Storm Austen is set to bring a day of heavy rain to Scotland on top of gales in south-west England, Maharashtra announced help for drought-hit farmers, California’s Santa Barbara County braced for flooding, Thailand’s floods continued to affect more than a million people, and a strong low off the US East Coast was being monitored.
Storm Austen brings a 21-hour rain warning for most of Scotland on Friday
The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain across much of Scotland from 6am on Friday until 3am on Saturday as Storm Austen, the first named storm of the season, moves across the United Kingdom. The alert covers 26 council areas, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen. Forecasters expect 20 to 40 millimetres of rain widely, with 60 to 80 millimetres possible in places, and warn of flooded homes, road closures and disruption to trains, buses, ferries and flights.
Further south, the main threat is wind. The Met Office said gusts of 50 to 60 miles per hour are likely across southern areas, with more than 70 miles per hour possible on exposed coasts and up to 80 on headlands in Devon and Cornwall. Deputy chief forecaster Tom Crabtree said the storm’s exact track was still uncertain. Some forecast models suggest a separate system could bring gusts of 70 to 80 miles per hour to the Hebrides over the weekend.
Austen was named earlier this week, as the United Kingdom had gone deep into autumn without a named storm. Names are chosen jointly by the Met Office, Ireland’s Met Éireann and the Dutch weather service, one of several regional groups across Europe that coordinate storm naming. The European season runs from September to the end of the following August, and a system is named when forecasters expect it to cause significant disruption, rather than simply on the basis of its wind speed.
Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister promises drought-hit farmers support before Diwali
Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister and leader of the Shiv Sena, said on Tuesday that his party would pay for and organise the weddings of daughters of farmers struggling with drought. Speaking at a Dussehra rally, he said farming families would not face a bleak Diwali and told the party’s MPs and state lawmakers to compile lists of upcoming weddings in their constituencies so that mass ceremonies could be arranged. Distribution of festival ration kits has already begun.
Shinde said the state had formally declared a drought and adopted 12 relief measures, covering school fees, a pause on loan recovery, electricity bill concessions, fodder and water supply. He promised an immediate payment of 5,000 rupees per family alongside the regular relief package and said the government had bypassed national disaster fund rules to speed up aid. He added that he had raised the farmers’ situation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, and accused the opposition of exploiting the crisis.
Indian agriculture depends heavily on the annual monsoon, and when the rains fail, water shortages and poor harvests follow. Southeastern Maharashtra is among the regions of the country most exposed to drought, along with northern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Farmers in the state had already protested earlier this month over drought payments, and the government has since widened the list of areas formally classified as affected.
Flood watch issued for Santa Barbara County as a storm brings up to two inches of rain
The US National Weather Service has put the southern coast of Santa Barbara County, California, and areas of the Santa Ynez Valley under a flood watch, as a storm is expected to drop nearly two inches of rain over a day. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis said widespread urban flooding was likely, with a 20 to 30 per cent chance of flash floods near burn scars and on steep slopes, and a 30 to 40 per cent chance of thunderstorms.
The rain follows a dry season marked by heatwaves and Santa Ana winds that raised the fire risk in the area. Stacy Rosenberger, the city’s emergency services manager, said public works crews would watch storm drains and warned residents to expect mud and debris. She urged people to prepare bags with food, water and medicine and to drive carefully. Sandbags are available at county flood control sites in Goleta, Santa Maria and Buellton for residents in high-risk zones.
Burn scars are a particular concern in the county because wildfires strip slopes of the vegetation that holds soil in place. In January 2018, a month after major wildfires, heavy rain set off mudflows above Montecito that killed 23 people, one of whom was never found, and sent about 163 people to hospital. Those mudflows caused at least 177 million dollars in property damage and tens of millions more in emergency response and clean-up costs.
Floods affect about 1.22 million people in Bangkok and 19 Thai provinces
Flooding was continuing on Wednesday in parts of Bangkok and 19 Thai provinces, mostly on the Central Plain, with water still covering 71 districts and affecting 402,637 households, or about 1.22 million people. In the capital, the Lat Krabang and Nong Chok districts remained under water, with 168,203 households affected. Ayutthaya, Prachin Buri, Nakhon Nayok, Chachoengsao, Suphan Buri and Nakhon Pathom were among the hardest-hit provinces, and flooding was also recorded in northern, eastern and southern areas.
Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said 82 people had died in floods since 16 September. Prachin Buri recorded the highest toll, with 26 deaths, followed by Samut Prakan with nine and Chachoengsao with eight. Sa Kaeo and Nakhon Nayok each counted six deaths, Suphan Buri five and the capital four, while other deaths were reported in provinces from Chiang Mai in the north to Trang in the south.
Central Thailand lies along the Chao Phraya river basin, which is prone to flooding during and after the monsoon. In 2011, floods that began in late July spread through the north, north-east and centre of the country and reached parts of Bangkok in October. They lasted until January 2012, killed 815 people and affected 13.6 million. The World Bank estimated losses of about 46.5 billion dollars, much of it from flooded industrial estates that disrupted global supply chains.
Storm-force low off North Carolina could briefly turn subtropical, forecasters say
The US National Hurricane Center is monitoring a storm-force, non-tropical low that formed on Sunday night a few hundred miles off the North Carolina coast. Forecasters said it could shed its frontal features over the next couple of days while drifting north-north-east over the Gulf Stream and briefly gain subtropical characteristics, before speeding away from the country later in the week. The centre gave it a 40 per cent chance of development over seven days, with conditions then turning unfavourable.
Even without development, the system’s closeness to the coast could bring high winds, dangerous surf and coastal flooding to parts of the US East Coast in the coming days. If it is named, it would be called Josephine. The Atlantic season has produced nine named storms so far, and only Isaias, which struck near Destin in Florida’s Panhandle on 9 October as a Category 2 hurricane, has reached hurricane strength in a quiet year shaped by a strong El Niño.
Subtropical cyclones share features of both tropical and mid-latitude storms. They have a wider wind field, with the strongest winds further from the centre, and can form over cooler seas, at around 23°C rather than the 26.5°C typically needed for tropical systems, which makes them more common late in the season and at higher latitudes. The National Hurricane Center first recognised them formally in 1972, and since 2002 they have taken names from the regular Atlantic list.