Washington, Aug 8 (EFE).- Extreme weather events continue to affect the US with destruction and blackouts due to storms in the east of the country, the swelling of a river in Alaska due to the detachment of a glacier that collapsed homes, and heat records in the southern states that do not give up.
After a night of storms that wreaked havoc in the east of the country, the National Weather Service (NWS) warned that heavy rains in the northeast and excessive heat in the south and southeast will continue on Tuesday for the rest of the week.
In Alaska, the media showed images of a house that was destroyed in a matter of seconds by the flooding of the Mendenhall River after the rupture of the glacier of the same name.
In this state, two houses were totally destroyed in Juno, its capital. In addition, another house has partial damage and another 15 are marked as uninhabitable due to the unprecedented flooding in the Suicide Basin due to the rise of the Mendenhall River.
Meanwhile, the PowerOutage.us platform indicates that this morning there are more than 300,000 homes and businesses with blackouts in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia due to the storms.
They struck the Washington DC region, southern Maryland and northern Virginia late Monday with the NWS recording rainfall reaching 76mm.
The city of Baltimore (Maryland) had flooding in the area of Caroline and Aliceanna streets, and in Westminster there were cars trapped by the rampage of the waters and power lines downed.
Several regions of Pennsylvania spent the night under tornado watches and local authorities reported damage to homes and trees in central Philadelphia, as well as in Roxborough and Manayunk counties in the metropolitan area, and in Upper Hanover in the Montgomery County.
Although calmer conditions are forecast for this region on Tuesday, forecasters expect winds of up to 48 kilometers per hour (30 miles), and because they are blowing from the west they will bring some smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
The NWS is forecasting flash flooding for parts of northern New England.
There will also be flash flooding with severe storms and thunder that will continue through Wednesday in the central Plains, and the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys.
The federal agency also warned that record-breaking heat continued from Texas to the central region of the Gulf of Mexico coast and in Florida.
“Excessive heat watches and warnings remain in effect for large portions of the southern part of the country, where the heat index is expected to be between 41 and 46 degrees Celsius (105 to 115 Fahrenheit), and possibly higher at least until the middle of the week,” added the NWS.
Scientists and meteorologists link the repetition and intensity of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, droughts, floods and forest fires, to climate change. EFE
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