26mm = 1.02 inches
Please see The Extreme Rain Events of 2010 (the bottom of thread), for background on the ongoing flooding currently in Australia, Columbia, Philippines, Shri Lanka,

Greg Gobel , executive director of the Australian Red Cross in Brisbane, said access has been completely cut off to Rockhampton, a city of 75,000.

Using Rockhampton as the litmus test, 918mm fell in the last six months of the year.

This equated to the second-highest July-December rainfall total for Rockhampton Airport (see Rural Page on Friday for final figures).

Rocky's December total for 2010 was 523.8mm; 268mm fell in the four days from December 25-28.

Places like the Blackdown Tablelands and the Isaac River near Yatton recorded double this rainfall which helped drive the floodwaters into the Dawson/Nogoa/Mackenzie Rivers and eventually the Fitzroy.

Right along the Dawson River towns were flooded – no more so than Theodore which had to be evacuated.

The Fairbairn Dam peaked over four metres which was higher than the 2008 flood.

Monsoon trough is waiting

Stormy weather grounded helicopters carrying emergency supplies to Pakistan's flood-ravaged northwest Friday as the worst monsoon rains in decades brought more destruction to a nation already reeling from Islamist militant violence.

U.S. military personnel waiting to fly Chinooks to stranded communities in the upper reaches of the hard-hit Swat Valley were frustrated by the storms, which dumped more rain on a region where many thousands are living in tents or crammed into public buildings.

Over the last week, floods have spread from the northwest down Pakistan, killing around 1,500 people and affecting more than 4 million. Much of the destruction has come from the mighty Indus River, which in better times irrigates vast swaths of farmland.

Some 30,000 Pakistani soldiers are rebuilding bridges, delivering food and setting up relief camps in the northwest, which is the main battleground in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban. Foreign countries and the United Nations have donated millions of dollars.

Also helping out are Islamist charities, including the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, which Western officials believe is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Foundation head Hafiz Abdur Rauf said the assistance of the U.S. Army was welcome.

"This is a difficult situation for us. Every helping hand and donation is welcome," he said, adding that his group is running 12 medical facilities and providing cooked food for 100,000 people every day. The foundation helped out after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake under a different name.

The government has come under criticism for not doing enough, especially since President Asif Ali Zardari chose to go ahead with a trip to Europe at the height of the crisis.

In the Sukkur area of Sindh in southern Pakistan, 70 villages had been flooded over the last 24 hours, the navy said.

"Floods killed our people, they have ruined our homes and even washed away the graves of our loved ones. Yet we are here without help from the government," said Mai Sahat, a 35-year-old women looking over a flooded landscape where her village used to be.

Saleh Farooqi, head of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Sindh, said authorities had evacuated about 200,000 people from areas where floodwaters could hit, but many more were still living in the danger zone.

"About 500,000 people living near the Indus River do not realize the gravity of the situation, and they do not know how fast the water is rushing to their areas," he said.

All helicopters currently stationed in the northwest were grounded because of poor weather, said Amal Masud, a spokeswoman for the National Disaster Management Authority.

About 85 U.S. military personnel are taking part in the relief activities along with six helicopters that were flown over from Afghanistan, where some 100,000 American troops are based battling the Taliban.

Specialist Joseph James usually flies Chinooks on combat missions in Afghanistan and was happy with his new mission.

"It just feels nicer helping people," he said at a Pakistani air base in Ghazi where biscuits and water were being loaded into choppers. "The first time we got up there, everybody was shaking our hand," said the 22-year-old from Union Star, Missouri.

The United States is unpopular in Pakistan, and Washington is hoping the relief missions will help improve its image.

The U.S. military carried out larger operations in the aftermath of the Kashmir quake, as it did in predominantly Muslim Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami. Those missions were credited with boosting Washington's reputation there.

___

Toosi contributed to this report from Ghazi.

At least 30 people have died and 100 been injured in flooding in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials have said.

Heavy rain caused waterways to burst their banks, washing away roads and bridges and knocking down power lines.

Intense rainfall added to the damage from other heavy rain in recent months, causing an estimated 80 million dollars in damage in Costa Rica, National Emergency Commission boss Daniel Gallardo said Wednesday.

Rising floodwaters in central Vietnam have killed six people and forced thousands to flee, following floods that killed more than 80 earlier this month, officials said Wednesday. "We haven't forgotten the severe human loss from the previous floods so more than 20,000 people from flood-prone areas have been evacuated to higher ground," said Van Phu Chinh with the central region's Flood and Storm Department.

Three children and a woman were killed when their boat capsized in Honduras, officials said Sunday, raising to 21 the death toll from days of torrential rains that have driven thousands from their homes across Central America.

Flooding across a swathe of Africa now affects 22 countries, including Ethiopia, Niger and Sudan where the situation has worsened in recent days, the United Nations said Monday.

More than 800,000 people are now affected by torrential rains in those three countries alone, compared to around 700,000 recorded last week, according to data from the UN humanitarian coordination office.

Heavy rains spawned by a typhoon have destroyed or inundated more than 22,000 houses and buildings across North Korea, hampering efforts to recover from earlier floods, state media said Monday.

Rain storms triggered by Typhoon Wipha from Tuesday to Friday last week caused heavy losses in various sectors of the economy, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

About 14,000 houses, 8,000 public buildings and 300 production buildings were destroyed or damaged and deluged, while more than 109,000 hectares (270,000 acres) of farm land were flooded, it said.

Severe flooding across east, central and west Africa has destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, killing at least 250 people, and washing away much of the continent's most fertile farmland. More rain is expected and aid agencies are warning that the need for food, shelter and medicine in the affected regions is urgent.

By last night at least 15 countries across Africa were thought to be affected by the flooding, from Senegal in the west to Kenya in the east. West Africa has suffered most with deaths recorded in Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali and Niger.

Nearly 13.5 million people have been marooned or displaced by floods in India and Bangladesh, officials said on Saturday.

The flooding in South Asia caused by the June-to-September monsoon has been described as the worst in decades, with more than 2,200 people killed by floods and rains in India since it started.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, the number of people killed by flooding topped 1,000 on Saturday, the government said.

Several of Africa's poorest countries are in dire need of assistance due to severe floods that have killed more than 200 people and affected a million in recent weeks, officials warned Friday.

The latest victims were reported in Rwanda, where officials from the northern region said floods killed 15 people and destroyed more than 500 homes since Wednesday.

In Sudan, the worst floods in living memory have left 64 people dead and displaced and affected several hundred thousand, mainly in the troubled south, according to the United Nations.

A cholera epidemic spread by floods has also killed at least 49 Sudanese in recent weeks, according to the World Health Organisation.

At least 1,400 villagers have been stranded in northern Romania amid heavy rains that caused rivers to overflow, killing a 19-year-old man.

The 17th-Century Sambata de Sus monastery was evacuated in the floods, which also cut power to 130 villages in the north and east of the country.

Six of Romania's 41 counties have been affected, with authorities warning that seven more counties were in danger.

The rain comes after three days of high temperatures of up to 40C.

North Korea reported Saturday that at least 600 people are dead or missing following devastating floods that swept the country causing huge damage to all sectors of the economy.

Official figures from the hardline communist state, quoted by relief agencies, earlier spoke of about 300 dead or missing.

But torrential rain, strong winds and landslides have doubled the total.

At least 600 are dead or missing and thousands injured, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, citing figures from the Central Statistics Bureau.

The agency, in its starkest assessment so far of the damage, said downpours earlier this month "caused huge material losses to the (country), creating unprecedented difficulties in people's living and economic construction."

Weather officials say the rains that flooded southeastern Minnesota last weekend set a state record for rainfall during a 24-hour period.

Weather watchers thought the record had been set earlier -- but now it's official.
And the old record was smashed by more than four inches.

The National Weather Service gauge in Germain Davison's farmyard a mile south of Hokah had 15-point-one inches in it when he measured it at 8 a-m Sunday.
The previous record, set July 22nd, 1972, at Fort Ripley, was 10-point-84 inches.

It took a while to get the record approved. The measurement has to come from someone in the Weather Service's network. The observer's equipment must be checked by Weather Service personnel, and the nomination has to be forwarded to the Extreme Records Committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a vote.
In this case, the vote was unanimous.

The heavy thunderstorms that rumbled across southern Iowa Thursday night and this morning helped break an August record for Iowa precipitation that covers 135 years of statewide weather reports.

As of 7 a.m. today, Iowa has had an average of 8.62 inches of statewide average rainfall, breaking the old mark of 8.24 inches set in 1993, state records show. The all-time mark for rainfall in any month in Iowa is 10.5 inches, set in the historic flood month of July 1993.

"We had some incredible rain in southern Iowa last night. It was the biggest that we had yet out of this episode" of heavy Iowa rainfall over the past week, State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said today.

South-East Queensland's Rainbow Beach, near where an Indonesian sailing ship has grounded on the beach in heavy weather, has set a new rainfall record.

Weather bureau climate records meteorologist Claire Webb said 713mm fell there in the 24 hours to 9am today.

This was more than three times the previous total of 216mm for the whole month of August set in 1998, Ms Webb said.

"It's amazing," she said.

"There certainly is some flooding up there."

At nearby Mt Bilewilam, north of Noosa, 689mm fell in the same period to 9am today and at Coops Corner, 706mm was recorded.

At Tewantin, near Noosa, 310mm fell to 9am today, more than four times the previous record daily total of 72.2mm set on August 19, 1989.

Floods in North Korea in recent weeks have affected 437,000 people and damaged more than one-fifth of the country's rice crop, according to official North Korean estimates, the UN's food relief agency said Friday

"According to figures from the North Korean agriculture ministry, 223,381 hectares of rice, corn, and soja have been damaged, or more than 20 percent of rice crops, and 15 percent of corn fields," said World Food Programme spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume.

"Once we got here, everybody asked us to rescue more people," he said.

The Blanchard River was 7 feet above flood stage Wednesday at Findlay, the highest since a 1913 flood, and could rise another half-foot or more, the National Weather Service said.

The rain subsided by mid-afternoon, and the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for much of the state, with temperatures expected to hit the upper 90s.

In Bucyrus, 40 miles to the southeast, nearly 9 inches of rain had fallen since Monday and at least 200 people were still out of their homes, the Crawford County Department of Emergency Management said.

"Reality is starting to set in about just how much damage there is in some of the flooded areas," said Tim Flock, director of the agency.

Gov. Ted Strickland declared states of emergency in nine counties in northwest and north-central Ohio, including Crawford County and Findlay's Hancock County.

The heavy rains that caused the severe flooding in southeastern Minnesota may have set a new record.

The National Weather Service says one measurement for the 24-hour total from Saturday to Sunday was 15-point-one inches in Houston County. If the State Climate Extremes Committee approves that value, it will be a new 24-hour rainfall record for Minnesota.

