Earth ChangesS


Snowman

US: Another winter storm sweeps across South

A winter storm moved east from Arkansas to the Carolinas Thursday, bringing freezing temperatures and up to half a foot of snow.

"I've been here a long time and I've never seen anything like it," said Sharon Hickman, who manages Back Yard Burgers in Tupelo, Miss.

Record-breaking low temperatures were reported in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas, where the storm hit Wednesday, AccuWeather.com reported.

In Bartlesville, Okla., the temperature was 28 degrees below zero at around 7 a.m., a record for the city and the state. It was colder in Bartlesville than at the South Pole, still in its summer season, where the low temperature Thursday was 23 degrees below zero.

Henry Margusity, an AccuWeather meteorologist, said conditions were perfect for a super-freeze with a combination of an arctic air mass and snow covering the ground. Clear skies and low winds mean the sun's heat is reflected back into space, he said.

Much of the south has seen unusually wintry weather this year. In some areas, the most recent storm mixed sleet and freezing rain in with the snow, CNN reported.

Arrow Up

US: Get ready for higher food prices

Image
© Adam Zyglis/EagleCartoons
Warnings of higher food prices headed for American supermarkets and restaurants were swallowed easily across much of farm country Wednesday.

The big gulp came when the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that global demand had pushed U.S. corn supplies to their lowest point in 15 years.

The price of corn, which has doubled over the past six months, affects most food products in supermarkets. It's used to feed the cattle, hogs and chickens that fill the meat aisles.

It is the main ingredient in Cap'n Crunch and Doritos. Turned into syrup, it sweetens most soft drinks and many foods.

Corn also is part of the agricultural blend that fuels the economies of Nebraska, Iowa and other farming states. Iowa is the nation's top corn-producing state; Nebraska is third.

Shoppers could see higher grocery bills as early as three months from now, though most of the impact won't be felt for another six months, said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Illinois.

Chicken prices are among the first to rise because the bird's life span is so short that higher feed costs get factored in quickly, he said. Price hikes for hogs take about a year and cattle two years. Prices on packaged foods take six or seven months to rise.

Snowman

Icy weather making burials difficult

Deep snow, frozen ground, clogged roads complicate task

The harsh winter has made life difficult in myriad ways. Tending to the dead is no exception.

Weeks of heavy snowfall have overwhelmed graveyards across the region, clogging roads and completely covering rows of headstones. The thick layers of snow and frost have made burials far more costly and arduous, taxing understaffed town crews and forcing dozens of cemeteries to close their gates.

In Derry, N.H., officials have suspended burials for at least the next month to give exhausted workers a break and to focus manpower on clearing roads. More than 100 Jewish cemeteries across Massachusetts, shrouded under a deep blanket of snow and ice, are indefinitely closed to visitors.

"We don't like to restrict anyone's visitation rights,'' said Stan Kaplan, executive director of the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts. "But for the safety of the public, we have to do it.''

Snow-narrowed roadways have left little room for cars to pass, and footpaths to graves are treacherous, Kaplan said.

Cemeteries in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire are continuing to perform burials. But the heaping snow piles and deep frost have appreciably complicated the process.

"We have more than 18 inches of frost, and you have to jack-hammer certain spots to get through,'' said Michael Fowler, director of public works in Derry. "It just reached a point where the effort was just too great.''

Igloo

Snow, Ice Spreading Across the South

Image
© AccuWeather.com
The winter storm that clobbered the southern Plains Tuesday into Wednesday will push from west to east across much of the South into early Thursday with snow, some ice and travel hazards.

The lower Mississippi Valley endured the brunt of the winter storm into Wednesday evening. Up to 20 inches of snow has fallen on parts of Arkansas.

Blinding, heavy snow had already hit Little Rock and Memphis, while a brief area of sleet fell farther south into northern Louisiana Wednesday afternoon.

The snow and/or ice crossing the southern Appalachians will reach the Carolina coast tonight. The cities of Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Raleigh will get enough of the wintry stuff to make for slippery roads into the morning drive Thursday.

A few locations in this slot, including the southern Appalachians, could wind up with a few inches, where more snow falls rather than sleet or freezing rain.

Better Earth

Sri Lanka Death Toll Increases, Flood Waters Receding

The Disaster Management Center (DMC) has stated that the death toll due to heavy rains and floods that affected nearly 1.2 million persons has increased to 16.

The DMC states that 1,185,601 people belonging to 318,417 families were affected in total by the adverse weather conditions.

The rains have also completely destroyed 2,591.

