Earth Changes
Aided by a massive C-130 air tanker, Boulder County firefighters are battling a 200-to-300-acre wildfire west of Boulder this afternoon, a fast-growing and "extreme" blaze that has forced the evacuation of 26 households in the foothills and put parts of south Boulder on pre-evacuation notice.
Approximately 931 south Boulder phone numbers have been called with pre-evaucation warnings.
"We're about one ridge over from the city of Boulder," Boulder County sheriff's spokesman Rick Brough said of the fire at an afternoon press briefing.
The fire started near the 1500 block of Bison Drive in the Walker Ranch area around 1:15 p.m. and is believed to have been sparked by lightning, Brough said.
The blaze is now burning toward the northeast, Brough said.
Parts of the main interstate highway across northern Florida were closed by flooding Tuesday as Tropical Storm Debby hung stubbornly offshore over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening up to two feet of rain in places.
After raking Florida's Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, Debby promised to bring more of the same in the coming days as it drifted on a path forecast to take it over the state and east into the Atlantic by Friday.
The National Hurricane Center said Debby was about 85 miles west of Cedar Key, Florida, and moving eastward near 3 mph. It had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph, barely tropical-storm status.
But the wind, high surf and relentless rain have made the storm's presence felt.
After raking Florida's Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, Debby promised to bring more of the same in the coming days as it drifted on a path forecast to take it over the state and east into the Atlantic by Friday.
The National Hurricane Center said Debby was about 85 miles west of Cedar Key, Florida, and moving eastward near 3 mph. It had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph, barely tropical-storm status.
But the wind, high surf and relentless rain have made the storm's presence felt.
© Peter Busomoke/AFP/Getty Images
Ugandan soldiers and relatives search for victims of a landslide in Bududa in 2010.
Ugandan soldiers and relatives search for victims of a landslide in Bududa in 2010.
In March 2010, thousands were forced to flee after after a landslide killed more than 350 people in Uganda's eastern Bududa district.
'Many cracks'
Ken Kiggundu, director of disaster management for Uganda's Red Cross, told the BBC that 72 people were still missing. He added that 480 had been displaced and were now living with relatives and friends following Monday's landslide, which occurred after a number of days of heavy rain. "At 2pm, the ground trembled, followed by heavy rumbling of soil and stones which covered our home," Rachael Namwono, a villager in Bududa district, told Uganda's private Monitor newspaper.
Lonesome George
Lonesome George was discovered on Pinta Island in 1972, at a time when giant tortoises of his kind - known as Geochelone nigra abingdoni - were already believed to be extinct. Instead, it appeared that he was the last one.
All attempts to breed the tortoise failed.
"The plight of Lonesome George provided a catalyst for an extraordinary effort by the government of Ecuador to restore not only tortoise populations throughout the archipelago but also improve the status of other endangered and threatened species," the park said.
© IceAgeNow
"Previous ocean models ... have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a significant mass loss in this region that is actually not taking place," says Tore Hattermann of the Norwegian Polar Institute, member of a team which has obtained two years' worth of direct measurements below the massive Fimbul Ice Shelf in eastern Antarctica - the first ever to be taken.
According to a statement from the American Geophysical Union, announcing the new research:
Hatterman and his colleagues, using 12 tons of hot-water drilling equipment, bored three holes more than 200m deep through the Fimbul Shelf, which spans an area roughly twice the size of New Jersey. The location of each hole was cunningly chosen so that the various pathways by which water moves beneath the ice shelf could be observed, and instruments were lowered down.It turns out that past studies, which were based on computer models without any direct data for comparison or guidance, overestimate the water temperatures and extent of melting beneath the Fimbul Ice Shelf. This has led to the misconception, Hattermann said, that the ice shelf is losing mass at a faster rate than it is gaining mass, leading to an overall loss of mass.
The team's results show that water temperatures are far lower than computer models predicted ...
© NOAA
A ghostly Tropical Storm Debby is drenching Florida and surrounding regions.
A ghostly Tropical Storm Debby is drenching Florida and surrounding regions.
