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Tag: Storms

  • Torrential storms batter South Florida, close key airport

    Torrential storms batter South Florida, close key airport

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    FORT LAUDERDALE — Nearly a foot (30 centimeters) of rain fell in a matter of hours in Fort Lauderdale – causing widespread flooding, the closure of the city’s airport and the suspension of high-speed commuter rail service for the Broward County region.

    The city of Fort Lauderdale released a statement Wednesday evening urging residents and visitors to stay off the roads until the water has subsided.

    “Police and Fire Rescue continue to answer calls for service,” the statement said. “Public Works staff are clearing drains and operating pumps to mitigate the water as quickly as possible.”

    Up to 14 inches had fallen across the area through Wednesday and the National Weather Service said another 2 to 4 inches were possible as a warm front continued to push northward, bringing a chance of thunderstorms.

    Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy told CNN that the area already had seen days of rain. “The ground was already saturated so there is extensive flooding all over our city and throughout South Florida. Many roadways are impassable. Lots of vehicles got stuck and left abandoned in the middle of our roadways,” Levy said. “I’ve lived here my whole life. This is the most severe flooding that I’ve ever seen.”

    More than 22,000 customers in Florida were without electricity Wednesday night, according to poweroutage.us.

    Wednesday’s relentless showers prompted the airport, one of the largest in the region, to suspend all arriving and departing flights, the airport tweeted around 4:15 p.m.

    At around 5 p.m., the airport announced it shut down ground transportation shuttle service in response to recurring tornado warnings and ongoing heavy rainfall.

    The main roadways entering and exiting the airport were flooded and impassable, the airport said around 5:15 p.m.

    “Please do not attempt to enter or leave the airport at this time,” it warned.

    It said airport operations would restart once the weather improves in the Fort Lauderdale area.

    The heavy rains also prompted South Florida’s high-speed commuter rail service to shut down. Brightline posted on Twitter Wednesday evening that train service between Miami and Fort Lauderdale was suspended.

    The National Weather Service in Miami declared a flash flood emergency around 8 p.m. Wednesday for Fort Lauderdale, along with the areas around Hollywood and Dania Beach. A short time later, forecasters issued a tornado warning for nearby Davie, Plantation and Lauderhill.

    The service also issued a flash flood emergency for Fort Lauderdale and other areas will run into pre-dawn hours Thursday as the chance of thunderstorms continued across the region, warning: “This is a life-threatening situation. Seek higher ground now!”

    to say the emergency will run into pre-dawn hours Thursday as the chance of thunderstorms continued across the region.

    Video taken by witnesses showed water coming in the door at an airport terminal and a virtual river rushing down the tarmac between planes.

    On Broward Boulevard, a man was seen swimming to the curb on the flooded street at rush hour as cars rolled by.

    Drivers recorded themselves rolling through streets where brown, swirling water was up to the wheel wells or nearly to the hood of cars.

    There have been no immediate reports of injuries or deaths.

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  • Big flames, raining embers in New Jersey Pine Barrens fire

    Big flames, raining embers in New Jersey Pine Barrens fire

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    MANCHESTER, N.J. — The 200-foot wall of flames, the burning embers landing miles away and the carloads of evacuees fleeing to shelter at a high school — it all took place in New Jersey but could happen in almost every part of the country this week due to dry conditions and strong winds that have raised the danger of forest fires.

    As firefighters worked Wednesday to contain a fire that tore through 6 square miles (15 square kilometers) of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, the National Weather Service issued so-called “red flag warnings” on Wednesday for 20 states spanning the nation. The agency cautioned that dry, windy conditions similar to those in New Jersey were increasing the danger of forest fires elsewhere, too.

    The blaze in Manchester, near Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, forced the evacuation of around 170 homes late Tuesday, with police and fire officials going door-to-door to ask people to take temporary shelter at a nearby high school. Helicopters were filling large containers with water from a nearby lake Wednesday and dropping it on the flames.

    No one was injured and no homes were damaged, although firefighters said 20 structures were still considered threatened Wednesday afternoon, by which time the fire had been 60% contained.

    “We saw the red glow in the sky, and every time the wind would shift, it got worse,” said Jason Cylenica, who lives in the neighborhood closest to the fire. His wife, Cynthia Tiemper, said burning embers were landing in their back yard Tuesday night, making them decide to evacuate even before the fire department knocked on their door at 10:45 p.m.

    “We left so fast I didn’t even bring socks,” she said. “It was like, ‘You grab the dog, I’ll grab this and let’s go.’ When we got back here this morning and saw that everything was still here, it was like prayers had been answered.”

    Although the state is not in a drought, there’s no chance of rain until the weekend in the part of New Jersey where the fire is burning. The state on Wednesday banned campfires and imposed restrictions on charcoal or gas fires.

    April is the peak month for forest fires in New Jersey, officials said. And despite its status as the nation’s most densely populated state, 40% of it is forest. There are about 1,500 wildfires a year in New Jersey, according to the state Forest Fire Service.

    Forest fires are a common occurrence in the Pine Barrens, a 1.1 million-acre state and federally protected reserve about halfway between Philadelphia to the west and the Atlantic coast to the east. On Wednesday afternoon, the Forest Fire Service was responding to another blaze in West Milford in the northwest potion of the state near Route 23, but estimates of the size of that fire were not immediately available.

    “This fire exhibited extreme fire behavior,” John Cecil, an assistant commissioner in the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, said of the Pine Barrens blaze. “I don’t mean to be dramatic, but this was a severe situation that these guys and gals managed to keep in a place and protect lives and property from that.”

    About 75 firefighters, two helicopters, bulldozers and 15 fire engines were being used to battle the flames.

    Greg McLaughlin, the Forest Fire Service chief, said the blaze began on the grounds of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a military facility spanning several municipalities at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Military personnel tried to extinguish it, but winds soon spread the fire beyond the base’s perimeter and across a busy highway, Route 539, necessitating a large response from numerous municipalities in the region.

    A cause of the fire wasn’t given, but authorities said they’re investigating.

    In the parking lot of a firehouse miles away from the fire scene, McLaughlin held up a plastic bag filled with small pieces of charred wood — dead embers that had flown through the air over two miles away and threatened to start new fires.

    Last month, a wildfire in the Pine Barrens threatened over a dozen homes in Little Egg Harbor, not far from the site of a massive forest fire in 2007 at an Air National Guard target range. That fire burned nearly 27 square miles (70 square kilometers).

    Fire is an essential element of the Pine Barrens ecosystem; many of the pine trees there rely on heat from fires to release seeds from their cones, providing for the growth of new trees.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Michael Catalini in in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed.

    ___

    Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • Masters Live Updates | Birdie binge has Hovland back in race

    Masters Live Updates | Birdie binge has Hovland back in race

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    AUGUSTA, Ga. — Live updates from Sunday’s third and fourth round of the Masters (all times local):

    11:05 a.m.

    Norway’s Viktor Hovland has climbed back into contention at the Masters following a birdie binge.

    The world’s No. 9 player was able to string together five straight birdies on the back nine to climb to 8 under for the tournament, just four shots back of leader Brooks Koepka with two holes left to play in his third round.

    Hovland became just the third player since the end of World War II to birdie holes 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 in the same round at the Masters, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The others are Tommy Nakajima in 1983 and Paul Casey in 2018. The streak ended when he made par on 16.

    Hovland shared the first-round lead with Koepka and Jon Rahm after shooting 65 on Thursday but a 73 in the second round.

    ___

    10:45 a.m.

    Scottie Scheffler’s bid to repeat at the Masters is in serious jepardy.

    The world’s No. 1 player finished his third round with a 71, leaving him tied for 18th place and 10 shots behind leader Brooks Koepka. The largest final round comeback at the Masters belongs to Jack Burke Jr., who battled back from eight strokes to beat amateur Ken Venturi in 1956.

    Scheffler dominated the 2022 Masters, winning by three strokes over Rory McIlroy despite finding trouble on No. 18 and bogeying the final hole. He was looking to become the first repeat Masters champion since Tiger Woods accomplished the feat in 2001 and 2002. Scheffler was the favorite coming into the tournament to win it.

    ___

    9:25 a.m. It didn’t take long for things to get interesting at the Masters.

    Jon Rahm is applying some early pressure on leader Brooks Koepka and trails by just two shots with 10 holes completed in the third round.

    Koepka led by four strokes when play resumed Sunday morning with both players starting on the No. 7 green following the suspension of play Saturday due to heavy rains. Koepka misfired on his par putt while Rahm rolled in his birdie, representing a two-shot swing in a matter of minutes.

    Koepka, who plays on the LIV tour, is at 13 under.

    Patrick Cantley is in third place at 7 under, while amateur Sam Bennett is in fourth place at 6 under.

    ___

    8:30 a.m.

    Get set for a long day at Augusta National.

    Players are back on the course at the weather-plagued Masters for the completion of the third round, with Brooks Koepka holding a four-stroke lead over Jon Rahm.

    The tournament was suspended both Friday and Saturday because of inclement conditions, leading to a condensed schedule for the final day.

    One player who won’t face the grueling day is Tiger Woods. He withdrew Sunday morning, noting on Twitter that he had reaggravated his plantar fasciitis.

    After the third round is completed, the players will be re-grouped into pairings and sent off at 12:30 p.m. from both the first and 10th tees. That should provide enough time for the usual finish early Sunday evening.

    It’s been 40 years since the Masters ended on a Monday.

    Koepka’s fitness could be a factor since he’ll have to play 30 holes on Sunday. He’s still got 12 more holes left in the third round before he returns for the final round.

    Play will go on without five-time champion Tiger Woods, who withdrew Sunday morning due to injury.

    ___

    7:45 a.m.

    Five-time champion Tiger Woods has withdrawn from the Masters due to injury.

    Woods was in last place among the golfers who had made the cut at 9 over when play was suspended Saturday. He was injured in a car accident in 2021 that nearly cost him his leg, and he spent part of this week in obvious pain limping around the course at Augusta National. Still, he made the cut for the 23rd straight time, tying a tournament record.

    When Woods returned to the course Saturday afternoon to begin his weather-delayed third round, he struggled mightily and was 6 over through seven holes when play was suspended again. He did not return to finish the round Sunday.

    It’s the first time that Woods has not completed 72 holes at Augusta National as a professional. He withdrew prior to the final round of the PGA Championship last year amid similarly cold, wet conditions at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

    Brooks Koepka is the leader with playing resuming at 8:30 a.m. He is 13 under with 12 holes to play in his third round.

    ___

    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • As tiger count grows, India’s Indigenous demand land rights

    As tiger count grows, India’s Indigenous demand land rights

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    BENGALURU, India — Just hours away from several of India’s major tiger reserves in the southern city of Mysuru, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to announce Sunday how much the country’s tiger population has recovered since its flagship conservation program began 50 years ago.

    Protesters, meanwhile, will tell their own stories of how they have been displaced by such wildlife conservation projects over the last half-century.

    Project Tiger began in 1973 after a census of the big cats found India’s tigers were fast going extinct through habitat loss, unregulated sport hunting, increased poaching and retaliatory killing by people. Laws attempted to address those issues, but the conservation model centered around creating protected reserves where ecosystems can function undisturbed by people.

    Several Indigenous groups say the conservation strategies, deeply influenced by American environmentalism, meant uprooting numerous communities that had lived in the forests for millennia.

    Members of several Indigenous or Adivasi groups — as Indigenous people are known in the country — set up the Nagarahole Adivasi Forest Rights Establishment Committee to protest evictions from their ancestral lands and seek a voice in how the forests are managed.

    “Nagarahole was one of the first forests to be brought under Project Tiger and our parents and grandparents were probably among the first to be forced out of the forests in the name of conservation,” said J. A. Shivu, 27, who belongs to the Jenu Kuruba tribe. “We have lost all rights to visit our lands, temples or even collect honey from the forests. How can we continue living like this?”

    The fewer than 40,000 Jenu Kuruba people are one of the 75 tribal groups that the Indian government classifies as particularly vulnerable. Jenu, which means honey in the southern Indian Kannada language, is the tribe’s primary source of livelihood as they collect it from beehives in the forests to sell. Adivasi communities like the Jenu Kurubas are among the poorest in India.

    Experts say conservation policies that attempted to protect a pristine wilderness were influenced by prejudices against local communities.

    The Indian government’s tribal affairs ministry has repeatedly said it is working on Adivasi rights. Only about 1% of the more than 100 million Adivasis in India have been granted any rights over forest lands despite a government forest rights law, passed in 2006, that aimed to “undo the historical injustice” for forest communities.

    Their Indigenous lands are also being squeezed by climate change, with more frequent forest fires spurred by extreme heat and unpredictable rainfall.

    India’s tiger numbers, meanwhile, are ticking upwards: the country’s 2,967 tigers account for more than 75% of the world’s wild tiger population. India has more tigers than its protected spaces can hold, with the cats also now living at the edge of cities and in sugarcane fields.

    Tigers have disappeared in Bali and Java and China’s tigers are likely extinct in the wild. The Sunda Island tiger, the other sub-species, is only found in Sumatra. India’s project to safeguard them has been praised as a success by many.

    “Project Tiger hardly has a parallel in the world since a scheme of this scale and magnitude has not been so successful elsewhere,” said SP Yadav, a senior Indian government official in charge of Project Tiger.

    But critics say the social costs of fortress conservation — where forest departments protect wildlife and prevent local communities from entering forest regions — is high. Sharachchandra Lele, of the Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, said the conservation model is outdated.

    “There are already successful examples of forests managed by local communities in collaboration with government officials and tiger numbers have actually increased even while people have benefited in these regions,” he said.

    Vidya Athreya, the director of Wildlife Conservation Society in India who has been studying the interactions between large cats and humans for the last two decades, agreed.

    “Traditionally we always put wildlife over people,” Athreya said, adding that engaging with communities is the way forward for protecting wildlife in India.

    Shivu, from the Jenu Kuruba tribe, wants to go back to a life where Indigenous communities and tigers lived together.

    “We consider them gods and us the custodians of these forests,” he said.

    ___

    Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi, India, contributed to this report.

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    Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Masters Live Updates | At 63, Couples likely to make cut

    Masters Live Updates | At 63, Couples likely to make cut

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    AUGUSTA, Ga. — Live updates from Saturday’s second and third rounds of the Masters (all times local):

    8:30 a.m.

    It appears that Fred Couples will be playing the rest of the weekend at the Masters.

    The 1992 champion finished his second round with a bogey, leaving him at 1 over for the championship and inside the projected cut line. That would make the 63-year-old Couples the oldest player to make the cut at Augusta National, beating the mark that Bernhard Langer set during the 2020 tournament by about 3 1/2 months.

    It also would be the 31st career cut for Couples, trailing only Jack Nicklaus’ record of 37.

    At one point, Couples made 23 straight cuts to tie Gary Player for the longest such streak at the Masters. Five-time champion Tiger Woods can join them by making the cut Saturday. He had six holes left in the cold, rainy weather and was right on the projected cut line of 2 over. Woods has never missed the cut as a professional.

    Players are trying to finish the second round, which was suspended Friday due to weather, before the third round begins later Saturday. The temperature is in the 40s with a cold drizzle and rain is expected to continue throughout the day with storms possible.

    ___

    8 a.m.

    The second round of the Masters resumed after storms brought down three pine trees the previous day and ground play to a halt. Brooks Koepka has the clubhouse lead at 12 under with Jon Rahm among those giving chase.

    There were two stoppages during the second round Friday, the first for 21 minutes and the second for the day. The second suspension came moments after the three massive pines fell near the 17th tee. Nobody in their vicinity was hurt.

    The forecast for the rest of the weekend calls for more rain and high temperatures in the 50s.

    Rahm resumed his second round three shots back of Koepka with the back nine still to play. Also yet to finish their second rounds were Viktor Hovland, who shared the first-round lead and was 6 under, and Cameron Young, who was 5 under.

    Tiger Woods was bundled up in a stocking cap and puffy vest as he warmed up under floodlights before the sun rose on the practice range Saturday. He was 2 over and just inside the cut line with seven holes left to play. The five-time Masters champion is trying to make his 23rd consecutive cut at Augusta National, tying the record shared by Gary Player and Fred Couples. Woods has never missed one at the Masters as a professional.

    Also in contention is U.S. Amateur champion Sam Bennett, who finished his second round and is 8 under. That’s the second-best 36-hole score by an amateur at the Masters behind only Ken Venturi, who was one better in 1956.

    Louis Oosthuizen did not return to finish his second round. He was 7 over before withdrawing due to injury.

    ___

    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Judge cancels Montana gas plant permit over climate impacts

    Judge cancels Montana gas plant permit over climate impacts

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    BILLINGS, Mont. — A judge canceled the air quality permit for a natural gas power plant that’s under construction along the Yellowstone River in Montana citing worries over climate change.

    State District Judge Michael Moses ruled Thursday that Montana officials failed to adequately consider the 23 million tons of planet-warming greenhouse gases that the project would emit over several decades.

    Many utilities across the U.S. have replaced coal power with less polluting natural gas plants in recent years. But the industry remains under pressure to abandon fossil fuels altogether as climate change worsens.

