Extreme weather and climate-related events took a costly toll in terms of both lives and money around the globe in 2012.<\/p>\n
In January, record snowfall in Alaska<\/a> contrasted sharply against the warmer-than-normal temperatures in the lower 48 states.\u00a0 And while much of the U.S. was experiencing a mild winter, by February, Europe was in the midst of a deep freeze that reached as far south as Venice, freezing the famous canals. \u00a0Hundreds died as a result of the extreme cold across the continent.<\/p>\n The warmer-than-normal temperatures in the U.S. kicked off an early tornado season, with the first outbreak occurring in January, followed by a violent EF-4 tornado occurring in February and two other major outbreaks in March and April.\u00a0 In spite of its violent start, 2012\u2019s tornado season was very short-lived<\/a>, and 2012 may go down as the year with the fewest tornadoes on record in the U.S.<\/p>\n While tornado season in the U.S. was relatively brief, tornadoes struck more unusual places around the world.\u00a0 Tokyo, Japan, experienced a strong tornado that killed one person and injured dozens of others in May.\u00a0 In June, a rare tornado struck Venice, Italy.\u00a0 Italy was hit again in November, when a violent tornado struck the town of Taranto, killing four people.\u00a0 And on December 6, Auckland, New Zealand, was hit by a freak tornado that killed three people.<\/p>\n Hail and damaging winds plagued many parts of the U.S. during May and June.\u00a0 Hail damage in Colorado totaled more than $1.0 billion dollars in early June; and a \u201csuper derecho<\/a>\u201d of violent thunderstorms cut a 700-mile swath of destruction across the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic between June 29 and July 2, killing 28 people and leaving millions without power.<\/p>\n Climate change was the hot topic for 2012, with record heat and unprecedented drought recorded across much of the U.S.\u00a0 According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2012 is the hottest year on record<\/a>, and \u201cthe 2012 drought is the most extensive drought to affect the U.S. since the 1930s.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0By July, more than half the country was experiencing moderate-to-severe drought.\u00a0 At least 123 people lost their lives as a direct result of the heat wave\/drought.<\/p>\n The record heat\/drought across the U.S. was also responsible for other weather-related disasters, including the second worst wildfire season in U.S. history<\/a>.\u00a0 More than 9.1 million acres across the U.S. burned, with the most damaging fires occurring in the West.\u00a0 Colorado experienced its worst and most costly wildfire season ever.\u00a0 In total, wildfires killed eight people across the U.S. in 2012.<\/p>\n 2012 will be remembered for many extreme weather events, but it may be best remembered for the record number of super storms\u2014huge, continent-sized storms that battered coastlines around the globe.<\/p>\n In August, Hurricane Isaac<\/a> made landfall in Louisiana.\u00a0 Although just a category 1 hurricane, because of its immense size and slow movement, Isaac\u2019s large storm surge and flooding rains affected several southeastern states (LA, MS, AL, FL), killing nine people and causing more than $1.0 billion dollars in damage.<\/p>\n In Asia, super typhoons trained across Korea, China, and Japan one after another, causing record flooding and destruction.\u00a0 These super typhoons continued into December, as Super Typhoon Bopha wreaked havoc in the Philippines, killing more than 1,000 people.<\/p>\n Then there was super storm Sandy.\u00a0 Sandy proved that it doesn\u2019t take a major storm to do major damage, becoming the second most costly storm in U.S. history.\u00a0 Sandy was a hybrid super storm created by the combination of a post-tropical cyclone merging with a developing Nor\u2019-easter.\u00a0 The October storm unleashed an unprecedented fury of wind, storm surge, flooding rains, and snow on the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.\u00a0 Its barometric pressure was the lowest ever recorded in the history of the Northeast.\u00a0 Sandy\u2019s storm surge inundated parts of The Battery in Manhattan, and caused widespread destruction in New York City and New Jersey.\u00a0 The storm was responsible for the closure of the New York Stock Exchange for \u201ctwo consecutive business days, which last happened in 1888 due to a major winter storm,\u201d according to NOAA, and was also responsible for 131 deaths.<\/p>\n By year\u2019s end, there were 11 \u201cbillion-dollar weather\/climate disasters\u201d in the U.S. according to a recent report<\/a> released by NOAA\u2019s National Climatic Data Center.\u00a0 \u201cThese eleven events<\/a> combined are believed to have caused 349 deaths, with the most significant losses of life occurring during Sandy (131) and the summer-long heat wave and associated drought, which caused over 123 direct deaths (though an estimate of the excess mortality due to heat stress is still unknown).\u201d<\/p>\n So what\u2019s the forecast for 2013?\u00a0 While no one can predict with absolute certainty what\u2019s ahead, everyone seems to have a prediction.\u00a0 Weather preoccupies our conversations almost daily, and from NOAA to The Weather Channel to \u201cThe Old Farmer\u2019s Almanac,\u201d one thing is certain, no one gets it right 100% of the time, and maybe that why we\u2019re so fascinated with it.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.\u201d\u00a0 –\u00a0 Alice Hoffman<\/p>\n Link to article in print:\u00a0 <\/a><\/strong>http:\/\/www.gcnlive.com\/wp\/2012\/12\/28\/barb-adams-2012-a-year-of-extreme-weather\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Extreme weather and climate-related events took a costly toll in terms of both lives and money around the globe in 2012. In January, record snowfall in Alaska contrasted sharply against the warmer-than-normal temperatures in the lower 48 states.\u00a0 And while much of the U.S. was experiencing a mild winter, by February, Europe was in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-articles","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5845"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5847,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions\/5847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}