Freak storm batters Moscow

dacogawa

That looks like some really heavy rain in Moscow, some pics on link below, I feel less like complaining about our rain now!

http://www.rt.com/news/moscow-rain-storm-effects-122/

M.T. Cranium

Exactly the same thing happened in Edmonton, Alberta the other day (Wed 11th), cars stranded in flooded underpasses etc. The weather gods must be getting even with the oil producing capitals.

Nice picture of a shelf cloud in the Moscow link above.

vicwatson

Cloud referred to by M.T.

Cork boy 55

Flash floods in Southern russia killed 171 people last week
very rare event

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0710/1224319719539.html

Coles

It looks like the Ukraine and Russia could be in for some more severe rainfall events over the coming few days.

M.T. Cranium

Not entirely rainfall-related, but heavy rain contributed to a recent massive and apparently deadly landslide in eastern British Columbia, at an isolated location known as Johnson's Landing on Kootenay Lake north of Nelson, B.C. on Thursday.

This is the second major mudslide disaster in the province this summer, an earlier one made a huge mess of suburban areas of a town called Salmon Arm on Shuswap Lake in central B.C. While not deadly, that one closed a major highway and swept away 20 or so vehicles parked near an overflowing mountain stream.

A third event has just occurred mid-day Sunday in Fairmont Hot Springs in eastern B.C. So far no word on casualties but a major highway has been severely damaged.

All three events had a similar set up. First, mountain snow packs have been heavier than normal all spring due partly to cold weather April to June. Second, heavy rains have come in several events since late June. Third, it turned very hot and snow melted rapidly from the alpine.

This has interacted with such factors as clear-cuts in higher elevations to overload normally placid 10-20 mile long mountain streams that usually rattle down to valley or lake levels almost unnoticed by the general public even residents in their neighbouring areas. Once clogged with mud, debris and boulders, these streams can become avalanche corridors and bring down huge quantities of mud, rocks and trees. In each case there was a lot of damage but in the Kootenay Lake event, two occupied homes were swept far off their foundations and crushed. It is feared although not yet confirmed that four persons have perished there. Search and rescue teams are on scene trying to locate them.

This is of course part of the natural forces that shape mountain topography but an unusually severe season for mudslides. Back in 1955 a similar event swept away a large part of a "ghost town" known as Sandon, and in March, 1921 a more deadly event destroyed a large part of Britannia Beach north of Vancouver on Howe Sound. That one swept away over a hundred sleeping souls out into the nearby ocean and while some survived in the debris, about 35 people died in that event.

Extreme rainfalls happen more often than you might suspect in Canada. I recall an event in Saskatchewan in July 2000 that dumped 300 mms of rain overnight in a small valley and created a metre-high flood that pretty much devastated a small town but can't recall a casualty toll with that one, not very high as people had some warning that it was developing (eight hours of non-stop torrential rain is not exactly going to go un-noted).