The onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere was lightning fast, sea surface temperatures are dropping globally and snow records drop across Europe, Asia and USA. The Southern hemisphere is far below normal temperatures and Australia loses up to 90% of its wheat crop due to frost and cold throughout 2016.
A Canterbury University lecturer has shed some light on the bubbles found off the Kaikoura Peninsula.
The phenomena was found in Whalers Bay by Matt Foy and Connor Stapley and it is believed they have been caused by the magnitude 7.8 quake.
Dr Matthew Hughes says the bubbles are likely dissolved gases in the sea floor which have become exposed by new cracks in the rock, and are now venting to the surface.
He says its very much like any other geologically active part of New Zealand.
The bubbles are a combination of several different gases, but the strong smell likely comes from hydrogen sulfide.
Comment: Here's a small sample we've collected of other recent natural outgassing related events:
Rivers ran through Jane Robertson's Capalaba property
Heavy rainfall and widespread flooding has battered south-east Queensland.
Stationary storms made their way down the Queensland coastline with bayside suburbs in Brisbane recording almost 100 millimetres of rainfall.
Brisbane Airport copped 97 millimetres of rain, mostly between 6am and 7am while Redcliffe received 87 millimetres on Saturday.
Ransome recorded a 133mm of rain and 117mm of rain fell at Mt Cotton West.
Affected residents took to social media to share their photos and videos of the flooding.
Resident Lyndie Jeffrey, who posted a video of her Capalaba property being flooded as cars drove through stormwaters sawrote: 'Our property in Capalaba, haven't seen it like this in 22 years.'
A "severe" magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit near Wairoa in the Hawke's Bay tonight.
Almost 1000 people reported on GeoNet having felt the earthquake, which followed a magnitude 4.6 jolt that shook Wellington about 3.20am.
GeoNet said the Wairoa earthquake struck at 13km deep at 8.21pm. It was centred 35km north of Wairoa.
Wellington's early-morning aftershock registered at a depth of 17 kilometres and its epicentre was 30 kilometres southwest of the capital, about halfway across Cook Strait.
More than 1500 people on either side of the strait reported feeling the shake on the government's seismic monitoring website, GeoNet.
Climate change has hit the Arctic worse than ever over the past few years, but that doesn't mean the Northern Hemisphere is going to be experiencing a mild winter this year.
In fact, a new study shows that the polar vortex is shifting, and it's going to make winters on the east coast of the US and parts of Europe even longer, with exceptionally cold temperatures expected during March.
The polar vortex is that lovely zone of cold air that swirls around the Arctic during winter. When parts of the vortex break apart and splinter off, it can cause unseasonably cold conditions in late-winter and early-spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
This happened in early 2014 - as you can see in the satellite image above - and caused an extreme weather event in the northern US and Canada.
But not many people realise there are actually two polar vortices: the stratospheric polar vortex, which is about 19,800 metres (65,000 feet) above the surface of the Earth; and the tropospheric polar vortex around 5,500 to 9,100 metres (18,000 to 30,000 feet) above the surface.
A new earthquake has hit northwestern China near the border with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
A 5.0 magnitude earthquake has occurred in northwestern China, near the border with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where the day before a 6.7 magnitude earthquake was registered, the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) said on Saturday.
According to Chinese seismologists, the earthquake center was at a depth of 6 kilometers and was located in Akto county of the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang. Tremors were recorded at 17:23 (09:23 GMT).
There are currently no reported casualties.
On Friday night, the area was hit by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. According to reports, the earthquake killed an Akto County resident. A total of six homes were affected by the earthquake.
Angelo Caballero ABS-CBN News Sat, 26 Nov 2016 13:41 UTC
Lightning struck a house here past midnight Saturday, allegedly igniting a fire which killed two people.
According to the Banggoy Fire Station, witnesses claimed that lightning hit the house of Eden Josephine David, the assistant regional director of the Department of Tourism-XI, at Purok 4, Barangay 33-D before the fire started.
The lightning possibly hit the main electricity line, causing fire to break out at the second floor of the house. It spread quickly as the house was made of light materials.
David's nine-year old son John Brent and their 19-year old housemaid Kimberly Luayon died in the fire.
David, her daughter, sister-in-law Imelda Motoc, and housemaid Rowena Arisgado sustained minor burns.
Another househelper identified as Reymar Sabordo suffered 3rd degree burns on her body.
This video uploaded to YouTube shows two overhead flashes in Surgut, Western Siberia on 22nd November 2016. The description indicates a thunder-like crackling sound was also heard. Was this lightning or another type of electrical discharge? Or perhaps overhead meteor explosions?
Sarah Knapton The Telegraph Thu, 24 Nov 2016 22:04 UTC
The Endurance, trapped in sea ice
Antarctic sea ice had barely changed from where it was 100 years ago, scientists have discovered, after poring over the logbooks of great polar explorers such as Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton.
Experts were concerned that ice at the South Pole had declined significantly since the 1950s, which they feared was driven by man-made climate change.
But new analysis suggests that conditions are now virtually identical to when the Terra Nova and Endurance sailed to the continent in the early 1900s, indicating that declines are part of a natural cycle and not the result of global warming.
It also explains why sea ice levels in the South Pole have begun to rise again in recent years, a trend which has left climate scientists scratching their heads.
The Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico is entering an new phase of enhanced activity.
After several explosions at night, the volcano had a strong eruption ejecting ash and gas 5 km above the crater.
324 exhalations of low intensity have been recorded within the last 24 hours at Popocatepetl volcano. The most important occurred on November 24, 2016 at 11:05am.
At night, seven explosions happened at 00:14, 00:51, 01:37, 01:43, 03:16, 06:22 and 08:07 am, which increased the intensity of the incandescence and generated plumes less than 1 km in height.
Today, November 25, 2016, at 09:45 pm an explosion generated an eruptive column that reached 5 km above the crater.
Comment: See also: