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Fire

B.C. Canada wildfires force province-wide state of emergency

Cache Creek Wildfire
© Darryl Dyck/CP
A wildfire burns on a mountain behind a home in Cache Creek early Saturday morning.
A province-wide state of emergency has been declared in British Columbia after dozens of new wildfires destroyed buildings and forced thousands of people from their homes.

More than 1,800 firefighters were fighting around 200 fires on Saturday, many of which are considered to be out of control. Another 260 firefighters were coming to help from across Canada.

Official province-wide evacuee numbers have not been released; however an estimated 6,000 people had been forced from their homes as of Saturday afternoon, according to the Cariboo Regional District.

Evacuation orders have been issued for the communities of:

Ashcroft
Cache Creek
Princeton
105 Mile House
108 Mile House
150 Mile House

Bizarro Earth

Auckland city hit by more than 700 lightning strikes in fierce thunderstorm

Lighting Strikes Sky Tower, Auckland
© Screen Capture/YouTube
More than 700 lightning strikes lit up the stormy sky over Auckland during a violent thunderstorm yesterday evening.

MetService duty forecaster Tuporo Marsters said the city was struck by 701 flashes and rocked by loud, rolling thunderclaps.

The dangerous storm swept across the city at rush hour, grounding flights, flooding homes and shops, and leaving roads knee-deep in water.

Spectacular footage has also emerged on social media capturing the moment a lightning fork struck the top of the city's tallest building.

Cloud Grey

Noctilucent cloud season begins in Moscow

Noctilucent clouds over Moscow
© Via Twitter@xufospace
Night clouds can be seen in about an hour after sunset, said the head of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia

Unusual noctilucent clouds can be seen in the night sky over Moscow. This was announced on Wednesday TASS director of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia Roman Vilfand.

He noted that this phenomenon is a beautiful decoration in Summer sky. Such clouds can be observed on 4 and 5 July in the clear sky at night.

"These clouds are visible at night, they are often also called nocturnal clouds They are silvery and beautifully lit at night. When the sun sets, its rays penetrate deep into the atmosphere, penetrating it with light." - Vilfand said.

According to him, the noctilucent clouds are a cluster of molecules of water vapor. "These clouds are very high, at a distance of about 100 km from the surface of the Earth. To predict their occurrence can not be because we do not understand their nature. They appear in the summer, and the nature of these clouds is not fully known..." said Vilfand.

Rainbow

Circumhorizontal arc creates brilliant display in clouds over Nanaimo, BC

The colours in the sky never cease to amaze me; from cool sunrises to brilliant sunsets, to rainbows and halos around the sun.

Karen Butler of Nanaimo snapped a few pictures of bright colours dancing across the clouds a few days ago, the result of a circumhorizon arc.
Circumhoriztal arc in Nanaimo, BC
© Karen Butler
A circumhorizon arc is a halo of sorts, and it appears when the sun is very high in the sky - higher than 58°. It's typically oriented parallel to the horizon. Often it's only visible in fragments when cirrus clouds aloft are lit with a rainbow of colours. The colours are the result of sunlight passing through the ice crystals that make up the cirrus cloud. The crystals themselves act like a prism, essentially splitting the sunlight into the spectrum of colours.

Attention

Massive sinkhole shuts down highway in Oregon

Oregon sinkole
© KOIN
A massive sinkhole shut down Highway 212 in Damascus Sunday evening, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

Reported in the 20200 block of Highway 212, near South Wiese Road, the sinkhole is 20 feet wide by 4 feet deep, transportation officials said Sunday.

According to the Sunrise Water Authority, a water main broke, emptying a 1-million-gallon reservoir. Water service was restored to the reservoir.

Sunrise Water Authority urged customers who lost water pressure or service to boil any water that was used for drinking purposes only. All other uses, such as showers, baths, and watering, are safe, the bureau said. The boil water advisory was lifted Monday evening.


Tornado2

'Rare' waterspout filmed in Tibet

Waterspout in Tibet
© Global Times
A video showing a rare waterspout in Dangxiong county of China's southwest Tibet Autonomous Region on Saturday has wowed millions of viewers online.