    The $250 million plant is being built by Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based NorthWestern Energy and would operate for at least 30 years. The company will appeal the order, a spokesperson said in a statement Friday, saying that the ruling could jeopardize reliable power service.

    Montana officials had argued they had no authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. They also said that because climate change is a global phenomenon, state law prevented them from looking at its impacts.

    But Moses said officials from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality had misinterpreted the law. He ordered them to conduct further environmental review and said they must gauge the climate change impacts within Montana in relation to the project. Major flooding on the Yellowstone last year wiped out bridges and triggered widespread evacuations following extreme rains, which scientists say are becoming more frequent as the climate changes.

    “The emissions and impacts of the (gas plant) are potentially significant,” Moses wrote. “Defendants do not dispute this.”

    The judge also faulted officials for not considering how lights from the project could impact surrounding property owners. It’s on the outskirts of the town of Laurel across the river from a residential neighborhood.

    The plant would produce up to 175 megawatts of electricity. Its air permit was challenged in a 2021 lawsuit from the Montana Environmental Information Center and Sierra Club.

    The Department of Environmental Quality was reviewing Moses’ order and agency officials had no immediate comment, spokesperson Moira Davin said.

    A NorthWestern Energy representative did not say if the ruling would halt construction. The company says the plant would ensure enough electricity is available at times of high demand, such as on hot days or cold nights.

    “Our air permit was reviewed and approved by the DEQ using standards that have been in effect for many years,” Vice President John Hines said in a NorthWestern’s statement. “We will work with the DEQ to determine the path forward.”

    The ruling comes as the Montana Legislature weighs bills that would make it more difficult for organizations and individuals to sue state agencies over environmental decisions.

    The state Senate passed a bill requiring anyone who wants to challenge an agency environmental review to have commented during the review process. They’d also have to pay for some of the agency’s court costs. The bill would also bar nonprofit organizations from using tax deductible donations to pay for lawsuits against state agencies.

    __

    Hanson reported from Helena, Mont.

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  • Study says warming may push more hurricanes toward US coasts

    Study says warming may push more hurricanes toward US coasts

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    Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ east and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.

    While other studies have projected how human-caused climate change will probably alter the frequency, strength and moisture of tropical storms, the study in Friday’s journal Science Advances focuses on the crucial aspect of where hurricanes are going.

    It’s all about projected changes in steering currents, said study lead author Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory climate scientist.

    “Along every coast they’re kind of pushing the storms closer to the U.S.,” Balaguru said. The steering currents move from south to north along the Gulf of Mexico; on the East Coast, the normal west-to-east steering is lessened considerably and can be more east-to-west, he said.

    Overall, in a worst-case warming scenario, the number of times a storm hits parts of the U.S. coast in general will probably increase by one-third by the end of the century, the study said, based on sophisticated climate and hurricane simulations, including a system researchers developed.

    The central and southern Florida Peninsula, which juts out in the Atlantic, is projected to get even more of an increase in hurricanes hitting the coast, the study said.

    Climate scientists disagree on how useful it is to focus on the worst-case scenario as the new study does because many calculations show the world has slowed its increase in carbon pollution. Balaguru said because his study looks more at steering changes than strength, the levels of warming aren’t as big a factor.

    The study projects changes in air currents traced to warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of South America. Climate change is warming different parts of the world at different rates, and models show the eastern Pacific area warming more quickly, Balaguru said.

    That extra warming sets things in motion through Rossby waves, according to the study — atmospheric waves that move west to east and are connected to changes in temperature or pressure, like the jet stream or polar vortex events.

    “I like to explain it to my students like a rock being dropped in a smooth pond,” said University of Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn’t part of the study. “The heating is the rock and Rossby waves are the waves radiating away from the heating which disturbs the atmosphere’s balance.”

    The wave ripples trigger a counterclockwise circulation in the Gulf of Mexico, which bring winds blowing from east to west in the eastern Atlantic and south to north in the Gulf of Mexico, Corbosiero and Balaguru said.

    It also reduces wind shear — which is the difference in speed and direction of winds at high and low altitudes — the study said. Wind shear often decapitates hurricanes and makes it harder for nascent storms to develop.

    Less wind shear means stronger storms, Balaguru said.

    Overall, the steering current and wind shear changes increase the risk to the United States, Corbosiero said in an email.

    Corbosiero and two other outside scientists said the study makes sense, but has limits and is missing some factors.

    It doesn’t factor in where storms are born, which is important, and the study assumes a global trend toward more El Nino events, said Jhordanne Jones, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Purdue University’s Climate Extreme Weather Lab. Most climate simulations project more El Ninos, which is a natural warming of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and dampens Atlantic hurricane activity. But recent observations “suggest a more La Nina- like state,” she said.

    ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Study says warming may push more hurricanes toward US coasts

    Study says warming may push more hurricanes toward US coasts

    [ad_1]

    Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ east and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.

    While other studies have projected how human-caused climate change will probably alter the frequency, strength and moisture of tropical storms, the study in Friday’s journal Science Advances focuses on the crucial aspect of where hurricanes are going.

    It’s all about projected changes in steering currents, said study lead author Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory climate scientist.

    “Along every coast they’re kind of pushing the storms closer to the U.S.,” Balaguru said. The steering currents move from south to north along the Gulf of Mexico; on the East Coast, the normal west-to-east steering is lessened considerably and can be more east-to-west, he said.

    Overall, in a worst-case warming scenario, the number of times a storm hits parts of the U.S. coast in general will probably increase by one-third by the end of the century, the study said, based on sophisticated climate and hurricane simulations, including a system researchers developed.

    The central and southern Florida Peninsula, which juts out in the Atlantic, is projected to get even more of an increase in hurricanes hitting the coast, the study said.

    Climate scientists disagree on how useful it is to focus on the worst-case scenario as the new study does because many calculations show the world has slowed its increase in carbon pollution. Balaguru said because his study looks more at steering changes than strength, the levels of warming aren’t as big a factor.

    The study projects changes in air currents traced to warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of South America. Climate change is warming different parts of the world at different rates, and models show the eastern Pacific area warming more quickly, Balaguru said.

    That extra warming sets things in motion through Rossby waves, according to the study — atmospheric waves that move west to east and are connected to changes in temperature or pressure, like the jet stream or polar vortex events.

    “I like to explain it to my students like a rock being dropped in a smooth pond,” said University of Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn’t part of the study. “The heating is the rock and Rossby waves are the waves radiating away from the heating which disturbs the atmosphere’s balance.”

    The wave ripples trigger a counterclockwise circulation in the Gulf of Mexico, which bring winds blowing from east to west in the eastern Atlantic and south to north in the Gulf of Mexico, Corbosiero and Balaguru said.

    It also reduces wind shear — which is the difference in speed and direction of winds at high and low altitudes — the study said. Wind shear often decapitates hurricanes and makes it harder for nascent storms to develop.

    Less wind shear means stronger storms, Balaguru said.

    Overall, the steering current and wind shear changes increase the risk to the United States, Corbosiero said in an email.

    Corbosiero and two other outside scientists said the study makes sense, but has limits and is missing some factors.

    It doesn’t factor in where storms are born, which is important, and the study assumes a global trend toward more El Nino events, said Jhordanne Jones, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Purdue University’s Climate Extreme Weather Lab. Most climate simulations project more El Ninos, which is a natural warming of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and dampens Atlantic hurricane activity. But recent observations “suggest a more La Nina- like state,” she said.

    ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Risk of severe storms persists from Texas to Great Lakes

    Risk of severe storms persists from Texas to Great Lakes

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    DES MOINES, Iowa — Severe thunderstorms were expected to bring hail, strong winds — and the threat of tornadoes — to parts of the Midwest and South that are reeling from a weekend of deadly weather.

    Officials warned residents to have shelter ready Tuesday night before going to sleep.

    At least two tornadoes were confirmed Tuesday in Illinois as storms targeted the state and eastern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin before nightfall. Areas of southern Missouri, Arkansas, southwestern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas were most at risk overnight.

    “This could be a night to just set up down in the basement to be safe,” Tom Philip, a meteorologist in Davenport, Iowa, said Tuesday.

    The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings in Iowa and Illinois on Tuesday evening and said a confirmed twister was spotted southwest of Chicago near Bryant, Illinois. Officials said another tornado touched down Tuesday morning in the western Illinois community of Colona. Local news reports showed wind damage to some businesses there.

    The storms were expected to hammer some areas hit by severe weather and possibly dozens of tornadoes just days ago that killed at least 32 people, meaning more misery for those whose homes were destroyed in Arkansas, Iowa and Illinois.

