Earth ChangesS


Control Panel

Oklahoma sees record cold: -31


MSNBC.com
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:56 UTC
Image
© Kevin Pieper/AP Snow-covered cows stand in a field in Baxter County, Ark., on Wednesday.
An icy blast tugged temperatures well below zero in a large swath of the South on Thursday, setting records for cold by late morning.

Forecasters had predicted lows of minus 11 degrees in northwest Arkansas and minus 10 degrees in parts of Oklahoma. But temperatures instead dipped to minus 18 in Fayetteville and to minus 28 in Bartlesville, Okla.

Nowata, Okla., recorded 31 degrees below zero - setting a new record low for the state. The previous lowest temperature in Oklahoma history was 27 below in 1930 and 1905, said Gary McManus, associate state climatologist with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

"We just had a very cold arctic air mass and a heavy snow pack and that allowed the temperatures to plummet when the wind died down," said McManus. "We got much colder temperatures than anyone thought would occur."
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Igloo

Snow in Southern U.S.


Earth Observatory, NASA
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:18 UTC
Snow Covered Southern US
© Earth Observatory, NASANASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.
The icy fingers of winter 2010-11 reached down into the south central U.S. for the second time in a week, breaking many local records for snowfall in a month that is still only 10 days old.

Snowfall totals topped 20 inches (50 centimeters) in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas, just one week after a Groundhog Day storm coated the region with several inches. Meanwhile, temperatures dropped into the single digits in the American Plains and in Colorado. The storms moved east to dump more snow, ice, and rain in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this clear view of the nation's mid-section at 1:25 Central Standard Time on February 10, 2011. Nearly all of the white in this image is snow and ice, except for a bit of clouds in the lower right (southeast) corner. In the larger image file, the outlines of the Ouachita and Ozark mountain ranges darken the snowy landscape, while river valleys such as the Mississippi appear brighter due to fewer trees. Gray-white areas are often developed, urban landscapes that have been coated by snow; some, however, are just rural areas that received less snow.
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Hourglass

Huge volcano under Yellowstone Park rising

Brett Israel
Msnbc.msn.com
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:18 UTC
Image
© National Park ServiceHydrothermal fluids, just like the ones shooting from Old Faithful, could be pushing up the Yellowstone supervolcano.
It's building quickly, but that doesn't mean doomsday eruption is imminent.

The huge volcano under Yellowstone National Park has been rising at an unprecedented rate during the past several years, according to a new study.

In the ancient past, the Yellowstone volcano produced some of the biggest-known continental eruptions, but the recent rising doesn't mean another doomsday eruption is looming, scientists say.

The recent rising is unprecedented for Yellowstone's caldera - the cauldron-shaped part of the volcano - but it's not uncommon for other volcanoes around the world. The new study has simply revealed a more active caldera at Yellowstone than scientists realized.
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Binoculars

Volcano alert on Iceland


Iol.co.za
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:14 UTC
Image
© ReutersA column of steam and ash rises out of an erupting volcano near Eyjafjallajokull.
Another volcano could be about to erupt on Iceland, threatening to spew out a blanket of dust that would dwarf last year's eruption and ground hundreds more passenger flights.

Geologists say there is a high risk of the island's second-largest volcano Bárdarbunga erupting after an increase in the number of earthquakes around it.

Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the increased activity provides "good reason to worry". The sustained tremors to the north-east of the remote volcano range are the strongest recorded in recent times and there was "no doubt' the lava was rising.
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Alarm Clock

New volcano images by USGS, earthquakes "a concern"

Tim Byran
Biglslandvideonews.com
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:09 UTC
Image
© USGS
A new spattering vent has formed on the south side of the Thanksgiving Eve Breakout shield, and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory caught a glimpse of the activity just before daybreak on February 4.

The active Pu'u O'o crater floor is slowly filling the east side of the vent with lava.

Meanwhile, at Kilauea's summit, the circulating lava lake in the collapse pit deep within the floor of Halema'uma'u Crater has been visible via Webcam throughout the past week. Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated, resulting in high concentrations of sulfur dioxide downwind.
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Bizarro Earth

Celebes Sea - Earthquake Magnitude 6.7


USGS
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:46 UTC
Celebes 2 Sea Quake_100211
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 14:41:57 UTC

Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:41:57 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
3.966°N, 123.125°E

Depth
512.2 km (318.3 miles)

Region
CELEBES SEA

Distances
330 km (205 miles) SW of General Santos, Mindanao, Philippines

330 km (205 miles) SE of Jolo, Sulu Archipelago, Philippines

1200 km (740 miles) SSE of MANILA, Philippines

2130 km (1320 miles) ENE of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
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Cloud Lightning

US: Flood warning issued for Bay, Gulf and Calhoun counties, Florida

Felicia Kitzmiller
Thewaltonsun.com
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:45 UTC
Heavy rains over the last week have made conditions conducive to flooding along the Apalachicola River and in Gulf and Calhoun counties and eastern Bay County, according to the National Weather Service in Tallahassee.

The warning, issued at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, states flood stage begins at 15 feet, height of the bank at the marina at the mouth of the Apalachicola River. Wednesday evening water level reached 14.2 feet.
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Igloo

US: Winter storm warning in effect for North Carolina


Jdnews.com
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:42 UTC
A winter storm warning is in effect for much of Eastern North Carolina, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters say that snow and heavy rains are possible Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

The precipitation is likely to start as rain or a mix of rain and snow then gradually transition to snow late Wednesday night, according to the warning. Coastal areas are not expected to see a transition to snow until daybreak Thursday.
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Question

Australia: Queensland Flood Victims Seek Answers From Inquiry

Hedley Thomas
The Australian
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:00 UTC
Image
© Jack Tran / The Australian John Craigie and his wife Gail at their flooded property west of Brisbane yesterday.
John Craigie drove away from stress and unsightly mounds of rubbish, the destroyed contents of his family's flooded house and rural nursery in the Brisbane Valley, for the first day yesterday of a judicial inquiry he hopes will restore a community's shattered confidence.

It is a big ask. But Mr Craigie felt greatly encouraged after sitting through the formal opening of a commission of inquiry into the floods in Brisbane and hearing senior assisting counsel Peter Callaghan SC say that the lessons of the city's deadly 1974 floods had been ignored and this must not happen again.

"People in our communities of Pine Mountain, Fernvale and Lowood live closest to Wivenhoe Dam and suffered very badly in the floods," Mr Craigie, 54, told The Australian as he took notes in a courtroom that will be the inquiry's city arena.

"We want our questions answered and we need to have confidence in (the dam operator) SEQWater. We need reassurance that lessons from the flooding will be properly understood.
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Info

Australia: Flood Lessons Can't Be Forgotten, Inquiry Told

Jared Owens
The Australian
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:00 UTC
Queensland floods
© unknownQueensland Floods
The lessons of Brisbane's deadly 1974 floods were ignored and it most not happen again, the judicial inquiry into Queensland's latest flood disaster was told at its opening session yesterday.

In his debut submission to commissioner Cate Holmes, counsel assisting the inquiry Peter Callaghan SC said the experience of Queensland's floods more than three decades ago -- in which 14 people died and thousands of homes were inundated in January 1974 -- had been forgotten.

"There was no comparable commission of inquiry into those events of 37 years ago. This commission affords an opportunity to ensure the lessons that must be learned from this occasion are recorded for the future," Mr Callaghan said.

"In this way, it might be hoped Queenslanders are neither condemned to the fate of those who cannot remember the past, nor left vulnerable at the hands of those who might choose to forget it."
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