Severe Weather around the World
PS104 - Dr. Rudi Kiefer, Lead Instructor
The purpose of this module is to introduce you to severe weather in places other than the continental United States.
This unit has two parts. Do the Reading & Journal assignment before starting on this part.
To open a hyperlink in a Word document like this one, hold down the CTRL key and click on the link.
AUSTRALIA
You have already read these articles:
Australians evacuate flood-hit Queensland towns ⚫ Supplies flown to flood-hit Queensland city ⚫ Australia tornado and
flood alerts in Queensland ⚫ 'Major flood crisis' hits Queensland, Australia ⚫ Cyclone Debbie: Australia surveys
devastation
Briefly discuss these articles in writing. Look at the cities mentioned in the articles on Google Earth Pro (GEP).
What do you see? Why can we easily find a string of articles just by searching “flooding Queensland”? Write a
short piece in this Word document.
20 pts.max.
Critical thinking and careful work will earn the high grades! Take some time looking at GEP.
Describe what you see, indicate the name of the place you’re observing. Think analytically.
Look at Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia at an eye altitude of 42 miles.
Take one screenshot from 42 miles altitude that shows the city near the upper left corner, and the river and its
estuary toward the center and bottom right (within the same picture).10pts.max.
[replace this with your screen shot]
Write one paragraph: what happens when a severe ocean-born storm (like a typhoon) pushes waves into the
mouth of the Fitzroy River? Look at the shapes that you can see in your screen shot ! Why does the river
overflow?
10 pts.max.
Next task: Back to Indonesia !
Go to next page.
1|Page
The Task: Write a 1-page “thinking” piece with illustrations.
Post 2 pictures of Jakarta from Google Earth. 20 pts.max.
PROCEDURE:
Produce 2 screen shots from GEP on the next page of this document.
Turn the “photos” checkbox off, to avoid clutter.
Picture 1: take from eye altitude 300 miles (a few miles higher or lower is OK) 300 MILES ! Not feet !
Picture 2: take from eye altitude 6,000ft. (a couple hundred ft. higher or lower is OK), with the following coordinates in
the center: 6° 7'18.63"S 106°52'40.09"E
Place the screen shots in the frames provided.
Shortcut hint: Put these coordinates into the search box and let GEP fly you there. Then adjust eye altitude.
These boxes may move around on the page – don’t worry. Word is a terrible program for this. But Canvas has no drawing
utility. I have complained about that many times. –RK.
GEP screenshot 1: Jakarta, Indonesia,
eye altitude 300 miles
GEP screenshot 2: Jakarta, Indonesia,
eye altitude 6,000 feet
Go to next page.
2|Page
Using the space below, discuss in writing what you learned
from the Indonesia articles in this assignment, and from what
you can see and observe. Don’t copy some crap from Wikipedia! I want
your own thinking and analysis, and conclusions that you draw from this.
Look at the GEP screen shots, and describe what you see, and we you might
conclude from it. The more deeply you think, the better the grade.
This item 4b. must be 400 words or shorter. 40 pts.max
Vericite score for this second document must not exceed 30%.
3|Page
The write-up should be about
Jakarta, and reflect your own
careful thinking. Ask yourself
questions like: What's going on
in Jakarta? What are the root
causes? What could be done to
improve the situation? Can all
these emergencies be
addressed? Who should do it?
Can Indonesia go it alone?
Should the USA be doing
something to help? (Poke
around Google search to get
possible answers). *Is* the USA
doing something to help?
Should we do something, or
are Indonesians "just
foreigners"? What can we
learn from events happening
there that migh benefit us on
our own soil? ...etc. etc..
Severe Weather around the World
PS104 - Dr. Rudi Kiefer, Lead Instructor
The purpose of this module is to introduce you to severe weather in places other than the continental United States.
The world’s most severe windstorm is the tornado, and it is almost exclusively limited to the 48 contiguous States. But
other weather threats, such as hurricanes, overland floods from the ocean, excessive rainfall, deep freezes, heat waves,
and more are common in other locations.
This unit has two parts. After doing this Reading & Journal assignment, move on to the written assignment with the
same name, which is in the weekly module near this one.
Use a new Word file for your journal. Save it locally, then upload it here when it’s ready. I’ve made this assignment on a
pdf because the hyperlinks work better that way.
INDONESIA
(1) Read and journal these four articles. You can use this document, or a fresh one. Include the items from AUSTRALIA
below as well in this journal.
Vericite score is meaningless for a journal, so it’s off (because you’re supposed to reflect the content of the article.)
http://jakartaglobe.id/archive/super-extreme-weather-is-the-worst-on-record/
(August 19, 2010)
Some students had trouble accessing the article. If that happens, find the text of the article at the end of this
document.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/indonesia-widespread-flooding-hits-jakarta-170221104750422.html
(21 FEBRUARY 2017)
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-09-15/trying-confront-massive-flood-risk-jakarta-faces-problem-topproblem-0 (September 15, 2016) IMPORTANT ARTICLE !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/9809569/Monsoon-rains-trigger-floods-inJakarta-Indonesia-paralysing-city-of-14-million.html (Sunday 01 October 2017)
This is a picture gallery (read the captions!). To advance to the next picture, just click on the image.
Watch:
Heaviest monsoon rain in decades displaces tens of
thousands in Malaysia and Indonesia (Dec.2014, 1 min.)