    When a tornado hit Little Rock, Arkansas, last Friday, Kimberly Shaw peeked outside to film the storm, then suffered a painful foot injury that required stitches when a glass door behind her shattered and wind nearly sucked her away. With another storm coming, Shaw said she intends to be far more cautious this time and will rush to an underground shelter at her home.

    “The original plan was just, ‘If we see a tornado coming, we’ll get in the shelter,’” Shaw said. “But now it’s like you’re not going to see it coming. You’re not going to hear it coming. You just need to get (inside the shelter) as soon as the warning goes out or if you just feel unsafe.”

    Earlier Tuesday, strong thunderstorms swept through the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois with winds up to 90 mph (145 kph) and baseball-size hail. No injuries were reported, but trees were downed and some businesses were damaged in Moline, Illinois.

    Northern Illinois, from Moline to Chicago, saw 75-80 mph (120-128 kph) winds and hail 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) in diameter Tuesday afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Baker said. The agency received reports of semitrucks tipped over by winds in Lee County, about 95 miles (153 km) west of Chicago.

    The Storm Prediction Center said severe storms could produce strong tornadoes and large hail Wednesday across eastern Illinois and lower Michigan and in the Ohio Valley, including Indiana and Ohio. The weather threat extends southwestward across parts of Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas. Farther south and west, fire danger remained high.

    The fierce storms that started Friday and continued into the weekend spawned deadly tornadoes in 11 states as the system plodded through Arkansas and onto the South, Midwest and Northeast.

    The same conditions that fueled those storms — an area of low pressure combined with strong southerly winds — were setting up the severe weather Tuesday into early Wednesday, said Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

    Those conditions, which typically include dry air from the West going up over the Rockies and crashing into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, are what make the U.S. so prone to tornadoes and other severe storms.

    Dramatic temperature changes were expected, with Tuesday highs of 74 F (23 C) in Des Moines and 86 F (30 C) in Kansas City plunging overnight to 40 F (4 C) or colder overnight. In Little Rock, Arkansas, Tuesday’s high of 89 F (32 C) tied the record for the date set in 1880.

    A blizzard warning was in effect for nearly all of North Dakota and most of South Dakota through at least Wednesday night. In Minnesota, a winter storm warning was in effect in the north.

    Fire danger persisted across portions of far western Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, northeastern New Mexico and far southeastern Colorado, with low humidity, dry vegetation and high wind gusts. In Oklahoma, officials urged some residents near the town of Weatherford to evacuate because of a wildfire.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Trisha Ahmed in St. Paul, Minnesota; Margery A. Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Claire Savage in Chicago; Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington; and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, contributed to this report.

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  • EagleCam shows heavy winds blow nest from tree; eaglet dies

    EagleCam shows heavy winds blow nest from tree; eaglet dies

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    MINNEAPOLIS — Viewers of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources EagleCam were heartbroken over the weekend as they watched strong winds from a severe weather system whip a nest holding a newly hatched eaglet out of a tree.

    The nature livestream captured the moment the nest fell Sunday morning. A mother eagle crouched in the snow-filled nest as it swayed precariously in the wind. A branch snapped, and the nest collapsed as the mother flew backward. The young eagle was later found dead on the ground, the department said in a statement.

    “I was actually crying,” said Denise Chung, who said she and her kids watched the nest fall in real time. She told The Associated Press it hit her particularly hard because she knew the eagle lost its baby. “I don’t know if it would have hit me so hard if I weren’t a mom.”

    The nest weighed over 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) and was over 20 years old, the statement said. The department said heavy snow that fell over the weekend — coupled with the weight of the nest — likely just became too much for the branch to support.

    Minnesota’s EagleCam has mesmerized viewers around the globe for years. People from 180 countries and all 50 U.S. states tuned in three years ago to watch other eaglets hatch, said Department of Natural Resources information officer Lori Naumann.

    “During the pandemic, a lot of people couldn’t get outside,” Naumann said. “So, they tended to turn to nature cameras for mental health improvement.”

    Over 15,000 people are members of Facebook groups dedicated to Minnesota’s EagleCam, including Chung, who told the AP that she has followed the EagleCam for about four years with her kids and husband.

    Chung said she posted to Facebook after the nest fell because she couldn’t get through to the Department of Natural Resources on the phone. She didn’t know the department was already sending staff to help, so she wanted to alert others that the chick — which had just hatched days earlier — was in danger.

    The adult eagles were seen flying around the area after the nest fell, the department’s statement said. Though the nesting season is too short for the mother to lay another egg this year, the department said it is likely that the parents will rebuild in the same area because eagles are loyal to their territory.

    “This is an emotional time for all of us, but please refrain from visiting the nest,” the department said. “This was already a major disturbance for the eagles and many visitors will only cause more stress.”

    The department said the camera will stay on for now.

    ___

    Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Trisha Ahmed on Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15

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  • Forecast warns of more severe storms in South, Midwest

    Forecast warns of more severe storms in South, Midwest

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    Forecasters are warning of more severe weather and fire danger in the days ahead across much of the same region hit hard by storms last week

    BySEAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer

    Forecasters are warning of more severe weather, including tornadoes, Tuesday in parts of the South and Midwest hammered just days ago by deadly storms.

    That could mean more misery for people sifting through the wreckage of their homes in Arkansas, Iowa and Illinois. Dangerous conditions also could stretch into parts of Missouri, southwest Oklahoma and northeast Texas. Farther south and west, fire danger will remain high.

    “That could initially start as isolated supercells with all hazards possible — tornadoes, wind and hail — and then over time typically they form into a line (of thunderstorms) and continue moving eastward,” said Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

    Just last week, fierce storms that spawned tornadoes in 11 states killed at least 32 people as the system that began Friday plodded through Arkansas and traveled northeast through the South and into the Midwest and Northeast.

    The same conditions that fueled last week’s storms — an area of low pressure combined with strong southerly winds — will make conditions ideal for another round of severe weather Tuesday into early morning Wednesday, Bunker said.

    Those conditions, which typically include dry air from the west going up over the Rockies and crashing into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, are what make the U.S. so prone to tornadoes and other severe storms.

    The threat of fire danger is expected to remain high Tuesday across portions of far western Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, northeast New Mexico and far southeastern Colorado, with low humidity, dry vegetation and wind gusts expected up to 70 mph (113 kph), according to the National Weather Service.

    ___

    Associated Press reporters around the country contributed to this report, including Ron Todt in Philadelphia, Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, Kimberlee Kruesi in Adamsville, Tennessee, Harm Venhuizen in Belvidere, Illinois, Corey Williams in Detroit.

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  • Broad swaths of US reel from tornadoes that killed 27

    Broad swaths of US reel from tornadoes that killed 27

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    WYNNE, Ark. — Residents across a wide swath of the South and Midwest on Sunday raced to assess the destruction wreaked by storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes and killed at least 27 people in small towns and big cities, as severe weather moved into parts of the Northeast.

    Earlier storms tore a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois and stunning people throughout the region Saturday with the damage’s scope.

    The White House announced Sunday that it would provide federal resources, including financial assistance, to support recovery efforts after President Joe Biden declared broad swaths of the country a major disaster.

    Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had already declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard.

    Confirmed or suspected tornadoes in 11 states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees and laid waste to neighborhoods. It could take days to make a count of all the tornadoes from recent days.

    Teams from the National Weather Service on Sunday were investigating reports of tornados touching down in New Jersey and Delaware, the president’s home state, where severe weather prompted warnings and damaged numerous homes and shut down roads. One person was found dead inside a house heavily damaged by the storm Saturday night in Bridgeville, Delaware State Police reported.

    The dead also included at least nine in one Tennessee county; four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas; three in Sullivan, Indiana; and four in Illinois.

    Other deaths from the storms that hit Friday night into Saturday were reported in Alabama and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Arkansas, where city officials said more than 2,600 buildings were in a tornado’s path.

    Residents of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, woke Saturday to find the high school’s roof shredded and its windows blown out. Huge trees lay on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs.

    Ashley Macmillan said she, her husband and their children huddled with their dogs in a small bathroom as a tornado passed, “praying and saying goodbye to each other, because we thought we were dead.” A falling tree seriously damaged their home, but they were unhurt.

    Chainsaws buzzed, as bulldozers plowed into debris. Utility crews restored power as some neighborhoods began recovery.

    Nine people died in Tennessee’s McNairy County, east of Memphis, according to Patrick Sheehan, director the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee drove to the county Saturday to tour the destruction and comfort residents. He said the storm capped the “worst” week of his time as governor, coming days after a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people including a family friend whose funeral he and his wife, Maria, attended earlier in the day.

    “It’s terrible what has happened in this community, this county, this state,” Lee said. “But it looks like your community has done what Tennessean communities do, and that is rally and respond.”

