Climate: Wild times
PennEnviroment report a tidy summary of recent extremes.
One thing we've learned is that it is almost impossible to underrate the public attention span when it comes to weather.
Thus we welcomed the PennEnvironment report, "In the Path of the Storm," which among other things, offers a neatly packaged digest of the extreme weather of the last year.
It relies heavily on data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and we caution that FEMA's disaster standards evidently aren't as tough as they used to be.
Even if you take issue with some of the group's proposed remedies, we found it reasonable and well-organized, with extensive supplemental data.
We particularly liked the individual event summaries, and reserve the right to crib from them.
You'll find a summary of the Mississippi floods on Page 13; the Missouri floods, 17; Texas drought, 23; Irene, 25; the incredible 2011 tornado season, 29; our wonderful snowstorms (rememeber those?), 31, and Lee, 37.
Here is an interactive map showing mayhem county-by-county.