Severe storms may lead to flooding from Plains to Midwest
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Thunderstorms are in the forecast Saturday across parts of the central United States as a summer-like pattern continues to deliver hot temperatures and scattered severe weather.
The highest risk for severe weather on Saturday is along the New Mexico-Texas border, with damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes possible between Albuquerque and Amarillo. A Flood Watch has been issued for parts of New Mexico and the Texas panhandle.
There is another area extending from Kansas to Wisconsin that may be producing strong to severe thunderstorms later, with damaging winds being the main threat. Flash flooding could be an issue as well, with 1″-3″ of rain across parts of the Midwest over the next 2 days.
Offshore storm affecting Northeast
A pesky storm system has parked itself off the coast of eastern Massachusetts, drenching Cape Cod and Nantucket with up to 4 inches of rain during the last few days.
Coastal Flood Alerts are in effect for several locations along the east coast, due to the combination of astronomical high tide and the rough surf from this offshore storm.
Minor coastal flooding of 1 to 2 feet is possible this weekend during high tide from the Mid-Atlantic into the Northeast. The storm will slowly pull away by early next week.
In the tropics
The chances for our next tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico are increasing, with a 60% likelihood for development as we head through next week.
The potential storm hasn’t even formed yet, but a storm is expected to take shape around the middle or end of next week, bringing a heavy rain threat to the Gulf Coast.
It is still far too early to determine potential impacts, but residents along the Gulf Coast should be monitoring this over the next several days.
(GREEN LAKE, Wis.) — Ryan Borgwardt, the husband and father of three who authorities said faked his own death at a Wisconsin lake and fled the country, is speaking to police but isn’t revealing where he is, the local sheriff said.
When authorities reached Borgwardt on Nov. 11, they asked him questions only he would know and asked him to film a video of himself, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference Thursday.
In the selfie-style video, which was played at the news conference, Borgwardt appears to be in an apartment. He said the date was Nov. 11 and he was safe.
Authorities believe he in Eastern Europe, Podoll said, adding that he doesn’t appear to be in danger.
“We do not know where Ryan exactly is,” the sheriff said. “He has not yet decided to return home.”
“We’ve had nearly daily communications with Ryan,” the sheriff said.
Borgwardt has not spoken to his wife or children, Podoll said.
The mysterious case began on the night of Aug. 11, when Borgwardt last texted his wife. He told her he was turning his kayak around on Green Lake and was heading to shore soon, Podoll said.
The 45-year-old was reported missing the next day.
After Borgwardt’s overturned kayak and life jacket were discovered in the lake, responders believed the missing dad drowned, officials said.
Crews scoured the lake for weeks using divers, drones, sonar and cadaver K-9s, officials said.
The case took a turn in October when investigators discovered Borgwardt’s name had been checked by law enforcement in Canada on Aug. 13, the sheriff said.
Authorities also learned Borgwardt had been communicating with a woman from Uzbekistan, the sheriff said.
Other behavior included clearing his browsers the day he disappeared, inquiries about moving funds to foreign banks, getting a new life insurance policy, obtaining a new passport and replacing his laptop hard drive, the sheriff said.
Podoll said Borgwardt revealed to authorities how he faked his death at the lake and fled the country.
“He stashed an e-bike near the boat launch. He paddled his kayak in a child-sized floating boat out into the lake. He overturned the kayak and dumped his phone in the lake,” the sheriff said. “He paddled the inflatable boat to shore and got on his e-bike and road through the night to Madison, [Wisconsin]. In Madison, he boarded a bus and went to Detroit, and then the Canadian border. He continued on the bus to an airport and got on a plane.”
“We are continuing to verify this information,” the sheriff added.
One of the reasons Borgwardt picked Green Lake is because it’s one of the deepest lakes in the state, Podoll said.
Borgwardt told authorities he didn’t think responders would spend more than two weeks searching for him, the sheriff said.
“He feels bad about the amount of hours we’ve put in,” Podoll noted.
The family wants Borgwardt home, and Podoll said he wants Borgwardt back to “clean up the mess that he has created.”
The sheriff said authorities will keep “pulling at his heartstrings.”
“He needs to come home to his kids,” Podoll said.
The sheriff, appearing emotional, ended the news conference by saying, “Christmas is coming, and what better gift he could give his kids is to be there for Christmas with them?”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
Meteorology may have come a long way since its inception, but it is not possible for anyone — whether it be the government, scientists or billionaires — to control the weather, according to experts.
The desert region of Dubai received a record-breaking amount of rain — two year’s worth in 24 hours — in April. Ever since, every time a flash flooding event occurs, ABC New Chief Meteorologist and Managing Editor of the ABC News Climate Unit Ginger Zee has been receiving messages on social media from people who claim the sharp increase in precipitation is not the result of nature.
“They are making it rain” is the overall theme of the conspiracy theories Zee keeps hearing about.
The commenters are often referring to cloud seeding, a weather modification technique currently used in the United Arab Emirates and several places in the U.S., mostly in the Western U.S., a region notorious for its pervasive droughts. The geoengineering technology involves injecting microscopic particles — sometimes silver iodide — into the atmosphere to encourage rain and snowfall.
The particles then act like magnets for water droplets and bind together until they are heavy enough to fall as rain or snow, amplifying the amount of precipitation. But the water droplets can’t be made out of nothing — it has to be already raining or snowing for cloud seeding to take effect.