    Jeffrey Day said he called his daughter after seeing on the news that their community of Adamsville was being hit. Huddled in a closet with her 2-year-old son as the storm passed over, she answered the phone screaming.

    “She kept asking me, ‘What do I do, daddy?’” Day said, tearing up. “I didn’t know what to say.”

    After the storm passed, his daughter crawled out of her destroyed home and drove to nearby family.

    In Memphis, police spokesman Christopher Williams said via email late Saturday that there were three deaths believed to be weather-related: two children and an adult who died when a tree fell on a house.

    Tennessee officials warned that the same weather conditions from Friday night are expected to return Tuesday.

    In Belvidere, Illinois, part of the roof of the Apollo Theatre collapsed as about 260 people were attending a heavy metal concert. A 50-year-old man was pulled from the rubble; he later died.

    Officials said 40 others were hurt, including two with life-threatening injuries.

    In Crawford County, Illinois, three people were killed and eight injured when a tornado hit around New Hebron, said Bill Burke, the county board chair.

    Sheriff Bill Rutan said 60 to 100 families were displaced.

    “We’ve had emergency crews digging people out of their basements because the house is collapsed on top of them, but luckily they had that safe space to go to,” Rutan said at a news conference.

    That tornado was not far from where three people died in Indiana’s Sullivan County, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Indianapolis.

    Several people were rescued overnight, with reports of as many as 12 people injured.

    “I’m really, really shocked there isn’t more as far as human issues,” said Sullivan Mayor Clint Lamb, adding that recovery “is going to be a very long process.”

    In the Little Rock area, at least one person was killed and more than 50 were hurt, some critically. The National Weather Service said that tornado was a high-end EF3 twister with wind speeds up to 165 mph (265 kph) and a path as long as 25 miles (40 kilometers).

    Masoud Shahed-Ghaznavi was lunching at home when it roared through his neighborhood, causing him to hide in the laundry room as sheetrock fell and windows shattered. When he emerged, the house was mostly rubble.

    “Everything around me is sky,” he recalled Saturday.

    Another suspected tornado killed a woman in northern Alabama’s Madison County, officials said, and in northern Mississippi’s Pontotoc County, authorities confirmed one death and four injuries.

    The storms struck just hours after Biden visited Rolling Fork, Mississippi, where tornadoes last week destroyed parts of town.

    The sprawling storm system also brought wildfires to the southern Plains, with authorities in Oklahoma reporting nearly 100 of them Friday. At least 32 people were said to be injured, and more than 40 homes destroyed.

    ___

    DeMillo reported from Little Rock. Associated Press writers around the country contributed to this report, including Kimberlee Kruesi in Adamsville, Tennessee, Harm Venhuizen in Belvidere, Illinois, Corey Williams in Detroit and Ron Todt in Philadelphia.

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  • The US leads the world in weather catastrophes. Here’s why

    The US leads the world in weather catastrophes. Here’s why

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    The United States is Earth’s punching bag for nasty weather.

    Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the planet, several experts said. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, jutting peninsulas like Florida, clashing storm fronts and the jet stream combine to naturally brew the nastiest of weather.

    That’s only part of it. Nature dealt the United States a bad hand, but people have made it much worse by what, where and how we build, several experts told The Associated Press.

    Then add climate change, and “buckle up. More extreme events are expected,” said Rick Spinrad, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Flash floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Blizzards. Ice storms. Nor’easters. Lake-effect snow. Heat waves. Severe thunderstorms. Hail. Lightning. Atmospheric rivers. Derechos. Dust storms. Monsoons. Bomb cyclones. And the dreaded polar vortex.

    It starts with “where we are on the globe,” North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello said. “It’s truly a little bit … unlucky.”

    China may have more people, and a large land area like the United States, but “they don’t have the same kind of clash of air masses as much as you do in the U.S. that is producing a lot of the severe weather,” said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina.

    The U.S. is by far the king of tornadoes and other severe storms.

    “It really starts with kind of two things. Number one is the Gulf of Mexico. And number two is elevated terrain to the west,” said Victor Gensini, a Northern Illinois University meteorology professor.

    Look at Friday’s deadly weather, and watch out for the next week to see it in action: Dry air from the West goes up over the Rockies and crashes into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s all brought together along a stormy jet stream.

    In the West, it’s a drumbeat of atmospheric rivers. In the Atlantic, it’s nor’easters in the winter, hurricanes in the summer and sometimes a weird combination of both, like Superstorm Sandy.

    “It is a reality that regardless of where you are in the country, where you call home, you’ve likely experienced a high-impact weather event firsthand,” Spinrad said.

    Killer tornadoes in December 2021 that struck Kentucky illustrated the uniqueness of the United States.

    They hit areas with large immigrant populations. People who fled Central and South America, Bosnia and Africa were all victims. A huge problem was that tornadoes really didn’t happen in those people’s former homes, so they didn’t know what to watch for or what to do, or even know they had to be concerned about tornadoes, said Joseph Trujillo Falcon, a NOAA social scientist who investigated the aftermath.

    With colder air up in the Arctic and warmer air in the tropics, the area between them — the mid-latitudes, where the United States is — gets the most interesting weather because of how the air acts in clashing temperatures, and that north-south temperature gradient drives the jet stream, said Northern Illinois meteorology professor Walker Ashley.

    Then add mountain ranges that go north-south, jutting into the winds flowing from west to east, and underneath it all the toasty Gulf of Mexico.

    The Gulf injects hot, moist air underneath the often cooler, dry air lifted by the mountains, “and that doesn’t happen really anywhere else in the world,” Gensini said.

    If the United States as a whole has it bad, the South has it the worst, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, a former president of the American Meteorological Society.

    “We drew the short straw (in the South) that we literally can experience every single type of extreme weather event,” Shepherd said. “Including blizzards. Including wildfires, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. Every single type. … There’s no other place in the United States that can say that.”

    Florida, North Carolina and Louisiana also stick out in the water so are more prone to being hit by hurricanes, said Shepherd and Dello.

    The South has more manufactured housing that is vulnerable to all sorts of weather hazards, and storms are more likely to happen there at night, Ashley said. Night storms are deadly because people can’t see them and are less likely to take cover, and they miss warnings in their sleep.

    The extreme weather triggered by America’s unique geography creates hazards. But it takes humans to turn those hazards into disasters, Ashley and Gensini said.

    Just look where cities pop up in America and the rest of the world: near water that floods, except maybe Denver, said South Carolina’s Cutter. More people are moving to areas, such as the South, where there are more hazards.

    “One of the ways in which you can make your communities more resilient is to not develop them in the most hazard-prone way or in the most hazard-prone portion of the community,” Cutter said. “The insistence on building up barrier islands and development on barrier islands, particularly on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, knowing that that sand is going to move and having hurricanes hit with some frequency … seems like a colossal waste of money.”

    Construction standards tend to be at the bare minimum and less likely to survive the storms, Ashley said.

    “Our infrastructure is crumbling and nowhere near being climate-resilient at all,” Shepherd said.

    Poverty makes it hard to prepare for and bounce back from disasters, especially in the South, Shepherd said. That vulnerability is an even bigger issue in other places in the world.

    “Safety can be bought,” Ashley said. “Those that are well-to-do and who have resources can buy safety and will be the most resilient when disaster strikes. … Unfortunately that isn’t all of us.”

    “It’s sad that we have to live these crushing losses,” said Kim Cobb, a Brown University professor of environment and society. “We’re worsening our hand by not understanding the landscape of vulnerability given the geographic hand we’ve been dealt.”

    ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • The US leads the world in weather catastrophes. Here’s why

    The US leads the world in weather catastrophes. Here’s why

    [ad_1]

    The United States is Earth’s punching bag for nasty weather.

    Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the planet, several experts said. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, jutting peninsulas like Florida, clashing storm fronts and the jet stream combine to naturally brew the nastiest of weather.

    That’s only part of it. Nature dealt the United States a bad hand, but people have made it much worse by what, where and how we build, several experts told The Associated Press.

    Then add climate change, and “buckle up. More extreme events are expected,” said Rick Spinrad, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Flash floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Blizzards. Ice storms. Nor’easters. Lake-effect snow. Heat waves. Severe thunderstorms. Hail. Lightning. Atmospheric rivers. Derechos. Dust storms. Monsoons. Bomb cyclones. And the dreaded polar vortex.

    It starts with “where we are on the globe,” North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello said. “It’s truly a little bit … unlucky.”

    China may have more people, and a large land area like the United States, but “they don’t have the same kind of clash of air masses as much as you do in the U.S. that is producing a lot of the severe weather,” said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina.

    The U.S. is by far the king of tornadoes and other severe storms.

