Earth ChangesS


Fish

Mass fish deaths under investigation at Lake Tutira, New Zealand

Dead eels at Lake Tutira this week. Hawke's Bay Regional Council is investigating.
© Stevie Smitd/HBRCDead eels at Lake Tutira this week. Hawke's Bay Regional Council is investigating.
Another fish kill at troubled Lake Tutira in Hawke's Bay has authorities concerned.

About 20 dead or dying eels were found, and there were reports this week of dead trout at the lake, about 40 kilometres north on Napier.

It is the second time this year that a major die-off has been detected.


In January, trout and eels died en masse in an event thought to be linked to low levels of dissolved oxygen in the lake's surface water.

"Fish kills have not been uncommon. However, the occurrence of two large fish kills in two consecutive years is unusual and of particular concern," Hawke's Bay Regional Council said on Thursday.

Another victim at Lake Tutira this week.
© Stevie Smitd/HBRCAnother victim at Lake Tutira this week.

Bizarro Earth

Minor tsunami 'threat' after 7.9 magnitude quake hits off Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea earthquake map
© earthquake.usgs.gov
A powerful earthquake, initially measured at magnitude 8.0, has hit east of Papua New Guinea, according to the US Geological Survey. The tremor prompted New Zealand's Civil Defense to issue a tsunami warning, which was soon canceled.

"Widespread hazardous tsunami waves are possible," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said in a message after the quake, which struck the New Ireland region of Papua New Guinea at a depth of 73 km.

The tsunami waves are forecast to reach one to three meters above the tide level along some coasts of the archipelago in the South West Pacific region.

Snowflake

Rare snow storm drops 13 inches in Oregon, brings Portland to a complete standstill

Portland snowstorm
© twitter/@oregondot

Jammed traffic pictured during the snow storm in Portland on Wednesday
A rare snow storm brought Oregon's largest city to a halt, with thousands of vehicles barely able to move on Portland streets and on one of its main highways.

Commuters began leaving work early on Wednesday, hoping to beat the storm.

But they quickly found themselves on streets that were clogged with traffic that was inching along on snow-slick streets.

Cars fish-tailed, spun out, and collided. Motorists, some with their kids in their cars, who had made scant progress tried to keep their patience.

After more than three hours of waiting, some abandoned their vehicles and started walking.

Others hoped they wouldn't run out of gas.

Kimberly Wrolstad had been stuck on Interstate 5 heading to Tigard for about 90 minutes on Wednesday afternoon.

'It's frustrating,' she said. 'I don't know what's going on. I don't know if there are accidents. I know some of the trucks are having difficulties.'

Some drivers in Portland took to twitter to voice their frustrations about the clogged traffic.

'I've been stuck in snow traffic for over an hour & maps says it's going to take 2 more hours to get home,' Twitter user Cortney wrote on Wednesday amid the snow storm.

Attention

Signs and Portents: Woman delivers two-headed baby in Nigeria

Two-Headed Baby
A woman delivered a two-headed baby on Tuesday at a hospital in Ogudu on the outskirts of Lagos.

The baby was delivered around 6:30pm on Tuesday through an elective cesarean section by doctors at Med-In Specialist Hospital, Osogbo Street, The Nation reports.

The mother, surgeon and nurses were shocked to discover the anomaly, as various scans underwent in the course of the pregnancy indicated a set of twins.

According to one of the nurses who was in the delivery room, they had prepared two cots for each of the twins but were shocked when they saw that they were conjoined.

"This is the first time I am seeing anything like this. I have watched it in movies but seeing it in real life was such an experience for me. Thankfully, the surgeon ensured that they survived," said the nurse.

The baby was resuscitated and then transferred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for advance care on Wednesday.

Attention

Creepy trumpet sounds rattle residents of Spokane Valley, Washington

booming sounds
Thousands of people are scratching their heads about an eerie sound that's been heard all night long in the Spokane Valley but no one seems to know for sure where the sound is coming from.

Linda Pennfield from Spokane Valley and her husband have one theory on what the noise might be. She says the sound was so loud and so persistent last night, her husband actually got out of his bed and jumped in the car to track it down. His conclusion? The sound was coming from all the snow plows, as the metal plows scraped against the ground.

Comment:






Ice Cube

2 below zero: 99-year cold record broken in Syracuse, New York

Man snowplowing sidewalk
© Glenn CoinFrank Marra, of Kinne Road in DeWitt, bundles up as he clears his driveway of snow. Syracuse set a record low for Dec. 16 this morning, when temperatures fell to 2 below zero.
Syracuse just broke a 99-year record for the coldest Dec. 16.