What’s it like to be in a typhoon? Same thing as a
hurricane. Here’s one in Bali, Indonesia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdqhOWjjyKc
AUSTRALIA
(3) Read and journal these articles. Note the publication
date with each one ! Use the same Word document that
you made for the Indonesia item.
Australians evacuate flood-hit Queensland towns
Supplies flown to flood-hit Queensland city
Australia tornado and flood alerts in Queensland
'Major flood crisis' hits Queensland, Australia
Cyclone Debbie: Australia surveys devastation
It rains this heavily only in the humid tropics and subtropics, right? -- Wrong.
Below is a picture taken by Dr.Kiefer – driving west toward Albuquerque (New Mexico), going through rainstorm after
rainstorm in 2015. This is the New Mexico desert !
THE AFRICAN DESERTS
Many people think that the Sahara, especially the part that’s owned by Libya, is the world’s driest place. Not so –
Western Peru is driest. But the Sahara is hottest.
Left: The Libyan Desert
Wikimedia Commons, Author: Roberdan
It’s hot, with temperatures in the shade reaching
into the 140’s (Fahrenheit). But it does rain in
those places. When that happens, the water
can’t seep into the dry, hard ground everywhere.
As strange as it may sound: one worry in the
desert is about flash floods.
Below: this is what a truly rainless desert looks
like. It’s in Peru, not on the African Continent.
Photo at right: The famous Panamericana Highway, near the
Peruvian Coast, crossing the Atacama Desert. Average annual
rainfall is 0.2 inches. Technically, that’s not “nothing”. But it
really means that you could stand there for 5 years and never
see a drop of rain. Wikimedia Commons, Author: Angelica Jacobi
Left: A Wadi in a
flash flood, Libyan
Desert.
Wikimedia Commons,
Author: Syed Wali Peeran
Wadis are
streambeds that
normally lay dry.
They only carry
water during
events of this type.
Read and journal this CNN article:
Think it's hot? Imagine living here
By Kyle Almond, CNN
Check out these short videos below, showing heavy rainstorms in the Saudi Arabian desert. No journal needed for these.
But be familiar with where this is happening.
1. Flash flood in Jeddah
2. Rain in Makkah (the
kids are having fun!)
A map for reference, so
you can see where these
videos were made:
Just east of Jeddah (see
map): Makkah, the holy
city of Islam.
=== End of R&J assignment ===
Go to the Written Assignment in your module next.
Below: Article text from “Super extreme weather”, in case you were unable to open the hyperlink.
“At the least, the waves will reach 3.5 meters and can
reach up to more than five meters. And strong winds
can make the waves even higher.
‘Super-Extreme’ Weather Is the Worst on Record
Author: Nurfika Osman (August 19, 2010)
Jakarta. Indonesia has been experiencing its most
extreme weather conditions in recorded history,
meteorologists warned on Wednesday as torrential
rains continued to pound the capital.
All regions across the archipelago have been
experiencing abnormal and often catastrophic
weather, an official from the Meteorology, Climatology
and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said.
“We have reached a super-extreme level of weather
this year, the first time in our history, and this is much
worse than what we experienced back in 1998, when
the La Nina caused extreme weather in the country,”
Edvin Aldrian warned.
Edvin, who leads the climate change and air quality
division at the agency, told the Jakarta Globe that a
combination of a heating planet and the La Nina
climate cycle were behind the unseasonable
downpours.
“The combination of global warming and the La Nina
phenomenon makes everything exceed normalcy,” he
said, adding that global warming causes higher
temperature in sea waters, and La Nina boosts
humidity and the likeliness of rains.
Sea temperatures, Edvin said, were also at a level
considered normal for Indonesia’s rainy season, not for
the dry season. “It is about 28 to 29 [degrees] Celsius
now. Normally, for August it should have been around
24 to 26 degrees.”
Generally at this time of year, Indonesia is supposed to
be in the midst of the dry season and entering the
transition to wetter months.
“In conditions like this, tornadoes are likely to occur,”
Edvin warned.
“It can happen in any region in the country, starting
from the western part of Indonesia to the east.”
He also said the extreme conditions were causing high
waves, posing a threat to ships in Indonesian waters.
“The Southern part of Sumatra and Java are the most
affected areas so far,” he said. “This condition is
forecast to start to reach the eastern part of Indonesia
within one to two weeks.”
Based on a BMKG forecast, the provinces of Aceh,
North Sumatra, West Sumatra, West Java, West
Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Maluku,
West Papua and Papua would see prolonged high
rains, with more than 400 millimeters falling from now
through October. More than 100 mm of rain is
categorized as high intensity.
The rest of the country is expected to begin entering
the rainy season again in November.
The extreme weather has already affected the
country’s agricultural output, especially in Java where
there are many farms, said Winny Dian Wibawa, the
Agriculture Ministry’s director for horticulture.
“Crops like melon, mango and mushrooms are
experiencing delayed harvests.
“It puts the farmers at a disadvantage as they now
cannot produce many good quality crops,” he said,
adding that the excess rains made fruit softer and less
sweet.
Izzul Waro, an analyst from the Transportation Study
Institute (Instran), told the Globe that the extreme
weather would also cause headaches for commuters
and truckers, especially in big cities like Jakarta.
“The conditions become worse because the drainage
system in the city’s roads is bad. Puddles of water will
occur with just a bit of rain,” he said, adding that traffic
would only worsen during the extended rainy season.
The capital has seen heavy downpours in the past two
days, causing deep inundations and burst river banks.
On Tuesday, at least five neighborhoods in South
Jakarta reported flooding.
###
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