The Australian Cyclones. How bad are they?

March 27, 2017, tropical cyclone Debbie had hit Australia with close to 160 mph winds and bought lots of destruction to north eastern Australia. Over 52,000 were still without power three days after the storm. About 500 mm or about a half a meter of rain at the minimum fell in most of the area hit by Debbie. This rain has caused terrential floods and even has bought sharks into the streets in which no one sees everyday. While this was a tremendously strong storm in the first place, it raises the question of how bad has it been for Australia with cyclones?

                                    If we look back in history, there has been many cyclones that have hit Australia. There has been so many that are as strong or even stronger than Debbie. For example,  Cyclone Tracy, in the year 1974, 71 people were killed by the cyclone that bought lots of rain and close to 155mph or 250km per hour winds. It came right around Christmas time, and over 24,000 people were homeless after wards in northern Australia. Another bad cyclone was cyclone Ingrid in 2005 which didn't get that close to Australia to cause severe impacts. One thing about this storm may not be what it did, but how in the Atlantic Ocean there was a powerful hurricane named Ingrid that impacted Mexico as well. That raises the question that is should we have the same named retired in both the south pacific and Atlantic as you can see these two storms both named Ingrid caused huge impacts. However, these storms compared to the massive cyclone of 1899 that affected Australia are still not the worst Australia has seen. This cyclone named Mahina came right across northern Australia at Bathrust bay and killed over 400 people. A whole pearling fleet of 50 ships was destroyed from this storm and could not make it back to shore. Some Aborigines were also killed while trying to save some of the people or just by this unexpected storm in general. Radar at the time would have helped greatly decrease the number of deaths from this storms as the Great Galveston hurricane of 1900 also proved in the U.S.A.
    
The list of cyclones go's on and on for Australia, but it is safe to say that Australia has about as worse of a hurricane season or even worse hurricane season than the U.S.A., Mexico, and the Caribbean. Australia is just about as bad as Madagascar almost, but that is also true because of the greater amount of people affected by Australian cyclones compared to that of Madagascar. A cyclone is never any breeze; and anyone who has lived and been in the impact of a hurricane, typhoon, or cyclone can most likely say the same.

Mini Ice Age 1816-1817, What if it didn't happen?

Global warming. This issue has been shown to be true and false since the late 20th century. However, has the term global cooling ever been used. Well, in history, it hasn't bee prevalent, but there are a few times in history where we have wondered is the Earth going to warm up? Well, in the years from 1816 to about 1818, winter was in full control. A huge volcanic eruption at mount Tambora in 1815 and in Indonesia that became the reason for this as global temperatures throughout the Earth stayed very below average throughout Europe and North America. The eruption was so big that it blackened or blocked some of the sun rays from getting into the earth causing very below average temperatures. Only in the month of July from places from England, France, to North America was there never any temperatures below the freezing mark. For the month of August alone, North America had freezes from Quebec to Washington D.C. while Europe had freezes right around the same time that hindered crop growth. Some might ask why didn't they plant crops earlier in the season, but that wasn't a possibility as freezes from the winter of 1815-1816 extended all the way to very late May or even early June as snow still sometimes fell. All of these freezes and early  snowfalls led to food shortages and people freezing to death as winters around this time were even harsher with highs and lows very close to if not like that of Siberia Russia or Alaska in the United States. These highs ranged from -5 Celsius to as low as -40 Celsius. This mini ice age cause many problems throughout Europe and North America as economies still mainly run on agriculture went down.






 However, what if this mini ice age didn't happen; would the world have done better? Well, there would have been better food production and higher temperatures that would have helped these European countries and the USA possibly industrialize and advance or recover further, especially after Napoleon's destruction of Europe along with France's own destruction. With England, they might have been able to profit more from Canada with an above average 1816-1819 which could have led to more of a reliance for England on Canada as a good economic booster and not a cold, frigid tundra. France could have been able to have more say in it's colony's and colonial areas that it still had as well with a better economy in France.

