I’ve already discussed volcanoes on this podcast and today is one that is not just prolific for the damage it caused, but because it is also THE volcano that literally froze a period in time for all to see milennia later.  

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Katrina became the fifth hurricane of the 2005 season on August 25, only two hours before it made landfall around 6:30 p.m. EDT in Florida. The Keys were whipped by tropical storm force winds that continued through the 26th, but Katrina was still churning up momentum in the gulf. 

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This 1893 hurricane season was one of only two times in history to suffer 4 Atlantic storms along the US/Canada coast at the same time. The next time that would happen would be 105 years later...in 1998.

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The 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado was, at an F3 tornado strength, a major storm. It was generated by an isolated supercell which unexpectedly first came ashore...then tore across Huron County, Ontario, on the afternoon of Sunday, August 21, 2011….this day in weather history. 

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At one point over 10 million people in Southern Ontario, at the time one-third of Canada's entire population, were placed under either tornado watches and/or warnings as these powerful and dangerous storms rolled through. In all, a grand total of 19 tornadoes touched down with four of them producing F2 damage.

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The province sees 12-13/year but there are always the outlier years that far exceed that number. When the storm came close to the Greater Toronto Area, a tornado warning was issued, but the storm changed its characteristics. Wind gusts of well over 100 km/h (62 mph) blew through this densely populated centre. That was accompanied by golf ball sized hail, but really the main event was the heavy rain flooding many parts of the city.

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The 1931 China floods, or the 1931 Yangtze River floods, were a series of floods that occurred from June to August 1931 in the Republic of China, hitting major cities Wuhan, Nanjing and beyond, eventually culminated into a dyke breach along Lake Gaoyou on 26 August.

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Camille had only just formed on Aug. 14, reached Category 3 status, which now classified it as a major hurricane, just one day later. Then the day after that, on Aug. 16, it skyrocketed to Category 5 strength. Camille defied a prediction that it would turn northeast toward the Florida Panhandle when it hooked left and instead headed for the Mississippi coast.

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The Category 5 hurricane is a beast unlike most other natural phenomena on Earth. When Andrew made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, it packed a 1-minute sustained wind speed of 165 mph (266 km/h). As many as 1.4 million people lost power at the height of the storm; some didn't get their power restored for over a month!! In the Everglades, 70,000 acres (280 km2) of trees were downed.

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It was the second tornado that hit Williams Lake in fifteen months. Its path was 21km long and 200m wide. Several cottages were damaged, two of which crushed to their very foundation and then totally swept away, this day in weather history.

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