Meanwhile the Uva Province EducatioSecretaryl Wijesiri has said that all government schools in the Badulla District will be closed tomorrow (10) and the day after (11).

He has said the schools will remain closed till Monday (14) due to the disaster situation that has arisen in the area following heavy rains.

Some roads in the District are still unstable while displaced persons were still being sheltered in some schools.

However, families affected by floods are now returning to their homes since the flood waters are receding in the Eastern Province.

Child Development and Women Affairs Deputy Minister M.L.A.M. Hisbullah has told the media that most of the welfare camps will be closed today.

Welfare centers in the Ampara District are to be closed tomorrow, government officials in the Ampara District have said.

Bizarro Earth

Celebes Sea - Earthquake Magnitude 6.5

Celebes Sea Quake_100211
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 14:39:28 UTC

Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:39:28 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
4.126°N, 123.017°E

Depth
528.4 km (328.3 miles)

Region
CELEBES SEA

Distances
310 km (190 miles) SE of Jolo, Sulu Archipelago, Philippines

325 km (200 miles) SW of General Santos, Mindanao, Philippines

1185 km (730 miles) S of MANILA, Philippines

2130 km (1320 miles) ENE of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Cloud Lightning

UK: Perfect storm for a flood

Image
© Unknown
Major Thames River flooding is possible this spring because of a three-kilometre-long ice jam which remains in place at the river mouth.

"The potential for serious flooding exists -there is no question about it,'' Jerry Campbell, general manager of the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority, said Tuesday.

He said there is little, if anything, the authority can do other than closely monitor the river and report to municipal officials along the waterway.

Campbell said it's hoped the ice jam will slowly melt away in the coming weeks.

"What we fear is a warm spell accompanied by a heavy downpour of rain,'' he said. "That could spell disaster for residents in the Lighthouse Cove area as well as those upstream from Lake St. Clair.

Campbell said no contingency plans are in place to use dynamite to break up the ice jam or hire an ice breaker tug.

Bizarro Earth

6.1-Magnitude Quake Shakes Southern Siberia

Siberian republic of Khakassia
© RIA Novosti. ShidlovskiySiberian republic of Khakassia
An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck Khakassia, Russian republic in Southern Siberia, local media reported on Thursday.

So far, there are no reports about the casualties and destruction.

The quake occurred at 8:35 a.m. Moscow time (0535 GMT) and its epicenter was 170 km to the south of the city Abakan, in the Western Sayans mountain range, said Siberian branch of Russia's Emergency Ministry.

The quake was also felt in six Siberian regions, including major cities of Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk. All of the regions are over 500 km from the epicenter.

Local media said this is the first major earthquake in Southern Siberia since October 2000.

Cloud Lightning

Sri Lankan floods wreak havoc

The flood situation across Sri Lanka was easing off, but receding waters could reveal hundreds of thousands of acres of paddy fields totally destroyed in the two rounds of flooding in less than a month, officials said on Wednesday. At least 19 persons have been killed and nearly 1.2 millionaffected in several districts in north, central and eastern Sri Lanka in the second round of floods that swept the country in the last seven to ten days.

In the first round of rain and floods in January, more than 40 were killed and at least 1.1 million were impacted.

"The havoc caused by two rounds of flooding in Sri Lanka in January and February have destroyed 576,121 acres of paddy land in all 25 districts in the country. The total paddy cultivated was in 1.82 million acres and the total acres that were destroyed were 31% of the staple rice crop," the official government portal said on Wednesday.

In the district of Matale alone, around 4336 farmers had possibly lost their source of livelihood, latest statistics with the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) revealed.

Paddy and other field crops planted in Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts have completely been lost.

Many of the flooded areas were barely recovering from the January floods when intense rain over three to four days, again inundated fields, washed away homes and roads, triggered landslides and forced lakhs of people to take shelter in makeshift camps.

Igloo

Arkansas braces for another winter storm

Little Rock - A powerful storm system could bring more than a half-foot of snow to Arkansas, marking the fifth episode of severe winter weather in the past month for a state that can go an entire season without receiving major wintry precipitation.

More than 6 inches of snow was expected in western and central Arkansas. National Weather Service meteorologist Tabitha Clarke said beleaguered far northwest Arkansas would escape the worst of the storm.

The highest snow totals are expected to be in the Ouachita Mountains in western and southwestern Arkansas.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Mike Beebe ordered only essential personnel to report to state offices in Little Rock.

And many school districts have canceled classes for Wednesday.