BAKER CITY HERALD • THuRsDAY, AugusT 25, 2022 A7
NATION & WORLD
Weather whiplash: Summer
lurches from drought to flood
Biden announces nearly
$3 billion in military aid
for Ukraine’s defense
BY SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
“Winter is coming, and it
will be hard, and what we see
now is a grinding war of attri-
WASHINGTON — Six
tion. This is a battle of wills,
months after Russia’s inva-
and a battle of logistics. There-
sion of Ukraine, President Joe
fore we must sustain our sup-
Biden announced Wednes-
port for Ukraine for the long
day, Aug. 24 that he is sending
term, so that Ukraine pre-
$2.98 billion in new military
vails as a sovereign, indepen-
aid to Ukraine that will enable dent nation,” Stoltenberg said,
forces there to fight for years
speaking at a virtual confer-
to come.
ence about Crimea, organized
In a statement, Biden said
by Ukraine.
the aid will allow Ukraine to
Six months after Russia in-
acquire air defense systems, ar- vaded, the war has slowed to a
tillery systems and munitions,
grind, as both sides trade com-
bat strikes and small advances
drones and other equipment
in the east and south. Both
“to ensure it can continue to
sides have seen thousands of
defend itself over the long
troops killed and injured, as
term.”
Russia’s bombardment of cit-
The announcement comes
ies has killed
as Ukraine is
countless inno-
celebrating its
“Given Russia’s track
cent civilians.
1991 decla-
There are
ration of in-
record in Ukraine, we
fears that Rus-
dependence
from the Soviet are concerned about the sia will inten-
sify attacks on
Union.
civilian infra-
“I know this continued threat that
independence
Russian strikes pose to structure and
government
day is bitter-
facilities in
sweet for many civilians and civilian
the coming
Ukrainians as
infrastructure.”
days because
thousands have
of the holiday
been killed or
— U.S. Embassy in Ukraine
celebrating
wounded, mil- and the State Department
Ukraine’s 1991
lions have been
declaration of
displaced from
independence
their homes,
and so many others have fallen from the Soviet Union and the
victim to Russian atrocities
day marking six months since
and attacks,” Biden said. “But
the invasion.
six months of relentless attacks
On Monday, the U.S. Em-
have only strengthened Ukrai- bassy in Ukraine and the State
nians’ pride in themselves, in
Department issued a new se-
their country, and in their thir- curity alert for Ukraine that
ty-one years of independence.” repeated a call for Americans
The aid package is being
in the country to leave due to
provided under the Ukraine
the danger.
Security Assistance Initiative.
“Given Russia’s track record
Officials said it will include
in Ukraine, we are concerned
money for the small, hand-
about the continued threat that
launched Puma drones, the
Russian strikes pose to civil-
longer-endurance Scan Eagle
ians and civilian infrastruc-
surveillance drones, which are ture,” it said.
launched by catapult, and, for
Other NATO allies are also
the first time, the British Vam- marking the independence day
pire drone system, which can
with new aid announcements.
be launched off ships. Several
German Chancellor Olaf
officials spoke on the condi-
Scholz said his country is pro-
tion of anonymity to discuss
viding more than 500 million
the aid before its public release. euros (nearly $500 million)
As Russia’s war on Ukraine
in aid, including powerful an-
drags on, U.S. security as-
ti-aircraft systems. The aid
sistance is shifting to a lon-
will include rocket launch-
ger-term campaign that also
ers, ammunition, anti-drone
will likely keep more Ameri-
equipment, a dozen armored
can military troops in Europe
recovery vehicles and and
into the future, U.S. officials
three additional IRIS-T long-
said.
range air defense systems, the
Unlike most previous pack-
German news agency dpa re-
ages, the new funding is largely ported.
aimed at helping Ukraine se-
The funding must still be
cure its medium- to long-term approved by parliament, and
defense posture, according to
some of it won’t be delivered
officials familiar with the mat- until next year.
ter. Earlier shipments, most of
And Canada’s Prime Minis-
them done under presidential
ter Justin Trudeau announced
drawdown authority, have fo-
$3.85 million for two Ukraine
cused on Ukraine’s more im-
projects through the Peace and
mediate needs for weapons
Stabilization Operations Pro-
and ammunition and involved gram.
materiel that the Pentagon al-
It includes about $2.9 mil-
ready has in stock that can be
lion in funding for ongoing
shipped in short order.
