Weather Highlights of 2015 Part 2 – International

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Yesterday we saw the Weather Highlights of 2015 in India, today we are going to see Weather Highlights of 2016 including a never before event of 6 Tropical Cyclones at the same time over Pacific Ocean.  Read on for more interesting Weather Highlights of 2015 from across the globe.

  • In what has been a pretty much record breaking year for the Pacific Ocean in terms of Intense Typhoon this year saw a new record being set with the highest number of simultaneous systems. On July 12th Pacific Ocean saw 6 tropical systems in all lining all the way from the Western Coast of America to the Far East of Asia. In the year 1974 Pacific Ocean saw 5 tropical systems at the same time but never in the history has 6 formed together

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  • 2015 also saw the most intense Pacific Hurricane form Patricia which intensified to 879 mb and peak speeds of 200 mph which makes it the strongest cyclone globally in terms of measured wind and was only the 2nd Pacific Hurricane to make landfall as a Category 5 system over the coast of Mexico.  In what was a rapid explosion Patrica grew from a Tropical Storm to Category 5 Hurricane in 24 hours time

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  • While 2015 saw a few hurricanes become typhoons by crossing the International Dateline special mention needs to be made to Kilo which wandered around in the Pacific for almost 30 days. Crossing the Dateline as a Hurricane it finally did not affect any land area

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  • While Chennai saw 3 Months rain fall in 2 weeks, this is about a place in Chile which saw 10 years rain fall in one day. Antofagasta a port town in Northern Chile averages about 1.7 mm rainfall annually. However thanks to a freak storm that hit Northern Chile it got 24.4 mm rains on 25th March 2015 resulting in flash floods thanks to soil conditions that are not used to such rains.

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  • Socotra Island & Yemen hardly see any Tropical Cyclone, but 2015 saw this region have its brush with not just one but two severe cyclones, Chapala & Megh in a 10 day period. Chapala brushed the Socotra Islands on its way to Gulf of Aden and making landfall near Al Mukalla. About a week later Extremely severe Cyclone Megh made a direct landfall as a Category 3 cyclone over Socotra Island on its way to making a second landfall over Yemen region

 

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Megh_2015_track

  • Finally to sum up the Weather Highlights of 2015, a development which does not augur well for the future.  2015 is going to end up as the Hottest year on record and could end up around 0.7°C warmer on an average.  We have already seen the impact of this warming with North East America & Most of Europe seeing a hot Christmas with pretty much little snow.  The below image taken by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and Expedition 46 Flight Engineer Tim Peake of the Alps confirms it and he tweeted as

There may not be much snow in the Alps this winter but they still look stunning from here! #Principia

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Note: Copyrights to the Images lie with respective owners

COMK wishes a Happy New Year to all the Weather Bloggers.