Water gushes down in waterfall in front of shocked park visitors

Torrents of mountain water gushed down a waterfall in front of shocked park visitors following heavy rain in the Davao de Oro province in the Philippines on July 22.

Flamingos return to nest in the Galapagos Islands for first time in 20 years

Around 8,000 families in Louisiana are still in temporary housing situations after the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Ship that sank during ‘incredible storm’ in 1842 discovered in Lake Michigan

Ship that sank during ‘incredible storm’ in 1842 discovered in Lake Michigan The story of what unfo

lded on the doomed ship that fateful November night is chilling and dramatic, but until now no one had ever seen the vessel at the center of the shocking maritime tragedy. By Zachary Rosenthal, AccuWeather staff writer Published Jul. 21, 2022 8:10 PM IST | Updated Jul. 22, 2022 7:13 PM IST The Milwaukie, which would have looked like the ship above, was the first true "ship,” meaning it has a minimum of three masts, all square-rigged, to sail in the Great Lakes. Michigan couple uncovers shipwreck from 1842 Kevin and Amy Ailes used research, Google Earth and an underwater metal detector to locate the Milwaukie underneath the Great Lakes. A shipwreck lost nearly two centuries ago off the eastern shores of Lake Michigan has been rediscovered by a pair of adventurous scuba divers. The ill-fated ship, the Milwaukie, went down in the freezing cold waters of the lake near the small city of Saugatuck, Michigan, during a blustery winter night on Nov. 16, 1842, that kicked off the wickedly snowy and chilly winter of 1842, according to The Chicago Tribune. Kevin Ailes and his wife, Amy, who have thus far discovered four shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, became interested in trying to find the Milwaukie and used Google Earth and stories about the ship to make the amazing discovery.

Pakistan’s largest city received more than an entire summer’s worth of rain in one day

Pakistan’s largest city received more than an entire summer’s worth of rain in one day By Mary Gilbert, AccuWeather meteorologist Published Jul. 25, 2022 9:52 PM IST | Updated Jul. 25, 2022 9:52 PM IST Copied Volunteers use a boat to rescue people from a flooded area after heavy rains, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, July 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Monsoon downpours deluged portions of Pakistan this weekend and Karachi, the country's largest city, bore the brunt of the worst impacts as the floodwaters destroyed homes, inundated businesses and damaged infrastructure. AccuWeather forecasters say the heaviest rainfall from the event arrived Sunday when Karachi received more than triple its monthly rainfall in just 24 hours. Daily life was turned to a standstill as this deluge turned major throughways into raging rivers and left entire neighborhoods submerged. Images from the city showed residents navigating floodwaters that ranged from knee-high to chest-high in spots. Vehicles were left stranded as floodwaters climbed. The catastrophic flooding event left all major highways in Karachi flooded, according to The Express Tribune. Due to the impossibility of safe travel for large portions of the city, the local government declared Monday a public holiday in Karachi, which closed all government offices and urged private offices to follow suit. Karachi, Pakistan's financial and industrial hub, is located along the coast of the Arabian Sea. Some of the most densely populated areas of the city are located at, or scarcely, above sea level. The low-lying nature of the city already makes Karachi prone to flooding issues, but inadequately-constructed drainage and flood management systems compound the issue considerably. Rainwater even mixed with sewage in some locations and this contaminated water rushed into homes and businesses. Murtaza Wahab, the Karachi administrator, told The New York Times that the city has an old drainage and sewage infrastructure that could not cope with the torrential rains and acknowledged that updates were critical.

