Toronto Deluged With its All-Time Record 1-Day Rainfall - Jeff Masters

[malaise]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2458
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Torrential rains from a series of "training" thunderstorms that moved over the same location brought Toronto, Canada its heaviest 1-day rainfall in recorded history on Monday, July 8. Toronto's Pearson Airport recorded 126 mm (4.96&quot of rain, beating Toronto's previous all-time rainiest day record set on October 15, 1954, from the remnants of Hurricane Hazel, when 121.4 mm (4.78&quot fell. Weather records at the airport go back to 1937. According meteorologist Rob Davis with the Weather Network, the 97 mm (3.82&quot that fell in downtown Toronto yesterday was the 2nd greatest 1-day rainfall since 1840. The only greater amount fell on July 27, 1897. Yesterday's storms knocked out power to over 300,000 customers in the city and crippled transportation.

Canada has taken a beating from extreme weather this year. Less than a month ago, massive flooding hit the city of Calgary, Alberta, creating a $3 billion flood disaster. This was the most expensive flood in Canadian history, and third most expensive natural disaster of any kind for the country. The only more expensive disasters were a 1989 wildfire ($4.2 billion in 1989 dollars) and a 1977 drought ($3 billion in 1977 dollars.) It's also been a bad fire season in Canada. According to an email I received from Yan Boulanger of Ressources Naturelles Canada, Canadian Forest Service, a fire that has consumed about 500,00 hectares (1,235,000 acres) in Eastmain, Quebec is the biggest fire in Quebec's recent history, from 1959 onward.





No climate change here

[Warpy]

1. That's an amazing picture inside a GO train

It looks entirely miserable.

I have a feeling Canada will be working hard to decommission their coal fired power plants from now on.

[hedgehog]

2. This story is way more important than any other here on DU today!

[malaise]

5. It will sink like a stone

Watch and see

[KurtNYC]

3. What used to be Once-in-40-years events are now happening yearly

Too late to stop climate change now. Governments are beginning to try and regulate construction and reconstruction in areas most at risk.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/06/26/f-climate-change-flooding-weather-preparation.html?cmp=rss

[malaise]

4. Good read

Thanks - they're all scrambling now.
We even have climate change ads on buses while they continue to allow investors to destroy the coastline and the marshes.

[KurtNYC]

12. Only 2% of Canadians deny climate change (and still Canadians are statistically the happiest people

on the planet).

They have moved their general debate from "Is this really happening?" to "Okay what do we need to change?" I hope the USA can do likewise.

[malaise]

16. It's crazy but in the Caribbean political and economic expediency prevent serious

policy change re climate change. Everyone knows climate change is real and they they continue to violate our own long term goals.

Sensible know this deadly serious and we'd better act.

[KurtNYC]

17. Last year, North Carolina banned the use of sea level rise in costal policies

http://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-bans-latest-science-rising-sea-level/story?id=16913782#.UdxuoqxJTXQ

so that leaves it to the insurance companies and mortgage brokers to say no to risky housing developments.

[haele]

6. Pavement and Building "City Canyons" of concrete and asphalt make it worse.

There's no place for the water to go other than where the streets send it, so a half inch of rainfall per hour over a period of 8 to 10 hours can become a 12 to 32" stream or pond in the corner crossing areas/speed dip and lower portions of the streets and sidewalks in no time.

The main problem with cities and rain is that there are usually insufficient areas of vegetation for the water to seep into, and unless there's an annual "monsoon season" to plan for, the storm drains aren't usually built to handle much over historical "average" rainy season storm volume and will overflow within an hour if there's an unusually heavy storm.

Haele

[malaise]

9. Very true

I don't understand the concrete where water used to flow freely

[laundry_queen]

15. Yeah, it was not planned for when most cities were built

I'm in the suburb of a large city in Canada, and my suburb has actually taken these summer thunderstorms into account when planning and designing. Each new subdivision has elaborate green spaces packed with trees, and all the runoff drains into retention ponds (essentially small manmade lakes) that are built for every so-many houses. Last year, when we got our inevitable storms (3 days in a row we had extreme downpours) only the older areas of town had issues with basement flooding. Nothing in the new areas at ALL (though the retention ponds were nearly spilling their banks!)

As another positive - the ponds attract tons of geese and ducks and other wildlife. There are trails around most of the ponds so many people take advantage, biking and walking dogs on the trails.

The only downside is the mosquitos. Oy, they've gotten bad!

This is truly the only way to guard against such downpours in cities. Unfortunately, it's hard to 'retrofit' downtown with these types of systems.

[JNelson6563]

7. Inexplicably crazy weather!1!

We're so screwed. It's too late to save the planet I think.

Julie

[malaise]

8. I hope not - for the sake of the children. Check out the

Snake on the train

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/07/09/toronto-snake-go-train-video.html

[JNelson6563]

10. First planes, now trains! Where will it end???

Crazy stuff.

[malaise]

11. Gators in the basement?

[KurtNYC]

14. The planet will be here but I agree that it is too late

to prevent climate change. We now have 2 major tasks -- 1) try to limit and or reduce carbon in the atmosphere, and 2) since we are now experiencing the effects of climate change, we must learn to live through it.

We have to build for extreme weather, avoid flooding areas, explore new agricultural practices and adapt to extreme heat conditions.

Perhaps we need houses that float and solar-powered air conditioners.

[suffragette]

13. This at a time when there's a huge push to ship more oil and coal to China

So they can burn it and increase the chances for extreme weather:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3208567