"This is first time we've had four tropical storms develop in the Atlantic basin before July 1," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
U.S. records for tropical storms and hurricanes stretch back to 1851, Feltgen told OurAmazingPlanet. And although Tropical Storm Debby has broken the century-and-a-half-long record, there is certainly a chance that four storms may have formed this early in the past, yet escaped notice simply because forecasters didn't have the tools to see them.
"We figure that back in the day there could have been several storms per season that could have been missed," Feltgen said. "We didn't have satellites." Forecasters relied largely on ship reports and on firsthand observations when a storm hit land.
© Andy Clark, Reuters
A house is surrounded by water after the Fraser River burst its banks in Chilliwack, British Columbia June 24, 2012. Authorities have issued an evacuation order for 165 homes in Fraser Valley.
A house is surrounded by water after the Fraser River burst its banks in Chilliwack, British Columbia June 24, 2012. Authorities have issued an evacuation order for 165 homes in Fraser Valley.
Weeks of rapid snowmelt and wet weather have caused river levels to rise in the B.C. Interior, the Kootenay region and the Fraser Valley, and a weekend of heavy rain and violent thunderstorms have pushed many rivers and creeks in those areas to the brink.
Hardest hit was Sicamous, a community of about 3,100 people north of Kelowna, where about 350 people were ordered to leave their homes due to flooding along the Sicamous and Hummingbird creeks.
At least one home was swept away, and many more homes and dozens of cars were damaged after flash floods tore through Sicamous, where the local district declared a state of emergency.
"It's total devastation and disaster," said 65-year-old Judy Latosky, who saw Sicamous Creek spill its banks before fleeing her home with her twin five-year-old granddaughters.
"Parts of the bank were just falling off in chunks. We lost all of our backyard and now it's just boulders. ... I looked in this morning and the basement is half full of mud and water. It's a total loss."
More pictures
© AMRC & AWS
Antarctica weather station.
Antarctica weather station.
The mercury dropped to -73.8°C/-100.8°F, breaking the previous minimum temperature record of -73.3°C/-99.9°F set in 1966.
Must be because of global warming!
Last night, 82 km above Earth's surface where our planet's atmosphere meets the vacuum of space, a ray of sunlight hit a wispy, rippling bank of icy noctilucent clouds (NLCs). They lit up, glowing electric-blue, producing this apparition over Queensferry, Scotland:
"A stitch of 2 images shows the broad extent of the display last night," says photographer Adrian Maricic. "It was bright and vivid, the best of the 2012 noctilucent cloud season so far for us in Scotland!"
Normally confined to Arctic latitudes, the intense NLCs of June 24-25, 2012, dipped all the way down to the south coast of England: "This was my first sighting of 2012," says Pete Lawrence, who photographed the southern edge of the bank from Selsey UK.
© Adrian Maricic
A stitch of 2 images showing the lateral extent of the NLC display last night. A vivid, bright display, the best of the 2012 season so far for us in Scotland!
A stitch of 2 images showing the lateral extent of the NLC display last night. A vivid, bright display, the best of the 2012 season so far for us in Scotland!
"A stitch of 2 images shows the broad extent of the display last night," says photographer Adrian Maricic. "It was bright and vivid, the best of the 2012 noctilucent cloud season so far for us in Scotland!"
Normally confined to Arctic latitudes, the intense NLCs of June 24-25, 2012, dipped all the way down to the south coast of England: "This was my first sighting of 2012," says Pete Lawrence, who photographed the southern edge of the bank from Selsey UK.
© NASA Earth Observatory
Polar mesopheric clouds captured by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station on June 13, 2012 above the Tibetan Plateau.
Polar mesopheric clouds captured by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station on June 13, 2012 above the Tibetan Plateau.
More specifically, these polar mesospheric clouds (a type of noctilucent cloud) were hovering above the Tibetan Plateau on June 13 when the photo was snapped from the ISS. The lower layers of the atmosphere are also illuminated in the new image, captured by the Expedition 31 crew, with the lowest layer, called the stratosphere, shown in dim orange and red tones near the horizon.
Polar mesospheric clouds are most visible during the respective late spring and early summer in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Astronauts frequently get views of these clouds over Canada, northern Europe and Asia during the summer, according to NASA. However, observations of these same clouds in the Southern Hemisphere are less frequent.