People wade through a flooded road after heavy rains, in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, July 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Floodwaters in recent days have damaged more than 5,500 homes as well as critical infrastructure like highways and bridges, according to a report from Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority. This weekend's flooding was the second destructive flooding event the city has had to endure this month alone. Earlier in July, another deluge of monsoon rainfall left Karachi underwater. Since the middle of June, monsoon rainfall and subsequent flooding have resulted in more than 280 deaths throughout Pakistan, according to The Associated Press (AP). GET THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP Have the app? Unlock AccuWeather Alerts™ with Premium+ The amount of rainfall the city has already received this month is astounding, forecasters say. "Karachi received 2.36 inches (60 mm) of rain on Sunday due to a weak monsoon low that formed near southwestern Rajasthan, India, over the weekend," AccuWeather Lead International Forecaster Jason Nicholls explained. So far this July, the city has recorded just over 8 inches (200 mm) of rainfall which equates to 1,147 percent of normal for the month, according to Nicholls. Karachi typically receives less than an inch (25 mm) of rain in July and just over 1.50 inches (38 mm) of rain over the course of the summer months. Furthermore, even in the highly unlikely event that not a single drop of rain falls in Karachi for the rest of the year, the city would still end 2022 with over 260 percent of its normal precipitation. The monsoon normally arrives in Pakistan around July 8, but this year it arrived several days early, according to Nicholls. "Part of the reason for the excessively wet July is that the monsoon [axis] has been located south of its normal position for much of the month," Nicholls explained. Instead of directing the heaviest rain over northern India and around the sub-Himalayan foothills, the monsoon has instead sent abundant moisture directly to central India and southern Pakistan. "July is the wettest month on average, but there can be bouts of rain into Pakistan until the monsoon withdraws, typically in mid- to late September," Nicholls cautioned. Given the current situation across the region, any additional bouts of rain will bring with it increased chances for a repeat of catastrophic flooding. In the short term, forecasters say there is at least some glimmer of hope in the forecast for hard-hit portions of Pakistan struggling to clean up and rebuild. The monsoon axis will lift back north starting around midweek, which should lead to an easing of rain in the region later this week and into the start of August, according to Nicholls. Nicholls also expressed concern that August could be another wetter-than-normal month for Karachi and Pakistan as a whole.

Massive sandstorm blotted out the sun in one Chinese province By Mary Gilbert, AccuWeather meteorologist

Massive sandstorm blotted out the sun in one Chinese province By Mary Gilbert, AccuWeather meteorologist Published Jul. 23, 2022 12:33 AM IST | Updated Jul. 23, 2022 7:26 PM IST Hazardous weather caused widespread disruptions to daily life across portions of China over the last week. A massive dust storm engulfed part of one Chinese province during the middle of the week just days after sweltering heat baked a large swath of the country. The powerful sandstorm roared to life on Wednesday over portions of the province of Qinghai, located in northwest China. The worst of the storm blew through northern areas in the province and forced travel to come to a halt as residents and tourists alike sheltered in place.

Eyewitnesses reported the sandstorm lasted for nearly four hours on Wednesday, according to CNN. During the peak strength of the massive storm, visibility dropped below 650 feet (200 meters) in spots and completely blotted out the sun, according to the South China Morning Post. Wind speeds of 33 mph (53 km/h) were recorded within the storm as sand and dust pelted the region. AccuWeather forecasters say it is likely stronger wind gusts occurred within the storm, but meteorological instrumentation is sparse within the region of occurrence. Portions of the Qinghai are typically dry. In fact, the northwestern section of the Qinghai province is considered a desert. Forecasters say it's likely that sand from these dry or desert areas was lofted into the air as thunderstorms developed in the western portion of China at midweek. No casualties were reported as a result of this sandstorm, according to state media. Elsewhere in China, a significant swath of the population has endured unseasonable, even record-breaking heat this summer. Since mid-June, large sections of northern, eastern and central China have baked amid a long-term heat wave, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). From June 13 to July 12, high temperature readings in at least 71 national meteorological stations broke historical extremes, according to a CMA press release. At least three cities in the Hebei province, including Lingshou, Gaocheng and Zhengding, and one city in the Yunnan province, Yanjin, have eclipsed 111 F (44 C) this summer. The heat was so brutal in the Yunnan province city of Zhaotong last week that railway workers had to get creative to prevent damage to railroad tracks. Workers could be seen sliding giant blocks of ice down each rail of a section of tracks on Wednesday, July 12, in an attempt to bring down the temperature of the metal. When exposed to extreme heat, railroad tracks can warp and buckle.

