In retrospect, I think this deserves it's own thread -
RALEIGH, N.C. – A devastating storm that spawned tornadoes, flash floods and hail as big as softballs has claimed at least 45 lives across the U.S. while roaring through the South and gaining steam in North Carolina and Virginia.
St. Louis, MO (KSDK) - Lambert-St. Louis International Airport officials released surveillance video that shows debris swirling inside the airport as workers and passengers run to take cover when the EF2 tornado hit on Friday night.
The damage to the Lambert Airport is estimated to be in the millions of dollars as crews work around the clock to get it cleaned-up and reopened.
The storms also brought several inches of rain and very large hail to the area. A viewer photo from Peeltown in Kaufman County showed a piece of hail the size of a softball with spiked edges.
For the last two months, almost all the planets have been hiding behind the sun, but this week they all emerge and are arrayed in a grand line above the rising sun. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are visible, and you can add Uranus and Neptune to your count if you have binoculars or a small telescope.
Zvezda wrote:300? Hell, I have heard of 60 so far. Are the storms worse or are the areas more populted?
Tuscaloosa got plastered pretty hard.
With 36 confirmed deaths and people still missing in Tuscaloosa, the death toll could top that of a 1904 twister that killed 36 and one in 1932 that left 37 dead, The Tuscaloosa News reported.
By Friday, nearly 300 people throughout the South had been confirmed dead. At least 204 people in Alabama, 38 in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, seven in Virginia and one in Kentucky died in the storms.
GENEVA (AP) -- A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment.
NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for "potentially devastating effects."
Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits.
Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that "it is not a question of if, but really a matter of when a major solar event could hit our planet
Scientists say having tornadoes hit populated areas is rare, but having them hit a populated area more than once in the same season is almost unheard of.
"Here it is, only two days later, and we have remarkably similar situation to Sunday. But it's odd, its very odd, to have this happen within 48 hours with the ferocity," Coniglio said.
"This year is extremely unusual. It's certainly is a very bad year for having a lot of tornados," Howard Bluestein, professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said.
Germany can expect significantly more violent weather in the coming years due to climate change, according to a new study from the Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Potsdam. According to the report seen by the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, severe storms will hit the country every ten years on average, instead of the current average of 50 years. http://www.thelocal.de/national/20110525-35247.html
JOPLIN, Mo. (KMOX/AP) - A Joplin doctor said Thursday his hospital treated five Joplin tornado victims for a rare, aggressive fungal infection sometimes found in survivors of other natural disasters.
Dr. Uwe Schmidt, an infectious disease specialist at Freeman Health System in Joplin, said three of those patients who contracted zygomycosis have since died, but he stopped short of blaming their deaths
