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Fire crews ran night operations and controlled burnings to contain the Butte fire in Sheep Ranch Wildfires in California.© Andrew Seng/Rex Shutterstock
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January 3, 2016 - UNITED STATES -
In the warmest year on record, Mother Nature wrought havoc across
the country, with large swaths of the west coast ablaze during the
summer and the north-east blanketed in snow for most of the winter
2015 has been the warmest year, globally, on record, with the lower 48
states of the US experiencing their balmiest autumn ever measured.
This kind of exceptional heat provided an appropriate setting for the
Paris climate summit, where 196 nations agreed to curb greenhouse gas
emissions to avoid the sort of dangerous climate change that contributes
to floods, drought and damaging sea level rises.
But the past year has also seen a number of severe natural disasters,
climate change-fueled or otherwise, that have battered the US. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency issued 77 disaster declarations in
2015. Here are some of the disasters that tested Americans this year.
January snow storms
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During winter storm Juno in the Boston’s South End, Mike Poremba walks his dog Cali past snow-covered cars.© Boston Globe via Getty Images
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For New
Yorkers, the snow in January was something of a near-miss - US
National Weather Service warnings of a "potentially historic blizzard"
proved erroneous. The subway was shut and driving was banned for what
turned out to be just a light coating of snow.
But for those in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts,
there was no such escape. Thousands of people lost power, flights were
canceled and sports events were called off as more than 2ft of snow
settled in parts of the region. High winds and coastal flooding, with
winds gusting to 80 mph in Massachusetts, pounded the Atlantic coast.
For many cities in New England, winter storm Juno, as the blizzard was
unofficially dubbed, was one of the heaviest snowstorms on record, with
at least two people dying as an indirect result of the conditions.
Boston was smothered by snow, with February its snowiest month on
record. In total, around 8ft of snow fell on the city, which ran out of
places to dump cleared snow. This immense downfall prompted several
people to throw themselves from their windows into huge snowdrifts -
while videoing the experience, of course. Mayor Marty Walsh was enraged:
"This isn't Loon Mountain, this is the city of Boston!"
Tropical storm Bill
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Flooding in Galveston, Texas, as seen from a coast guard helicopter after Tropical Storm Bill made landfall.© US coast guard/Reuters
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The drought in
California would have been far from the minds of people in Texas and
Oklahoma, who experienced their wettest May on record, only for it to be
followed by Tropical Storm Bill.
The tropical cyclone formed in the Gulf of Mexico on 16 June and swept
northwards after making landfall in Texas in the following days. A huge
amount of rain was dumped upon Texas and Oklahoma, peaking at 13.2in
near El Campo, Texas. The rain brought flooding that killed two people,
rockslides that closed highways and gusts of over 60 mph.
West coast wildfires
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A long-exposure picture shows a backfire in an attempt to battle the so-called Rocky fire near Clearlake Oaks, California© Noah Berger/EPA
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The state of
Washington endured its largest ever wildfire season in 2015, with a pall
of smoke hanging over Seattle acting as a constant reminder of the
flames that burned through more than 1m acres of the state.
The fires were declared a federal emergency on 21 August, with the US
army deployed to help firefighters tackle the blazes. Three firefighters
died in the course of their duties, while thousands of people were
displaced. A cluster of blazes had destroyed more than 170 homes by 1
September. The fires followed a prolonged dry period in the state.
Further south, more than 6,000 fires had taken hold in California by
November, burning through more than 300,000 acres. A state of emergency
was declared due to the intense fires in Amador and Calaveras counties.
Seven people and two firefighters died.
South Carolina floods
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DNR
officer Brett Irvin and Lexington County deputy Dan Rusinyak carry June
Loch to dry land after she was rescued from her home in Columbia, South
Carolina
© Tim Dominick/Rex Shutterstock
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Disastrous flooding
claimed 17 lives in October - 15 in South Carolina and two in North
Carolina. Record rainfall, spurred by low pressure and Hurricane
Joaquin, dumped 20in of rain in some parts of South Carolina. This led
to widespread flooding, causing $12bn in damage, a loss that governor
Nikki Haley called "disturbing". More than 160,000 homes were hit by the
floods, with around 400,000 people required to boil their water to
avoid an outbreak of disease.
Tornadoes
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An elephant trunk tornado on the move on 29 May in Milnesand, New Mexico© Marko Korosec/Barcroft USA
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2015 has been an unusually quiet
year for tornadoes. As of 22 December, only 10 people had died from
tornadoes in the US. That was the fewest deaths in more than a century
and well below the average of the past 10 years, which stands at 110
deaths per year, according to the National Weather Service. (Dallas
tornadoes and associated traffic accidents, however, left an additional
11 dead this weekend.)
The periodic El Niño climate phenomenon, which is currently in effect,
is thought to subdue Atlantic hurricanes, which can then spawn
tornadoes. One of the most destructive tornadoes in 2015 occurred at the
River Oaks mobile home park in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, in March. The
strongest ripped through Rochelle, Illinois, in April.
California drought
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A field of dead almond trees is seen in Coalinga in the Central Valley, California© Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
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Drought is a very
slow-moving disaster - California is in its fourth year of drought and
there haven't been any destroyed homes or swaths of deaths as a result.
But the impacts are severe. In some parts of California's Central
Valley - an area that produces around 40% of the US's fruits, nuts and
vegetables - water-starved farmers have taken to drilling for water
to such a degree that the land is sinking at a rate of 2 inches a month.
Far-reaching water consumption cuts have been placed on households but
the state is still losing water - the University of California
estimates that 4tn gallons of water have been lost from the Sacramento
and San Joaquin river basins since the drought began in 2011.
The lack of water has been mirrored by a dearth of snow. In September,
scientists estimated that the amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada was
the lowest in more than 500 years. -
The Guardian.
