The wrath of GOD
Fire and floods sweep Europe in summer of intense weather
By Danica Kirka, Associated Press | August 26, 2005
VIENNA -- Fire and floods have engulfed Europe this summer, as a drought in Spain and Portugal transformed swaths of woodland into a massive tinderbox and torrential downpours carved a trail of destruction through Alpine valleys and impoverished Balkan villages.
Breaking News Alerts Entire sections of the Swiss capital, Bern, have been submerged. Blazes flare up as others are snuffed in Portugal and Spain. And dozens have been killed in a third straight summer of extreme European weather that has people asking: Why?
''People wonder, 'Hey, what's going on with our climate?' " said Dale Mohler, the director of international forecasting at AccuWeather.com. ''But we've seen these kind of heat waves in southwest Europe before."
Both the fire and the floodwaters may be devastating, but they are not all that unprecedented, Mohler argued. Heat waves like the one that has scorched Portugal and Spain leaving forests looking like barren winter landscapes, have occurred every 15 to 20 years.