Wild Weather

With the frequency and severity of storms a bit higher the last few years, and newscasters using new terms to describe unprecedented weather, we thought we’d share some of those terms and talk about some of the recent weather we’ve seen, not just here in the Southwest, but all over the world.

According to meteorologists, climate change is to blame for all of it. Rising levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere have warmed the Earth (about 1.4 degrees since 1880) and are causing wide-ranging impacts, including rising sea levels; melting snow and ice; more extreme heat events, fires and drought; and more extreme storms, rainfall and floods.

Several summers ago, Phoenix experienced what the experts call a 100-year flood. The average 4.5 inches of rain in just under 8 hours pretty much shut the city down for the day. So what is a 100-year flood or 100-year storm? It means a flood or storm that statistically has a 1-percent change of occurring in any given year. A “500-year flood or storm” is one that has a probability of occurring 0.2 percent in any given year.

On the flip side of the coin is something that occurred a few years ago in the northern U.S. called a polar vortex. In short, a polar vortex is an upper level low-pressure area that generally lies near the Earth’s poles. Below it, lies a cold, dense mass of arctic air. That polar vortex strengthened and spread into the norther tier of the U.S. causing one of the coldest and longest winters on record.

In 2016, we’ve seen a whole host of anomalies in the weather including:

• A tropical storm north of the equator during the winter months
• An Atlantic named storm in January
• Mississippi Valley flooding in the winter (of the 133 prior Mississippi River floods, only three others have occurred from December through February)
• Record low snowfall, even around the Great Lakes
• Unprecedented warmth during the first five months of 2016
• A record cold snap in the northeast during the one of the mildest February’s on record in the Northeast
• Snow in Mexico — snow fell in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains and high valley locations
• Deadly flooding in Texas, Louisiana, the Appalachians and the Gulf Coast states
• India and Southeast Asia set all-time records for heat — 123.5 in Phalodi, India
• The early arrival of two named storms in the Atlantic
• Unprecedented warm weather in Alaska
• And for us, one of the hottest days on record in the southwest — temperatures reached 118 in Phoenix making it the fifth hottest day on record.

As our first line of defense against Mother Nature, our roofing material is also taking a beating. While manufacturers are making technological advances and improvements to make roofing materials stronger than ever, the best thing you can do after a storm is inspect your roof for damage. Most roof problems start out small, and are usually inexpensive to repair when promptly addressed. If you have any questions regarding your roof or storm-related damage, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 800-235-2669.