Wild week of US weather includes heat wave, tropical storm, landslide, flash flood and snow
FALCON HEIGHTS, Minnesota — It was a week of severe weather in many parts of the United States, with heat waves, snow storms and flash floods.
Here are some weather events:
Millions of people in the Midwest are struggling with dangerous heat and humidity.
An emergency room doctor treating visitors to the Minnesota State Fair for heat illnesses saw firefighters cut rings off two people’s swollen fingers Monday in warm weather that, combined with the humidity, made it feel like 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rising temperatures at the end of summer also prompted some Midwestern schools to move sports practices forward or cancel them. The National Weather Service issued heat warnings or advisories in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Several cities, including Chicago, opened cooling centers.
Meteorologists say parts of the Midwest will also be scorching hot on Tuesday, with the heat wave moving south and east.
A unusually cold storm on the mountain tops along the west coast late last week a touch of winter in August. The system descended from the Gulf of Alaska, through the Pacific Northwest and into California. Mount Rainier, southeast of Seattle, received a significant high-altitude low, as did the Mt. Bachelor resort in central Oregon.
Mount Shasta, the Cascade Range volcano that rises 14,163 feet (4,317 meters) above Northern California, wore a blanket of white after the storm clouds passed. The mountain’s Helen Lake, which is 10,400 feet (3,170 meters), received about a half-foot (15 centimeters) of snow, with larger amounts at higher elevations, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s Shasta Ranger Station.
Three tropical cyclones On Monday, storms raged across the Pacific Ocean, including Tropical Storm Hone, which brought heavy rain to Hawaii, Hurricane Gilma, which gained strength, and Tropical Storm Hector, which moved westward, far from the coast of the southern tip of Baja California.
The biggest consequences of Tropical Storm Hone (pronounced how-NEH) brought rainfall and flash flooding that resulted in road closures, downed power lines and damaged trees in some areas of the Big Island, said William Ahue, a meteorologist with the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu. No injuries or major damage were reported, authorities said.
A landslide that cut a path down a steep, heavily forested slope slammed into several homes in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the latest disaster to hit the mountainous region. Sunday’s landslide killed one person and injured three others and prompted mandatory evacuations of nearby homes in the town, a popular cruise ship stop along the famed Inside Passage in the southeastern Alaska panhandle.
The area of the slide remained unstable Monday, and authorities said state and local geologists were arriving to assess the area for possible secondary slides. Last November, six people were killed when a landslide destroyed two homes in Wrangell, north of Ketchikan.
The body of an Arizona woman who disappeared in Grand Canyon National Park after a flash flood was found Sunday, park rangers said. The body of Chenoa Nickerson, 33, was discovered by a group rafting on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, the park said in a statement.
Nickerson was hiking along Havasu Creek, about a half-mile (800 meters) from where it flows into the Colorado River, when the flash flood hit. Nickerson’s husband was among more than 100 people who were safely evacuated.
The flooding trapped several hikers in the area above and below Beaver Falls, one of a series of typically blue-green waterfalls that draw tourists from around the world to the Havasupai Tribe’s reservation. The area is prone to flooding that can iconic waterfalls chocolate brown.