A sperm whale that was rescued off the coast of Chiayi County last week was found dead at sea Sunday, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA), which was part of the effort to release the stranded whale.

Local fishermen discovered the carcass of the 15-meter-long whale on a shoal in an area south of Bajhang River (八掌溪) estuary, the CGA said.

An examination of the carcass confirmed that it was the same the sperm whale that had become stranded near the shoreline of Chiayi on Oct. 15, the coast guard said.

A team of coast guard personnel and marine experts had rescued the whale and released it back into the open sea the same day.

The snow has gotten off to an incredible start in Siberia, where a record snowfall has paralyzed many areas of the city of Omsk, with thousands of drivers hopelessly stuck in hellish snowstorm traffic for hours.

You might say it's nothing special for Siberia, but those who know - namely weather forecasters - believe it could be the most significant snowfall in 10 years.

Imagine parking your car safely outside your house in the evening only to find it gone the next morning. The streets and vehicles have nearly disappeared under the blanket of snow, with over 40cm falling overnight. All one can currently see in Omsk is snow, snow and nothing else

There was little time to drop, cover and hold when an earthquake hit in Taranaki this morning.

A strong 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit 20km north of Opunake at 9:05am, at a depth of only 18km, according to GeoNet.

The short, sharp jolt was almost over before it began, but sent hearts racing throughout the region.

Rocking and rolling over breakfast in Hawera! #eqnz

— Jayde Meech (@JaydeyMeechey) October 21, 2015

Ten minutes later, a 2.6 magnitude aftershock hit 15km north of Opunake at a depth of 17km.

The first quake was far felt as far north as Hamilton as far east as Hawkes Bay and far south as Blenheim.

GeoNet scientist Caroline Little said it was a moderately strong shake which was felt by many.

Seems like summer just ended. However, already ground frost and wintry snow are gripping large parts of Europe. Parts of northern Maine have already seen their first bout of wintry precipitation in the past few days. The National Weather Service said the 138-day period without a trace of snow in Caribou that began May 24 and ended Oct. 8 was the shortest such period on record for that location.

In Marquette, Michigan, where thermometers dropped to 27°F, about 2.5 inches of snow fell this past weekend. Snow was also experienced in Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, western New York and northwest Pennsylvania. Even though winter does not officially start until December 22, freeze watches and warnings and frost advisories have been issued from Missouri to Massachusetts, according to the Weather Channel.

It is the middle of October and governments are still insisting that we are living through record warmth and politicians around the world are about to meet up again in Paris to see if they can turn the entire human race into carbon slaves. Reality does not count, as if it ever did to politicians.

The global warming (climate change) story is getting stranger because Nature is not cooperating. It is getting colder. The plan by climate alarmists to have other scientists imprisoned for their 'global warming' skepticism is backfiring horribly, and the chief alarmist is now facing a House investigation into what has been called "the largest science scandal in US history." What did they expect when they took the outrageous step of asking the White House and Justice Department to use the RICO Act to investigate and prosecute organizations like the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, Competitive Enterprise Institute and Heartland Institute ... for the "crime" of "deceiving the American people about the risks of climate change."

Centuries ago, fishermen would have shot any guns they had aboard into the heart of any twisting maelstrom they saw that connected the ocean to the sky. Waterspouts were feared as omens of bad luck. But on the afternoon of Oct. 17, crewmember Aldric D'eon shot his Nikon D7200, fitted with a 70-300mm lens, at the phenomenon.

Luckily, for those who marvel at his capture, the West Pubnico resident is a camera-toting type of person. "I'm a welder by trade, a fisherman by choice. I do photography as a hobby," he said. D'eon's camera was on the dash of the FV Angelo O during his stint at the wheel. They were about 50 kilometres from homeport (Dennis Point, Yarmouth County), after fishing for haddock on Georges Bank, when he noticed a storm on the radar, west of their portside.

"A lot of times when you see a rainstorm on the radar, it's spread out all over. This one was intense, a solid block that stayed its shape," he said. He estimates the storm was about six miles wide by 15 miles long on the radar. The sky was black near the storm but forward, starboard and aft there were fluffy clouds and a blue sky. Although D'Eon has seen odd formations of clouds at times, this was his first glimpse at a waterspout.

