Winter's brutal assault continued Wednesday night as another snowstorm roared its way across the nation through the end of the week, hitting areas where millions were already without electricity in record-breaking cold.
More than 100 million Americans are in the path of the storm as it tracks from the southern Plains to the East Coast over the next few days, the National Weather Service said.
But the nation's heartland will get some relief over the weekend, the weather service reported, as the frigid air will begin to moderate over the next couple days.
The US Geological Survey said the quake had a depth of 12.6km.
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the same area last week, triggering a tsunami warning in New Caledonia and its neighbours.
It prompted the National Emergency Management Agency to issue a tsunami threat and urged residents along the country's northern coast to avoid beaches and shore areas.
It told people in or near the sea from Ahipara Bay to the Bay of Islands, Great Barrier Island, and from Matata to Tolaga Bay to move out of the water, off beaches and shore areas and away from harbours, rivers and estuaries.
The cold weather worldwide is exposing the weakness of green energies and transportation systems based on them. For example Texas has seen millions of people impacted by rolling blackouts due to solar panels being covered by snow and wind turbines being frozen still.
The extremely cold weather has also led to transport disruptions all over Germany. One example is Berlin, Germany's fleet of electric city buses.
As we previously reported on the ice-storm Texas frozen wind power - outages ensue, electricity now at unheard of $9000 per megawatt-hour I have friends in Texas that are reporting dire conditions thanks to the "green energy" grid failing to produce enough power. One friend and her husband are trapped in Austin, TX and have received this letter from the hotel they are staying at - it's mind-blowing. She says in a Facebook post:
"Our hotel is out of food, electricity, water and is giving us glow sticks for light. We're here until the weekend in below freezing weather."
Snow blanketed parts of Syria Lebanon and Israel on Wednesday, blocking roads disrupting traffic and postponing exams at some universities.
Large parts of Syria were covered, including the capital Damascus which is witnessing this winter's first snowfall. Snow was as high as 15 cm (6 inches) in the mountains of Sweida province, according to the official state news agency SANA.
Roads in some provinces were blocked. In the central province of Hama, bulldozers shoveled snow to open roads while vehicles skidded on ice, further causing traffic disruption.
The University of Damascus called off mid-term exams scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in all its branches around Syria because of the extreme weather conditions. The country's ports remained open.
Comment: More film of the countries hit:
Heavy snowfall, gales as winter storm hits Middle East , 16_17 feb 2021
Snow is blanketing parts of Syria, Lebanon and Israel, JORDAN, NORTH SAUDI ARABIA AND SAINT CATHERINE,EGYPT ,blocking roads, disrupting traffic and even delaying exams at some universities
00:00 JORDAN SNOWFALL
05:09 SYRIA , SNOWFALL
06:36 LEBANON , SNOWFALL
07:57 ISRAEL , SNOWFALL
08:40 Palestine , SNOWFALL
09:42 SAUDI ARABIA, TABUK , SNOWFALL
10:23 EGYPT, SAINT CATHERINE , SNOWFALL
Kizzi Asala with AFP AfricaNews Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:22 UTC
The Green Mountain in northeastern Libya was veiled white this week as snow fell in the area for the first time in 15 years.
The rare flurry began on Monday and is expected to continue for at least two more days.
Families from the Sidi Mohamed Al-Hamri area dressed warmly and headed outside for fun-filled snowball fights, to build snowmen, and enjoy the wintry scenery.
A five-year-old boy was mauled to death by a pack of stray dogs near a dump yard for dead animals, locally known as 'hadda rodi', at Behra village of Sangrur district on Tuesday.
The incident took place when the victim's mother, a domestic help, had gone to work and the boy was trying to catch a kite with people in the area celebrating the Basant Panchami festival.
Some passersby rescued the child, identified as Ravneet, when they noticed him being dragged by the stray dogs.
They took him to the Dhuri civil hospital from where he was referred to Sangrur town.
A historic cold outbreak has led in the coldest air in decades across the United States, reaching all the way to the Rio Grande and bringing record amounts of snow and ice to the Deep South.
Here are some of the records that have been broken across the United States by the cold weather as well as some of the more interesting statistics recorded due to the extreme temperatures.
Extreme cold yet a record high
There was a 130-degree spread in temperatures across the US yesterday, from 90 degrees in Florida to 40 below zero in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
A magnitude 5.5 earthquake near Patras, Achaea, Western Greece, Greece, was reported only 6 minutes ago by the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), considered one of the key international agencies that monitor seismic activity worldwide.
The earthquake occurred at a shallow depth of 10 km beneath the epicenter early morning on Wednesday 17 February 2021 at 5:36 am local time. The exact magnitude, epicenter, and depth of the quake might be revised within the next few hours or minutes as seismologists review data and refine their calculations, or as other agencies issue their report.
Based on the preliminary seismic data, the quake should have been widely felt by almost everyone in the area of the epicenter. It might have caused light to moderate damage.
Moderate shaking probably occurred in Kastraki (pop. 910) located 7 km from the epicenter, Nafpaktos (pop. 13,400) 12 km away, and Aigio (pop. 20,400) 19 km away.
45% of the US Winter Wheat crop is estimated to have been damaged as the polar vortex (also known as meridional jetstream flows associated with Grand Solar Minima) brings Texas' power grid down.
Comment:
See also: