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Canada: Gale-force windstorm wreaks havoc in Rocky View, Alberta

Dawn Smith
Rocky View Weekly
Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:34 UTC
Image
© Covy Moore/Rocky View Publishing
Beiseker's Jim Fox survived two near-misses during the Nov. 27 wind storm that blew through the County causing damage to buildings, trees and homes. Two buildings lost their roofs in the village, including the fire hall.
Beiseker's streets looked like a scene from a movie after a wicked windstorm blew through the town, Nov. 27.

Wind speeds reaching close to 100 km/h ripped the roofs off several buildings, brought down power lines and sent debris flying in the village.

The Beiseker Fire Station lost its corrugated metal roof in the early afternoon, according to local firefighter Jim Fox.

"It was really scary," he said. "I have never seen wind like that before, it was more like a hurricane."

Fox, the lieutenant in charge at the fire station at the time, was preparing a second crew to assist at a Linden-area grass fire when he heard a horrifying sound.

"All of a sudden, I opened the door and (the roof) peeled up and flew off and landed right in front of me," said Fox. "It was like a freight train coming through."

Resident Fred Walters also lost a portion of his roof.
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Cloud Lightning

United Kingdom braces for bout with blizzard windstorm


4rfv.com
Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:31 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Heavy rain and gale force winds have already wreaked havoc over Scotland, Northern Ireland, and parts of England but now the December daemon, snow, is here causing more problems.

Snow and ice are affecting roads across Northern Ireland, Scotland and parts of Northern England.

The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for these areas and police are urging motorists to be aware of the risk of black ice on the roads.

In Northern Ireland showers have been most frequent over counties Londonderry, Antrim, Tyrone, Fermanagh as well as in north Down.

Meanwhile in Scotland the A9 and the M74 have been badly affected. The whole of the A9 is badly affected by snow and ice, especially at Helmsdale, Dalwhinnie and Badenoch. Motorists on the M74 in South Lanarkshire were stuck for three hours southbound after a lorry jackknifed in the snow.
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Cloud Lightning

US: High Winds Leave Thousands Without Power in California

Alex Dobuzinskis
Reuters
Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:23 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Gene Blevins
Residents look at slabs of the broken concrete pavement and uprooted eucalyptus trees after a heavy wind storm in the morning at Highland Park in Los Angeles, California December 1, 2011.
High winds returned to the Los Angeles area early on Saturday as over 100,000 homes and businesses lost power, due to fallen trees and other damage from an ongoing windstorm.

Southern California Edison said that at mid-afternoon it still had 73,600 customers affected by the outages, which were mainly concentrated along the San Gabriel Valley foothills east of Pasadena.

The area saw "near hurricane force winds" that caused flying debris to knock over power poles, said Edison spokesman Gil Alexander.

Unusually powerful winds first began striking the Los Angeles region on Wednesday night, in a storm that has raised concern among local fire departments about potential wildfires igniting and spreading at lightning speed.

By mid-morning on Saturday, wind gusts of 73 miles per hour were clocked atop a mountain near Acton, 30 miles northeast of Los Angeles, according to automated weather stations.
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Radar

US: 2 small earthquakes rumble through Lincoln County, Oklahoma; no injuries reported


The Washington Post
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
earthquake
© unknown
Two small earthquakes have shaken central Oklahoma.

The U.S. Geological Survey says both earthquakes were centered in Lincoln County and recorded between 10:42 p.m. and 11:05 p.m. Friday.

The first 2.7 magnitude earthquake was recorded about six miles west northwest of Prague. The second was a 2.3 magnitude tremor whose epicenter was five miles south southeast of Sparks and seven miles northeast of Meeker. No injuries were reported.
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Cloud Lightning

Freak Storm and Gale-Force Winds Wreak Havoc in Malaysia

Steven Daniel
TheStar.com
Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:30 UTC
Save the car
© TheStar.com
Save the car: Fire and rescue department officers and members of the public clearing branches from a tree that uprooted near Balai Seni Lukis Negara on Jalan Tun Razak Sunday evening and fell on a car. The fallen tree blocked the road which resulted in a jam which stretched several kilometers.
Kuala Lumpur: A freak thunderstorm and strong winds referred to as a "mini-hurricane" by many, tore through the capital and parts of Selangor, wreaking havoc, uprooting trees and damaging properties.

The hardest hit areas in the 5pm storm were Kepong, Bandar Menjalara and Hartamas.

Road users on the MRR2 highway near Kepong turned to Twitter to report that the rain was so ferocious that many motorists stopped their vehicles by the roadside to wait it out.

A spokesman from the Fire and Rescue Department (FRD) said while there was very heavy rain, it was the ferocity of the wind which caused more damage as trees were uprooted, branches snapped, billboards and signboards fell, and roof tiles and tents for functions were blown off.

