Landholders in Queensland are calling on the State Government to find the cause of methane gas bubbling in a major river, which they say has intensified in recent months.

The so-called methane seeps in the Condamine River near Chinchilla were reported in 2012, triggering a series of investigations.

But the Government has told the ABC that it does not have sufficient information to identify the cause of the seeps.

Professor Damian Barrett, the CSIRO's lead researcher into unconventional gas, has been monitoring the Condamine gas seeps.

He confirmed to the ABC that the bubbling had intensified.

While New York City had its coldest start to Valentine's Day in 100 years on Sunday, it would seem balmy compared with the wicked wind chill at upstate Whiteface Mountain.

As temperatures dropped across the Northeast from the blast of a polar vortex, the wind chill at Whiteface, near Lake Placid, made it feel like a body- and mind-numbing minus 114 degrees late Saturday and into Sunday. Central Park could only muster a minus 1 degree.

The Wild Center, which works with the Atmospheric Science Research Center at SUNY Albany, recorded the frigid temperature from a research station at the mountain's summit.

Mother Nature has treated residents in the Orangeville area to a relatively uncommon atmospheric phenomenon only seen a few times every year.

After a band of snow squalls moved through Dufferin County last night, the skies cleared to reveal a parhelion — informally nicknamed a sun dog — near Mono early Saturday morning (Feb. 13).

Local photographer Rose Knott managed to capture an image of the uncommon occurrence early Saturday morning.

"I've never seen a sun dog. It was just so exciting to me," she posted on Facebook. "Just felt so thrilled to capture this."

Sun dogs are formed when sunlight refracts off ice crystals in the atmosphere, creating bright spots on either side of the sun. In some cases, a rainbow-shaped halo can be seen connecting these bright pillars beside the sun.

"It is more the ice crystals high up in the atmosphere that create the phenomena," Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson told The Banner last year. "When those ice crystals reflect the sunlight at a certain angle, it can form these sun dogs."

Cold air isn't a preamble to a sundog, as Coulson said they could appear pretty much year round. They usually occur in the morning when the sun is rising or when it is setting in the evening.

"What you're really looking for is relatively cloud free conditions," Coulson said. "To be able to view it, you really would had to be within sort of the breaks in the flurry activity to actually see the sun and the phenomena itself."

Residents across Caledon were looking to the skies Thursday morning (Feb. 11) as a unique 'sun dog' cast a spherical glow on the landscape.

"It certainly was a beautiful sight this morning, wasn't it?" local resident, Lori Makarewicz said to The Enterprise. "I have never seen one like that before. I almost got frostbite by standing out in my sandals on the front lawn, didn't want to waste any time looking for my boots in case I missed it!"

According to Environment Canada meteorologist, Rebecca Wagner, "sun dogs" which are also classified as parhelion, halos, or "mock suns," are an optical effect caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere.

"In particular this morning we had a very well developed halo around the sun with two bands with bright spots on either side of the sun, at about the same elevation," she continued.

While they technically occur any time of the year, sun dogs appear more vividly in the winter due to the combination of ice crystals in the atmosphere and the low angle of the sun in the sky - and even still, are usually only spotted about two to three times a year.

As the sun rises in the sky, the halo diminishes as the angle of the light hitting the ice crystals changing.
Bolton resident, Craig Kellough, spotted the unique optical effect over the North Hill of town.

"I was driving into Bolton around 9 a.m. when I saw this spectacular scene in the sky surrounding the sun," he said. "I had to pull over and take as many shots as I could. It was something I had never seen before."

According to Wagner, with the chilly temperatures and clear skies predicted for this weekend, there might be another in store for those who missed Thursday morning's display.

So much for a warm and fuzzy Valentine's Day.

About 20 cities across the East endured record-breaking cold Sunday, forecasters say.

New York City's temperature plummeted to 1 below zero at Central Park, shattering the record of 2 degrees, set during World War I.

Boston reported 9 below. Toronto's temperature reached 16 below over the weekend.

And those are just the real temperatures.

Factor in strong winds, and states from northern Pennsylvania to Maine felt wind chills well, well below zero.

In all, more than 75 million people from the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard are expected to be affected by snow and freezing rain into Tuesday.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to brace for dangerous conditions.

"The city is facing some of the coldest temperatures and wind chills we've seen in the last 20 years," de Blasio said. "Extremely cold weather can be life-threatening -- especially for seniors, infants and people with medical conditions."

The mayor thanked first responders.

"I think, the combination of the way New Yorkers have heeded the warnings, and the fact that our first responders are out constantly scanning for anyone who might need help, it's been very effective. And thank God, we have no reports to date of any fatalities," he said.

With temperatures plummeting below freezing in parts of the country, you may be temped to escape to some winter sun in Florida.

But if you do hit the sunny beaches, you may want to avoid going for a swim.

That's because tens of thousands of sharks are migrating in huge swarms, and it's happening just off the coast.

Florida Atlantic University biological sciences professor Stephen Kajiura took video from the air of blacktip sharks invading the waters of Palm Beach, on Florida's Atlantic coast

A magnitude 4.1 (+/- 0.1) earthquake has struck on the Southern flank of Pu'u O'o Volcano in Hawaii, part of the greater Kilauea volcanic complex located on the "Big Island".

The earthquake struck in the middle of the Southern lava fields off the Pu'u O'o caldera which reaches all the way from the peak of the Volcano into the ocean (several miles away).

The earthquake may be a byproduct of large volumes of moving lava (magma) from the large flow which was observed coming from Pu'u O'o a several weeks ago.

Bitter cold is gripping parts of Central and Eastern Canada as temperatures dipped to -45 C with the wind chill in some areas.

Environment Canada issued cold or winter storm warnings on Saturday for provinces from Manitoba to Newfoundland and Labrador.

The national weather forecaster said temperatures could fall to -45 C in Ottawa on Saturday with the wind chill, warming up to -35 C overnight.

In New Brunswick, temperatures were expected to hover between -35 C and -40 C with the wind chill until Sunday.

Quebec and Manitoba can expect much of the same, with temperatures warming up early next week.

Meanwhile, Newfoundland was bracing for a winter storm that could bring up to 20 cm of snow to eastern parts of the island.

A stronger eruption occurred in the evening of 12 Feb, producing an ash plume that rose to estimated 34,000 ft (10 km) altitude and drifted more than 300 km east over the Pacific. VAAC Tokyo maintains Aviation Color ORANGE.

Lightning struck a tree under which members of the Shembe Nazareth Baptist Church were worshiping, KwaZulu-Natal's Emergency Medical Services said.

Three women, aged between 50 and 65, were killed instantly and 38 others survived the strike but sustained injuries, spokesperson Robert Mckenzie said.

Those injured were taken to nearby hospitals and were currently in a stable condition, Mckenzie said.

Authorities cautioned people against using trees as a cover in cloudy conditions, particularly in the middle of summer when lightning takes place frequently.

Thunderstorms, generating big electrical discharges, are common in South Africa's eastern and northern provinces between October and March.

South Africa has one of the highest lightning ground strike densities in the world. Particularly in recent years, deaths from lightning are growing in rural areas.

The annual average number of lightning-related deaths is 6.3 per million of the population, more than 15 times the global average, according to the South African weather service.

Source: Xinhua