In the worst year September was the worst month so far: Thousands of people killed by plagues, famine and flooding: Millions, maybe billions of dead animals: September 2020 saw multiple hurricanes and tropical storms, destructive fires and was the hottest Sept ever recorded.

Fire devastates California's vineyards. Image credit Wine Spectator

 

September saw the madness increase on the streets of the United States of America with no sign of sanity returning as the November election looms. However, besides the riots and civil unrest around the world, September 2020 will be remembered as being the worst month in the worst year and records have been broken for all the wrong reasons, below is a look at just a few.

 

September 2020 has just been named the hottest September on record by the European Copernicus Climate Change Service. They also claimed that the average Arctic sea ice extent for September was the second-lowest recorded, after September 2012. 

In  a separate report NOAA, claimed, the  U.S. was hit by 16 billion-dollar worth of disasters this year, so far September 2020 saw multiple hurricanes and tropical storms, destructive fires and record heat. 

Wildfires wreaked havoc across California: Since mid-August, more than 4 million acres have burned across California, breaking the statewide burn record set in 2018 by more than 2 million acres. How much damage the fires have done to wildlife and the ecosystem is anyone's guess but if its anything like what happened in Australia earlier this year then we are looking at millions of wildlife deaths.

The usual trinity of extreme heat, drought and blustery winds are of course the main antagonists here, however, it is hard to deny climate change/global warming especially when one considers the exact same unfolding disaster happened in Australia late last year and early this year which resulted in 3 billion animals dead or injured and nearly 25% of Australian temperate forestry destroyed, like Donald Trump, the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morison denied climate change/global warming was the cause of the unprecedented disaster.

But is there another reason for these fantastic wildfires which are becoming more and more explosive with every year passing? There is something happening in California which is never mentioned on our evening news, not over there as far as I am aware and definitely not over here in Europe.

Millions of dead trees

There are in California more than 150 million dead trees with around a further 20 million a year dying, the numbers are quite frankly staggering, especially when you consider back in 2014 only 3.3 million dead trees were officially recorded. Full story

Millions of dead birds

As the wildfires roared from California to Colorado killing all wildlife in its path and a historic cold snap rushed through the Rocky Mountain region earlier in September, a strange thing started happening: Huge numbers of migratory birds began dropping dead. Normally, birds don't just die in plain sight. But the winged creatures were being found on bike paths and roads, hiking trails and driveways as if they plopped down from the sky. So what's going on?

Researchers are scrambling to explain why hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of birds, are suddenly being found dead across wide swaths of New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona and Texas in recent weeks - an event that could be one of the region's largest bird die-offs in recent memory. "Bird die-offs happen, but one doesn't often see this sort of scale in space and time at all," said Andrew Farnsworth, a senior research associate at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology. "It seems unprecedented to me." 

As hurricane Delta prepares to batter the Gulf Coast this weekend, the tropics have been very active: The Atlantic hurricane season continued at a record pace last month. In September alone, 10 named storms formed — Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, Wilfred, Alpha and Beta. For the first time since 1971, five named storms churned in the Atlantic Basin at the same time. 

Drought got worse: According to the U.S. Drought Monitor report, 42.6% of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, up about 3 percentage points from the beginning of September.

September witnessed Covid-19 deaths fly past an official, one million deaths, (will we ever know the true number?) Nearly 40 million have been infected and our governments are in panic making us wear masks and endure endless lockdowns. 

Europe is experiencing a second wave. The European countries are suffering a surge much worse than the first wave. Spain in late September was hit with a staggering 32,000 cases in just one day after the country appeared to have beaten the virus in June. In France, it's the same story with a further 25,000 new cases recorded on one day. 

More dead birds

September saw a strange scenario unfold in a secretive nuclear city in Russia when hundreds of dead birds suddenly plummeted from the sky and lay scattered on streets. The mysterious mass die-off of crows above a secretive nuclear Russian city has sent the internet into meltdown. A social media frenzy ensued after footage emerged of dead birds suddenly falling from the sky onto the roads below in the city of Balakovo. 

The bizarre incident is currently under official investigation, with some experts tying the mass death to avian flu. However, others have suggested it could be linked to the city's best-known feature - its large nuclear power plant Full story

Still in Russia

The bitterly cold Arctic winter typically snuffs out the seasonal wildfires that erupt in this region. But every once in a while, a wildfire comes along that refuses to die. These blazes, known as “zombie fires” or “holdover fires,” can burrow into the rich organic material beneath the surface, such as the vast peatlands that ring the Arctic, and smoulder under the snowpack throughout the frigid winter.

With the Siberian Arctic seeing record warm conditions in recent weeks and months, scientists monitoring Arctic wildfire trends are becoming more convinced that some of the blazes erupting in the Arctic so far this summer are actually leftover from last summer. Last year brought a record surge in Arctic fires to a region that is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world. Full story

A staggering whale stranding

The whale stranding on the Tasmanian coast is the largest recorded in the state's history, authorities say almost 500 pilot whales stranded on the 23rd of Sept. I must say in my 12 years of reporting mass whale strandings I have never reported any total anywhere near this number, it is an absolute astonishing stranding!

