Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

Chaos on Scotland's roads as heavy blizzards batter the UK

Traffic cops try to help the HGV out of the jam
Traffic cops try to help the HGV out of the jam
Deep snow and sleet make conditions extremely treacherous for drivers all over the country

Scotland's roads descended into chaos today after heavy blizzards battered the country - causing a series of nasty crashes.

The dangerous whiteout arrived this morning swamping Lanarkshire before sweeping across the rest of the west of Scotland.

The heavy snow and freezing temperatures caused mayhem for drivers who encountered extremely treacherous conditions on the roads throughout the country.

A number of collisions took place in the Highlands while several other routes were closed due to ice and snow.



A car was left smashed up after it skidded into a lamppost in Lugton earlier today
A car was left smashed up after it skidded into a lamppost in Lugton earlier today

Snowflake Cold

Heavy snowfall hits Northern Japan

Snow-covered road near Shinshinotsu, Hokkaido.
© Royston ChanSnow-covered road near Shinshinotsu, Hokkaido.
Northern Japan experienced heavy snowfall on Thursday (Jan 12) as a strong cold weather front lingered over the region.

The northern island of Hokkaido, as well as in Niigata prefecture on the main island of Honshu experienced blizzard-like conditions.

Japan's Meteorological Agency issued snow storm and heavy snow warnings in the prefectures of Fukushima, Yamagata, Akita, Aomori and Hokkaido, according to AP.

The agency forecasts the cold front to continue over the weekend.

Meanwhile, local authorities have been involved in a search and rescue operation for two Japanese snowboarders who went missing in Niigata prefecture on Wednesday.


Cloud Precipitation

350 billion gallons of water top off California reservoirs after record flooding

storm drain
© Gary Reyes/Bay Area News GroupThe water level is close to running over the spillway at Lexington Reservoir in Los Gatos, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017. Heavy rains have begun to fill area reservoirs.
The powerful storms that soaked Northern California over the past week did more than trigger power outages, mudslides and flash floods.

They sent roughly 350 billion gallons of water pouring into California's biggest reservoirs — boosting their storage to levels not seen in years, forcing dam operators to release water to reduce flood risks and all but ending the five-year drought across much of Northern California, even though it remains in the south, experts said Monday.

"California is a dry state and probably always will be in most years, but we certainly don't have a statewide drought right now," said Jay Lund, a professor of engineering and director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.

"We have to be careful about crying wolf here," he said. "You have to maintain credibility with the public when there are critically dry years, so you have to call it like it is when conditions improve."

Comment: Record floods hit US West Coast, Californians evacuate by the thousands


Snowflake

An overabundance of snow causes second Colorado ski resort closure in two days

Monarch mountain
Monarch Mountain
It's a snow report that would inevitably make any powder hound salivate: 20 inches in the last 20 hours, 28 inches in the last 48 and 68 inches in the last week.

It's a lot of snow - so much snow, in fact, that Monarch Mountain is the second ski resort in two days to say it can't open due to too much of that white powder.

"Monarch Pass is closed all night for avalanche control, preventing Monarch Mountain maintenance, food service and grooming crews from reaching the mountain," the resort wrote on Facebook Tuesday. "Stay tuned for information on status and conditions for tomorrow, Jan. 11."

Nebula

Light-pillar phenomenon photographed over Ontario, Canada

Light Pillars
© Timmy Joe Elzinga/YouTubeTimmy Joe Elzinga captured this image of light pillars in northern Ontario on Jan. 6, 2017, at 1:30 a.m. local time.
Despite appearances, aliens have not descended upon a snowy scape in Ontario, Canada. Rather, an Earthly phenomenon is the cause of a ring of brilliant shafts of pastel-colored lights, captured in the wee hours of the morning by Timmy Joe Elzinga using his smartphone camera.

It was 1:30 a.m. local time in northern Ontario on Jan. 6 when Elzinga spotted the phenomenon.

"When I first saw these light beams shooting through the sky from my bathroom window, I was sure they were the northern lights," Elzinga told Live Science in an email. "I was able to capture these images both because the lights were so bright and pronounced and because I'm a bit of an amateur photographer." That experience, he said, led him to use "the manual settings on my phone to adjust the time the aperture was open to 8 seconds."

Elzinga said he wasn't aware of this light-pillar phenomenon until he saw it firsthand.

Ice from high altitudes explains the pillars that Elzinga saw, NASA said. During some cold, wintry nights, flat ice crystals that normally reside higher up in the atmosphere come fluttering closer to the ground, according to NASA. These whimsically wobbling ice crystals are sometimes referred to as crystal fog. When the crystals reflect ground lights from nearby cars and other bits of civilization, the result can be glorious: columns of light called "light pillars."

