Mom actually told me that this was going to happen, before Al Gore went public with it.... FDWeeks of heavy rains led to the dam burst on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, yesterday that killed scores of people. December to March is the rainy season in the region, when torrential rains often trigger disastrous floods; this week flooding also struck New Guinea, and five people were killed on the Philippine island of Mindanao.
Winter still refuses to go away across much of Europe and North America, with a nasty chill today driven on cold northerly winds. But skiers continue to enjoy superb conditions as fresh snows fell over most of the Alps last week, and Scottish ski resorts are also enjoying a late season. And in Utah and Colorado a big storm dropped even larger snowfalls.
Snow was less welcome in Wyoming and the Dakotas, though, when a blizzard dumped wet snow up to 60cm (2ft) thick and freezing rain on winds reaching 130km/h (80mph). As the snows melted, floodwaters surged across the flat landscape of North Dakota, made worse by chunks of ice the size of small cars, which had to be blown up with explosives to prevent bursts of floodwater. In the town of Fargo the Red River reached a record high, 12.5m (41ft) above normal, and millions of sandbags have been piled up to keep the floods at bay, although the river continues to rise.
Wild weather also hit other parts of the US, with severe thunderstorms across the southeast, tornados striking Mississippi, wildfires raging in Arizona and most of Texas in chronic drought.
But spring has been exceptionally warm in Japan, where the cherry blossom came into bloom last Saturday, a week earlier than average, a trend that is expected to increase as temperatures rise in the future.
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