    “It really starts with kind of two things. Number one is the Gulf of Mexico. And number two is elevated terrain to the west,” said Victor Gensini, a Northern Illinois University meteorology professor.

    Look at Friday’s deadly weather, and watch out for the next week to see it in action: Dry air from the West goes up over the Rockies and crashes into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s all brought together along a stormy jet stream.

    In the West, it’s a drumbeat of atmospheric rivers. In the Atlantic, it’s nor’easters in the winter, hurricanes in the summer and sometimes a weird combination of both, like Superstorm Sandy.

    “It is a reality that regardless of where you are in the country, where you call home, you’ve likely experienced a high-impact weather event firsthand,” Spinrad said.

    Killer tornadoes in December 2021 that struck Kentucky illustrated the uniqueness of the United States.

    They hit areas with large immigrant populations. People who fled Central and South America, Bosnia and Africa were all victims. A huge problem was that tornadoes really didn’t happen in those people’s former homes, so they didn’t know what to watch for or what to do, or even know they had to be concerned about tornadoes, said Joseph Trujillo Falcon, a NOAA social scientist who investigated the aftermath.

    With colder air up in the Arctic and warmer air in the tropics, the area between them — the mid-latitudes, where the United States is — gets the most interesting weather because of how the air acts in clashing temperatures, and that north-south temperature gradient drives the jet stream, said Northern Illinois meteorology professor Walker Ashley.

    Then add mountain ranges that go north-south, jutting into the winds flowing from west to east, and underneath it all the toasty Gulf of Mexico.

    The Gulf injects hot, moist air underneath the often cooler, dry air lifted by the mountains, “and that doesn’t happen really anywhere else in the world,” Gensini said.

    If the United States as a whole has it bad, the South has it the worst, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, a former president of the American Meteorological Society.

    “We drew the short straw (in the South) that we literally can experience every single type of extreme weather event,” Shepherd said. “Including blizzards. Including wildfires, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. Every single type. … There’s no other place in the United States that can say that.”

    Florida, North Carolina and Louisiana also stick out in the water so are more prone to being hit by hurricanes, said Shepherd and Dello.

    The South has more manufactured housing that is vulnerable to all sorts of weather hazards, and storms are more likely to happen there at night, Ashley said. Night storms are deadly because people can’t see them and are less likely to take cover, and they miss warnings in their sleep.

    The extreme weather triggered by America’s unique geography creates hazards. But it takes humans to turn those hazards into disasters, Ashley and Gensini said.

    Just look where cities pop up in America and the rest of the world: near water that floods, except maybe Denver, said South Carolina’s Cutter. More people are moving to areas, such as the South, where there are more hazards.

    “One of the ways in which you can make your communities more resilient is to not develop them in the most hazard-prone way or in the most hazard-prone portion of the community,” Cutter said. “The insistence on building up barrier islands and development on barrier islands, particularly on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, knowing that that sand is going to move and having hurricanes hit with some frequency … seems like a colossal waste of money.”

    Construction standards tend to be at the bare minimum and less likely to survive the storms, Ashley said.

    “Our infrastructure is crumbling and nowhere near being climate-resilient at all,” Shepherd said.

    Poverty makes it hard to prepare for and bounce back from disasters, especially in the South, Shepherd said. That vulnerability is an even bigger issue in other places in the world.

    “Safety can be bought,” Ashley said. “Those that are well-to-do and who have resources can buy safety and will be the most resilient when disaster strikes. … Unfortunately that isn’t all of us.”

    “It’s sad that we have to live these crushing losses,” said Kim Cobb, a Brown University professor of environment and society. “We’re worsening our hand by not understanding the landscape of vulnerability given the geographic hand we’ve been dealt.”

    ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • At least 18 dead after tornadoes rake US Midwest, South

    At least 18 dead after tornadoes rake US Midwest, South

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    WYNNE, Ark. — Storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 18 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois, and stunning people throughout the region Saturday with the damage’s scope.

    Confirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least seven states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees, and lay waste to neighborhoods across a broad swath of the country. The dead included seven in Tennessee’s McNairy County, four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, and three in Sullivan, Indiana.

    Other deaths in the storms that hit Friday night into Saturday were reported in Alabama, Illinois and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Arkansas, where the mayor said more than 2,000 buildings were in a tornado’s path.

    Stunned residents of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, woke Saturday to find the high school’s roof shredded and its windows blown out. Huge trees lay on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows and roofs pocked homes and businesses.

    Debris and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the damaged shells of homes and strewn on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pickup truck with its windows shattered.

    “I’m sad that my town has been hit so hard,” said Heidi Jenkins, a salon owner. “Our school is gone, my church is gone. I’m sad for all the people who lost their homes.”

    Recovery was already underway, with workers using chain saws to cut fallen trees and bulldozers moving material from shattered structures. Utility trucks worked to restore power. Groups of volunteers gathered to plan their day.

    At least seven people died in Tennessee, in McNairy County east of Memphis along the Mississippi border, said David Leckner, the mayor of Adamsville.

    “The majority of the damage has been done to homes and residential areas,” Leckner said, adding that although it appeared all people had been accounted for, crews were going door to door to be sure.

    In Belvidere, Illinois, some of the 260 people attending a heavy metal concert at the Apollo Theatre pulled a man from the rubble after part of the roof collapsed; he was dead when emergency workers arrived. Officials said 28 other people were injured at the theater, some severely.

    “They dragged someone out from the rubble, and I sat with him and I held his hand and I was (telling him), ‘It’s going to be OK.’ I didn’t really know much else what to do,” concertgoer Gabrielle Lewellyn told WTVO-TV.

    The venue’s Facebook page said the bands scheduled to perform were Morbid Angel, Crypta, Skeletal Remains and Revocation.

    Crews worked Saturday to clean up around the Apollo, with forklifts pulling away loosely hanging bricks. Business owners picked up shards of glass and covered shattered windows.

    Three people died in Indiana’s Sullivan County, near the Illinois line about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Indianapolis.

    Sullivan Mayor Clint Lamb said at a news conference that an area south of the county seat of about 4,000 “is essentially unrecognizable right now” and that several people were rescued from rubble overnight. There were reports of as many as 12 people injured, he said, and search-and-rescue teams combed damaged areas.

    “Quite frankly, I’m really, really shocked there isn’t more as far as human issues,” he said, adding that recovery “is going to be a very long process.”

    In the Little Rock area, at least one person was killed and more than two dozen were hurt, some critically, authorities said. Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott said that 2,100 homes and businesses were in the tornado’s path, but that no assessment had been done on how many were damaged.

    Joanna McFadden was at a nail salon with two other people when the tornado struck.

    “The only way we knew the tornado was coming, the leaves were swirling, that’s the only way we knew, it looked like it was standing still,” McFadden said. She and the others took shelter in the back.

    Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to help local responders. She and the mayor toured hard-hit neighborhoods, including one with a badly damaged fire station. Sanders praised its firefighters for moving quickly.

    A suspected tornado killed a woman in northern Alabama’s Madison County, said county official Mac McCutcheon. And in northern Mississippi’s Pontotoc County, officials confirmed one death and four injuries.

    The storms struck just hours after President Joe Biden visited the Mississippi community of Rolling Fork, where tornadoes last week destroyed parts of town.

    Tornadoes also caused damage in eastern Iowa, including one just west of Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. Television footage showed toppled power poles and roofs ripped off buildings and homes in the area.

    It could take days to determine the exact number of tornadoes, said Bill Bunting, chief of forecast operations at the Storm Prediction Center. There were also hundreds of reports of large hail and damaging winds, he said.

    “That’s a quite active day. But that’s not unprecedented,” he said.

    Hundreds of thousands lost power because of the sprawling storm system that also brought wildfires to the southern Plains and blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest, and left in its wake high winds. A threat of tornadoes and hail remained for the Northeast, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and New York.

    More than 530,000 homes and businesses in the affected area lacked power at midday Saturday, over 200,000 of them in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.

    Hail broke windows on cars and buildings northeast of Peoria, Illinois. And blizzard conditions whipped parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wisconsin, cutting power to tens of thousands in the Twin Cities area. Parts of Interstate 29 were closed.

    Nearly 100 new wildfires were reported Friday in Oklahoma, according to the state forest service, and firefighters hoped to gain ground against them Saturday. Fires were expected to remain a danger through the week.

    ___

    DeMillo reported from Little Rock. Associated Press writers around the country contributed to this report, including Harm Venhuizen in Belvidere, Illinois, and Corey Williams in Detroit.

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  • Biden: Feds ‘not leaving’ Mississippi town hit by tornado

    Biden: Feds ‘not leaving’ Mississippi town hit by tornado

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    ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — President Joe Biden saw for himself the flattened homes, broken furniture and upended lives left behind by last week’s deadly tornado in Mississippi and pledged Friday that the federal government is not leaving until the area is back on its feet.

    In the close-knit community of Rolling Fork, Biden read aloud the names of each of the 13 residents of the small town killed in the storm after touring the wreckage. He acknowledged to residents that the road to recovery will be long and hard, but said he was committed to helping them through it.

    “We’re not just here for today,” said Biden, standing near an animal shelter and a hardware store reduced to rubble by the powerful storm as he addressed members of the devastated community. “We’re going to get it done for you. We’re going to make sure you can stay right here.”

    Biden lost Mississippi by more than 16 percentage points in 2020, but people were grateful that he came — and hopeful they won’t be forgotten. Resident Paul Rice said he welcomed the continued attention Friday’s visit brought to the town’s plight.

    “Right now, everybody’s here, but I imagine it’ll start drying up,” said Rice, who was driving around town on an ATV to survey the damage and check on friends whose homes had been destroyed. “We’re Americans first and foremost. And that means we all have to work together.”

    The president heaped praise on Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and the area’s longtime Democratic congressman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, for moving quickly to help Rolling Fork and surrounding communities following last week’s storm.

    Under a canopy set up blocks away from Rolling Fork’s obliterated city hall building, church volunteers doled out packages of breakfast sausages and pancakes with syrup Friday morning. Joseph Thomas, a 77-year-old Vietnam veteran and lifelong Rolling Fork resident, arrived to claim his meal wearing a bandana emblazoned with an American flag.

    Thomas said he never imagined any president would come to his rural Delta hometown.

    “I’m proud that he is coming to this little small town. That means a lot to me,” Thomas said. “Because we need a lot of help to come through here, federal help, boots on the ground to put all this back together.”

    Last week’s twister destroyed roughly 300 homes and businesses in Rolling Fork, and the nearby town of Silver City, leaving mounds of lumber, bricks and twisted metal. Hundreds of additional structures were badly damaged. Overall, the death toll in Mississippi stands at 21, based on those confirmed by coroners. One person died in Alabama, as well.

    From Marine One, as they flew from Jackson to the area hardest hit by last week’s storm, the president and first lady Jill Biden got a view of the devastation across acres of farmland — destroyed homes, toppled trees and piles of debris.

    “This is tough stuff,” Biden said as he was greeted by state, local and federal officials after arriving in Rolling Fork. “The most important thing is we got to let people know the reason for them to have hope, especially those who have lost somebody.”

    Biden announced that the federal government will cover the total cost of the state’s emergency measures for the next 30 days, including overtime for first responders and debris cleanup. In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will open disaster recovery centers in storm-ravaged counties to help residents access resources.

    The Bidens also met with residents impacted by the storms and first responders, and received an operational briefing from federal and state officials.

    The devastation from the storm is immense.

    Residents watched as Biden walked through a leveled section of Rolling Fork, just blocks from the town’s downtown. A father held his toddler sleeping on his shoulder. Kids who aren’t in school because of the tornado crouched and watched. Just before the president arrived, a man picked through the wreckage, bent over to comb through the debris.

    “I know there’s a lot of pain and it’s hard to believe in a moment like this: This community is going to be rebuilt, and rebuilt and built back better than it was before,” Biden assured residents.

    Last week’s severe weather makes life even more difficult in an area already struggling economically. Mississippi is one of the poorest states, and the majority-Black Delta has long been one of the poorest parts of the state — a place where many people live paycheck to paycheck, often in jobs connected to agriculture.

    Two of the counties walloped by the tornado, Sharkey and Humphreys, are among the most sparsely populated in the state, with only a few thousand residents in communities scattered across wide expanses of cotton, corn and soybean fields. Sharkey’s poverty rate is 35%, and Humphreys’ is 33%, compared with about 19% for Mississippi overall and less than 12% for the entire United States.

    FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said some of the damage to the area’s infrastructure will take much time to repair and that the administration will help in rebuilding key facilities to be “more resilient” to withstand future natural disasters.

    “We know that these communities could be cash strapped and we want to get that funding flowing,” Criswell added.

    Biden approved a disaster declaration for the state, which frees up federal funds for temporary housing, home repairs and loans to cover uninsured property losses. But there’s concern that inflation and economic troubles may blunt the impact of federal assistance.

    The president arrived in the Delta community as a new series of severe storms threatens to rip across the Midwest and the South.

    According to a new study, the U.S. will see more of these massive storms as the world warms. The storms are likely to strike more frequently in more populous Southern states including Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

    The study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society predicts a nationwide 6.6% increase in tornado- and hail-spawning supercell storms and a 25.8% jump in the area and time the strongest storms will strike, under a scenario of moderate levels of future warming by the end of the century.

    But in certain areas in the South the increase is much higher. That includes Rolling Fork, where study authors project an increase of one supercell a year by 2100.

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  • Dangerous storms, tornadoes forecast for US Midwest, South

    Dangerous storms, tornadoes forecast for US Midwest, South

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    JACKSON, Miss. — Meteorologists are urging people in parts of the Midwest and southern U.S. to be ready Friday for dangerous weather including tornadoes, saying the conditions are similar to those a week ago that unleashed a devastating twister that killed at least 21 people in Mississippi.

    An outbreak of severe thunderstorms has the potential to cause hail, damaging wind gusts and tornadoes that could be strong and move on the ground over long distances, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.

    The major population centers at greatest risk for storms starting Friday afternoon include Memphis, Tennessee, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as of Thursday afternoon’s forecast. But people throughout eastern Iowa, western and northern Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas should also be prepared, said Northern Illinois meteorology professor and tornado expert Victor Gensini.

    “There will be lots of thunderstorms … tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail,” he said.

    People in those areas should stock emergency supplies, prepare for power outages, avoid getting stranded in places vulnerable to falling trees or severe hail, and park vehicles in garages if possible, meteorologists said.

    Last Friday night, a vicious tornado in Mississippi killed at least 21 people, injured dozens and flattened entire blocks as it carved a path of destruction for more than an hour. About 2,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, according to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

    The toll was especially steep in western Mississippi’s Sharkey County, where 13 people were killed in a county of 3,700 residents. Winds of up to 200 mph (322 kph) barreled through the rural farming town of Rolling Fork, reducing homes to piles of rubble, flipping cars and toppling the town’s water tower.

    President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to visit Rolling Fork on Friday.

    Gensini said Friday’s atmospheric setup is similar to the conditions that were present during Mississippi’s deadly storm.

    The hazardous forecast is a result of strong southerly winds transporting copious amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico north, where they will interact with the strengthening storm system.

    The weather service is forecasting another batch of intense storms next Tuesday in the same general area as last week. At least the first 10 days of April will be rough, Accuweather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said earlier this week.

    Bill Bunting, the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center chief of forecasting operations, said people need to have a severe weather plan in place that includes multiple ways to receive storm warning information.

    “We’ve all seen the coverage of the heartbreaking situations in other parts of the country. Our fervent hope is that people pay attention to the forecasts that have been out for several days now regarding Friday’s threat,” Bunting said.

    ___

    Baumann reported from Bellingham, Washington. AP writer Isabella O’Malley contributed from Philadelphia.

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  • Watch out: Series of dangerous storms target Midwest, South

    Watch out: Series of dangerous storms target Midwest, South

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    A seemingly relentless series of severe storms, likely with deadly tornadoes, are forecast to rip across parts of America’s Midwest and South over the next couple weeks, especially Friday, meteorologists said.

    An unusual weather pattern has set in, last week triggering the devastating tornado that hit Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and meteorologists fear this Friday will be one of the worst days, with much more to come. The National Weather Service said 16.8 million people live in the highest risk zone, and more than 66 million people overall should be on alert Friday.

    “It’s pretty darn clear that somebody is going to take it on the nose on Friday,” said Northern Illinois meteorology professor and tornado expert and chaser Victor Gensini. “It’s just a matter of where and exactly when.”

    The weather service is cautioning a large area of the country – including parts of Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Georgia and Kansas – to be alert for intense thunderstorms, tornadoes and other damaging winds. Big cities in the highest danger area include Memphis, St. Louis, Des Moines and Little Rock.

    Gensini fears Friday’s onslaught will be deadly.

    The storms are expected to start Friday afternoon and go overnight, which is particularly dangerous because people can’t see them coming and often won’t seek shelter, weather service Storm Prediction Center warning coordination meteorologist Matt Elliott said Wednesday.

    “The storms will be moving very quickly,” Elliott said. “So you won’t have a lot of time to react to warnings as well. So now’s the time to start preparing.”

    Though all the ingredients are there for dangerous storms, it’s possible they may not combine precisely enough to pose the threat that meteorologists are warning about, Elliott and others said.

