Earth ChangesS


Ice Cube

Winter storm Dion to bring more snow and ice to U.S. from west to the northeast

Image
© wunderground.comWinter Storm Dion

Winter Storm Dion, the fourth named winter storm of the 2013-14 season, will result in more snow and ice for some of the same areas impacted by Winter Storm Cleon.

Dion initially will produce snow in the West through Saturday night.

From there, Dion will then spread snow and ice from the Midwest to the Mid-South, Ohio Valley, Middle Atlantic and Northeast Saturday night into Monday.

Here's a look at the forecast through the beginning of next week.

Through Saturday Night: West Snow, Ice Returns to South West Coast

Dion pushed into the West Coast Friday into early Saturday.

With an Arctic air mass in place, snow fell at very low elevations in Oregon and California. In fact, accumulating snow was reported all the way to sea level along the coast of Oregon in the town of Newport. Many cities along the I-5 corridor in western Oregon also saw accumulating snow, including Eugene (6"), Corvallis (9") and Medford (3.2"). Snow was also reported in Redding, Calif., Ukiah, Calif. and just northeast of Fresno, Calif.

Through early Sunday, Dion will produce snow across Nevada, Utah, southern Idaho, northern and central Arizona, northern New Mexico and Colorado. This will impact travel along the I-40 corridor, including the Flagstaff, Ariz. area where 4 to 8 inches of snow is expected.

Father north, Salt Lake City could potentially see 2 to 6 inches of snow.

Snowflake

Europe winter storm with hurricane-force winds claims nine lives, leaves thousands without power


Image
© AFP/ Bernd WustneckPeople stand on a dune while storm front Xaver hits the shore of Rostock-Warne-muende, northern Germany, December 6, 2013
Icy winter storms with hurricane-force winds Friday lashed northern Europe, where the death toll rose to nine while hundreds of thousands were left without power or stranded by transport chaos.


Emergency services across the region battled overnight to evacuate flooded harbour areas, sandbag sodden dykes and repair damage from toppled trees that crashed onto houses, roads, train tracks and power lines. Atlantic storm "Xaver", having barrelled across Britain where two people died Thursday, packed winds of up to 158 kilometres (98 miles) per hour as it hit Germany, also battering the Netherlands, Poland and southern Scandinavia.

Blackouts hit 400,000 homes in Poland and affected 50,000 people in Sweden, while thousands of air passengers were stranded as flights were cancelled at Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Gdansk and other airports. In Germany alone, more than 500 flights were scrapped, said an online travel portal, while dozens of trains were also cancelled.

Image
© AFP/Justin TallisA postman looks at a flooded street in Lowest-oft, eastern England on December 6, 2013
The highest ocean swells in decades - due to the combined effect of strong winds and a large tidal surge - smashed into dykes in northern Germany and the Netherlands, which however reported no major breaches. The total death toll rose further, with one man killed by a falling tree in southern Sweden, and three died in Poland. "A tree crashed down onto a car on a local road" near the northern Polish town of Lembork, said firefighter spokesman Bogdan Madej, quoted by television station Polsat News.

"Three people died on the spot, another was taken to hospital." The previous day in Britain, a lorry driver died when his vehicle toppled onto other cars in Scotland, while a man riding a mobility scooter was struck by a falling tree in Nottinghamshire, central England.

Arrow Down

Cause of big seabird die-off in Western Alaska pinpointed

Image
© USFWSCrested auklet is one species of seabird that was necropsied at the U.S. Geological Service National Wildlife Center in Madison, Wis.
Hundreds of seabirds that washed up dead on a Bering Sea island perished from avian cholera, a highly contagious and fast-killing waterfowl infection that had never been detected in Alaska before, according to state wildlife officials.

Strains of the bacterial disease generally do not pose a health risk for people, said Kimberlee Beckmen, a veterinarian at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. But residents of St. Lawrence Island, where the birds were found last month, should take care not to eat sick animals. People also should not handle the birds if they have cuts on their hands.