Heavy rains continued to wreak havoc in East Africa Saturday, as floods that have already displaced hundreds of thousands heightened fears of food shortages and disease outbreaks across the region.

In Kampala, Uganda's minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, Musa Ecweru, said high waters had submerged entire villages and destroyed many farms in the east of the country.

"Many people have sought refuge in churches and raised grounds, while others have left the affected areas to live with relatives in other places and food crops in gardens have been destroyed," Ecweru told reporters.

The minister estimated the number of people displaced by the floods to be around 150,000.

"Cholera cases have been reported and we are working with the health ministry to mitigate the problems," he added.

Flooding set off by torrential rains trapped more than 170 men deep underground in a coal mine in eastern China, the government's New China News Agency reported Saturday.

Zhang Dekuan, a senior Shandong province official, told the agency that 756 miners were working in the shaft when floodwaters rushed inside about 2:30 p.m. Friday and cut off their exit route. Rescuers freed 584 of them during the evening, he said, but 172 remained trapped early Saturday.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center has the winds down to 125 mph. with gusts to 149. Forward speed is still 11 mph. Taiwan will take a direct hit from this typhoon. The eye is still 100 miles off shore at this posting.
The pain and suffering index in Southern China is about to take another hit. With the intensity of the rain events this summer, there are going to be some really amazing rainfall totals under this thing. Taiwan is mountainous, everybody better be on high ground.
Nine days ago :
Double Tropical Storms Approaching China

Here's the Joint Typhoon Warning Center

"According to the preliminary information available from different parts of the country as of August 12, the torrential rain left hundreds of persons dead or missing and destroyed more than 30,000 houses for over 63,300 families, or rendered them inundated," KCNA said.

"It also left tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of farmland inundated, buried under silt and washed away."

At least 800 public buildings, more than 540 bridges and sections of railway were destroyed in the heavy rain, the news agency said.

The southern provinces of Kangwon and North Hwanghae which border South Korea and South Hamgyong in the east were among the worst hit with thousands of families left homeless after their houses were inundated.

Persistent heavy rains in China have taken at least 14 more lives, state media reported Monday, as meteorologists warned torrential rains would continue pounding various parts of the country.

Eight people were killed and one left missing by flash floods following downpours that lasted more than ten hours in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Xinhua news agency said.

The rains also inundated large areas of cropland and damaged roads and houses in Yuanjiang county, which is occupied by indigenous ethnic minorities, local government officials were quoted as saying.

At least 43 people have been killed and several others are missing after floods in storm-hit central Vietnam.

Soldiers were helping to rush emergency supplies to some of the 200,000 people whose homes have been swept away or damaged by the flood waters.

The region is braced for further bad weather as tropical storm Pabuk heads across the South China Sea to China.

Continued heavy downpours have been forecast for several regions across flood-ravaged China, state media said Sunday, with some areas already reeling from record levels of rain.

Torrential rains are expected to continue in Fujian province in the southeast and have been forecast to hit the northeastern province of Liaoning beginning Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Parts of southern and southeastern China are already inundated from a pair of typhoons which struck the coast one after another over the past few days.

Severe flooding has affected tens of millions of people around the world in recent weeks and months, including Bangladesh, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sudan. From Dhaka to Khartoum, officials say they are seeing the heaviest rains in decades and in some cases, recent memory.

In South Asia, an estimated 35 million people have been affected while a staggering 200 million people have been affected by floods in China. In all of these countries, volunteers and staff from the Red Cross Red Crescent are working to assist vulnerable communities by distributing basic relief goods, helping people reach safer ground and providing first aid to those in need. The International Federation is also supporting relief efforts in flood-affected areas.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has more than doubled its Sudan floods appeal to almost 5.5 million Swiss francs ($4.6 million USD/ €3.3 million) as flood waters in Sudan rise above the levels set in 1988, when tens of thousands of homes were destroyed and a million people were displaced.

The early arrival of heavy rains has caused rivers in the country's north and east to burst their banks, inundating villages, towns and farm land. Downpours in neighboring Eritrea and Ethiopia have further increased the water levels. Near Khartoum, the Blue Nile has swollen to between one and two meters above the 1988 high water mark.

"Uganda: Rains Devastate Bududa" ...... Aug. 9th

Some residents made the best out of the grim situation by hauling logs out of the streams, splitting it and tying the wood in bundles for sale. Another group of men chanced on the carcass of a cow killed by the storm, skinned it and shared the meat.

This stuff is impossible to keep-up with now. For example, I can tell you that Columbia, Uruguay, Tibet, Nepal, and Vietnam have been getting pounded like these other places, but news from those places is spotty at best. Here's just part of what I pulled of the net in 2 hours Friday night :

•July 18th - Dickinson, N. Dakota .... 3.03 inches in 6 hours.

• July 20th - China ........ "Jinan, capital of coastal Shandong province, which received a record 7 inches of rain within three hours on Wednesday."

•July 20th - Ottawa, Canada .... "Friday was the rainest day Ottawa has ever seen. The record has been broken and we're at 65.2mm (2.56 inches) to shatter the 54mm record from back in 1990."

•July 25th -Penticton, Canada ... "The storm dropped more than 65 millimetres (2.55 inches) of rain on the South Okanagan community Thursday afternoon, breaking a one-day rainfall record for the entire Southern Interior. "It really is unprecedented," said Doug Lundquist, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, adding that such a downpour is more likely during fall on the wetter West Coast. Summerland, which sees an average of 30 mm of rain in July, set its last extreme one-day rainfall record on July 28, 1950 when 41.7 mm of rain dropped on the community. Almost half of that amount — 20 mm — fell in one hour on Thursday."

•Aug 1st - Newfoundland Canada ... "About 150 millimetres (5.9 inches) of rain fell during the storm at Whitbourne, Environment Canada said early Wednesday afternoon."

•Aug 9th - N. Korea ......" Koksan county in North Hwanghae province had 431 millimetres (17 inches) of rain during the week."

•Aug. 9th - N. Dakota .... "There were reports of 2.12 inches just five miles north of Bismarck, and 1.95 inches at the Mandan airport ."

•Aug. 10th - Pakistan ... "Officials said Karachi had received 142mm (more than 5.5 inches) of rain in the previous 24 hours, with more expected."

•Aug. 10th - Germany & Switzerland .... "Zurich suffered its worst rainfall in a century with more than 10 centimeters (4 inches) falling in 24 hours, 94 mm (3.70 inches) fell at the mountain pass of Chasseral near Berne, 87 mm in Delemont, Jura, and 69 mm in Lausanne. In Basel, 76 mm fell in just fours hours."

• Aug. 11th - Pakistan ..... "Officials said Karachi had received 191mm (7.5 inches) of rain in the previous 48 hours, with chances of light rain in next 24 hours."

'Undeniable' numbers
Nationwide, total rainfall and snowfall increased by about 7 percent during the 20th century, and the precipitation falling in the heaviest 1 percent of storms increased by 20 percent, said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch at National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.

"It is undeniable that the heavy precipitation events that create flash flooding are becoming more common," Lawrimore said.

Climate scientists generally measure weather changes in decades or centuries, not years, and across vast regions, not individual cities.

Most of the city was under knee-deep water caused by the heavy rains, causing traffic chaos.

Authorities have closed schools and colleges due to transportation difficulties and hazards including fallen power lines.

Officials said Karachi had received 191mm (7.5 inches) of rain in the previous 48 hours, with chances of light rain in next 24 hours.

Floods killed more than 7,000 people in the world last year, a recent study by reinsurance group Swiss Re study showed -- roughly a third of all victims of natural catastrophes such as storms, earthquakes, droughts and extreme cold or heat.

Statistics gathered by insurers -- who look at the cost of a catastrophe to measure its severity, not the death toll -- also indicate climate is changing.

"One single event can never be a sign of climate change," said Jens Mehlhorn, who heads a team of flood experts at the Zurich-based company.

"But when you see a series of such events, and that's what it looks like at the moment ... it may be about time to say something is changing," he said.

This year's UK floods were an event statistical models say should happen once only every 30 to 50 years, Mehlhorn says: the floods in 2000 were a 25-30 years event.

Two such events in only seven years are not statistically impossible, but they are unlikely. Other countries have seen similar increases in such disasters.

Xinhua said earlier that 10 inches of rain fell between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon in Chongqing, the largest volume since records began in 1892. The previous record of 8.1 inches was set on July 1996, the reports said.

In Shandong, 40 people were killed and another nine were missing, Xinhua said. Some 112,600 were evacuated, it said.

Jinan, Shandong's capital and the worst-hit city, received up to 4.65 inches of rain in an hour during a storm on Wednesday.

The storm dropped more than 65 millimetres of rain on the South Okanagan community Thursday afternoon, breaking a one-day rainfall record for the entire Southern Interior.

"It really is unprecedented," said Doug Lundquist, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, adding that such a downpour is more likely during fall on the wetter West Coast.

Summerland, which sees an average of 30 mm of rain in July, set its last extreme one-day rainfall record on July 28, 1950 when 41.7 mm of rain dropped on the community. Almost half of that amount — 20 mm — fell in one hour on Thursday.

Zurich suffered its worst rainfall in a century with more than 97 mm falling in 24 hours, 94 mm fell at the mountain pass of Chasseral near Berne, 87 mm in Delemont, Jura, and 69 mm in Lausanne.

In Basel, 76 mm fell in just fours hours. Spokesman Olivier Codeluppi said rain was expected to continue falling throughout Thursday though the worst was over.

Recent climate anomalies in China has caused ceaseless droughts in some areas and continuous floods in other places. Experts have pointed out that the global greenhouse effect and other human factors were the main reasons for the disasters.

Continuous droughts and high temperatures have been afflicting many areas including Hunan, Jiangxi, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Zhejiang, Xinjiang, Fujian provinces and Shanghai City, with Jiangxi and Hunan being the hardest hit. The drought in the mid-eastern part of Inner Mongolia has lasted a long time, and the situation keeps worsening.

Switzerland is largely in the clear following two days of massive rains that shut down roads, railways and caused hundreds of millions of euros' worth of damage. Nearly 10 centimeters (4 inches) of rain fell within 24 hours in Zurich from Wednesday to Thursday. The cantons of Bern, Freiburg and Schwyz were also hard hit, with the army called in to help with pumping out water. Eight people were injured in the clean-up.

Some rivers and lakes remained above alert levels Friday after two days of torrential rain and flooding in Switzerland and Germany which killed one and caused one serious injury.

A man drowned in flooding in Germany after becoming trapped in his cellar, while the Rhine was closed to shipping after becoming dangerously swollen by torrential rain, police said

Homes and farmland drowned in increasingly severe floods are affecting some 500 million people a year and straining relief efforts, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

Deaths have been reduced because of early warning systems and other factors but the economic toll on a community's housing, health and infrastructure still is devastating, said U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator Margareta Wahlstrom.

Nineteen people were killed and 37 missing after violent rainstorms triggered floods in northwest China, state media reported Saturday.

Most of the city was inundated by knee-deep rainwater, causing traffic chaos.

Authorities have closed schools and colleges due to transportation difficulties and hazards like falling power lines.

Four of the dead were reportedly electrocuted by power lines wrecked by the rainstorms in several areas of the city.

Officials said Karachi had received 142mm (more than 5.5 inches) of rain in the previous 24 hours, with more expected.

Koksan county in North Hwanghae province had 431 millimetres (17 inches) of rain during the week, it said, without saying if there were any casualties.

Last year monsoon rains swept through much of the nation, killing hundreds of people and causing severe property damage.

Experts say decades of reckless deforestation have stripped North Korea of tree cover that provides natural protection from catastrophic flooding.

Energy-starved residents have used every scrap of wood from the countryside to cook food or heat homes through the bitter winters, leaving the country vulnerable to flooding and landslides on a massive scale.

Torrential rains in Bududa district have washed away 11 bridges, damaged houses and forced more than 3,000 pupils out of school.

The rains that battered the area on Monday night, destroyed Nakwesha Bridge on River Sume, cutting off five parishes in Bubiita sub-county. The floods also carried away 10 temporary bridges on the river.

A health centre that offers antenatal services was also cut off on the upper side of the river.

Many pupils could not reach their schools on Tuesday for the end of the second term examinations that started on Monday.

Floods that inundated millions of acres of farmland in South Asia have threatened an entire season's crop in some areas, raising fears of food shortages in a costly hit to farm-dependent economies, analysts say.

The floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal have killed nearly 1,900 people since June and displaced at least 28 million, with the past two weeks causing the worst damage.

Initial estimates say that regional losses from destroyed farms, houses and infrastructure are well above 100 million dollars for the past two weeks, and at least 320 million dollars for India alone since June 1.

The first seven months of the year were the wettest on record in Texas, further confirmation of the recent declaration that the state is drought-free for the first time in at least a decade.

The statewide average through July was 27.11 inches, nearly 11 inches above the norm of 16.21 inches, National Weather Service meteorologist Victor Murphy said Tuesday.

"When we broke the drought, we broke it with a bang," he said.

The previous record for the first seven months was 25.88 inches in 1941.

July was the third-wettest since 1895, and the wettest since 1903. The month also was the coolest since 1976 and the fourth coolest in 113 years.

The most recent deaths were in Jinan, capital of coastal Shandong province, which received a record 7 inches of rain within three hours on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency said.

The recent comments from Beijing officials that the terrible floods in China are down to global warming is important and somewhat of a landmark
As I've noted before, pollution is high on Beijing's agenda (not quite as high as economic growth, but there you go) while global warming has been significantly lower and commented on far less.

Mudslides left 32 people dead, five missing and 128 injured on the outskirts of Chongqing city, an independent municipality, where 266.6 millimeters (10.5 inches) of rain fell between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon — the largest volume since records began in 1892, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The previous record of 206.1 millimeters (8.11 inches) was set on July 21, 1996, Xinhua said.

China braced for more killer weather on Wednesday as two tropical storms approached, continuing a devastating spell of natural disasters that last month left nearly 900 people dead or missing.

More than 20,000 people were evacuated from their homes and 50,000 vessels ordered to return to shore in southeastern China's Fujian province as tropical storm Pabuk neared after lashing Taiwan, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Pabuk was expected to make landfall late on Wednesday between Fujian and Guangdong provinces, with tropical storm Wutip not far behind, the China Meteorological Agency said.

United Nations is helping to provide emergency food to nearly 100,000 people after the worst floods in decades in Colombia and the coldest weather in 30 years in Peru brought even more misery to over 1 million of Latin America's most impoverished inhabitants

Many of the millions of people forced from their homes by floods across South Asia were desperate for food and drinking water on Monday as aid workers and army battled to reach them.

The flooding, described as the heaviest to hit the region in decades, has affected 31 million people and killed more than 1,600 others in India, Bangladesh and Nepal since monsoon rains began pouring down in June.

India's northern Bihar state has been hit hardest by the disaster, and some of the growing number of people marooned by the swirling waters have resorted to fighting for emergency food supplies.

The worst tropical storm to hit Vietnam so far this year has killed nine people, while 14 others remain missing, disaster officials said Monday.

Flash floods killed four people in the Central Highland province of Daklak, said provincial disaster official Phan Thi Thu Hien.

Heavy rains triggered by the storm dumped up to 24 inches of water on Daklak over the past four days, forcing about 5,000 residents from their homes, Hien said. No rain was reported in the area Monday.

The number of deaths caused by floods triggered by the monsoon rains in South Asia crossed the 1,600 mark Monday with India's home ministry saying 1,258 people had died.

"As per provisional information available... the number of human lives lost is 1,258," the statement said, adding that 31 million people were affected by the deluge across the country.

On June 13, a low-pressure weather system entered Texas from the Rocky Mountains and persisted until July 7, triggering storms across the state that flooded every major river basin. The state received more than three times the average rainfall for the period. Nearly two dozen people were killed in the flooding. At one point during the crisis, officials measured 19 inches of rainfall in just 24 hours. Eight inches of rain fell in one hour over Marble Falls, a town 70 miles west of Austin.

The death toll in flash floods in a county in central China's Henan Province, has risen to 78 with 18 others still missing, the local government said on Friday.

Lushi County, in western Henan, was hit by continuous torrential rains from Saturday to Monday, which triggered flash floods and damaged transport, power, communications and other facilities in ten townships, a spokesman with the provincial government said.

Nearly 25 million people have been displaced by flooding and 1,400 killed in South Asia as the worst monsoon rains to hit the region in decades continued to wreak havoc on Saturday.

Northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal are the worst affected according to officials dealing with the crisis, with many people falling victim to disease.

In India alone, the number of dead topped 1,100 by late Friday, the United Nations' child welfare agency said in a statement.

This screen shot was taken at 7:30 A.M. CDT of a rain event that has been going on for over 24 hrs. It shows the area of West Texas between Interstate 20 and Interstate 10. This a radar total of precipitation from the storm so far, not a current radar image.

The link is below the image.
From Midland, Texas :

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIDLAND/ODESSA TX
300 AM CDT FRI AUG 03 2007

...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT MIDLAND...

A RECORD RAINFALL OF 2.72 INCHES WAS SET AT MIDLAND YESTERDAY. THIS
BREAKS THE OLD RECORD FOR AUGUST 2ND OF 0.38 INCHES SET IN 1962.

Midland's average rainfall for a year is 13.61 inches. This area has seen a series of these events since the last week of March. The pink represents over 10 inches of rain, there are at least 6 of these areas embedded in the blobs of reds. The radar link of this image is located below the image.

Another useful tool from the NWS :
Prepcipitation Analysis Page

Almost 150 people have died and almost 20 million people have been displaced or marooned in severe flooding across India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

In some areas, the floods are being called the worst in living memory.

A vast area is under water, damaging farmland and affecting thousands of villages. Aid agencies say stocks of food and water are running very low.

Relief teams in India, Bangladesh and Nepal on Thursday battled to reach about 18 million people stranded in massive flooding, with food, clean drinking water and medicines in short supply.

More than 1,100 people have died across South Asia since the start of the annual monsoon season in mid-June, with the region's rivers bursting their banks due to relentless heavy rains and snows melting in the Himalayas.

Much of China was inundated by the worst rains of the year, testing the Three Gorges Dam's anti-flood capacity, even as over a million people suffered from serious drought, state media said Tuesday. In northwest China's Shaanxi province, 21 were confirmed dead and 18 others were still missing in floods triggered by heavy downpours that began Saturday, the Xinhua news agency reported. As of Tuesday morning, 660,000 people in Shaanxi had been affected, and over 38,000 had been evacuated, according to the agency.

At least 16 people have died in the past week and more than a million were marooned or homeless as floods from monsoon rains and snowmelt inundated north and central Bangladesh, an official said Tuesday.

The death toll from floods ravaging large parts of eastern and northeastern India climbed to 112 with about seven million people displaced, officials and reports said Tuesday.

In the eastern state of Bihar, 62 people died in flood-related incidents as 2.8 million people were displaced, the United News of India reported.

Nearly five million residents have been evacuated from their homes because water levels have risen dangerously high along China's main rivers, while more flash floods, downpours and landslides are expected in the coming days, the statement said.

High temperatures have made life even more uncomfortable for those displaced.

Residents in flood-hit areas of Britain breathed a sigh of relief Sunday after overnight downpours failed to riase water levels and hamper the clear-up. Meteorologists had warned that heavy rainfall in the already saturated south and west of England could trigger flash floods and worsen the crisis which has left three people dead, 300,000 residents without drinkable tap water and swamped up to 15,000 homes. But the overnight rain was not as bad as had been feared, meaning that affected communities now have a run of mostly dry days ahead to continue clearing up after the July 20 floods.

Millions of people were forced to flee their homes in northeast India as the death toll rose from raging floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains, a minister said Monday.

"The situation has turned devastating overnight, drowning five more people in separate incidents and displacing another three million in 15 districts," Bhumidhar Barman, relief and rehabilitation minister of Assam state, told AFP.

The floods have now stranded a total of more than four million people and claimed 20 lives in the past week.

Global warming was under a fierce spotlight in China on Monday as forecasters said Shanghai was set for its hottest summer on record, while flood and drought wreaked havoc in other parts of the country.

Shanghai experienced its second hottest day on record on Sunday when the mercury touched 39.6 degrees Celsius (103.3 degrees Fahrenheit), with similarly high temperatures expected this week, the Shanghai Daily said.

South Africa hit by floods
27 Jul 2007

Heavy rain in South Africa has triggered floods that have affected thousands of people, according to a news provider.

SABC News reports on July 27th that more than 10,000 people have been left destitute, since homes and informal settlements have been destroyed on the Cape Peninsula.

Many roads in the area have also been affected, hindering access to and from the affected areas.

Efforts have begun to drain the water away, although forecasters have predicted that more rain will come in the next few days.

More than 70 people were killed after heavy rains and floods across South Asia, while over one million were left stranded by rising waters on the weekend, officials said Sunday.

Several days of torrential downpours combined with melting Himalayan snow caused flooding in low lying areas of Nepal, India's northern states and neighbouring Bangladesh, with rivers expected to crest in coming days.

Dozens of people have been killed and nearly three million hit by floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains in India and Nepal, officials said on Saturday.

At least 38 people have died in heavy flooding and landslides across the region, where homes have been swept away and crops destroyed.

In Nepal, officials said 11 people had died this week in floods and landslides.

