1996

 ПОГОДНІ ЗМІНИ:
1996
В 1995-1996 в Україні шість місяців тривала зима. Синоптики не могли пригадати чогось подібного.

■ WEATHER CHANGES: Freak storms wreak havoc as experts issue warning
Excerpts from an article posted on July 8, 1996 by Reuter, in London.
Freak weather conditions have claimed hundreds of lives and caused chaos across the world in recent days as scientists warned governments that "greenhouse gases" and global warming may distort climates. In Geneva, United Nations officials and scientists at a conference of some 150 signatory countries to the U.N.'s Climate Change Convention appealed Monday to industrial powers to reduce the carbon dioxide they pump into the atmosphere. They urged a tightening of targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for potentially disastrous global warming. "We will be successful if we get agreement on further commitments that might be made in the process of controlling climate change," conference president Chen Chimutengwende, Zimbabwe's Environment Minister, told reporters. As if to reinforce their message, many regions reported severe disruption from freak weather conditions as they spoke. Southern China mopped up after some of the worst floods in a century which killed at least 345 in six provinces. Farmers replanted crops, troops buttressed river embankments and officials tried to estimate the scale of damage, while the country remained on high alert for more torrential storms. In South Africa, freezing temperatures killed at least 17 people - from exposure or suffocation - and snow trapped hundreds more during the weekend as the country shivered with its coldest weather in decades, police said Monday. Some parts of the country recorded their heaviest snowfalls in 60 years. The Eastern Cape experienced its coldest winter since 1981, state radio said. Record low temperatures, exceptionally high winds and heavy rains hit several parts of France, the weather bureau said. Unseasonable heavy snowfalls blanketed parts of the French Alps and Pyrenees Monday, forcing a cutback in part of the Tour de France bicycle race to avoid snowbound roads. "We get this type of weather only every five or 10 years. In July, you almost never get snow below 3,000 yards. This time, we had snowfalls as low as 1,800 yards," a weather bureau spokesman said.

 The great snowfall of 1996 in the US was notable more for its swath across the eastern half of the United States than for any particular record, although The New York Times reported on January 9, 1996 that records fell as the flakes fell, as several records for 24-hour snowfalls were broken.

 In January, 1996 a brutal cold snap covered the central US from coast to coast with the New York Times reporting on February 2, 1996 that below zero temperatures breaking centuries old records were registered in many areas.

 Earthweek in the San Francisco Chronicle reported on March 2, 1996 that China's Qinghai province was experiencing the worst blizzard this century and that thousands are suffering from frostbite and snowblindness.

 The New York Times reported on May 21, 1996 that several states from Colorado to the Northeast states have recorded their highest May readings ever.

 Drought is being experienced in non-desert areas, with the southwest US experiencing a return to the Dust Bowl days and northeast Slovenia receiving no rain at all during May, 1996, normally a wet month.

 Reuter in Beijing reported on July 7, 1996 that more than one million Chinese in one province alone were guarding against some of the worst floods in over a century where the floods hit the provinces of Hubei, Guizhou, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi, causing more than $2.0 billion of damage.

 The Drudge Report stated on July 17, 1996 that 17 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period in Chicago, the heaviest rainfall in Chicago-area history, and the The National Weather Service reported the rainfall of 17 inches in Aurora, Illinois to be the second-highest amount ever during a day in the United States since such records have been kept.

 The Geneva Situation Report No. 7 reported on July 23, 1996 that Yemen, in Arabia, had flooding with 338 deaths.

 The Associated Press reported on November 7, 1996 that India's southeast coast was hit by back-to-back cyclones during a three-week period, with more forecasted.

 The 1996 hurricane season had 6 major hurricanes, unprecedented in any past record.

 Reports from Moscow stated that Moscow and the North Urals had higher temperatures during the first few days of December than recorded in over 117 years.

 Simultaneously the Associated Press reported on December 14, 1996 that northeast Russia experienced such severe ice storms, never before experienced, that 6,000 reindeer died of starvation.

 NASA's Global Hydrology and Climate Center reported on December 11, 1996 that space-based measurements recorded 1996 as the coldest on record for the Earth's lowest stratosphere, from 9 to 14 miles above the Earth, since these measurement were begun in 1979.

 The Washington Post reported on January 28, 1997 that 1996 was considered the wettest year on record for Oregon, Idaho, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

 The Millennium Matters reported on February 21, 1997 that a US Department of Agriculture Press Release stated that the strange and inclement weather had reduced the non-citrus fruit crops. The 1996 apple production was 9% below 1994, grape production down 6% from 1994, peach production down 10% from 1995, pear production down 18% from 1995.

 The Associated Press reported on May 6, 1997 that Venice experienced 80 high water marks during November and December, 1996, a record for the century.