It’s being called “Frankenstorm” by federal officials who are bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy from the south and a winter storm from the west that is almost certain to cause a deluge in the mid-Atlantic region this weekend. Rains and high wind from Hurricane Sandy combined with a cold blast of arctic air from Canada have local authorities preparing for the worst, with some meteorologists comparing the looming weather to the 1991 Perfect Storm that hit New England exactly 21 years ago.
Droughts in Texas, fires in Colorado, and tornadoes throughout the Midwest are only a handful of extreme climate events that have pummeled the United States in 2012, and scientists are predicting that patterns of unusual weather will become more and more common.
At the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2011, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack talked about the implications of climate change as a cause for recent natural disasters and cited budgetary problems as a factor in helping predict and manage the aftereffects of such events.
Climate Change, Budget to Blame for Natural Disasters from The Aspen Institute on FORA.tv