They said thousands of others were hit by the flooding, which disrupted road transport and shut down schools and markets in towns and villages in rain-lashed southern plains.

As Britain Thursday continued to struggle with the effects of severe floods in parts of the country it was officially confirmed that the summer months have been the wettest on record. The three months up to July 23 were the wettest since records began more than 240 years ago, the Meteorological Office confirmed.

Figures showed that more than 387 millimetres of rain fell in England and Wales during the period, which is more than double the average of 186 millimetres.

The previous biggest summer deluge since records started in 1766 came in 1789 when almost 350 millimetres fell.

Water levels have risen to critical levels along vast Chinese rivers and floods have spread to the north while a tornado hammered 33 villages in the east and two central provinces suffered drought, media said on Thursday.

More than 500 people have been killed since the summer floods started, but the disaster has failed to gain world attention surrounding floods in England in which three deaths have been reported.

Floods on Indonesia's Sulawesi island have spread to three provinces and left 82 people dead, officials said Thursday as torrential rains lashed survivors and hindered recovery efforts.

Floods and landslides first hit Central Sulawesi province on Sunday and have left 22 dead and 47 missing, presumed buried under landslides, said Rustam Pakaya, who heads the health ministry's crisis centre in Jakarta.

The three-month period from May to July has already become the wettest in history here, even before the end of the month, Britain's Met Office said Thursday.

Figures released by the weather forecasting agency showed that 387.6 millimetres (15.3 inches) of rain has fallen across England and Wales, the most since records were first kept in 1766.

"I went to the U-Tube Debates and all Got was this Lousy Snowman."

Climate Change burnt 4 people to death in Italy as that crappy little U-Tube clip floated around our cabal news channels today. 2 roasted in their car. Want to read about it : Fire traps tourists in southern Italy, kills 4

How about Saturday night in Alpine, Colorado, here's a quote from the Mountain Mail the home town paper of Salida, Colorado, the county seat of Chaffee county where this event happened .....

Residents estimated 3-4 inches of rain and hail fell between 7:15 and 8 p.m. when they reported hearing a loud roar.

"It came, it saw, it kicked butt," Wingert said during a press conference Sunday afternoon. "Some residents said they couldn't see 3 feet outside their windows when the rain came down."

The NSW Precipitation Page says that between 5 and 6 inches fell here . Not the 3 to 4 inches these folks guessed at. I got nearly a dozen of these events where 4 inches of rain or more fall in an hour. Friday night Uvalede, Texas, 17 inches.

Don't think it's not happening ? The last 3 days at Miles City, Montana :

Sunday :
THE HIGH TEMPERATURE AT THE MILES CITY AIRPORT SO FAR TODAY...JULY
22...HAS BEEN 107 DEGREES. THIS BEATS THE OLD RECORD HIGH
TEMPERATURE FOR THIS DAY OF 105 DEGREES SET IN 1985.
Monday :
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 110 DEGREES WAS SET AT MILES CITY
TODAY...JULY 23. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 109 SET IN 1980.
Today :
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 110 WAS SET AT MILES CITY
TODAY...JULY 24TH. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS 108 DEGREES SET IN
2003.

(Note to jack-ass deniers the above is what science looks like ....... Click "Record Event Report" and make a note that these events are filed under "climate local", not "weather".)

Friday as those jokers at CNN were picking that crappy little snowman, Romania set a new all-time record for the whole country of 107 degrees. (500 Dead In Hungary)
Bulgaria did the same thing this weekend with 113 degrees. Still not convinced ? Go ask those ranchers that are some of the 2,000 plus square miles that have burnt in Utah in the just the last 3 weeks. Corn's sky high, and they can't feed their cattle ashes. Think some of them will rent Al Gore's movie now ?

I've been studying climate change since I first started going to the ruins of the southwestern U.S. in the 1980's. My "bony fidees" :
At the beginning of the 12th century in the 4 Corners of the U.S., it began to dry by 1276 a 25 year drought bit into this country and drove the last of tens of thousands of native Americans out of nearly every site in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. I learned this standing in places Like Chaco Canyon, not by "Google". Know where Mesa Verde' is ? Go south of there along the Colorado New Mexico border, and visit the Southern Ute Indian Res. Tell em' you want to see their ruins. They'll stick you on Indian Pony and take you in a small group to their ruins ... This place isn't all "Tidied-up" like Mesa Verde'. You'll see the corn cobs and the broken pots laying around, just like the day the last one got up and walked out. That's Climate Change.

Next time a denier trots out that one about Mars and F-ing Pluto, ask them about Venus. They can't talk about Venus. Why ? Because Venus is 900 degrees and has an atmosphere that's 95% Carbon Dioxide, that's why. That's where the term "Run away greenhouse effect" comes from.

No the deniers never discuss Venus. "Man can't be responsible for the change ...... " Well, we killed the most abundant bird in North America with shotguns and nets. All 5 billion of them. The last one died in Cincinnati in 1914 .... it's name was Martha. And while we were doing that, we also wiped out the largest grassland ecosystem on the planet, except for a few scraps.

Just because the Climate changed once upon a time from volcanoes, plate tectonics, or cosmic rays, or mass solar ejections, or the orbit of the earth around the galaxy ......... Doesn't mean we can't do it by dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. It's not an either or thing. It's just the latest thing.

By the way, the warmest June ever recorded just happened at the South Pole.

Snowmen my ass.

Europe battled weather extremes late Monday as heavy rain sparked the worst flooding in England in 60 years, while the south and east of the continent was roasting in a heatwave that claimed several lives.

