What caused this mysterious blue streak across Houston's morning sky? Meteorologist Travis Herzog says this is a thunderstorm cloud shadow illuminated by crepuscular rays.
These cloud shadows were formed by tropical showers below the horizon in the Gulf near Louisiana. They were visible all the way to New Braunfels and south Texas.
Nearly 500 dead horseshoe crabs have washed ashore at a tidal flat here, and researchers have no idea what is killing the endangered species that dates back 200 million years.
According to a local horseshoe crab protection group, 50 to 60 dead horseshoe crabs are found annually at the Sonehigata tidal flat, one of the largest habitats of horseshoe crabs in Japan. But 490--the largest number over the last 20 years--have already been discovered this year.
Hiroko Koike, a researcher at the Kyushu University Museum who studies horseshoe crabs at Sonehigata, said the overall health of the crabs appears good.
"Rises in the sea level caused by global warming, shortages of places to lay eggs and a lack of nutrition could have resulted in their deaths," Koike said. "We have to be careful to identify the cause."
The college student who came within inches of a great white shark off the coast of Santa Barbara said he definitely thought his life was "finished."
It was like a scene from a terrifying movie. Tyler McQuillen was spearfishing when he was attacked by a great white shark. A GoPro camera captured the frightening encounter.
"I thought it was my friend Brent playing a joke on me, just tugging on my fin. So I thought nothing of it and I didn't turn around," he said.
But that quickly changed once McQuillen felt one of his flippers being ripped right off.
"And I turned around and he was thrashing my fin, and I realized it was a great white," he said. That's when he knew - it was on.
The 22-year-old quickly retrieved the spear gun he had dropped- just in time.
More than 130 homes in 13 districts involving 9 residential areas and 4 villages were affected by a sudden hailstorm which saw ice the size of rocks hurtling into homes in the early morning thunderstorm yesterday.
In the 3:15 am downpour, it wasn't torrents of water but rock-hard hailstones that rained down, jolting many from their sleep with the unusual sound of stones hitting their roofs and gardens.
Many Malacca residents awoken by the unusually noisy 'rain' recorded the incident and shared photographs on social media.
Among the affected residential areas are Taman Keris Satria, Taman Keris Emas (9, Taman Peruna, Taman Terendak Permai, Taman Pahlawan, Taman Desa Taming Sari, Taman Sungai Udang and Taman Bandar Baru, Berita Harian reports.
Several villages also reported damage, among them Kampung Paya Rumput Jaya, Kampung Baru Sungai Udang and Kampung Sungai Udang Jaya.
Sungai Udang village head Mohd Nizam Dawood told the Malay news daily that the hailstorm lasted for 30 minutes with many residents reporting finding ice bigger than marbles in the vicinity of their homes.
Marine biologists in New Hampshire were baffled after a deceased swordfish was found washed up on the shore of a local beach.
New Hampshire Marine Mammal Rescue arrived to investigate what happened to the large fish, which is typically found in deeper water.
"We decided to take it back to the Center to see if we could find any internal signs that may point to why it washed up, as swordfish would normally be offshore in deep water," New Hampshire Marine Mammal Rescue said.
Rescue Assistant and Aquarist Rob Royer performed an informal necropsy on the swordfish and did not discover any signs of having been hooked, according to CBS Boston.
The rescue group also reported there were no signs of plastic in its stomach, but said it appeared it had not eaten in some time.
Two persons were killed and their wives injured after they were struck by lightning at Palli Padmanavpur in Odisha's Ganjam district today.
The victims, who were working in their farms, had taken shelter under a tree during a sudden downpour when they were struck by lightning, said inspector in-charge of Berhampur sadar police station, S S Mohapatra.
The dead were identified as locals and their wives were admitted to MKCG Medical College and Hospital where their condition was stated to be out of danger, he said.
Two persons were killed and as many others injured after lightning struck them in a village of Bhojpur district in today, an official said.
The incident took place at Chowkipur village as lightning struck the four people while they were grazing cattle in a field, District Magistrate Virendra Prasad Yadav said.
While two persons, identified as Pintu Paswan (22) and Dasai Kumar (15) died on the spot, burn injuries, he said, the injured were admitted to Sadar hospital.
Yadav also announced an ex-gratia assistance of Rs. four lakh each to the kin of the two victims.
Mosaic says 215 million gallons of "slightly radioactive" water has leaked into the Florida aquifer since August 27 after a sinkhole opened under a retention pond in Mulberry.
It's happening at Mosaic's New Wales plant in Polk County. A representative for Mosiac told FOX 13 News, the plant stores wastewater in ponds on top of a huge gypsum stack.
While a super typhoon was wreaking havoc in East Asia, a little tropical storm named Julia formed in Florida on Tuesday night. Yes, "in" Florida.
As in, it formed over land -- a very rare occurrence, meteorologically speaking.
The center of the storm was over the city of Jacksonville when it was given tropical storm status late Tuesday night -- but that decision caused some controversy.
'Persistent organization'
At 11 p.m., the National Hurricane Center made the decision to name the storm after a small area of tropical storm-force winds was consistently reported for 12 hours.
"Given this persistent organization, the system is classifiable as a tropical cyclone and advisories are being initiated on Tropical Storm Julia, the tenth named storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season," the center said in its discussion Tuesday night.
Comment: "Only about 2 percent of all tropical cyclones form over land," said meteorologist Dylan Dreyer. "In fact, it's been 29 years since any tropical storm has formed over U.S. land anywhere — Beryl, which formed over southeastern Louisiana in 1988."
Comment: The really big one: The next full Cascadia rupture will spell the worst natural disaster in North American history