Heat alert in Toronto
Toronto issued a heat alert Sunday after the forecast called for highs in the 30s for the next few days. The alert will stay in effect until further notice, said a news release from the city’s medical officer of health.
Environment Canada says Sunday’s high will be 31 C. On Monday, it will climb to 33 C and stay around that temperature for most of the week. During a heat alert, the public is encouraged to check on “family, friends and neighbours, especially isolated adults and seniors who are at greater risk of suffering from heat-related illness,” the news release said.
People are advised to drink lots of water, try to stay out of the sun, and reduce strenuous outdoor physical activity during the hottest part of the day. The long-range forecast shows hot and humid conditions until Thursday, then temperatures falling back to the mid-20s on Friday.
Story via CBC News.
‘Spiderman’ arrested after scaling Sydney skyscraper
A French climber known as “Spiderman” was arrested on the roof of a 57-storey Sydney skyscraper on Monday after scaling the building without ropes or a harness to raise climate change awareness. Alain Robert scaled the 150-metre (492-foot), twin-tower Lumiere apartment building in central Sydney in about 25 minutes, as dozens of curious onlookers packed the pavement to cheer, clap and take photographs.
Tropical Storm Earl forms in eastern Atlantic
Tropical Depression Seven in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean strengthened into Tropical Storm Earl late Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. Early computer models show the system eventually steering northwest toward Bermuda and away from key oil and gas producing areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Earl was located about 520 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, moving west at 16 miles per hour with winds up to about 40 mph from 35 mph earlier.
Some strengthening was forecast during the next 48 hours and Earl could become the Atlantic storm season’s third hurricane by Friday. The NHC said Hurricane Danielle was still a Category 1 storm, packing winds near 85 mph, unchanged from earlier, but slow strengthening was still possible during the next 48 hours.
Danielle was located in the central Atlantic about 685 miles east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands, now moving northwest at about 17 mph. Computer models still show this system heading northwest and then in a more northerly direction, eventually passing just east of Bermuda.
Story via Yahoo! News.
UN says 800,000 cut off by Pakistan floods
About 800,000 people have been cut off by floods in Pakistan and are only reachable by air, the United Nations said Tuesday, adding it needs at least 40 more helicopters to ferry lifesaving aid to increasingly desperate people. The appeal was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort in Pakistan more than three weeks after the floods hit the country, affecting more than 17 million people and raising concerns about possible social unrest and political instability. “These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community,” said John Holmes, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
Earlier, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said hundreds of health facilities had been damaged and tens of thousands of medical workers displaced and the country’s chief meteorologist warned that it would be two weeks until the Indus River — the focus of the flooding still sweeping through the country — returns to normal levels. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry said high tides in the Arabian Sea would slow the drainage of the Indus into it. Those tides, he said, will begin changing on Aug. 25. “The flood situation is not yet over,” Chaudhry said, adding that the Indus would reach peak flood stage late this week.
