar Bears used to look for seals for food. This is the newest collapse of an ice shelf and this time it was the LAST INTACT ICE SHELF in the Arctic Ocean along the Canadian coast.

The reason this occurred is that there was no sea ice to protect the ice shelf. The ice shelf was exposed to warmer ocean waters, hence, no sea ice and no protection for the ice shelf.

August 7, 2020

By Jenny McGrath

Milne (click here)

Over the weekend, (click here) the Canadian Arctic’s last intact ice shelf collapsed, turning into two ice islands. Scientists say warmer air temperatures and a lack of sea ice contributed to the breakup.

“These ice shelves are able to break up now because of the lack of pressure of sea ice against the sides of these ice shelves,” Dr. Adrienne White, an ice analyst at the Canadian Ice Service with Environment and Climate Change Canada, told Digital Trends. White was monitoring satellite images along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island and the west coast of Greenland over the weekend when she noticed the Milne Ice Shelf looked very different; it had a large fracture. Over the next few days, the shelf broke into two chunks, and now they’re what’s known as ice islands. One is about 21 square miles; the other is about nine square miles.

“The winds cause the ice pack to move away from the boundaries of the ice shelf, giving it room to actually break out, and for the ice islands to drift away from the ice shelf front,” she said. NASA has a graph showing how the amount of Arctic sea ice has declined since 1979. Over the long term, warming air temperatures and possibly warming ocean temperatures can cause the shelves to thin, leaving them more fragile....

The Royal National Park in Australia is flowing up because of incredible high winds. (click here for film loop on Twitter)

A severe weather warning for damaging winds and damaging surf is current for Sydney, Central Coast, Mid North Coast, Hunter and Illawarra areas. At the moment, wind gusts of 70km/h are producing several reverse waterfalls in the Royal National Park.

It is worth noting a dangerous daytime lightning. This is Florida. Occurred recently.

Florida has the most lightning strike deaths.

August 14, 2020

By Kevin Byrne

This past Monday afternoon, (click here) the weather in the Lutz, Florida, area, located about 20 minutes north of Tampa, seemed to be that of a normal summer day in that neck of the Sunshine State.

Typical summertime thunderstorms had been making their way through the Tampa-Saint Petersburg area, but around 4 p.m., the closest storm in the vicinity to Lutz was about 3 miles away. All appeared to be tranquil as puffy white clouds floated across a splendid blue sky. But then something unexpected, and startling, happened....

 These rains have become worse over the past two years. There is every indication that it will continue. The government needs to decide how best to address these continuing issues.

India has a difficult situation with not only China and Russia but, also migration from Bangladesh due to flooding and sea-level rise. Believe it, Prime Minister Narendra D. Modi has his hands full on a daily basis, but, he has good outcomes for the people of India.

The climate crisis is a huge issue for India.

July 16, 2020

By Badri Chatterjee

Mumbai has also recorded its second-highest 24-hour rainfall since 2015.

Incessant moderate to heavy overnight showers (click here) that continued until 8:30 am on Thursday have taken Mumbai’s rain output in the first 16 days of July to 1,024 millimetres (mm), which is 122% of its monthly average.

The city has also recorded its second-highest 24-hour rainfall since 2015.

The Santacruz weather observatory, which represents Mumbai and its suburbs, recorded 191.2 mm of rain between 8:30 am on Wednesday and 8:30 pm on Thursday.

On July 3, 2019, Mumbai had recorded its highest 24-hour of July rain for the past decade at 375.2 mm....

August 14, 2020

By Courtney Spamer

A season of heavy monsoonal rain in Nepal is now wreaking deadly havocs. (click here)

At 6:30 a.m. Friday morning, local time, a landslide ravaged the Lidi area of the Jugal Rural Municipality in Sindhupalchok. The village is located approximately 47 km (29 miles) northeast of Nepal's capital of Kathmandu.

The New York Times reported that 11 people were killed with another 27 people still missing as of Friday evening. Five critically injured people were airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu....

...The hill above the Lidi settlement was washed away in the heavy rainfall back on July 10, which put many of the villagers on edge due to the increased risk for a landslide. Resident Aash Bahadur Dong said locals had submitted memorandums to authorities asking to be moved to a safer location.

Rounds of rain and heavy thunderstorms struck in parts of the area this week, which may have attributed to the cause of the landslide.

Even more rainfall is anticipated across the region through the weekend as recovery efforts persist....

Winds over India (click here for interactive)

The Pacific Ocean has a large high pressure system whereby winds are mostly absent. That "blocking" high pressure system is slowing down the air movement over India, hence, the prolonged rains. The people need to make plans to be safe.

