West Nile Virus

What Is West Nile Virus?
West Nile virus (WNV) is a potentially serious illness. Experts believe WNV is established as a seasonal epidemic in North America that flares up in the summer and continues into the fall. This fact sheet contains important information that can help you recognize and prevent West Nile virus.

What Can I Do to Prevent WNV?
The easiest and best way to avoid WNV is to prevent mosquito bites.

When you are outdoors, use insect repellent containing an EPA-registered active ingredient. Follow the directions on the package.

Many mosquitoes are most active at dusk and dawn. Be sure to use insect repellent and wear long sleeves and pants at these times or consider staying indoors during these hours.

Make sure you have good screens on your windows and doors to keep mosquitoes out.

Get rid of mosquito breeding sites by emptying standing water from flower pots, buckets and barrels. Change the water in pet dishes and replace the water in bird baths weekly. Drill holes in tire swings so water drains out. Keep children's wading pools empty and on their sides when they aren't being used.
What Are the Symptoms of WNV?

Serious Symptoms in a Few People. About one in 150 people infected with WNV will develop severe illness. The severe symptoms can include high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis. These symptoms may last several weeks, and neurological effects may be permanent.
Milder Symptoms in Some People. Up to 20 percent of the people who become infected have symptoms such as fever, headache, and body aches, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes swollen lymph glands or a skin rash on the chest, stomach and back. Symptoms can last for as short as a few days, though even healthy people have become sick for several weeks.
No Symptoms in Most People. Approximately 80 percent of people (about 4 out of 5) who are infected with WNV will not show any symptoms at all.
How Does West Nile Virus Spread?

Infected Mosquitoes. Most often, WNV is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds. Infected mosquitoes can then spread WNV to humans and other animals when they bite.

Transfusions, Transplants, and Mother-to-Child. In a very small number of cases, WNV also has been spread through blood transfusions, organ transplants, breastfeeding and even during pregnancy from mother to baby.

Not through touching. WNV is not spread through casual contact such as touching or kissing a person with the virus.
How Soon Do Infected People Get Sick?
People typically develop symptoms between 3 and 14 days after they are bitten by the infected mosquito.

How Is WNV Infection Treated?
There is no specific treatment for WNV infection. In cases with milder symptoms, people experience symptoms such as fever and aches that pass on their own, although even healthy people have become sick for several weeks. In more severe cases, people usually need to go to the hospital where they can receive supportive treatment including intravenous fluids, help with breathing and nursing care.

What Should I Do if I Think I Have WNV?
Milder WNV illness improves on its own, and people do not necessarily need to seek medical attention for this infection though they may choose to do so. If you develop symptoms of severe WNV illness, such as unusually severe headaches or confusion, seek medical attention immediately. Severe WNV illness usually requires hospitalization. Pregnant women and nursing mothers are encouraged to talk to their doctor if they develop symptoms that could be WNV.

Slightly warm day

Today it was slightly warm, because the Humidity was high around 80%
During the past 5 days the humidity is rising... take a look

But the min & max temperature was almost the same.
We might get a shower towards the end of this month.

Climatological Information for Chennai

Climatological Information
Month-Mean Temperature oC-Mean Total Rainfall (mm)-Mean Number of Rain Days-
Daily Minimum-Daily Maximum
Jan - 20.6 28.4 16.2 1.0
Feb - 21.2 29.9 3.7 0.3
Mar - 23.1 31.9 3.0 0.2
Apr - 25.9 33.6 13.6 0.7
May - 27.6 36.4 48.9 1.6
Jun - 27.2 36.6 53.7 4.1
Jul - 25.9 34.7 97.8 7.3
Aug - 25.3 33.9 149.7 8.5
Sep - 25.3 33.5 109.1 6.6
Oct - 24.3 31.4 282.7 10.2
Nov - 22.8 29.2 350.3 10.1
Dec - 21.6 28.1 138.2 5.5

Next 2 days for India

Forecast valid upto 1430 hrs IST of 22nd January, 2008

NORTHWEST INDIA

[J & K, H. P., UTTARAKHAND, PUNJAB, HARYANA , DELHI, WEST UP]
· Rain/snowfall is likely at a few places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during next 24 hours and isolated thereafter.

· Isolated rain/thundershowers are also likely over Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh during next 24 hours and mainly dry weather thereafter.

· Fall in minimum temperature by 2-3°C during next 48 hrs.

EAST INDIA

[EAST UP, JHARKHAND, BIHAR, ORISSA,, WEST BENGAL & SIKKIM]
· Isolated rain/thundershowers are likely over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal & Sikkim during next 24 hours and mainly dry weather thereafter.

· Mainly dry weather is likely over the rest region.

· Fall in minimum temperature by 3-5°C over East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand during next 48 hrs.

NORTHEAST INDIA

[Arunachal Pradesh, NMM& T, Assam, Meghalaya,]
· Rain/thundershowers are likely at a few places over Arunachal Pradesh and isolated over Assam and Meghalaya.

· Mainly dry weather is likely over the rest region.

SOUTH INDIA

[TN, AP, KERALA,, KARNATAKA, LAKSHADWEEP, ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS]
· Mainly dry weather is likely over the region.

WEST INDIA

[GOA, MAHARASHTRA (OTHER THAN VIDARBHA), GUJARAT, RAJASTHAN]
· Mainly dry weather is likely over the region.

· Fall in minimum temperatures by 2-4°C over Rajasthan .