development of Ukraine’s na-
Besides providing lon-
tional police force and other
ger-term assistance that
emergency services, and
Ukraine can use for potential
about $950,000 to help advise
future defense needs, the new
Ukraine’s defense ministry.
package is intended to reassure
To date, the U.S. has pro-
Ukrainian officials that the
vided about $13.6 billion in
United States intends to keep
military aid to Ukraine since
up its support, regardless of
the beginning of the Biden
the day-to-day back and forth
administration, including 19
of the conflict.
packages of weapons taken
“The United States of Amer- directly from Defense De-
ica is committed to supporting partment stocks since August
the people of Ukraine as they
2021.
continue the fight to defend
U.S. defense leaders are also
their sovereignty,” Biden said.
eyeing plans that will expand
NATO Secretary-General
training for Ukrainian troops
Jens Stoltenberg noted the
outside their country, and for
more extended focus Tuesday
militaries on Europe’s eastern
as he reaffirmed the alliance’s
and southern flanks that
support for the conflict-torn
feel most threatened by
country.
Russia’s aggression.
Parts of northern Texas,
mired in a drought labeled
as extreme and exceptional,
are flooding under torrential
rain. In a drought.
Sound familiar? It should.
The Dallas region is just the
latest drought-suffering-
but-flooded locale during a
summer of extreme weather
whiplash, likely goosed
by human-caused climate
change, scientists say. Parts of
the world are lurching from
drought to deluge.
The St. Louis area and
88% of Kentucky early in
July were considered abnor-
mally dry and then the skies
opened up, the rain poured
in biblical proportions, inch
after inch, and deadly flood-
ing devastated communities.
The same thing happened in
Yellowstone in June. Earlier
this month, Death Valley, in
a severe drought, got a near
record amount of rainfall in
one day, causing floods, and
is still in a nasty drought.
China’s Yangtze River is
drying up, a year after deadly
flooding. China is baking
under what is a record-long
heat wave, already into its
third month, with a prelim-
inary report of an overnight
low temperature only dip-
ping down to 94.8 degrees
in the heavily populated city
of Chongqing. And in west-
ern China flooding from a
sudden downpour has killed
more than a dozen people.
In the Horn of Africa in
the midst of a devastating
but oft-ignored famine and
drought, nearby flash floods
add to the humanitarian di-
saster unfolding. Europe,
which suffered through un-
precedented flooding last
year, has baked with record
heat compounded by a 500-
year drought that is drying
up rivers and threatening
power supplies.
“So we really have had a
lot of whiplash,” said Ken-
tucky’s interim climatologist
BY LOLITA C. BALDOR AND
MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
Yffy Yossifor/Dallas Morning News
A car drives through a flooded area on Rosedale Street near Hemphill during a heavy rainstorm Mon-
day, Aug. 22, 2022, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Megan Schargorodski. “It is
really difficult to emotionally
go through all of these ex-
tremes and get through it and
figure out how to be resilient
through the disaster after di-
saster that we see.”
In just two weeks in late
July and early August, the
U.S. had 10 downpours that
are only supposed to happen
1% of the time — sometimes
called 1-in-100-year storms
— calculated Weather Predic-
tion Center forecast branch
chief Greg Carbin. That’s not
counting the Dallas region, a
likely 1-in-1,000-year storm,
where some places got more
than 9 inches of rain in 24
hours ending Monday, Aug.
22, with several inches more
forecast to come.
“These extremes of course
are getting more extreme,”
said National Center for At-
mospheric Research climate
scientist Gerald Meehl, who
wrote some of the first studies
18 years ago about extreme
weather and climate change.
“This is in line with what we
expected.”
Weather whiplash, “where
all of a sudden it changes to the
opposite’’ extreme, is becom-
ing more noticeable because
it’s so strange, said climate sci-
entist Jennifer Francis of the
Woodwell Climate Research
Center in Falmouth, Massa-
chusetts. She is in the middle
of a study of whiplash events.
The scientists at World
Weather Attribution, mostly
volunteers who quickly ex-
amine extreme weather for a
climate change fingerprint,
have a strict criteria of events
to investigate: they have to
be record-breaking, cause a
significant number of deaths,
or impact at least 1 mil-
lion people. So far this year
they’ve been swamped. There
have been 41 events — eight
floods, three storms, eight
droughts, 18 heat waves and
four cold waves — that have
reached that threshold point,
said WWA official Julie Arri-
ghi, associate director of the
Red Cross Red Crescent Cli-
mate Center.
