By Paul Homewood
Ben Rich’s climate test begins:
“If any place in the world has a year of extreme weather, it’s Canada.”
Which is ironic, because he could have used the exact same introduction for the 1961 Climate Test!
That summer’s drought in the Canadian Prairies is thought to have been at the time even worse than the sleet years of the 1930s. Many places did not receive adequate rainfall for a year and a half, and the season membrane is completely destroyed.
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1961-drought-worse-than-the-30s
Wildfires burned millions of acres across Canada in the so-called Furiousest Summer:
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1961/9/9/1961-summer-of-the-angry-forest-fires
To address the issue, flash floods killed a family of five in Timmins’ Ontario in August, following a 12-hour downpour of 6 inches:
Timmins, Ontario – August 1961
Catastrophic floods hit many parts of the world that year.
New South Wales suffered some of the worst floods in its history in November 1961, perhaps surpassed only by the flood of 1900. The Nepean Times reported:
“During a rainy week, up until yesterday, in which 474mm of rain was recorded at the post office, Penrith received half its annual rainfall in two days…”
In the same week, the BBC reported on flooded Somalia:
It is thought that more than 200 people have drowned and about 230 villages have been destroyed in this area alone. Unconfirmed reports put a figure of 300,000 homeless.
Outbreaks of malaria, dysentery, rheumatic fever and influenza have been reported in some places. Somalia’s public health adviser, Mohammed Naqi, warned of the possibility of a typhoid epidemic.
The worst floods are caused when two main rivers, the Shabelle and the Juba, burst their banks and merge in a vast floodplain 12 kilometers wide.
The currents have engulfed large swaths of land, cut off communications, destroyed towns and villages, destroyed homes and livestock, and ruined banana plantations.
Across the country, roads and airstrips are under water, making the task of moving food and medical supplies nearly impossible.
The prime minister, Dr Abdi Rashid Shirmarke, made a desperate plea for help during a press conference six days ago.
He said nearly all of Somalia’s food crops had been destroyed and said food would have to be found for about 600,000 people in eight months, until the next harvest.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/27/newsid_3230000/3230711.stm
And the United States has also severely affected by floods 1961. Floods described as “widespread, prolonged, and catastrophic” hit Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama in February and March.
This was followed by widespread flooding in the Midwest in May and severe flooding in Idaho in June. The deadliest flood of the year was in July in Charleston, West Virginia when a flood broke out across the country. small area caused 22 deaths.
Severe flooding also occurred in December in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.
The worst flooding that year in the United States was caused by Hurricane Carla in September, a Cat 4 hurricane with winds of 170 mph, left a trail of devastation from Texas to Illinois, including 34 deaths, 1900 homes destroyed and a record number of tornadoes, including consists of one of only two EF-4s ever observed in a hurricane.
The 1961 Atlantic hurricane season saw two Cat 5s, Esther and Hattie, making it one of only seven Atlantic hurricane seasons to have multiple Category 5 hurricanes in one season. Hattie devastated Belize City, damaging 70% of its buildings. The damage was so severe that it forced the government to relocate inland to a new city, Belmopan.
Drought in China from 1959 to 1961 caused great famine, when an estimated 30 million people starve to death. Although the death toll was largely the result of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the drought certainly played a part.
And to summarize it all, there were wildfires in California:
Fire burns in the community of Bel Air in November 1961
The BBC’s reporter said that the weather this year is much harsher than in previous years.
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