Weather - US

Sea surface temperatures in October -- orange-red colors are above normal.

cnn.com - by Brandon Miller and Nick Thompson - December 30, 2015

If you're wondering why your white Christmas didn't arrive as scheduled this year, meteorologists have a two-word answer: El Niño.

This year's El Niño weather event -- characterized by warming waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean -- is already one of the three strongest ever recorded. NASA says El Niño conditions are still strengthening, and it could even rival the intensity of the record 1997 event that wreaked worldwide weather havoc.

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters

Extreme weather caused nearly $2 trillion in economic losses

time.com - by Melissa Chan - November 23, 2015

Natural disasters have killed more than 600,000 people and left behind trillions of dollars in damages in the last two decades, the United Nations said Monday.

Hundreds of floods, storms, heat waves and droughts have left about 606,000 people dead and 4.1 billion injured or homeless around the world since 1995, according to a U.N. report.

The extreme weather-related calamities also caused nearly $2 trillion in economic losses.

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The Lake Borgne Surge Barrier, which rises 26 feet above sea level, is designed to be overtopped by storm surges created by a hurricane with a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year, the so-called 100-year storm, hits the area. The overtopping water will be stored in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Industrial Canal in New Orleans. Larger storms will cause even more water to overtop the wall.

nola.com - by Mark Schleifstein - August 18, 2015

The rebuilt New Orleans area hurricane levee system remains inadequate to protect the heart of the nation's 45^th largest metropolitan area from another Hurricane Katrina or larger storm, nationally-known engineers and scientists said almost a decade after the 2005 storm.

Video: National Guard drops water on the wildfire in Lake County, California over the weekend. Video by Storyful Editor

nytimes.com - August 3rd, 2015 - Christine Hauser

National Guard forces dropped water along the edges of a raging wildfire over the weekend as more than 2,000 firefighters in Northern California tried to contain a blaze that has already scorched 60,000 acres.

The wildfire, nicknamed the Rocky Fire, started on Wednesday. It is the largest in the drought-parched state, where more than 9,000 firefighters are struggling to contain it and 20 other active wildfires, some caused by lightning strikes, according to a statewide summary published on Sunday.

The Rocky Fire has now spread to three counties — Colusa, Lake and Yolo — and prompted the mandatory evacuation of about 12,000 people.

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