Earth ChangesS


Attention

U.S.: Strange Smell Travels From West Virginia to Baltimore

bad smell
A rotten cabbage odor is wafting from west to east, and Maryland officials have taken note.

The Maryland Emergency Management Agency has been monitoring a chemical leak that happened in West Virginia. An odd odor has been reported throughout Frederick, Prince George's, and Montgomery counties, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Igloo

US: Snowstorm sweeps across Southeast and up the East Coast

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© unknownSouth Arkansas Snow
A winter storm spread snow across the Southeast and the Tennessee Valley for the second time in two weeks early Thursday, dumping more than 6 inches in parts of the region.

The National Weather Service had warned that snow accumulation in some areas, combined with freezing temperatures, could lead to hazardous driving conditions. The system was dropping sleet and rain in addition to snow.

By late Thursday morning, winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories that had been in effect in 10 states had largely expired, remaining in effect only in eastern North Carolina. Hard freeze warnings had stretched from Texas' border with Mexico into Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

Even as those alerts expired, the Weather Service put new hard freeze warnings in place for Friday morning in central Mississippi, southeast Louisiana and southern Texas.

The agency had warned that snow accumulation in some areas, combined with freezing temperatures, could lead to hazardous driving conditions late Wednesday and into Thursday morning. The system was dropping sleet and rain in addition to 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, Mississippi.

Igloo

US: Frigid Air, Snow, Worry Ranchers in Plains, South

An Icy blast tugged temperatures well below zero degrees in a large swath of the South on Thursday, leaving ranchers and farmers fretting about their animals after a winter storm dropped 2 feet of snow on parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma and left at least three people dead.

Forecasters predicted lows of minus 11 degrees in northwest Arkansas and minus 10 degrees in parts of Oklahoma. But by early morning, temperatures had dipped to minus 18 in Fayetteville and to minus 27 in Bartlesville, Okla., according to the National Weather Service.

In an area of the nation unaccustomed to such snow and subzero temperatures, those numbers had cattlemen such as Paul Marinoni crossing their fingers that pregnant cows won't give birth during the coldest hours. The newborns could stick to the ground, much like tongues on a flagpole, and die, Marinoni said.

"How do you prevent it?" Marinoni, 70, said from his farm outside Fayetteville. "You can't."

Marinoni said he leaves the cows out overnight because they're too messy to stay inside a barn. Even before the temperatures dipped to well below zero, some cows had collected fins of icicles down their backs as the snow.

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

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© 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

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© 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

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© 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.