    Another batch of severe storms, powered by a “firehose” of unstable waves in the atmosphere that keep flowing from the cold west and combine with moist air from the east, could hit next Tuesday and the next few days after that, said Walker Ashley, another meteorology professor at Northern Illinois and Gensini’s storm-chasing partner.

    “You could see these things coming days in advance,” Ashley said. They will be “continual punches, one, two, three, four.”

    The weather service is already forecasting another batch of intense storms next Tuesday in the same general area as Friday with fairly high confidence, Elliott said.

    At least the first 10 days of April will be rough, said Accuweather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham.

    The current persistent pattern of storm ingredients reminds Gensini of the April 2011 tornado onslaught that killed 363 people in six states, hitting Alabama hardest. That was one of the largest, deadliest and most destructive tornado outbreaks in American history, the weather service said.

    Even before Friday, “it’s been the most active we’ve seen in several years” starting around last November, with a large number of winter storms through this year, Elliott said. The deadly storms that hit Rolling Fork were part of that pattern.

    Buckingham and the other meteorologists said current conditions come along only once every few years to create the potential for a train of supercells, which spawn the worst of the tornadoes and damaging hail.

    Central to this is a fast-moving rollercoaster-like jet stream, the shifting river of air that moves weather systems, such as storms, from west to east. On the west side of the jet stream is extreme cold air and to the east, parked off Florida and Caribbean, is a very warm and dry high-pressure system.

    “When you kind of combine the two it kind makes those hairs on the back of your neck stand up,” Buckingham said. “The ingredients are here. They’re primed towards the extreme end of things.”

    Add to that the Gulf of Mexico, which provides moisture heat and energy for storms, is roughly 2 to 5 degrees (1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than average or more, meteorologists said — “on fire,” as Ashley put it.

    “The additional warmth and humidity really get these thunderstorms firing up,” Buckingham said.

    The worst weather will be “underneath the clashing” of hot and cold air, a battleground of sort, Gensini said. Friday’s lunchtime forecast at Storm Lake, Iowa, is around 67 degrees (19 degrees Celsius) but just 140 miles (225 kilometers) to the northwest, Brookings, South Dakota is forecast to be barely above freezing.

    “The greater the temperature gradient, the stronger the storm systems are,” Gensini said.

    The winds twirling at opposite directions on the west and east of the jet stream battleground add to the problem, the meteorologists said.

    Ashley said current conditions are mostly random weather variability, though he said the hotter Gulf of Mexico and human-caused climate change may have made a small contribution.

    “These events have always occurred,” Ashley said. “The question is are we turning the knob a little bit by contributing more moisture, more heat, more instability?”

    ___ Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears ___ Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Churches provide solace in tornado-ravaged Mississippi Delta

    Churches provide solace in tornado-ravaged Mississippi Delta

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    ROLLING FORK, Miss. — As a deadly tornado tore through the lower Mississippi Delta, the Rev. Mary Stewart clung to a door in the hallway of her Rolling Fork home, shielding herself from the branches and chunks of debris that came flying through her shattered windows.

    Friday’s storm flattened entire town blocks, but the Rolling Fork Methodist Church withstood the high winds. And so the first Sunday after the twister would commence just like any other Sunday — with congregants reaffirming their faith and finding solace together.

    “We are a very religious community,” said Laura Allmon, a fourth-generation congregant. “It just means a lot for us to be able to get together and pray and be thankful for what we have.”

    At least 26 people were killed and dozens of others were injured late Friday in Mississippi as the storm ripped through one of the poorest regions in the country, leaving a swath of destruction in its wake.

    With their homes unlivable, many Rolling Fork residents flocked Sunday to the network of churches dotting their rural Southern town of about 2,000, where agriculture and faith shape local life.

    Founded nearly 135 years ago, the Rolling Fork Methodist Church has long been a source of support and resilience in hard times, its members said.

    “So many people here know patience from farm work,” Stewart said. “With their dependence on the rain for their crops — their livelihood — and having to leave it in God’s hands … it’s a wonderful reaffirmation that God is in control.”

    Since the church building was without power Sunday morning, roughly two dozen worshipers gathered on its historic steps and bowed their heads while Stewart delivered a short sermon.

    “We’re grateful, Lord, that you brought us through this storm,” she said, standing in the sunshine beneath a clear blue sky. “We have a lot to do and a lot of rebuilding, and there are people that we’ve lost in our town. … We pray for their families.”

    Elsewhere, President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for Mississippi early Sunday, making federal funding available to the hardest hit areas.

    Based on early data, the tornado received a preliminary EF-4 rating, with top wind gusts between 166 mph and 200 mph (265 kph and 320 kph), according to the National Weather Service office in Jackson. Officials said the twister was on the ground for more than an hour.

    Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves issued a state of emergency and vowed to help rebuild as he viewed the damage in the region, which boasts wide expanses of cotton, corn and soybean fields and catfish farming ponds. He spoke with Biden, who also held a call with the state’s congressional delegation.

    More than a half-dozen shelters were opened in Mississippi to house displaced residents.

    Just a few blocks down the road from the Rolling Fork Methodist Church, pastor Britt Williamson spoke from the pulpit at First Baptist Church, addressing rows of weary congregants. During the service, attendees hugged, shook hands and wiped away tears.

    “The Delta is a hard soul for the gospel,” Williamson said. “Through the calamity of what happened, God has brought a plow bigger than any of these farmers could have.”

    He said faith gives people something to hold onto during life’s challenges.

    “We don’t want to help people just to give them a place to live. We don’t want to feed them for a day,” he said. “We want to give them an eternal home.”

    Marlon Nicholas, a congregant of the church, said his family’s attendance at a local high school prom Friday night meant they stayed safe even as their home was destroyed. He said other relatives also lost their homes but escaped without serious injuries.

    “Miracles,” he said.

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  • Hong Kongers hold first protest in years under strict rules

    Hong Kongers hold first protest in years under strict rules

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    HONG KONG — Dozens of people on Sunday joined Hong Kong’s first authorized demonstration against the government since the lifting of major COVID-19 restrictions under unprecedentedly strict rules, including wearing a numbered badge around their necks.

    The rules set out by the police, who cited security reasons, came as the financial hub was promoting its return to normalcy after years of anti-virus controls and political turmoil.

    During the pandemic, protests were rare due to COVID-19 restrictions. In addition, many activists have been silenced or jailed after Beijing imposed a national security law following massive protests in 2019. Critics say the city’s freedom of assembly has been eroded.

    Sunday’s demonstration against the proposed reclamation and construction of rubbish-processing facilities was the first police-approved march of its kind after the city scrapped its mask mandate and social distancing limits.

    But organizers had to comply with police requirements such as taking measures to ensure the number of participants would not exceed the expected turnout of 100 people and asking for proof of a “reasonable excuse” from protesters who wore masks during the event. At the height of the 2019 anti-government movement, Hong Kong’s government invoked emergency powers to ban masks from public gatherings.

    On Sunday, about 60 people expressed their opposition to the plans in Tseung Kwan O, a residential and industrial idea, and had to walk in a cordoned-off moving line in the rain amid heavy police presence.

    Resident Theresa Wang, 70, described the new restrictions as “a bit weird” but said they were still acceptable because the city was adjusting to “the new Hong Kong.”

    “I’m not happy but we have to accept it. We have to accept what is deemed legal now,” the retiree said, adding that she hoped the protest would be a sign the government is more open to discussion.

    Jack Wong, 69, said he would prefer not to wear the badge printed with a number. Police said earlier the requirement aims to prevent lawbreakers from joining the march.

    “But if it is a requirement, what can I say? I prefer not to comment further. You know what I mean,” the retiree said.

    In granting its approval, police also requested that organizers ensure there would not be any acts that might endanger national security, including displaying anything seditious.

    Cyrus Chan, one of the march organizers, said demonstrators had communicated with police on their promotional materials and slogans. Officers earlier had told him that participants should not wear all black outfits, he said. Protesters commonly wore black in the 2019 movement.

    “It’s definitely strict,” Chan said. “We hope this is just an individual case. We hope to show them that Hong Kong society has the ability to have peaceful marches and they do not need to set that many conditions to restrict us.”

    Earlier this month, the Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association planned a march to call for labor and women’s rights but canceled it at the last moment without specifying why.

    Days later, the association said on its Facebook page that police had invited it for further meetings after granting it the approval and that it had tried its best to amend the agreement. But it still could not launch the protest as it had wished, it wrote at that time.

    A pro-democracy group separately said national security police had warned four of its members not to participate in the association’s march.

    _____

    Associated Press photographer Louise Delmotte contributed to this report.

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