Earth ChangesS


Cassiopaea

Northern Lights shimmer over UK in stunning photos

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© REUTERSAngel of the North, Gateshead
The Northern Lights have splashed vivid colour across UK night skies once again, with stunning images captured all across the country.

The lights, also known as aurora borealis, were expected to be seen only as far south as the Midlands, but on Wednesday night, according to BBC Weather was the strongest and most widespread showing of the phenomenon in the UK since May.

As solar activity weakens, it might still be possible for those in some Northern areas to see the lights on Friday, but elsewhere, the chances are low.


Bizarro Earth

Greening: Rare, heavy September rainfalls have brought back lakes in the Sahara!

North Africa seems to be greening as a result of climate change, which mostly occurs naturally.

Satellite photos and studies have shown that the Sahara desert has been shrinking over the past 40 years, e.g. read here and here.

The latest news is from the southeastern Moroccan desert, which is among the driest around the world, where it is reported to have gotten up to 100 mm of rain within a 24 hour period in September. Hard hit were villages 400 miles from the capital city of Rabat, including Tata, reports Al Jazeera here.
Sahara LKES
© NASA Earth Observatory

Tsunami

River Lambro overflows its banks after torrential rain in Milan, Italy

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The Seveso river's anti-flood storage tank was activated while the Lambro river overflowed its banks early on Thursday due to torrential rain in Milan and in the Lombardy region.

Local authorities said an estimated 35-40 millimetres of rain had fallen since 3 in the morning in Italy's financial capital.

The park around the Lambro river was flooded and two communities living in the area were evacuated.

The weather is expected to improve in the afternoon, according to forecasts.


Arrow Down

Car swallowed whole by huge sinkhole in Bucharest, Romania

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A car fell into a huge pit that appeared on a street in Bucharest, which collapsed under the weight of a garbage truck (belonging to the waste management company URBAN).

The cobblestone street collapsed out of the blue on Wednesday morning in the Orhideelor area of Sector 6.

The images are impressive with the car completely fallen and the garbage truck partially submerged in this pit.

The firefighters are intervening to secure the area where the asphalt collapsed.

"We are intervening to secure the area at an event that occurred on Orhideelor Road in the Capital. The event involves a parked car and a garbage truck passing through the area at the time the pavement collapsed.


Doberman

Newborn dies in dog attack in Torrance, California

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A newborn baby died after being bitten by a dog in Torrance Tuesday afternoon.

The unidentified baby was just a month old, according to the Torrance Police Department, which is investigating the dog attack, said Lieutenant F. Ahmad.

Paramedics were called to a home on the 2700 block of Martha Avenue at about 12:35 p.m. Tuesday, the Torrance Police Department announced Wednesday.

"The Torrance Fire Department arrived and discovered that a dog had bit a one-month-old
child," Ahmad announced in a written statement. "The Torrance Fire Department responded and transported the child to the hospital."

The baby was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Cloud Lightning

Hurricane Milton brings heavy rain and waves to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula

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On the western tip of the Yucatan peninsula, Milton downed trees and caused phone outages and flooding as it brushed past.

The powerful hurricane is set to make landfall in the US sometime on Wednesday evening local time.


Tornado1

Tornado outbreak spawns from Hurricane Milton as funnel clouds swirl in South Florida

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© FOX WeatherA look at the tornado threat in Florida on Wednesday, October 9, 2024
More than 80 Tornado Warnings had already been issued as of Wednesday afternoon. The NWS Miami office has broken its record for the most Tornado Warnings issued in a single day.

A dangerous tornado outbreak has emerged from the outer bands of Hurricane Milton, posing a significant threat to Florida as the massive storm approaches.

More than 80 Tornado Warnings had already been issued as of Wednesday afternoon. This comes following the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center's (SPC) issuance of a Tornado Watch for parts of Central and South Florida.

The NWS Miami office has broken its record for the most Tornado Warnings issued in a single day, with more than 40 issued as of Wednesday afternoon. The previous record for that office was set during Hurricane Ian.

SOTT Logo Media

SOTT Focus: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - September 2024: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs

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This hurricane season is shaping up to be one of the most intense of recent years with many powerful storms that displayed rapid formation, fast intensification, and incredible amounts of damage due to heavy rain and floods. Here's a summary of the most significant storms in September:

Hurricane Francine rapidly intensified into a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 100 mph (155 km/h), making landfall in southern Louisiana, bringing torrential rains and severe flooding, causing widespread damage, submerging homes and infrastructure, and resulting in $1.5 billion in damages. Fortunately, there were no fatalities.

Storm Boris reached wind speeds of 75 mph (120 km/h) and rainfall of up to 14 inches (360 mm) in some areas of Central and Eastern Europe, causing the Elbe and Danube rivers to overflow, submerging entire communities, collapsing bridges, damaging homes, and sweeping away cars. The floods caused at least 19 deaths and significant economic losses, making it one of the worst flooding events in the region in decades.

Arrow Down

200 feared trapped in Brazil landslide

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Some 200 people may have been buried after a landslide occurred Monday in a port area of Manacapuru, Brazil's Amazonas state, according to official sources, Xinhua reports.

The Military Firefighters Corps of the State of Rio de Janeiro said that the land supporting part of the Terra Preta Port, located on the banks of the Amazon River, slid due to unknown reasons. Although the area was under construction, the port continued to operate as a key transportation point.

It is estimated that over 200 people were loading and unloading goods at the site when the accident occurred. Initial reports confirmed that an entire family on a floating boat was buried. Additionally, debris from boats, pipes, houses, and vehicles has been found in the waters of the Amazon River.

The landslide could be related to riverbank erosion, which has been worsened by the severe drought affecting the Amazon region.

The Manacapuru's city council issued a statement, deeply regretting the accident, and detailed that teams of the Civil Defense, the Military Firefighters Corps and other sectors are working intensively at the site to rescue those trapped.


Comment: Some observations from The Landslide Blog:
There are also some news reports about the event, both in Portuguese and in English.

The site of this landslide appears to be [-3.2950, -60.6374]. This is a Google Earth image of the location, collected in February 2024:-

Google Earth image of the site of the 7 October 2024 landslide at Porto da Terra Preta, in Manacapuru, Brazil.
Google Earth image of the site of the 7 October 2024 landslide at Porto da Terra Preta, in Manacapuru, Brazil.
This image does not give any obvious indications as to why a landslide might have occurred. However, many of the local reports suggest that construction work was under way at the site. But, significantly, the Solimões River is at a historically low level currently, and the banks of the rivers in the Amazon region suffer a phenomenon known locally as "terras caídas" (fallen lands), which describes river bank landslides. There is a literature on this type of failure - a good starting point is Bandeira et al. (2018). These failures can occur in periods when the river level is falling, and under such circumstances are generally caused by toe erosion.

I am reminded also of the riverbank failures that occurred on the Murray River in Australia during the severe drought of 2010.

A search operation is ongoing at Porto da Terra Preta - it is to be hoped that those on the site managed to escape. But this event illustrates the risks of landslides along rivers, and highlights that failures are not always due to rainy conditions.



Attention

Five sperm whales dead after stranding on Australian island

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Five sperm whales have died after becoming stranded on an island off Australia's south coast.

The whales were found on a beach on the coast of Flinders Island, which is located between the Australian mainland and the island state of Tasmania, on Sunday night and were reported to Tasmania's Marine Conservation Program, according to Xinhua news agency.

Authorities arrived at the beach on Monday morning to inspect the whales and found three of them dead.

The remaining two were administered palliative care and died on Monday night.