Heavy rains forecast for next two months

Fog causes suspension of play at U.S. Senior Open

TED S. WARREN / AP

Golfers Larry Stubblefield, Bill Britton and Jon Fiedler, and their caddies, walk into the fog on the 1st fairway during the second round of the U.S. Senior Open golf tournament on Friday at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish. Officials issued a fog delay and play was temporarily suspended.

SAMMAMISH — Play at the U.S. Senior Open on Friday was suspended from 7:48 a.m. until 10 a.m. because of heavy fog at the Sahalee Country Club.

Eighteen players were on the course when play was suspended. Because the suspension was termed a "nondangerous situation," players were allowed to finish the holes they were on and had the option of staying at their just-completed hole to practice putting and chipping. If the delay had been because of lightning, all players would have been required to leave the course immediately.

The 2 hour, 12 minute delay has put the tournament behind schedule. Afternoon tee times were scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. on the first and 10th tees and were rescheduled to start at 2:10 p.m. The final tee times will be at 4:10 p.m.

Bernhard Langer and Mark Calcavecchia were waiting on the first tee when the delay horn sounded. Both had finished Thursday with 1-under 69s. When play resumed, Langer promptly birdied the first hole to go to 2-under and Calcavechhia birdied the second hole to join him at 2-under.

Tournament leader Bruce Vaughn, who shot 4-under 66 Thursday, won't tee off until this afternoon

Cold snap freezes South America – beaches whitened, some areas experience snow for the first time in living memory

From the “weather is not climate” department, more chilling news from the southern hemisphere.

A brutal and historical cold snap has so far caused 80 deaths in South America, according to international news agencies. Temperatures have been much below normal for over a week in vast areas of the continent. In Chile, the Aysen region was affected early last week by the worst snowstorm in 30 years. The snow accumulation reached 5 feet in Balmaceda and the Army was called to rescue people trapped by the snow.

In Argentina, the snow in the region of Mendoza, famous for its winery, was described by localmeteorologists as the heaviest in a decade. The temperature in the morning of July 16th was the lowest in the city of Buenos Aires since 1991: -1.5C. The cold snap caused a record demand for energy and Argentina had to import electricity from Brazil. Many industries in Argentina were shut down due to gas shortage.

It snowed in nearly all the provinces of Argentina, an extremely rare event. It snowed even in the western part of the province of Buenos Aires and Southern Santa Fe, in cities at sea level.

The most famous beach of Argentina, Mar del Plata, was whitened by the snow in the morning of July 15th, a scene only seen in recent memory in 1991, 2004 and 2007. See below:


The snow was heavy even in Northern Argentina. In Santiago Del Estero, according to media reports, some areas experienced snow for the first time in living memory. In the province of Tucuman, some town saw snow for the first time since 1921 (Gaceta de Tucuman newspaper

Monsoon storms pummel parts of metro Phoenix

The first major monsoon storms of the season made their way through the Valley on Thursday, leaving torn roofs, power outages, hail damage and flooding in their wake.

"It looks like a disaster area," Tempe Fire Department spokesman Mike Reichling said of damage in his city.

In Glendale, powerful winds tore a section of the roof off University of Phoenix Stadium.

The winds apparently got under the metal skin of the structure, flipping a piece of it up and onto the roof and puncturing the white, canvaslike fabric that stretches across the roof's steel girders, stadium spokesman Scott Norton said.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "The whole area was hit."

Employees were evacuated and told not to come back to work today until conditions are deemed safe. No injuries were reported.

It was unknown whether events at the stadium will be affected. The next major event is the Maricopa County Home and Garden Show, starting next Friday.

Officials are evaluating the extent of the damage and the cost of repairs, Norton said.

The nearby Westgate City Center shopping and entertainment complex also reported damage.

Metal street and stop signs were bent over. Trees were missing limbs, lying on their sides, and in some cases uprooted and blown into parking lots. Electrical poles along 91st Avenue from Bethany Home to Camelback roads were snapped at their bases.

In Peoria, the storms ripped a piece of facade off the rear of City Hall.

Peoria spokesman Stuart Robinson said the hanging piece was on the southwestern corner of the building, outside a third-floor conference room.

"It's not a big deal - big storm, something came loose," Robinson said. "But it certainly made our afternoon exciting."

Rain also collapsed a portion of the roof at Treasures 4 Teachers, a donation center near Priest Drive and Broadway Road in Tempe that collects school supplies and provides them to teachers.

Five employees evacuated the building after a 10- by 10-foot section of roof caved in, causing $30,000 to $50,000 in damage, Reichling said.

Flooding reached parts of the Valley, primarily Chandler, after a microburst apparently struck the area, said meteorologist Ken Waters of the National Weather Service.

In addition, there were reports of hail in Peoria and Chandler.

About 7,000 Salt River Project customers, most in the West Valley, were affected by power outages, utility spokeswoman Kathleen Mascarenas said.

According to APS spokesman Dan Wool, outages left 1,800 Tempe customers without power at about 3:30 p.m.

Tempe received about 0.9 inch of rain, as did Chandler Municipal Airport, according to the Flood District of Maricopa County.

Glendale registered nearly an inch.

Today, chances for rain were predicted to fall to around 20 percent in the morning and rise to 40 percent this evening, Waters said.

For the weekend, chances for rain are about 30 percent in the daytime and 40 percent in the evenings.

May 24th, 2010 @ 1:09pm

SALT LAKE CITY -- If you're planning a Memorial Day outing in Utah's outdoors, it might pay to check out your final destination first. Some areas will remain closed due to mud, rain or even snow that in many years is gone by now.

In the Dixie National Forest, some roads will be temporarily closed along Highway 143, including the Duck Creek ATV trails, to avoid damage to the road that can be caused when vehicles travel on wet-muddy trails. Some higher elevation campgrounds are also still melting off from a heavy winter snowpack.

But the U.S. Forest Service says lower elevation facilities are just fine.

To the north, the Utah Department of Transportation says it's likely the Mirror Lake Highway and Guardsman's Pass will remain closed. A spokesperson tells KSL crews have tried to clear the roads, but the snow keeps coming back. There is a possibility, though, that the Nebo Loop will be open by Friday. And, UDOT will reopen the Alpine Loop between Provo and American Fork canyons on Friday.

The storminess isn't changing everyone's plans, but it will keep Laura Delgato out of her favorite southern Utah playground.

"There's still snow," she said. Delgato plans, instead, to stay home and do chores. She sees good and bad in the weather. "There is green and no air conditioners yet," she said.

Anthony Hutchison, though, will keep his plans to travel to the Marysville area.

"It may be a little harder to keep the flowers sticking on the graves, that's about it," he said. Hutchison said the weather has ruined a lot of his spring golf outings.

"It's about June and it's still snowing. It's kind of weird," he said.

If find this sections interesting because of all the different ways we look at precipitation and the effects if has on us. I was surprised to find out about the rain killing over 400 people in Pakistan. Normally when you think of weather related deaths you only think of tornadoes and hurricanes. It just goes to show that even our average day weather can be powerful. I also find it interesting that we can some times consider these natural phenomenons as an annoyance and burden to our plans and us. Overall there is only one certain thing when is comes to precipitation, and that is that nothing is certain.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-30/pakistan-flooding-death-toll-climbs-to-408-from-46-as-thousands-stranded.html

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article542495.ece
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2012490597.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cold-snap-freezes-south-america-%E2%80%93-beaches-whitened-some-areas-experience-snow-for-the-first-time-in-living-memory.html
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/30/20100730weather0730.html
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=10899709&nid=148

**Note- I only have internet sources available for me to use.

Temperature