The fourth storm to hit the Philippines in a month has lashed the eastern coastal province of Quezon, bringing heavy rain and winds to the region.

Forecasters said Typhoon Mirinae was following the same route as September’s storm, Ketsana, which dumped the heaviest rains in 40 years on Manila.

So far, rainfall has not been as heavy as feared.

Many regions are still reeling after the worst storm-related floods in decades, which have left hundreds dead.

Since making landfall, Mirinae is moving across the Philippines at 24km/h (15mph) and is projected to move in the direction of Vietnam.

‘Not as bad’

Thousands of people were evacuated on Friday from their homes in Quezon province, where Typhoon Mirinae made landfall after midnight.

At least 10,000 left their homes in areas near rivers and the active Mayon volcano in Albay province, which the authorities feared might unleash rivers of mud and loose volcanic rock.

Officials also closed schools, and grounded ferries and trucks loaded with relief supplies were sent to northern areas in the storm’s path.

About 180 flights from Manila were cancelled.

“It looks like our countrymen can still commemorate All Saints’ Day because the weather has cleared a bit,” said Ernesto Torres of the country’s disaster agency.

“The typhoon is on its way out of the country.”

As it made landfall in the east of the main Philippines island of Luzon, strong winds blew over trees and power lines, and slowed traffic on motorways in the coastal region.

There had been fears that the heavy rainfall would trigger deadly mudslides, but there have so far not been any reports of casualties or significant damage.

In Manila, residents were told to prepare supplies to last 72 hours and stay indoors ahead of the arrival of the storm.

Vanessa Tobin, the representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) in the Philippines, told the BBC that the rain had been very heavy in the capital early on Saturday, but that it had been replaced by strong winds.

“The reports from Manila are not as bad as had been expected,” she said. “But we are getting reports from the South… – particularly around Bicol, which was hit in 2006 by mudslides – that there has been heavy rain and has been significant damage there,” she added.

More than 900 people have been killed in the multiple storms, including Typhoon Parma, which have battered the Philippines over the last month.

More than 100,000 people remain in government-run evacuation centres and some communities in Manila remain flooded with residents using makeshift rafts to move around.

Story from BBC NEWS:

© BBC MMIX

Scores of people packed the auditorium of the Blakehay on Saturday to discuss the five options for tidal power generation.

FAILING to harness the potential of the Severn Estuary is the worst possible option for the planet, a green group says.

The stark warning from The Environmental Network of North Somerset (Tenons) came after scores of people packed the auditorium of the Blakehay on Saturday to discuss the five options for tidal power generation.

Experts gave their opinions on the barrage options, lagoons, tidal reefs and the impact on North Somerset Council.

After the meeting, Tenons spokesman Sonia Russé said: “A lasting thought, given climate change, rising sea levels, our dependency on fossil fuels and foreign suppliers was that to do nothing would seem to be the worse possible option.”

The five possible schemes include a barrage between Brean Down and Lavernock Point, South Wales, which would cost an estimated £20.9billion and generate five per cent of the UK’s annual energy needs.

The Government is likely to hold a second public consultation before making a decision in 2010.

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/content/twm/news/story.aspx?brand=Westonmercury&category=news&tBrand=westonmercury&tCategory=znews&itemid=WeED29%20Oct%202009%2011%3A43%3A33%3A947

The EU is struggling to present a united front on funds to fight global warming

European Union leaders will try to break an impasse over funding to help poor countries combat global warming on the last day of their Brussels summit.

Sweden’s prime minister called on EU leaders to set a fixed sum, paving the way for other rich donors like the US and Japan to make similar pledges.

But a coalition of nine poorer European nations has threatened to block a deal unless richer EU countries pay more.

Earlier leaders agreed a deal to secure the ratification of the Lisbon treaty.

The Czechs were granted an opt-out from the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, similar to that of the UK and Poland.

The Czechs are the only one of the 27 EU nations not to have ratified the treaty, which aims to streamline decision-making and bolster the bloc’s role on the world stage.

EU leaders also moved no closer to agreement on a prospective president of the European Council, with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chances of securing the role receding.

Climate wrangle

The EU is committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 and by up to 30% if other countries join in.

But the BBC’s Oana Lungescu, in Brussels, says that with just weeks to go before the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, Europeans are struggling over how much money to offer developing nations to fight the effects of global warming.

The European Commission has recommended EU nations pay up to 15bn euros ($22bn; £13bn) a year from 2013 to developing nations.

Reports quoting EU sources said the EU presidency would present new proposals on Friday, the last day of the summit.

A draft text released on Friday set a baseline goal for the world climate summit of 100bn euros ($148bn; £90bn) a year from 2020 to help developing countries fight global warming, according to news agency AFP.

Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski told the BBC that eastern European nations should be allowed to contribute according to their means, not to how much they pollute – otherwise they were ready to block a deal.

“It’s a coalition of nine countries and there are countries there like Bulgaria and Latvia which are considerably poorer than Brazil and which would be expected to help Brazil in its adjustments to climate change,” he said.

“We therefore expect the richer countries of Europe to pay a small part of what we consider to be their fair share.”

Much will depend on the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, our correspondent says.

Until now, the leader of Europe’s biggest economy has refused to be pinned down on figures, but arriving at the summit she signalled some flexibility.

“The EU has to make clear its ideas, but it is crucial that the United States and China also make clear what they are willing to contribute,” Ms Merkel said.