August 15, 2020
By Bradley W. Parks

Bend fire investigators (click here) say hot engine exhaust from motor home ignited fire threatened homes in NE Bend.

Bend Fire and Rescue (click here) said on Twitter that it had stopped forward progress of a fire burning north of the city Saturday evening. The fire produced a large plume of black smoke as it consumed several cars in a nearby junkyard, the fire department said.

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office earlier in the evening issued Level 3 evacuation orders, meaning “go now,” for residents north of Cooley Road and east of Highway 97 in Bend. A map of the evacuation zones is available,

The size of the fire was unknown as of Saturday night, but hot temperatures and high winds had many on edge about the blaze’s potential to spread. The regional forecast calls for high temperatures through the middle of the week.

The sheriff’s office closed Highway 97 between Cooley Road and Deschutes Junction Saturday evening until further notice.

The Red Cross established an evacuation center at St. Francis of Assisi Church on Northeast 27th Street in Bend....

It's Sunday Night 

 

"Earth Song" by the Late Michael Jackson (click here for official website - thank you)

What about sunrise
What about rain
What about all the things that you said
We were to gain
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said were yours and mine

Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we've shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, these weeping shores

Aah, ooh

What have we done to the world
Look what we've done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son

What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine

Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying earth, these weeping shores

Aah, ooh
Aah, ooh

I used to dream
I used to glance beyond the stars
Now I don't know where we are
Although I know…

Enough of the negativity. It is the first time in four years Americans can see the light at the end of the oppressive Trump tunnel.

Before I begin this evening it is important to mention the Democratic convention begins tomorrow. I also here there is some speculative message that President Obama doesn't have confidence in his former Vice President. That is nonsense. I am not calling anyone a liar, but, simply frustration with this current president can manifest is peculiar ways.

In my lifetime I have never seen two national leaders in profound friendship in Obama and Biden. They were seen together a lot during President Obama's eight years of leadership of the USA.

One cannot forget, President Obama did not run for election alone. He had a man that was a leader himself in Joe Biden. Joe Biden is the Middle Class. He is the unions. He is about a strong Middle Class and plenty of strong unions. Then Senator Biden carried al large number of the electorate during the years President Obama was running for election and re-election.

There is no doubt, at times, Joe Biden can be colorful in ways others don't expect, but, never at any time was never the leader he was expected to be. I am not worried and when it comes right down to it, President Obama isn't worried either about the leadership abilities of Joe Biden.

Enough of that negativity. Joe Biden came back from the worse moment in his life with Kamala Harris voicing her opinions on a debate state to the place we are today with her the future Vice President. It is going to be a great convention and a better campaign.

Joe's got this!

The USA is not close to the standards Dr. Fauci has stated are necessary to open schools and businesses. It is called be unified by all people to the same path to recover the USA.

Kushner states that children are 6 times less likely to die of COVID-19 and that was a good reason to open schools.

WRONG!

There is no ACCEPTABLE DEATH RATE OF CHILDREN. The rate of death at this point of CHILDREN is not ACCURATELY KNOWN. The children of the USA have been protected from this virus since the beginning. The return to school will quickly escalate the death rate.

There is no reason why DeSantis should be threatening schools with funding during a global pandemic in which the death rate is 3.2 percent of all people that contract the virus in the USA. Desantis' very WRONGFUL path for Florida's VERY ABSENT RESPONSE to the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is manslaughter.

Kushner also stated some disturbing attitudes about the SARS-CoV-2 health crisis. He stated the reason there were fewer people dying than May 2020 is because of better therapeutics. That is mostly true, HOWEVER, better therapeutics is NO REASON FOR RELIQUISHING THE PROTECTIONS OF AMERICANS to medical therapeutics. We know for a fact that COVID-19 causes damage to the human body REGARDLESS OF SURVIVAL. Avoiding that bodily damage, which can be disabling, is paramount to maintaining a healthy and viable NATION OF PEOPLE.

Any of Kushner's understanding of what is acceptable in regard to SARS-CoV-2 transmission is harmful to the people of the USA.

Kushner is not allowed to cherry-pick Dr. Fauci's words either.

To (click here) prevent future surges, Americans need to become more unified about following public health guidance and take sequential steps to return to schools and businesses.

There are conditions that need to be met before children return to school or businesses open PERMANENTLY. Dr. Fauci has not blanketly stated it is safe currently to return to NORMAL circumstances. What he is saying is that ALL the people of the USA need to come to terms with this virus and follow the guidelines used to prevent illness and ultimately within that illness death. The USA, under Trump and evidently Kushner is in no way CLOSE to the guidelines Dr. Fauci has stated are mandatory.