"It is always advisable to cook meat thoroughly and never eat sick birds or animals that may have died from a disease," she said in a statement. "Anyone touching a sick animal should wear gloves and wash hands with soap and water after handling animals or butchering meat."

Lethal bacteria

Residents of St. Lawrence Island who collected the carcasses and sent them off for study late last month suspected that recent Bering Sea storms killed the birds. Others feared it was seaborne nuclear radiation from the Fukushima meltdown in Japan.

Snowflake Cold

U.S. freeze shows no sign of weekend melt after deadly storm

Image
© Reuters/Bob King/Duluth News TribuneGary Larson uses a chainsaw to delimb a large spruce tree that was toppled by strong winds during a snowstorm in Duluth, Minnesota 4 December 2013.
Freezing weather in the U.S. gripped parts of Texas and Arkansas on Saturday, with hundreds of thousands of people coping in the cold without power after a winter storm made roads impassable and caused severe flight delays.

More than 3,300 travelers were forced to sleep on cots overnight at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where workers had managed to thaw only two of its seven runways by Saturday morning.

Airlines canceled more than 350 flights from DFW that were scheduled for Saturday, the airport said in a statement.

At the height of the storm, some 267,000 electricity outages were reported in Texas, according to utility provider Oncor, but that number was down to about 130,000 early on Saturday. Oncor said it hoped to get power restored to "nearly all of its customers by Sunday night.

Forecasters predicted sub-zero temperatures and icy conditions in the region for the rest of the weekend, with layers of ice and sleet up to 3 inches thick around Dallas. The city has already canceled a marathon planned for Sunday.

Cold weather was due to roll into the Northeast on Sunday through Monday. Accuweather predicted a "wintry mess" of ice, freezing rain and some of the first snow accumulations of the season from Virginia to New England, which may cause further travel delays.

Source: Reuters

Snowflake Cold

Global warming NOT! Cold-snap stories from frozen Vegas to the frigid Midwest

Image
Snow lined roads even in normally warm Henderson, Nevada

Yahoo News readers share their stories from the storm that's freezing the country


Heavy snow, freezing rain, slick roads and otherwise miserable winter conditions have stretched across a wide swath of the country, from normally toasty Las Vegas to the upper Midwest. On Thursday, the mercury in western Utah plummeted to more than 15 degrees below zero. In Austin, Texas, it was a chilly 34. Denver stalled at a frosty minus 10.

"This is unusual," says Andrea Kairis, a resident of Great Falls, Mont., where temperatures dipped to minus 13.

By Friday, the storm moved further east and blasted Texas, the Southern plains and the Tennessee Valley. The storm is expected to hit the Northeast this weekend.

Yahoo News is collecting anecdotes from residents in the storm's path. Below are lightly edited excerpts from stories they shared with us this week.

Friday

Hundreds of flights canceled at DFW

The first major storm of the season dumped at least three inches of sleet in parts of North Texas this morning, bringing with it cold temperatures that are expected to last through early next week.

Dallas resident Haley Henderson, a student at Dallas Baptist University, found the lack of preparedness for the storm by city authorities frustrating.

"I find our way of handling the weather to be inconvenient. It's unsafe that the entire city apparently ceases to exist under these conditions," she said.

All classes at DBU were canceled today, as well as night classes on Thursday. The campus will remain closed for the rest of the weekend, affecting various holiday activities such as the Fine Arts Christmas Festival.

American Airlines, American Eagle and Southwest Airlines have canceled nearly 1,000 flights to and from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field due to the storm. Captain John Carbonari, a pilot with American from Colleyville, has been unable to return to Texas due to the extreme weather.

"I was flying the East Coast the past four days and my last flight into DFW was cancelled," he said. "I wish I were there for the snow. My kids are out of school today horsing around in it."

- Stephen Boyd

Cloud Lightning

Seal pups washed away by England tidal surge

Image
John M Saxton took this photograph of the seals at Horsey shortly before the tidal surge struck
Conservation authorities say hundreds of seals may have fallen victim to this week's floods in eastern England, and are warning people not to try to help stranded pups.

The National Trust says gray seal pups have been washed from a beach at Horsey in the county of Norfolk.

Seals arrive on the beach each November to give birth, and the pups spend their first few weeks on the dunes.

The trust says the pups should be left alone so that their mothers can try to find them.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says it has "serious concerns about seal colonies" along the coast.

Eastern England was swamped Thursday by the biggest tidal surge in 60 years, amid a powerful storm with hurricane-force gusts of wind.

Source: AP

Red Flag

Maui shark attack is 13th this year in Hawaii

Image
Maui shark attack is the eighth this year near Maui and the 13th shark attack statewide. With the latest Maui shark attack, officials are unsure as to why the incidents are occurring more frequently than usual.

A kayak fisherman died Monday off Maui after a shark bit his dangling foot, officials said.

Maui County Ocean Safety officials received a report that a shark had attacked a man fishing in a kayak between Maui and Molokini, a small island less than three miles (4.8 kilometers) off the southwest coast of Maui that is popular for diving and snorkeling.

The victim was fishing with artificial lures to attract baitfish, a news release from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources said. The Maui County Police Department identified the kayak fisherman as 57-year-old Patrick Briney of Stevenson, Washington state.

His fishing partner tied a tourniquet on the man and sought help from a nearby charter tour boat. The boat took them to shore, and the man was then taken to a hospital, the state said. It's unclear when he was pronounced dead.


Arrow Down

Bacteria kills hundreds of loons In eastern Lake Ontario

Image
A dangerous bacteria has turned up again in Lake Ontario and it's blamed for the deaths of hundreds of birds.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation says Type E botulism is back in the eastern basin of Lake Ontario.

The DEC says 200 to 300 common loons have washed ashore along Jefferson and northern Oswego County shorelines.

The loon deaths were all attributable to type E botulism.

Long-tailed ducks, grebes and gulls have also been found.

The DEC says it hasn't seen this many loon die on Lake Ontario since 2006.

Type E botulism is caused by a bacterial toxin produced by Clostridium botulinum, a widespread bacterium in the sediments of the Great Lakes.

Certain environmental conditions cause this strain of Clostridium to produce a toxin that can spread through the food web of the lakes.

First documented in waterbirds from Lake Michigan in the 1960s, type E botulism was recorded irregularly for three decades in the lower Great Lakes.

Question

Mystery bird deaths at Kamfers dam, South Africa

Experts have warned that there could be a massive wipe-out of birdlife, as well as a serious threat to residents in Kimberley, as avian botulism is being suggested as the most likely cause of the deaths of more than a thousand water birds at Kamfers Dam.

A water analysis expert from the Free State, Doctor Jan Roos, together with the Provincial State Veterinarian, Doctor Mcdonald Gayakaya and Kamfers Dam farm owner, Herbert Booth, inspected the dam and found hundreds of dead or dying geese, ducks and flamingos scattered on the banks or in shallow water.
Image
© Danie Van der LithDoctor Jan Roos taking water samples from Kamfers Dam.

Roos was called in to collect water samples by Birdlife South Africa and the Save the Flamingo Association, and to do an analysis of the dam's water quality, while Gayakaya collected some of the dying birds to determine the cause of death.

The dying birds started appearing three weeks ago, according to Booth, who owns the farm on which the dam is situated.

Igloo

Cold snap felt across western half of U.S.

Great Falls, Montana
© Associated PressA Great Falls, Montana resident clears a car at Malmstrom Air Force base.
A wintry storm pushing through the western half of the country is bringing bitterly cold temperatures that prompted safety warnings for residents in the Rockies and threatened crops as far south as California.

The jet stream is much farther south than normal, allowing the cold air to push in from the Arctic and drop temperatures by 20 to 40 degrees below normal levels, AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines said Tuesday.

Areas of Montana and the Dakotas were forecast to reach lows in the minus-20s, while parts of California could see the thermometer drop to the 20s. The icy arctic blast was expected to be followed by another one later in the week, creating an extended period of cold weather that hasn't been seen since the late 1990s, meteorologists said.

Officials warned residents to protect themselves against frostbite if they are going to be outside for any length of time.