   All of these are major factors into figuring out if the year without a summer could have done if it was a year with a summer. Some could say that this year without a summer hit France very hard because of Napoleon himself and his belligerent ways of conquering and running over all of Europe for himself so France could run Europe. Some might see this year without a summer as payback to France. The year without a summer hindered everyone and everything in the world with the huge problem of a mini ice age. Now, this problem has shifted to being the heat age in which we don't know if it is mini or huge. One thing for sure, you will need to stay cool and stay warm for whatever comes your way as mother nature has a mind of it's own.

March Snowstorms: Eastern North America vs Western North America

On March 14, just two days ago, the northeast, at least a majority of it, got hit by a huge snowstorm. in Windsor Locks CT, 15.5 inches was recorded while at Binghamton New York, a whopping 28 inches of snow at least was recorded. This was the monster storm as you can see on visible satellite and in this 13 minute video.





These snow totals shattered records for the snowiest storms on record in the month of March in the eastern United States. However, the question becomes is the month of March really that bad for eastern North America? For eastern North America, cities like New York New York, Boston, and Philadelphia  rarely have over a foot of snow in March. In fact, April actually had a bigger snow storm than all of the snowstorms of March with the April Fools Day blizzard of 1997. In cities like Quebec City, Halifax, and St. John's Canada, heavy snow storms are still a great possibility with temperature hovering around the freezing mark for most of the month. Snowstorms in these cities have bought close to or over two feet in the past. However, it is not the snowiest month of the year on average. In fact, a place where it is the snowiest part of the year is western North America. While it doesn't include places like Alaska and the provinces of north western Canada, it does include the areas around the north western and north central  United States along with parts of south western Canada. They usually see much more snow than the east overall for the year with some areas like Jackson  Hole Wyoming getting over 400 inches in a year! Besides the great lakes region of the U.S., this much snow isn't usually reported. In this region of Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, the month of March serves to be the snowiest on average with over half of the days in the month usually having some sort of snowfall. In Calgary Canada, March is also the snowiest month with about 10 days of it having some sort of snow and about 23in of their 123 inch yearly snowfall falling then. For biggest snowstorms in western North America, many storms have been over days with one storm fro March 14-16 2016 in Jackson Hole Wyoming totaling 41 inches of snow. other places in the west have had huge snow storms like thees while the east has rarely had that. In the west, a 40 inch snow storm is a normal, but in the east, it is a extreme. The east may have some big snow storms that get lots of news for the amount of people being affected in March, but the west, with their much smaller population, is disregarded even though their snow totals are far more in March.

Madagascar Cyclones. Are they often?

Just recently in Madagascar, a powerful tropical cyclone Enawo hit and ravaged the country. It came in as a powerful category 3 storm or around 115 mph winds and ravaged the northern coast of Madagascar. It came with powerful winds, rainfall up to a foot and a half, and high storm surge as you can see in the video below.

However, is this normal for Madagascar to see? Well, in actuality, it is. On average, for Madagascar, it is rare to go a season without a tropical cyclone hitting the country. In 2007, that definitely wasn't the case where 5 tropical cyclones hit Madagascar from December of 2006 to April of 2007. One of these was Cyclone Indlala which gave Madagascar category 4 winds and ravaged the most populated areas of the country. Not only was 2007 a bad year, but in 2014, a category 3 strength storm also hit Madagascar. In years past like in 2016 and 2015, weaker tropical cyclones have hit as well with a lot of rain as most cyclones do. However, these aren't the only years where cyclones hit; it is almost every year, one hits. Going back in history for Madagascar, it is hard to find a calm seasons where they didn't get hit by a storm. Cyclone Ivan, in 2008, was another powerful category 4 storm that hit and ravaged Madagascar for example. The list go's on and on, but if you look at other places around the world ravaged by hurricanes; none of them match to what Madagascar has to always go through including even the United states and Japan. The Philippians may be one exception however since they  also have strong, frequent typhoon seasons (same as a cyclone season) like Madagascar. The only difference is Madagascar has it's major cyclone season in December through April while the Philippians have it from late August to November. Overall, if you ever plan on going to Madagascar for it's exotic animals and beauty, don't go in January through April, especially March through April, or you'll be greeted by an unexpected and unwelcome guest.