The temperature at Hancock International Airport, the official weather station for Syracuse, hit 2 below zero over the last hour.

The record for Dec. 16 had been minus 1, set in 1917.

If this makes you feel any warmer, today's record low isn't even close to the coldest December day on record. That belongs to Dec. 20, 1942, when Syracuse hit 26 below zero.

Snowflake Cold

'Ridiculously heavy': Huge winter storm makes way for already suffering Midwest

 Cold weather blankets 200 million Americans as winter storm gains strength
Cold weather blankets 200 million Americans as winter storm gains strength
The winter storm that has coated the Pacific Northwest with a thick blanket of ice was sweeping east on Friday, threatening more heavy snow across a huge part of the country from the Rocky Mountains through the Great Lakes region.

The storm was expected to race across the upper Plains overnight into Friday and wallop the Midwest and the Great Lakes region by Saturday morning, forecasters said.

The storm could leave behind 2 feet of snow in Yosemite National Park in Nevada and parts of Wyoming and Utah.
That's what you call a coast to coast storm. Advisories all over the place! #decima pic.twitter.com/o8xCYQSAPU

— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) December 16, 2016
One person was dead in Oregon — a man in his late 50s who was found covered in a layer of ice and snow in his driveway Wednesday night in Albany, the Linn County Sheriff's Office said.

And the bombardment won't let up on its way east. Green Bay and Madison could both get more than a foot of snow by the weekend, forecasters said.



Evil Rays

Mysterious sounds cause concern in Washington DC suburb

Basement
© Flickr/Gnusam
According to locals the mystery of the unusual sounds is not new, but has, in fact, been going on for years — decades even.

For Cheverly mayor Mike Callahan the mystery is undefinable, and he accepts the phenomenon as a "fun fact" that brings the town together.

"The booms are one of our amazing little mysteries that drive us closer together," Callahan told local station NBC4. "You know, every community has its lore, has its myths."

While the mayor looks on the brighter side, not all residents feel cozy about the mysterious noises.

Cheverly resident Nikki Greco has taken matters into her own hands by keeping track of the booms, which, according to her, sound like a Mack truck ramming into her house.

Attention

Off-duty deputy shoots black bear that charged at his family near La Verne, California

Black bear
Black bear
Bears roaming a hillside neighborhood above La Verne are a common sight.

"It seems like they're the king of the neighborhood," resident Max Lopes said.

Lopes has taken several videos of bears he sees weekly.

"It seems like they're not scared of anything at all," he said.

That could be why one bear tried to attack an off-duty sheriff's deputy and his kids on Tuesday night.


Wildlife officials said it happened outside a home on Live Oak Canyon Road when the deputy spotted three bears going through a trash can. The bigger bear, weighing an estimated 400 pounds, tried to attack.

Snowflake Cold

Get ready for bone-chilling back-to-back Arctic fronts this weekend

weather December 15
© The Weather ChannelCurrent Wind Chills
A bitter cold arctic air mass has swept through a large swath of the central and eastern states to close out the workweek, sending wind chills into the teens, 20s and 30s below zero in some locations. Extreme cold will continue this weekend as an even more frigid blast of arctic air plunges into the central states on heels of Winter Storm Decima.

Some locations have seen or could see their coldest December temperatures in several years, and some record lows may be threatened.

Forecast: Arctic Cold Round #1

Thursday morning, subzero low temperatures were recorded as far south as Iowa, northern Illinois and northern Indiana. Winds chills in the 20s and 30s below zero were widespread throughout the Upper Midwest.

Chicago saw its first December subzero low temperature since Dec. 24, 2013. The mercury plunged to minus 20 degrees in Grand Forks, North Dakota, making it the coldest December reading in the city since Dec. 23, 2013.

US temps December 14, 2016
Current Temperatures
Great Falls, Montana, recorded its tenth straight day in a row with subzero lows on Wednesday morning. That is longest such streak there since February 1996.

On Tuesday morning, subzero lows were recorded as far south as northern Iowa and northern Nebraska. Wind chills dropped as low as minus 36 degrees in Winthrop, Minnesota.

The Northeast will see its coldest high temperatures through Friday with daytime readings 10-25 degrees below average. Temperatures will not rise out of the 20s along the Interstate 95 corridor in New York City and Philadelphia. Highs in the teens and even a few single digits will grip New England Friday.