"There were also reports of cars crushed by fallen trees and branches but fortunately, there was no loss of life or injury. We had earlier been warned by the Meteorological Department of the possibility of storms in the Klang Valley and had been prepared for this," he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Mexico Drought is Worst in 70 years

Francisco Salazar & Olga R. Rodriguez
Associated Press
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:22 UTC
Mexican Drought
© Alberto Puente / Associated Press
A cow tries to eat from a dried out cactus on a field near Torreon in the Mexican state of Coahuila, one of the hardest hit in the country's record dry spell.

Durango - The sun-baked northern states of Mexico are suffering under the worst drought since the government began recording rainfall 70 years ago. Crops of corn, beans and oats are withering in the fields. About 1.7 million cattle have died of starvation and thirst.

Hardest hit are five states in Mexico's north, a region that is being parched by the same drought that has dried out the southwest United States. The government is trucking water to 1,500 villages scattered across the nation's northern expanse, and sending food to poor farmers who have lost all their crops.

Life probably won't improve soon. The next rainy season isn't due until June, and there's no guarantee normal rains will come then.

Most years, Guillermo Marin harvests 10 tons of corn and beans from his fields in this harsh corner of Mexico. This year, he got just a single ton of beans. And most of the 82-year-old farmer's fellow growers in this part of Durango state weren't able to harvest anything at all.
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Question

India: Scores of Siberian Flamingos Electrocuted in Gujarat


BBC
Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:06 UTC
Flamingos
© DK Sharma, Chief Conservator of Forests in Gujarat
An unprecedented number of flamingos have arrived in Gujarat this year.

At least 139 flamingos have died after being electrocuted by high tension wires in the Indian state of Gujarat, forest officials say.

The birds were part of nearly half a million flamingos who have migrated from Siberia to breed in the warm marshy areas of the state's coast.

Officials said the birds possibly got disturbed by traffic at night and flew into the newly installed wires.

Measures have now been taken to stop them from coming near the wires.

'Unprecedented numbers'

"The post-mortem has confirmed that the flamingos died from electrocution," Dinesh Kumar Sharma, chief conservator of forests in Gujarat, told the BBC.

"We have deployed forest officials in the area. We have also put up reflectors and flags to ensure that the birds don't come near the wires," he said.
      Read More...
Nuke

Fukushima: Melted Fuel Near Point of Reaching Bottom Container

Kim Yeon-ji
Arirang News
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:35 UTC
fukushima daiichi
© Reuters
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant revealed Wednesday that melted nuclear fuel has nearly reached the bottom steel wall under the concrete.

Following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, all of the fuel inside the No. 1 reactor melted after cooling functions failed with a substantial amount of the fuel melting through the reactor pressure vessel and dripping into the outer container.

On Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Company, said the melted fuel has eroded the concrete base of the reactor container by up to 65 centimeters.

If the erosion expands another 37 centimeters, it would be hitting the steel wall.

However, TEPCO's analysis is rough at best because it is a prediction of the current situation inside the reactor based on its temperature change and injection of cooling water.
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Question

One of the world's worst invasive species, the Argentine ant, is mysteriously disappearing from New Zealand

Micheller Cooke
Stuff.co.nz
Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:09 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Disappearing: The Argentine ant.
One of the world's worst invasive species, the Argentine ant, is mysteriously disappearing from New Zealand.

The Argentine ant poses a huge risk to horticulture and is a threat to native species.

They attack birds, have been known to eat lizards in New Zealand and the World Conservation Union classed them as one of the world's 100 worst invasive species.

The small, brown insects were first found in New Zealand in 1990 and have spread throughout the North Island, usually attracted to warm climates like Northland and Hawke's Bay. Their colonies reach as far south as Christchurch.

But, the population has just started dying off, though the reason for their deaths is unclear, Victoria University associate professor Phil Lester said.

Lester and masters student Meghan Cooling concluded the species naturally collapses after about 10 to 20 years.

The pair assessed about 150 sites throughout the country that have been populated by the ants.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

US: Oklahoma Massive sinkhole appears overnight

Joleen Chaney
kfor.com
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:38 UTC
Residents in Beckham County near Sayre say a massive sinkhole suddenly appeared overnight. They say it's so big a small house can fit inside it. Jack Damron cares for the property and says the hole formed just two days after Oklahoma's last earthquake about two weeks ago.

Experts say it most likely isn't related. Either way, the hole is still growing day by day. "Kind of spooky. You don't want to mess with it today," Damron said. Because whatever lies beneath the flat Oklahoma soil, isn't quite finished. "We've got to let it finish settling, because we don't know how deep it's going to get. It's still growing," he said "When it first formed you could actually sit here for 30 minutes and see stuff just move."

      Read More...
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