‘Blair hopes fading’

Should the Czech Republic – as now expected – ratify the Lisbon Treaty, it will clear the way for the creation of the post of President of the European Council.

Tony Blair and Luxembourg Premier Jean-Claude Juncker have been touted as the leading candidates for the job.

But the BBC’s Jonny Dymond in Brussels says a lack of support from European socialist leaders has served to undermine Mr Blair’s chances.

Story from BBC NEWS:

© BBC MMIX

24hr Graph for 30th October 2009

Average temperature = 14.7°C
Average humidity = 85%
Average dewpoint = 12.2°C
Average barometer = 1018.1 mb
Average windspeed = 3.7 mph
Average gustspeed = 8.5 mph
Average direction = 155° (SSE)
Rainfall for month = 89.0 mm
Rainfall for year = 866.0 mm
Rainfall for day = 0.0 mm
Maximum rain per minute = 0.0 mm on day 30 at time 23:50
Maximum temperature = 16.7°C on day 30 at time 13:42
Minimum temperature = 13.5°C on day 30 at time 00:04
Maximum humidity = 88% on day 30 at time 07:41
Minimum humidity = 79% on day 30 at time 16:13
Maximum pressure = 1020.3 mb on day 30 at time 01:14
Minimum pressure = 1016.2 mb on day 30 at time 22:58
Maximum windspeed = 11.5 mph on day 30 at time 22:51
Maximum gust speed = 18 mph from 203 °(SSW) on day 30 at time 23:01
Maximum heat index = 16.7°C on day 30 at time 13:42

Following on from this story yesterday:

Big changes in the weather are predicted over the weekend with a spell of heavy rain and strong winds, with gales or severe gales expected in some areas

Big changes in the weather are predicted over the weekend with a spell of heavy rain and strong winds, with gales or severe gales expected in some areas, in stark contrast to the recent spell of settled weather.

Rainfall totals up to 60 mm are possible in some places, and winds could gust to between 60 and 70 m.p.h.

Exactly which regions of the country will see the strongest winds is uncertain at this stage. The latest information will be updated regularly on the Met Office website.

The change in the weather will be accompanied by a fall in temperatures, and made to feel colder given the strength of the wind.

Met Office Chief Forecaster, Frank Saunders, said: “There is a risk of some severe weather over the next few days. We are actively monitoring how the situation develops and you are advised to keep up to date with the latest forecast on TV, radio or online.”

The very unsettled theme to the weather is expected to continue through the first week of November, with further rain or showers at times and strong winds.

Temperatures have been well above average, with daytime highs of around 19 or 20 °C at times during last week, but that is all set to come to an end.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091030.html

Moon also plays part in solar method, says Corbyn

Piers Corbyn gave a glimpse into his methods of long-range weather forecasting yesterday. Corbyn can claim an extraordinary degree of accuracy for predicting extreme weather events. So much so, it makes the professionals look stupid. Corbyn’s WeatherAction is a successful private business, with farmers, big insurance, and other serious players increasingly shunning the taxpayer-funded Met Office in preference to his forecasts. He’s been banned by the bookies from betting on his own forecasts.

Clearly, something significant is going on. Corbyn has found a correlation, one that has eluded the experts. So what’s behind his SWT, or Solar Weather Technique? Infuriatingly for supporters as well as critics, he won’t publish the details. But we know more today than we did yesterday, following a climate conference he organised yesterday at Imperial College to help publicise SWT.

The Corbyn Method

“Standard meterology deals with transient events”, he said. “It’s very good at doing a day ahead, But these are easy questions. We want to solve harder ones.”

For weather events, Corbyn identifies bursts of solar electromagnetic activity he calls SWIPS. These can be predicted deterministically, he claims, although he won’t disclose his method. The key is not the 11 year cycle, or even fluctuations in total solar irradiance (TSI), but the 22 year Hale Cycle in sunspot activity, which indicates changes in activity in solar wind. The team had also noticed a lunar modulation – probably two factors. When the Moon was in the Earth’s slipstream, its elevation influenced the climate. There were also other magnetic factors. All these influenced the jet stream, and in turn, weather.

Corbyn also said his team looked back at past weather events and found that most fitted a similar pattern.

“Mathematically in phase space, states are nearly always repeated. Similar states are (nearly) repeated at predictable times. It works because external forcing factors are more important than internal weather noise (transients) on reasonable time scales, of only about 4 days. The changes in energy flow are big – that’s why it actually works.”

He said that he’d unconsciously adopted a quantum approach. “We generate rules that enable us to look back. Harry Fairbrother, a technician at Imperial College, came to one of my events – and he said, ‘I think you do it by quantum mechanics’. I said ‘I do, but I don’t think of it as quantum mechanics.’”

In addition to an 85 per cent success rate, Corbyn’s WeatherAction says it can do more, but is hampered by resources.

“We can now do endgame forecasts for tropical storms – we can say what the storm is going to do if there’s a Red Spike.”

“With modification of the computer equations of standard meteorology, a new SWT-NWP [numerical weather prediction] approach could be developed to improve and extend current TV weather forecasts to 10 days ahead, with the same accuracy as we now have for 24 hours in advance. It requires changes in thinking, investment, and a bit of imagination”.

Corbyn earned a pre-emptive strike on Radio 4 from the BBC’s environmental activist Roger Harrabin, who helped rewrite the corporations’s guidelines on impartiality for green issues. Harrabin was at the conference Corbyn organised yesterday.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/29/corbyn/