Although the vortex looked huge and ominous, fear wasn't a factor for him. "It was five or six miles from us. I was watching what it was doing on the radar and it was going to the north, northeast, faster than we were. "It was still west of us so I knew it wasn't going to go over top of us. We watched it for half an hour and then the dark cloud started to break up," he said.

A lead scientist for the Carnegie Airborne Observatory spent three weeks flying over California's forests in Sacramento and Bakersfield in order to laser map them. The results were shocking: up to 20 percent of the state's forests are at risk of dying. The results come as California endures its fourth year of drought and its worst forest fire season in history.

The Carnegie team used a special plane outfitted with two special instruments with which they could map millions of trees a day - a LiDAR and an image spectrometer. The LiDAR fires two lasers out of the bottom of the plane that capture 3D images of the forest, and the image spectrometer measures the chemical makeup of trees. The instruments allowed Carnegie's Greg Asner to rapidly measure trees in bulk - about 8 million per hour - rather than having to measure individual trees by hand.

A unique set of sensors were employed to reveal the trees' water content, an indicator of whether they are stressed by drought or likely to die.

"We've been all over the state...And we've seen everything from forests that are doing just fine to other forests that are in real trouble where we're seeing lots of mortality, extreme drought stress, scary stuff in different parts of the state," Asner told Al Jazeera America.

Two brothers overcome by fumes while working in an underground sewer died of hypoxia due to toxic levels of hydrogen sulphide. Brothers Alan (45) and Stephen (32) Harris were working on a sewage drain at Drumnigh Woods estate in Portmarnock, Co Dublin when the accident occurred last June.

Alan Harris of Hazelbury Pk, Clonee, Dublin 15 died at Beaumont Hospital on June 10 last. His brother Stephen Harris of Monasterboice Rd, Crumlin, Dublin 12 died two days later. Both men died as a result of hypoxia, secondary to exposure to toxic concentrations of hydrogen sulphide, Dublin Coroner's Court heard.

A double inquest into the brothers' deaths was opened and adjourned before Coroner Dr Brian Farrell and members of the Harris family including Alan Harris' wife Tracey.

The brothers were working for Alan Harris' family company Harris Draintech at the Portmarnock estate on the evening of Wednesday June 10 2015 when the accident happened.

The pair were working in a pit, part of an underground drainage system, when they were overcome by toxic levels of hydrogen sulphide, a deadly colourless, poisonous gas.

"The two brothers were working at the housing estate Drumnigh Woods in Portmarnock on an underground drainage system. They were self employed, working for Alan's company, a family company," Insp John Gordon of Coolock Garda Station told the inquest.

Birdwatchers flock for a look and listen after warbler likely blown off course on its way to Mexico.

Bird watchers are flocking to Lafarge Meadows in Fish Creek Provincial Park to get a look at a rare bird, likely lost on its way to Mexico.

"This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first time in over 11 years one's been in Calgary," said Andrew Hart, president of Nature Calgary. "And the other one probably got lost as well."

Hart said the yellow-bodied hooded warbler, recognizable from the black feathers around its head, was likely caught in a storm and thrown off course.

California Fish and Wildlife officials say they're working with professional trappers after a coyote attacked a father and his 3-year-old son in Irvine Wednesday night.

The attack happened in the first block of Forbes in Irvine, shortly before 6:30 p.m.

Authorities said the man was working in his garage when the coyote bit the toddler in his right knee. The boy then jumped to his father's back and then the animal bit the 40-year-old man in the right side of his buttocks.

"All of a sudden his son jumped on his back. He thought his son was just playing and when he got up, he realized his son was bit by a coyote," said Orange County Fire Authority Captain Steve Concialdi

Neighbors scared away the coyote and the animal has yet to be found.

Humpback whales have been spotted playing in Long Island Sound waters several times in the past month. But unfortunately, a not-so-happy whale sighting was reported in Lloyd Harbor this weekend.

A dead humpback whale was found in the harbor after a local resident noticed that the whale may have been in distress on Saturday, according to the Town of Huntington.

The Town Harbormaster responded and confirmed that the female humpback whale was deceased. The Town then contacted the The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation and the Coast Guard, which then took the whale to a Coast Guard facility to determine its cause of death.