For the last several decades, there have been investments in small-scale cloud seeding operations in pockets in the West, both ground-based and in the air, Brad Udall, senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, told ABC News.
Despite feats in geoengineering, humans have no capability whatsoever to control the weather, Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies, told ABC News.
“Until recently, we weren’t even sure it worked,” Udall said. “But there’s some new science that suggests, yes, you can slightly increase the precipitation out of storms due to these, usually ground-based, but sometimes air-based efforts.”
A 10-year cloud seeding experiment in the Snowy Range and Sierra Madre Range in Wyoming resulted in 5% to 15% increases in snow pack from winter storms, according to a 2015 report from the Wyoming Water Development Office. In the region around Reno, Nevada, cloud seeding is estimated to add enough water to supply about 400,000 households annually, according to the DRI.
While humans can enhance existing weather, it is not possible to control it, Dessler said.
“We humans are not powerless,” Udall said. “But, unfortunately, in the weather realm, our ability to affect things is pretty minor.”
Cloud seeding can’t make it rain. It can’t even make a cloud, according to Zee. And it certainly is not being used to create storms with enough precipitation to cause flash flooding.
If humans could control the weather, then the megadrought in the West would probably never had persisted at the level that it did for decades, Udall said.
In late September and early October, Google searches for cloud seeding ramped up again as Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused severe destruction far beyond the storm’s direct impact, including flash flooding in the mountain region near Asheville, North Carolina, previously considered a climate haven.
While there is some evidence that cloud seeding can enhance precipitation, it’s impossible for humans to create or steer a hurricane, Dessler said.
“It’s amazing we’re even having this discussion because, of course, humans can’t control the weather in ways to create a hurricane,” Udall said.
However, there has been a larger-scale climate modification that has been ongoing for the past two centuries, Zee said.
“We’re doing that right now with green with enormous greenhouse gas emissions on a scale that humanity has never, ever done before,” Udall said.
Since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1800s, the greenhouse gases emitted from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels have been causing global temperatures to rise at unprecedented rates, according to climate scientists.
The amplification of Earth’s natural warming has actually increased hourly rainfall rates — a key factor in flash flooding — across much of the U.S. by 10% to 40%, according to Climate Central.
“We have all contributed to making it rain more and heavier as we warm the planet,” Zee said.
Dessler likened global warming to “steroids” for extreme weather events.
“Steroids don’t hit a home run, but if you give steroids to a baseball player, he’s gonna hit more home runs,” Dessler said. “And that’s essentially, you know, the way to think about humans and the weather.”
The experts urged people to not believe rumors on the possibility that the weather can be controlled, chalking up the conspiracy theories as machinations of intrigue but nothing more.
“It’s yet one more example, right, of unbridled social media doing irreparable social harm,” Udall said.
ABC News’ Daniel Manzo contributed to this report.
(OWASSO, Okla.) — The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced Wednesday that Owasso Public Schools in Oklahoma has “entered into an agreement to remedy violations of Title IX” concerning sexual harassment in its schools following the February death of LGBTQ+ student Nex Benedict.
The OCR states that its investigation of the Owasso Public Schools district, which was announced in March, found “repeated instances over a three-year period in which district staff received notice of possible sexual harassment, yet district staff did not explain the process for filing a Title IX complaint or promptly contact a complainant.”
According to the OCR, those instances included reports that multiple students were subject to repeated sex-based slurs, harassment and physical assault; that a male student hit and made unwelcome sexual comments to a female sixth-grade student; an elementary school student was subjected to repeated harassment described as sexual; and a teacher was accused of grooming female students on social media by sending more than 130 messages about their appearance and requesting photographs.
The OCR also found several violations related to LGBTQ+ youth in district schools, including reports that some students were called slurs and subject to other bullying behavior.
The district had only conducted two formal Title IX investigations in the last three school years and produced “limited records” regarding those two matters, the OCR said.
After Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student, died by suicide following a physical altercation in an Owasso High School bathroom, the district still failed to take steps to implement Title IX regulations, according to the OCR.
“As a result, OCR found that the district’s pattern of inconsistent responses to reports it received of sexual harassment – infrequently responding under Title IX or not responding at all – rose to the level that the district’s response to some families’ sexual harassment reports was deliberately indifferent to students’ civil rights,” read the OCR’s statement.
The resolution agreement between the Department of Education and Owasso Public Schools details a long list of remedies the school must implement to address the stated violations. They include requiring schools to inform parents of affected students about the process for filing a Title IX complaint and the supportive measures available to students.
The agreement also requires schools to not only issue anti-harassment and nondiscrimination statements, but also to provide Title IX training to students and staff, conduct sexual harassment climate surveys in the district, implement adequate record-keeping processes for Title IX complaints and revise its Title IX processes to ensure compliance.
“Owasso students and their families did not receive the fair and equitable review process from their school district guaranteed to them under Title IX; at worst, some students experienced discrimination Congress has long guaranteed they shall not endure at school,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon in a statement.
“The district has signed a robust agreement to assure that students who attend school in the district will be afforded their rights under Title IX, including the right to file a complaint, learn about and receive supportive services individualized to their needs, and benefit from federal nondiscrimination protection when they experience harassment,” the statement continued.