On-site witnesses said that a funnel-shaped rotating waterspout suddenly appeared after the sky was covered by black clouds. The whole process lasted for over ten minutes, Global Times reported.

According to a local meteorologist, the waterspout in Dangxiong was actually a "land tornado", which is a strong wind whirlpool created when the base of the thundercloud reaches to the ground. It usually happens in summer afternoons or dusks when there are thunderstorms.

It is the first time a land tornado has been spotted in Tibet since the autonomous region started meteorological observation in 1961.


Arrow Down

Large sinkhole forms in Liverpool, UK

Edge Lane sinkhole
© Echo
A sinkhole on Edge Lane could take three to four weeks to repair, business owners fear.

The large hole, at the junction of the major commuter route and Beech Street, formed this morning and began at three metres deep and six metres wide.

Throughout the day the hole has continued to grow , as an investigation involving bodies including the council, gas experts and United Utilities gets under way to determine the cause.

John Brown, manager at the Devonshire House Hotel, which is close to the site of the sinkhole, said staff have been told it could be three to four weeks before it is fully repaired.

Bizarro Earth

Montana hit by strongest earthquake in over 20 years, raising concerns that Yellowstone 'supervolcano' is slowly waking up

earthquake montana 5.9 july 2017
Following a swarm of over 1100 earthquakes recorded in the Yellowstone caldera over the past month, prompting scientists to voice concerns about a dormant Yellowstone "Supervolcano" slowly waking up, overnight these concerns escalated after a strong M5.8 earthquake hit western Montana early on Thursday morning - the strongest quake to hit the area in the past 20 years - the U.S. Geological Survey reported, with Reuters adding that the tremor was felt hundreds of miles away, from Missoula to Billings and some surrounding states.

The quake appears to be the largest to hit Montana since a slightly weaker M5.6 struck outside of Dillon a dozen years ago. By comparison, the state's largest quake which struck the West Yellowstone region 58-years ago was 7.2 magnitude.

Cloud Precipitation

Japan floods: 11 missing, 500,000 to evacuate after days of torrential rain in Fukuoka and Oita

Japan floods
© AP: Sadayuki Goto, Kyodo News
Record amounts of rain have fallen in parts of south-western Japan in recent days.
Almost 500,000 people have been ordered or advised to evacuate their homes in south-west Japan after torrential rain triggered widespread flooding.

Landslides were reported in several areas, and one man was dug out from the mud without signs of life, public broadcaster NHK said.

At least 11 people were missing or could not be reached, including a child, and many more were stranded and calling for help across areas of Fukuoka and Oita prefectures on the Japanese island of Kyushu.

Children and teachers at a school were among those cut off by the floodwaters.

Japan's weather bureau said the amount of rain in the region had broken all records and was continuing to fall.

Parts of Fukuoka prefecture were hit by 774 millimetres of rain in nine hours on Wednesday, more than two times the amount of rain that falls in a normal July, NHK said.

The massive landslides caused by the flooding left at least two houses swept away.


Cloud Precipitation

Update: Floods in south China leave 56 dead, 22 missing and 9.5 million people affected

People make their way with boats through a flooded area in Liuzhou, Guangxi province, China, July 2, 2017.
© Reuters
People make their way with boats through a flooded area in Liuzhou, Guangxi province, China, July 2, 2017.
Further heavy rain in parts of central and southern China has caused flooding and landslides, affecting 11 provinces and around 9.5 million people.

Parts of southern China are still recovering from deadly flooding and landslides after a period of heavy rain between 22 and 26 June, 2017.

After a few days respite, the heavy rain began again on 29 June and severe flooding has been reported in central and southern Guizhou, central and northern parts of Guangxi and northern Hunan, according to China's Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).

Other areas currently affected include Zhejiang, Guangdong, Yunnan, northern Jiangxi, eastern Hubei, southern Anhui and parts of Chongqing and Sichuan provinces.

MCA reported on 04 July that 56 people have died and 22 were missing. Twenty-seven thousand houses have been destroyed and over 180,000 damaged. Vast areas of crops have also been damaged. Total economic losses have exceeded 25 billion yuan.


Comment: See also this earlier report for more dramatic images and videos: Swathes of south China flooded; 33 dead,15 missing and hundreds of thousands evacuated