In what could become one of California's biggest crises in years, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a statewide drought emergency Friday, an action that sets the stage for new state and federal efforts. The governor also wants to focus Californians on the possibility of water shortages. "All I can report to you is it's not raining today and it's not likely to rain for several weeks," Brown said in a news conference in San Francisco.

On Thursday, the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center forecast below normal precipitation for two-thirds of California through April. Brown's proclamation allows California to request a broad emergency declaration from President Barack Obama, which would expedite some water transfers, provide financial assistance and suspend some state and federal regulations. The situation in most of California and northern Nevada is extremely dry, according to the most recent report Thursday from the U.S. Drought Monitor, a federal website that tracks drought nationwide.

Almost 99% of California is considered abnormally dry or worse; almost two-thirds of the state is in extreme drought. 2013 became the driest year on record in California; San Francisco had the least rain since record keeping there began during the gold rush of 1849. For the past few weeks, Golden State lawmakers and California residents have been urging Brown to make the drought official, a situation made clear with bleak news from the first Sierra snowpack measurement of the season Jan. 10. The northern Sierra has a snowpack that's only 8% of normal for this date, according to the latest measurements released Thursday from the California Department of Water Resources. The central Sierra is at 16% of normal; the southern Sierra at 22%. Last year at this time, snowpack was normal or exceeded it.

The Sun's activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned. They say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit, Freezing London's River Thames. Researcher believe the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance it could lead to 'major changes' in temperatures.

Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms.

It's a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years. Reality is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. 'Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,' Richard Harrison of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire told the BBC.

'I've been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this.' He says the phenomenon could lead to colder winters similar to those during the Maunder Minimum. 'There were cold winters, almost a mini ice age. 'You had a period when the River Thames froze.'

As thousands of drivers and schoolchildren can tell you firsthand, Thursday's surprise snowfall created a near-standstill for Des Moines-area travel for hours.

At least 25 cars were involved in a pileup on Interstate Highway 80 near Waukee during the evening rush hour. Another 20-plus cars jammed U.S. Highway 169 between Adel and De Soto. Some people were without power for hours because roads laden with accidents kept crews from reaching the outage area.

And in Des Moines, at least one school bus was still taking students home after 9 p.m. because of poor road conditions.

"Those buses began their routes just as the worst of the storm was hitting the metro by surprise," district spokesman Phil Roeder said.

A bus that left Greenwood Elementary School at 4:30 p.m. was still en route to student houses at 9 p.m. Roeder said that he wasn't sure how long the route typically takes, but that students had always been home in time for dinner.

Another bus that left Windsor Elementary School at 4:30 p.m. didn't finish its route until 8:30.

Roeder said bus drivers remain in touch with dispatchers while on the road. Dispatchers then contact parents. Roeder said not every parent was contacted because of the unexpected conditions.

Iconic statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro sees right thumb damaged by lightning strike.


The iconic statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro has been damaged during a storm.

Officials said Friday that the right thumb was chipped, apparently by a lightning strike Thursday night.

The middle finger of the right hand had been chipped during a storm last month.

The 125-foot Christ the Redeemer statue sits atop a steep mountain and is often hit by strikes.

The statue underwent a $4 million renovation in 2010 to repair badly eroded parts of its face and hands.

Attacks by a school of carnivorous fish have injured at least 10 people bathing in an Argentine river since Thursday.

The attacks took place in the Parana River in Rosario some 300 kilometers (186 miles) northeast of Buenos Aires. Seventy people who were cooling off from high temperatures were also injured there in late December by the same piranha-like fish. They included seven children who lost parts of their fingers or toes.

The latest attack by the "palometas" was confirmed Saturday. They've been described by the local director of lifeguards as "a type of piranha, big, voracious and with sharp teeth that can really bite."

A series of avalanches in the Alps have claimed several lives over the past couple of days.

Despite repeated efforts to resuscitate him, a 24-year-old Frenchman died on his way to hospital on Thursday, at Bardonecchia in the Italian Alps above Turin.

He had been snowboarding and was apparently struck by an avalanche caused by other off-piste skiers.

Reports in Italian media say police have opened an investigation for manslaughter.

At Courchevel in the French Alps a mountain worker and his son were both hit by a wall of snow as they tried to reach their chalet refuge.

The boy survived but his father, an experienced mountaineer, was killed.

Two other teenage skiers died in separate avalanches, at Serre-Chevalier and at La Plagne.

Luminous halos around the Moon are nothing unusual, especially in wintertime Finland where the air is so often filled with ice. Crystals of frozen H₂O catch the moonlight and bend it into a circular ring of light. A few nights ago, however, Sauli Koski of Muonio, Finland, witnessed a halo that was not circular, but elliptical:
"On Jan. 15th, the weather changed. As the temperature dropped from -7C to -37C, there were all kinds of ice halos to photograph," says Koski. "The best and rarest were these elliptical forms that lasted more than 20 minutes."

Although physicists have been studying ice halos for decades, not all are understood. "Elliptical halos are one of the puzzles," says atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. " We can simulate them by invoking hexagonal plate-like crystals topped by almost flat pyramid faces. However, the simulations do not fit very well and such crystals are unphysical. Crystal facets like to form along planes where there are lots of atoms or molecules - almost flat pyramids do not fit the bill at all. Perhaps some peculiar distorted snowflake types instead?"

"These mysteries all add to the spice of halo observing, the beautiful, the unexpected, the unexplained, something new!"

Up to 500 flying foxes died at Yarra Bend Park yesterday after the extreme heat decimated the colony.

Animal rescuers are tending the animals on both the Boroondara and Darebin sides of the river, with rescuers describing the sight as "horrific".

The South Oakleigh Wildlife Shelter's Michele Phillips said the extreme heat had caused the creatures to literally "drop out of the trees".

"It's a nightmare. We lost so many yesterday," Ms Phillips said.

Rescuers are rallying at the Kew park with water spray and rehydrating fluid, trying to save thousands of remaining flying foxes.

"When they drop to the ground we are trying to rehydrate them, and we are spraying the ones still in the trees," Ms Phillips said.

Victorian Advocate of Animals spokesman Lawrence Pope said rescuers were finding many dead animals, and others barely alive.

Heaven and Earth / A collection of amateur and media video reports from December 5, 2013 to January 15, 2014

Fireballs, strange lights in the sky, massive sinkholes, new islands, erupting volcanoes, powerful tidal surges and storms, the jet stream going haywire, mass animal deaths... in terms of Earth Changes and other strange phenomena, it looks like 2014 is picking up where 2013 left off!


This new series replaces "20** IS STRANGE". It's pretty much the same thing - cataloguing unusual natural events and other strange phenomena. The biggest change is the title ;)

This is an educational/teaching and research purposes only video. This application is not commercial and is free to use.

Jake Thomas thought there would be no risk of a bite from a red-bellied black snake 45 minutes after cutting it in half.

He was wrong.

The "dead" snake turned on the 66-year-old and bit him twice on the hand.

Mr Thomas, a volunteer who mows the local cemetery at Werris Creek where his daughter Kim is buried, came across the snake during his usual clean-up. It was in a vase on a headstone.

Fearful about other people's safety, Mr Thomas cut the snake in half. Like most people would, he had thought the strike had killed the snake, so he left to finish off the rest of the cemetery maintenance.