In the United States, many
of the big heavy summer rains
are traditionally connected
to hurricanes or tropical sys-
tems, like last year’s Hurricane
Ida that smacked Louisiana
and then plowed through
the South until it flooded the
New York, New Jersey region
with record rainfall rates.
But this July and Au-
gust, the nation had been
hit with “an overabundance
of non-tropical related ex-
treme rainfall,” the National
Weather Service’s Carbin
said. “That’s unusual.”
Scientists suspect climate
change is at work in two dif-
ferent ways.
The biggest way is simple
physics. As the atmosphere
warms it holds more water,
4% more for every degree
(7% more for every degree
Celsius), scientists said.
Think of the air as a giant
sponge, said UCLA and Na-
ture Conservancy climate sci-
entist Daniel Swain. It soaks
up more water from parched
ground like a sponge “which
is why we’re seeing worse
droughts in some places,” he
said. Then when a weather sys-
tem travels further, juicy with
that extra water, it has more to
dump, causing downpours.
Another factor is the stuck
and wavier jet stream — the
atmospheric river that moves
weather systems around the
world — said Woodwell’s
Francis. Storm systems don’t
move and just dump huge
amounts of water in some
places.
Arizona levee breached, hiker is
missing after floods hit the West
Floods can create danger for experienced
hikers and climbers as well as the many
novices who have flocked to the park
since the pandemic bolstered an outdoor
recreation boom. Despite warnings,
flash flooding routinely traps people in
the park’s slot canyons, which are as nar-
row as windows in some spots and hun-
dreds of feet deep.
“Once you’re in there, you’re just kind
of S.O.L. if (a flash flood) happens,” said
Scott Cundy, whose Arizona-based trek-
king company takes visitors on guided
tours through the park.
Cundy vividly remembers one year
when he was taking a group on a tour
and turned to see a wall of water plung-
ing toward them. They rushed to reach
high ground in the Grand Canyon, a
two-hour drive from Zion. Until mo-
ments before, he hadn’t seen one cloud
in the sky. “It happens very fast,” he said.
Given the topography, Cundy will cancel
trips if there’s even a hint of rain in the
narrow canyons of Zion.
Farther southeast, nearly 200 hikers
had to be rescued in New Mexico, where
flooded roads left them stranded in
Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
In parks like Zion and Carlsbad Cav-
erns, flooding can transform canyons,
slick rocks and normally dry washes into
deadly channels of fast-moving water
and debris in mere minutes.
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A levee was breached Monday, Aug.
22 in a small town near the Arizo-
na-New Mexico state line, forcing the
evacuations of 60 people after a week-
end of flash floods across the Ameri-
can Southwest that also swept away one
woman who is still missing in Utah’s
Zion National Park.
In Duncan, a rural Arizona town lo-
cated about 180 miles from Phoenix,
weekend rains overwhelmed a dirt-bar-
rier levee built more than a century ago
to contain the Gila River, putting the
town under inches of water. As many as
60 residents have evacuated, Fire Chief
Hayden Boyd said. Water had already
begun to recede, but more needed to be-
fore the town is safe to return to, Boyd
added.
The flooding incident was among
several to recently wreak havoc on a
drought-stricken region that spans from
Dallas, Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada —
stranding tourists, closing highways
and funneling trees and rocks toward
downtowns. Heavy rains pummeled the
Dallas-Fort Worth area, causing streets
to flood and submerging vehicles as of-
ficials warned motorists to stay off the
roads.
And rescue teams in southern Utah
expanded their search for a lost hiker
who found herself stranded amid tor-
rential flooding. The episode illustrated
how deteriorating weather conditions
can transform the region’s striking land-
scapes enjoyed by millions — including
its striking canyons made of red rock
and limestone — from picture-worthy
paradises into life-threatening night-
mares.
Rangers said their area that teams
were searching for Jetal Agnihotri, a
29-year-old from Tucson, Arizona,
now includes parts of the Virgin River
that flow out from the southern border
of Zion National Park, where the Vir-
gin River flows the southward toward
the town of Hurricane. Agnihotri was
among a group of hikers who were swept
away by floodwaters rushing through
a popular hiking location in one of the
park’s many slot canyons. Both the Na-
tional Weather Service and Washington
County, Utah, had issued flood warnings
for the area that day.
All of the hikers except Agnihotri
were found on high ground and were
rescued after water levels receded. Her
brother told a local television station she
could not swim.
Zion National Park is among the
United States’ most visited recreation ar-
eas even though it frequently becomes
hazardous and is put under flood warn-
ings by the National Weather Service.
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Associated Press
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