Large swathes of central and western England were submerged as rivers swelled and burst their banks during four days of heavy and persistent rain, leaving thousands without clean water or electricity and facing the prospect of more rain.

Britain's COBRA government emergency planning committee met Monday evening amid concerns that an electricity sub-station in Gloucester would be flooded, leaving half a million homes without electricity.

Fortunately for residents of the area, the Environment Agency said that the River Severn had reached a peak there, just two inches (5 centimetres) below the main wall protecting the city centre and the power station

Flood-ravaged Britain is suffering from a wholly new type of civil emergency, it is clear today: a disaster caused by 21st-century weather.

This weather is different from anything that has gone before. The floods it has caused, which have left more than a third of a million people without drinking water, nearly 50,000 people without power, thousands more people homeless and caused more than £2bn worth of damage - and are still not over - have no precedent in modern British history.

Nothing in the past hundred years, in terms of flooding caused by rainfall, has been as bad. According to the Environment Agency, even the previous worst case, the extensive floods of spring 1947, which were aggravated by the vast snow melt that followed an exceptionally hard winter, has been surpassed.

"We have not seen flooding of this magnitude before," said the agency yesterday. "The benchmark was 1947, and this has already exceeded it." And the 1947 floods were said to have been the worst for 200 years.

Severe weather in several parts of China has killed more than 150 people in the past week, state media say.

In the eastern province of Shandong, the death toll has risen to 40 since torrential rains hit on Wednesday.

Forty-two bodies have been found around Chongqing, hit by floods and mudslides. Several people remain missing and 300,000 have been evacuated.

Warmer air can hold more water and will unleash more energy when the weather turns bad, Grabs said, making storms heavier and boosting rainfall.

Last fall, while collecting Climate Change stories, this one came over the wire :

Intense rainfall most ever recorded as storm sweeps southern B.C.

The Pineapple Express barrelled through southern British Columbia Monday, bringing rainfall higher than has ever been recorded.

British Columbia, is located in the wettest part of North America, rain there in the fall and winter isn't news. But this story has this key phrase :

most ever recorded

That key phrase has gone on to be part of the theme that has set-up this year's Climate Change story when it comes to water. These intense rainfall events have occurred around the globe this year. We here in the United States have certainly seen them. I've written about them here :

Data Point : 4 Inch-an-Hour Rain Fall

18" in. of Rain in 6 hours at Marble Falls, Texas

35 Plus Inches of Rain in 60 Days in Kansas

8 Inch Rain Fall at Corpus Christi, Texas (This event ended up as 12.1 in 4 days.)

These events here at home haven't slowed down, here's 2 quotes from stories I seeded this morning :

KNIPPA, Texas -- Storms dumped more than a foot of rain on parts of Texas on Saturday, stranding more than 170 passengers on an Amtrak train for hours and forcing rescue crews elsewhere to pull at least 50 people to safety.

Parts of northern Uvalde and Medina counties got as much as 17 inches of rain between 10 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday, said Pat McDonald, a National Weather Service forecaster.

But we alone aren't being singled out, June was the wettest ever recorded in Britain, and they are currently under another round of these intense down pours :

142.6 millimetres (5.6 inches) of rain fell in Pershore, Worcestershire on Friday,

China -
"Millions have been evacuated or seen their homes flooded or destroyed" :

Xinhua said earlier that 10 1/2 inches of rain fell between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon in Chongqing, the largest volume since records began in 1892. The previous record of 8.1 inches was set on July 1996, the reports said.

Jinan, Shandong's capital and the worst-hit city, received up to 4.65 inches of rain in an hour during a storm on Wednesday.

Other parts of the globe :

Sudan floods leave 200,000 homeless

56 dead and scores missing after Pakistan flash flood

Hundreds of thousands stranded in India floods

Floods kills 15 in Bangladesh, thousands stranded

Now a denier will say that this is the time of the year for the monsoon to be running in south Asia, and that this is completely normal for that time of the year.
True, but 4.65 inches at Jinan, China in 1 hour isn't.
17 inches in 24 hours at Uvalde, Texas isn't. ( Jack rabbits carry canteens at Uvalde, Texas. )
(Unfortunately these accounts coming out of south Asia aren't saying at what rate the rain is coming down, but when some numbers do come out we'll see these intense rates of rainfall.)

The other side of this coin is fire, and it's terrible hand maidens heat and drought, which I've also being writing on. I'll post an up-date on that part of this story later this week. The material for that continues to pour in as well :
(This week in southeast Europe)

In Hungary, the temperature hit an all-time record of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) at Kiskunhalas, 130 kilometres (81 miles) south of the capital Budapest, the national weather service (OMSZ) said.

I'm going to continue to follow this, and keep posting these events. They show no sign of slowing down, one just wonders where we'll see ......... most ever recorded next.

The death toll from floods that have ravaged Sudan over the past fortnight has tripled tp around 100 people since last week, officials said Wednesday. At least another 100 people were injured while some 5,000 homes were destroyed or damaged in the worst flooding to have hit the country since 1988, said a crisis centre cited by Sudan's official SUNA news agency.

Meanwhile, more than 1.6 million people in Gansu province to the north face drinking water shortages due to the worst drought there since the 1940s.

The dry spell, which has had no significant rainfall in some areas for more than two months, is endangering crops or delaying planting on 1.46 million hectares (3.6 million acres) of cropland, Xinhua quoted officials with the Gansu provincial flood control and drought relief office as saying.