With time running out to save them, attention will soon be turned to removal and disposal.  About 500 whales were discovered in Macquarie Harbour. Most of the whales died. TBW

More dead stuff'

351 loggerhead sea turtles have been found dead on the same stretch of coastline where 137 sea lions were found deceased earlier this month. TBW  The loggerhead sea turtles and sea lions were found on the Baja California coast, in northwestern Mexico. TBW

Toxic drinking water

At least 500 hundred drinking water wells that serve up to 9 million Californians have potentially dangerous levels of a highly toxic family of chemicals and some of the worst are in the Bay Area. Surrounded by lush green fields, Pleasanton often makes the top ten list of desirable places to live. But a new list just out is nothing to boast about. "I was just floored," said Pleasanton resident Jill Buck when she found out her town made the top ten for dangerous drinking water. TBW

 A brain-eating amoeba detected in a southeast Texas water supply kills a young boy

A catastrophe has been declared in a Texan city after a brain-eating amoeba was discovered of their native water provide – examined after a six-year-old boy died. Josiah McIntyre died on September 8 after enjoying within the water in Lake Jackson. Credit News Chant 

Residents of eight cities have been alerted that a brain-eating amoeba was found in a southeast Texas water supply, leading one of the towns to issue a disaster declaration. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued a water advisory to residents served by the Brazosport Water Authority warning customers not to use any water due to the presence of Naegleria fowleri, a brain-eating amoeba, found in the water supply on Friday evening. TBW

A big chunk of Greenland's ice cap, estimated to be some 110 square kilometres (42.3 square miles), has broken off in the far northeast Arctic which scientists say is evidence of rapid climate change. The glacier section broke off the fjord called Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden, which is roughly 80 kilometres (50 miles) long and 20 kilometres (12 miles) wide, the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said Monday the 13th of Sept. TBW

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in September updated data of human and financial losses caused by the rains and floods during the recent monsoon season, raising the death toll to more than 300, including over 100 children in Pakistan.

The NDMA said the countrywide death toll stood at 310 – 135 men, 107 children and 70 women. The report said that Sindh was worst affected province with 136 fatalities, followed by 116 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 16 in Punjab, 21 in Balochistan, 12 in Azad Kashmir and 11 in Gilgit-Baltistan. TBW

Brazil on fire!

A vast swath of vital wetlands is burning in Brazil, sweeping across several national parks and obscuring the sun behind dense smoke. Preliminary figures from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, based on satellite images, indicate that nearly 5,800 square miles (1.5 million hectares) have burned in the Pantanal region since the start of August - an expanse comparable to the area consumed by the historic blazes now afflicting California. It's also well beyond the previous fire season record from 2005. TBW

More flood deaths

The floods in Sudan have killed 102 people, injured 46 more and affected over 550,000 people in 17 of the country's 18 states, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported. "More than half a million people are affected by the floods in Sudan - the highest number of flood-affected people reported in the country in more than two decades," OCHA indicated. It added: "Some 102 people have died and 46 others have been injured, according to the latest figures from the government of Sudan. TBW 

New locust swarms

Authorities in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are scrambling to control titanic swarms of migratory locusts, which have put 7 million people in the southern region at risk of famine. The four countries have launched pesticide spraying efforts to combat the invasion, as the United Nations warns that up to 7 million people risk experiencing food insecurity.

Smallholder farmers in Botswana lost their entire harvest at the start of the southern outbreak in May, with the growing region of Pandamatenga and its key sorghum crops at risk. Namibia's initial outbreak in the Zambezi plain has spread to key farming regions, while locusts in Zambia are spreading rapidly and affecting both crop and grazing lands. The outlook is no better in Zimbabwe. TBW

The hottest temperature ever recorded in Phoenix in Sept

Phoenix on Saturday, the 5th of Sept set a high-temperature record of 115 degrees F, 46 deg C, for the date as emergency crews, rescued several hikers at a popular recreation area in the city. The baking heat broke the previous record of 113 degrees set in 1945, the National Weather Service said. Saturday was the 14th day this year where Phoenix had a high of 115 degrees or more, topping the previous record of seven, the weather service said.

Tucson reached 107F, 42 deg C tying a 1945 record. The southern Arizona city was expected to break the record later Saturday with a high of 108, forecasters said. Both cities and numerous other desert areas in Arizona and southern Nevada are under excessive heat warnings in effect through Monday night. Forecasters advised limiting outdoor activity, staying inside in air-conditioned places, drinking plenty of water and checking family members and neighbours. TBW

More than a 1,000 killed by floods

More than a thousand people have died and millions have been displaced and the torrential rain just keeps on coming. 160 killed by flash floods in Afghanistan with a further 41 in Nepal and another 12 dead in India: 19 dead in Pakistan as the unprecedented rainfall continued into September. TBW

Climate Change 2020

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