Earth Changes
Linda Pennfield from Spokane Valley and her husband have one theory on what the noise might be. She says the sound was so loud and so persistent last night, her husband actually got out of his bed and jumped in the car to track it down. His conclusion? The sound was coming from all the snow plows, as the metal plows scraped against the ground.

Frank Marra, of Kinne Road in DeWitt, bundles up as he clears his driveway of snow. Syracuse set a record low for Dec. 16 this morning, when temperatures fell to 2 below zero.
The temperature at Hancock International Airport, the official weather station for Syracuse, hit 2 below zero over the last hour.
The record for Dec. 16 had been minus 1, set in 1917.
If this makes you feel any warmer, today's record low isn't even close to the coldest December day on record. That belongs to Dec. 20, 1942, when Syracuse hit 26 below zero.
The storm was expected to race across the upper Plains overnight into Friday and wallop the Midwest and the Great Lakes region by Saturday morning, forecasters said.
The storm could leave behind 2 feet of snow in Yosemite National Park in Nevada and parts of Wyoming and Utah.
That's what you call a coast to coast storm. Advisories all over the place! #decima pic.twitter.com/o8xCYQSAPUOne person was dead in Oregon — a man in his late 50s who was found covered in a layer of ice and snow in his driveway Wednesday night in Albany, the Linn County Sheriff's Office said.
— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) December 16, 2016
And the bombardment won't let up on its way east. Green Bay and Madison could both get more than a foot of snow by the weekend, forecasters said.
For Cheverly mayor Mike Callahan the mystery is undefinable, and he accepts the phenomenon as a "fun fact" that brings the town together.
"The booms are one of our amazing little mysteries that drive us closer together," Callahan told local station NBC4. "You know, every community has its lore, has its myths."
While the mayor looks on the brighter side, not all residents feel cozy about the mysterious noises.
Cheverly resident Nikki Greco has taken matters into her own hands by keeping track of the booms, which, according to her, sound like a Mack truck ramming into her house.
"It seems like they're the king of the neighborhood," resident Max Lopes said.
Lopes has taken several videos of bears he sees weekly.
"It seems like they're not scared of anything at all," he said.
That could be why one bear tried to attack an off-duty sheriff's deputy and his kids on Tuesday night.
Wildlife officials said it happened outside a home on Live Oak Canyon Road when the deputy spotted three bears going through a trash can. The bigger bear, weighing an estimated 400 pounds, tried to attack.
Some locations have seen or could see their coldest December temperatures in several years, and some record lows may be threatened.
Forecast: Arctic Cold Round #1
Thursday morning, subzero low temperatures were recorded as far south as Iowa, northern Illinois and northern Indiana. Winds chills in the 20s and 30s below zero were widespread throughout the Upper Midwest.
Chicago saw its first December subzero low temperature since Dec. 24, 2013. The mercury plunged to minus 20 degrees in Grand Forks, North Dakota, making it the coldest December reading in the city since Dec. 23, 2013.
Great Falls, Montana, recorded its tenth straight day in a row with subzero lows on Wednesday morning. That is longest such streak there since February 1996.
On Tuesday morning, subzero lows were recorded as far south as northern Iowa and northern Nebraska. Wind chills dropped as low as minus 36 degrees in Winthrop, Minnesota.
The Northeast will see its coldest high temperatures through Friday with daytime readings 10-25 degrees below average. Temperatures will not rise out of the 20s along the Interstate 95 corridor in New York City and Philadelphia. Highs in the teens and even a few single digits will grip New England Friday.

The tourist was assisted by a DOC ranger who spotted the attack, before being flown to Nelson Hospital
The 18-year-old was flown to hospital after being severely bitten on both legs while swimming off the rocks below a lighthouse on Wednesday.
Mark Oram, head of sport & recreation at AUT University, says the tourist invited the attack by deciding to get into the water with the animal.
"Probably the surprising thing is that it doesn't happen more often. New Zealand fur seals, like other marine mammals, are predators - they hunt and kill things to survive. Aggression is a part of their behaviour.
"So when people choose to enter their world, they do so at their own risk."
High snow drifts in the Altai Mountains and further east in Russia are causing huge problems this winter for herbivores - roes, deer and boars. Even larger animals as moose - elk - are finding it hard to cope with the deep snow.
Boar that are not full grown are dying in snowdrifts if there are no adults to break through the trails. The biggest threat is to roe deer, say wildlife experts.
Special feeding sites have been set up to allow them to find food. The last winter in Altai with similar heavy snow falls was in 2001-2002, when the number of roe deer was reduced from 27,000 to 17,000.
Friends say his extended family is yet to be notified so WEAR is choosing not to release his identity yet. Emergency crews say he was in his 40s and people who know him say he was a newlywed.
He was also a long-time member of Hillcrest Church.
The incident happened outside a home on Wilder Road.
You could see pieces of a wooden post of the home's carport laying along the its front yard. Friends say that was where the man was standing, either walking to or from his car.















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