• Weather

Tropical Storm Bertha Makes Landfall In South Carolina After Flooding South Florida

• #climatecrisis
• conservation
• environment
• Flooding
• rain
• severe weather
• tropical storm

The second named storm of the season, Tropical Storm Bertha, strengthened quickly overnight Tuesday and made landfall yesterday morning about 20 miles east of Charleston.   On Tuesday, as a result of the storm, Miami experienced more than 7 inches of rain — 6 of which fell in 2 hours, flooding streets across the city.

Why This Matters:  Tropical Storm Bertha is following an increasingly familiar pattern of unprecedented amounts of rainfall along with strong winds that persist into the interior portions.

• Water

Dam Failures a Risk Across the Country Due to Climate Change

• #climatecrisis
• climate change
• dam
• dam failure
• environment
• extreme weather
• rain
• storms

The Edenville Dam failure in Michigan causing thousands to evacuate puts a spotlight on a problem that the American Society of Civil Engineers highlighted in 2017 when it gave our country a “D” for dam safety (yep – that’s it’s grade) but this grade has not significantly improved in the last 20 years.

Why This Matters:  When we think about the security risks to our nation, we need to start counting infrastructure failure due to climate change as one of the most troubling.

• Weather

Dorian Heading Toward Puerto Rico, Expected to Become a Hurricane

• Flooding
• Florida
• hurricane
• Hurricane Dorian
• Puerto Rico
• rain
• wind

Tropical Storm Dorian, a “compact” storm that is expected to be upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane by the time it passes the Dominican Republic and to impact Puerto Rico by tonight or early tomorrow, according to CNN.  CNN also reported that a team of over 200 people from nearly 30 different fire departments in South Florida were deployed to the Caribbean and Puerto Rico on Monday, according to CNN affiliate WPLG-TV. 

• Weather

Hurricane Season Begins With Disturbance In Gulf of Mexico

• Climate Prediction Center
• damage
• Flooding
• forecast
• hurricane
• NOAA
• outlook
• rain
• severe storms

Hurricane Season in the Atlantic officially began last Saturday, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting a “near normal” year with nine to fifteen named storms, of which four to eight may strengthen to become hurricanes. Of those, two to four could be major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher.  The Pacific hurricane forecast is calling for an above-normal season for both the eastern and central Pacific regions. 

• Water

One Alarming Thing: Plastic Particles Found In Rainwater

• plastic
• pollution
• rain

It’s raining plastic!  A recent study of the chemical composition of rain in the Boulder to Denver corridor and in the mountains of Colorado that was conducted by a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey produced some surprising and disturbing results — 90 percent of the samples collected contained plastics, mostly fibers and blue in […]

• Weather

PDS Tornados in the Plains, Flood Waters Rise in Midwest

• Flooding
• PDS
• rain
• severe storm
• tornado

The weather forecasts in the southern Plain states on Sunday into Monday were ominous and the storm cells spawned approximately twenty tornados that damaged buildings and produced heavy rain, but there were no reported injuries, prompting some people to declare the storms a “bust.”