Windsock

Global hurricane force winds and out of season record rainfall, as cosmic rays increase

Squaw Valley hurricane winds
© YouTube/Adapt 2030 (screen capture)
Category 5 hurricane winds in California, Cat 3 winds in Colorado, Cat 4 winds in Europe's blizzards and the media uses a few tweets and a 10 second story to report, but a Cat 1 hurricane and its 24/7 news in summer so the media can hype global warming. All the while refusing to discuss cosmic ray intensity increasing which is the real cause of out of season floods happening globally.


Comment: See these related articles for more information:


Wolf

Serious dog attacks jump 85% in a year for Wollongong, Australia

Dog attack
The number of dog attacks in Wollongong has continued to drop in recent years, but according to the latest figures, serious attacks on people - where injuries needed medical treatment or hospitalisation - have gone up 85 per cent in one year.

Despite a small drop in the total number of attacks - from 229 to 225 attacks - only two council areas in NSW had more dog attacks than Wollongong.

Additionally, the latest statistics from the NSW Office of Local Government show more than 150 residents in the area were injured by dogs in the year to March 2016.

Fifty-two of these injuries were classed as serious, compared to only 28 classed as serious in the previous year.


Dog attacks
Only Newcastle and Gosford council recorded more attacks overall, meaning Wollongong jumped to third worst in the state after being ranked fourth in previous years.

Cloud Grey

Spectacular rare 'morning glory' roll cloud photographed over Australia

morning glory roll cloud
© Ilya KatsmanThe image was taken on a flight from Perth to Adelaide
One of the world's most spectacular cloud formations has amazed hundreds of passengers on an Australian jet.Virgin Australia tweeted an image of almost perfectly straight, serried rows of white clouds laid out below a plane flying across the Great Australian Bight.

"Flying above the clouds has never looked this good!" read the tweet. "These incredible cloud formations were seen on board VA714 from Perth to Adelaide.The mysterious white fluffy rows are examples of wave clouds, the most famous of which — the Morning Glory — is found only in Northern Australia.

While these invisible waves in the sky occur elsewhere, it's the cloud accompanying it which is so rare.Their distinctive fat sausage shape is due to water vapour rising to form the cloud then evaporating back again to the ground.

"Wave clouds can form anywhere on the continent but they are only called the Morning Glory when they form across the Gulf of Carpentaria, Neil Bennett, a Western Australian spokesman for the Bureau of Meteorology told news.com.au.

Comment: Another rare morning glory roll cloud was sighted in Queensland, Australia last July.


Cloud Precipitation

Record floods hit US West Coast, Californians evacuate by the thousands

California flooding Jan 2017
© Stephen Lam / Reuters Cesar Belvasco walks through a flooded road while carrying his belongings after his home was flooded by the overflowing Petaluma River during a winter storm in Petaluma, California, January 8, 2017
California has been hit by seven days of major rain storms, causing flooding all over the state and prompting evacuations. More heavy rain is forecasted for the Golden State in the coming days. After six years of drought, parts of California have received record amounts of rain, causing rivers to flood, roads to close, trees to fall, power to go out and businesses to shut down.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued several warnings across the state, and authorities have advised thousands of Californians to evacuate their homes after rivers overflowed.Just outside of the state capital, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department advised 2,000 residents of Wilton to leave their homes.

In Sonoma County, 3,000 residents were placed under an evacuation advisory as the Russian River flooded by more than 35 feet on Monday.

Fish

Largest coral reef in Northern Hemisphere almost dead, global warming blamed

Fish in coral reef
© Flickr/ WorldFish
The Sekiseishoko coral reef, the largest reef both in Japan and in the Northern Hemisphere, is 70 percent percent dead, and soon could face total extinction due to global warming, according to Environment Ministry of Japan.

Up to 70.1 percent of Japan's largest coral reef is dead due to bleaching caused by global warming, according to a Japanese Environment Ministry report based on an extensive study that examined conditions at 35 locations in a 20-by-15 kilometer area.

Bleaching is a process when coral's symbiont algae, crucial for the survival of the animals, dies. According to the ministry's Ishigaki Ranger Office in Okinawa, an inflow of red soil into the ocean as well as seawater contamination can cause bleaching but, according to research, the primary reason is global warming. Ocean temperatures in 2016 were about two degrees higher than normal, and this was enough for the algae to start dying. Scientist also point out that any sudden change of temperature, light and nutrients can contribute to bleaching.