Man loses leg to flesh-eating bacteria after taking dip in Florida waters

The infection, from microorganisms usually rampant in warmer waters, can also lead to death by quickly ravaging the body, and the chances of getting sick are growing as temperatures spike in otherwise cooler waters. By Marianne Mizera, AccuWeather front page editor Published Jul. 22, 2022 11:35 PM IST | Updated Jul. 22, 2022 11:35 PM IST Lifeguards watch as beach-goers enjoy the surf at Smith Point County Park, a Long Island beach, on Friday, July 15, 2022. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) An Alabama man who planned to spend a leisurely day swimming with his family while vacationing on the Gulf Coast in Florida ended up having part of his leg amputated after contracting an insidious flesh-eating bacteria through a small cut that had been healing. William Pledger, 75, was enjoying the warm weather with his relatives in Little Sabine Bay in Pensacola while attending the Blue Angels airshow on July 9. "At some point, the whole family was in the water," his son, John Pledger, told WEAR-TV in Pensacola. Five days later, his father's leg began to get sore, and by day 6, he was in severe pain, “could not sit still, his leg had started swelling up," and he was rushed to the hospital, John Pledger said. The medical team quickly diagnosed him with the flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio vulnificus, one of many types of micro-organisms that cause necrotizing fasciitis, a severe and fast-spreading bloodstream infection in which the flesh around an open wound dies, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “The infection courses through the entire body, kind of like a hurricane or tornado that ravages everything,” Dr. Katherine Doktor, of Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey and co-author of a 2019 study on the illness, told Business Insider. William Pledger’s relatives said that all of his soft tissue from the knee down had been destroyed and doctors informed him they had to amputate his leg below the knee. Such flesh-eating bacteria enter the body typically through an open wound or break in the skin, like a cut or scrape or recent piercing or tattoo, according to the CDC. "He had a small cut on his left leg, it was scabbed over, didn't look too bad," John Pledger told WEAR-TV. "It was very small." Vibrio vulnificus is the same destructive bacteria that can make you sick by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters, or handling infected animals when you have an open wound, according to the CDC. Symptoms include diarrhea, cramping, nausea, vomiting and high fever, although some cases can be quite severe. Microorganisms that cause necrotizing fasciitis occur naturally in the warm coastal waters of Florida, the state’s Department of Health said. Public health officials in Escambia County, which comprises Pensacola, even issued a warning over the Fourth of July weekend urging beachgoers to stay out of the water if they have any cuts. “During the summer, especially in the coastal areas—especially in the Gulf Coast, where we have the heating of the water—we start seeing an overproduction of a bacteria called Vibrio,” said Dr. Laila Woc-Colburn, an infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. But researchers now believe that increasingly warmer ocean temperatures have made for more prolific breeding grounds for such flesh-eating bacteria -- and not just in the usual spots. The bacteria seem to prefer brackish water (a mix of fresh and salt water) with surface temperatures above 55.4 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius), scientists said. Doktor’s 2019 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine looked at five infection cases in people who were exposed to water in the cooler Delaware Bay or consumed shellfish in that area. “These five cases are significant because in the eight years prior to 2017, we only saw one case of Vibrio vulnificus at our institution," she noted to Insider. Still, cases of flesh-eating bacteria infections are rare, doctors say, but those that are diagnosed each year can be fatal. The Vibrio vulnificus bacteria alone causes 80,000 illnesses each year in the United States, with about 100 eventually dying from the infection, CDC said. Even with his leg amputated, William Pledger’s relatives said he has a long road to recovery ahead. His family anticipates it could be months before he’s released from the hospital. In the meantime, they hope others will take precautions in the water, heed official warnings and learn from their devastating ordeal. “It was very emotional watching my dad go through all this," John said.