CENTRAL INDIA

[M.P., CHHATTISGARH, VIDARBHA]
· Mainly dry weather is likely over the region.

· Fall in minimum temperature by 3-4°C over Madhya Pradesh during next 48 hrs

Heavy snow in China

This week has seen a blast of winter arrive across China, bringing freezing temperatures and heavy snow falls. An unusually large swathe of the country has been affected by the cold weather. Over the last two days especially, heavy snow has brought chaos across the southern provinces of Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi.

For Hubei, the first snowflakes began to fall over a week ago, with it now experiencing its heaviest snowfall in 16years. Plummeting temperatures have frozen pipes cutting off the water supply to many residents so that fire engines had to be used to carry in fresh supplies.

In Hunan too it is their heaviest snowfall in more than 5 years and has resulted in treacherous conditions across many of the province’s roads. Some 120,000 cars are said to have become stranded in Hunan for days, with almost half a million passengers having to wait until Thursday to be rescued. The government has resorted to using several hundred tons of industrial salt in order to keep the roads open. Air travel was also affected with the freezing temperatures delaying or cancelling flights.

There were also similar problems in the province of Jiangxi as thousands of cars became stranded when a bridge across China’s Yangtze River had to be closed.

The capital did not escape either with snow blanketing Beijing on Thursday. The National Meteorological Centre of China is forecasting the winter blast to continue over the next few days, with further snow falls expected to affect many parts.

Winter & dry

No significant changes in weather...for chennai.
The temperature is pretty much the same for the past 20 days...
Max around 29°C and Minimum around 21°C.

But take a look at the humidty for past 5 days... it shows a dramatic dip in low and high... this might trigger a even colder days and night.
May be towards the end of this month the min temperature will go down to 19°C.

World warming despite cool Pacific and Baghdad snow

OSLO (Reuters) - Climate change is still nudging up temperatures in the long term even though the warmest year was back in 1998 and 2008 has begun with unusual weather such as a cool Pacific and Baghdad's first snow in memory, experts said.

"Global warming has not stopped," said Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) climate program.

Last year was among the six warmest years since records began in the 1850s and the British Met Office said last week that 2008 will be the coolest year since 2000, partly because of a La Nina event that cuts water temperatures in the Pacific.

"We are in a minor La Nina period which shows a little cooling in the Pacific Ocean," Delju told Reuters. "The decade from 1998 to 2007 is the warmest on record and the whole trend is still continuing."

This year has started with odd weather including the first snows in Baghdad in memory on Friday and a New Year cold snap in India that killed more than 20 people. Frost hit some areas of Florida last week but orange groves escaped mostly unscathed.

Iraqis welcomed snow as an omen of peace. "It's the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished."

Last year, parts of the northern hemisphere were having a record mild winter with even Alpine ski resorts starved of snow.

Delju said climate change, blamed mainly on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, would bring bigger swings in the weather alongside a warming trend that will mean more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas

Baghdad Snow

Winter Bites in SW Asia

Bitter cold, snow (be it unusually heavy or merely to have happened at all) and wetting rain have all marked the stormy winter weather that has dominated the first half of January from central Asia to the Red Sea. Tales of immobilizing snow and harsh cold in Iran as well as rare snow from Baghdad to Arar, northern KSA, have found their way onto the world`s newswires, as has the flash flooding that swept Makkah, KSA.
A thinning out of snow late last week raised bitter cold to fore as the prominent weather aspect Monday. Here are a few highlights:

Turkey: Erzurum...-25 F/-31.8 C; Kars...-26 F/-32.2 C
Iran: Quchan...-7 f/-21.4 C; Tehran...16 F/-9 C
Kazakhstan: Atbasar...-37 F/-38.1 C
Uzbekistan: Buzaubay...-23 F/-30.3 C
Turkmenistan: Ekezhe...-20 F/-28.8 C; Turkmenbashy...-5 f/-20.6
Iraq: Baghdad...28-30 F/-2 to -1 C; Basrah...30 F/-1 C
KSA: Guriat...20 F/-6.8 C (Turayf also -20 F)
Jordan: Ma`an...17 F/-8.4 C

Rainfall was nearly 2 inches (about 4 cms) on the island of Abu Musa, between Iran and UAE

Happy pongal 2008

Lasting for over four days Pongal, a harvest festival is celebrated in the month of Shravan. Pongal literally means, "boiling over". The Tamil harvest festival is celebrated with decorated cows, processions and decorative Rangoli. Pongal is a sweet porridge made from newly harvested rice and eaten by all, even the animals. Each day of this festival has a special significance, however, it is celebrated more grandly in the villages, while the city folk mainly celebrate on the second day only. It is widely celebrated in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The festival is celebrated for four days. On, the first day, Bhogi, the old clothes and materials are thrown away and fired, marking the beginning of a new life. The second day, the Pongal day, is celebrated by boiling fresh milk early in the morning and allowing it to boil over the vessel - a tradition that is the literal translation for Pongal (in Tamil). People also prepare savories and sweets, visit each other's homes, and exchange greetings.

The third day, Mattu Pongal, is meant to offer thanks to the cows and buffaloes, as they are used to plough the lands. Jallikattu, a violent taming the bull contest, marks this day. On the last day, Kanum Pongal, people go out to picnic. During the Pongal season, people eat sugar canes and decorate the houses with Kolam.

Even though Pongal was originally a festival for the farming community, today it is celebrated by all. Coinciding with Makara Sankranti and Lohri of the north, it is also called Pongal Sankranti and thus celebrated in some form in various parts of India.