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Igloo

Mysterious big bang, possibly an ice quake, shakes Alberta village during the night

Residents examine a crack in the ground after a mysterious bang in Alberta Beach, Alta., Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018

Residents examine a crack in the ground after a mysterious bang in Alberta Beach, Alta., Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018

Some residents of a village west of Edmonton awoke earlier this week to a very loud bang, and in the morning they reported cracks in homes and the ground.

Alberta Beach mayor Jim Benedict says people thought something had hit their houses -- or that something had fallen on their houses -- very early Tuesday morning.

Alberta Energy Regulator spokesman Jordan Fitzgerald says staff at the regulator's Alberta Geological Survey confirm there were two seismic events of approximately 2.0 magnitude late Monday night.

Seismograph

Tokyo area hit by 4.9 magnitude earthquake which 'shakes walls, rattles furniture'

Tokyo earthquake
© emsc.eu
An earthquake of 4.9 magnitude has reportedly struck Tokyo, Japan. TASS reports the jolt was felt in its Tokyo office with the "walls trembling and furniture swaying."

The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) has put the strength of the tremor at 5.1 magnitude. The epicenter of the earthquake was located some 36 km east of Tokyo.

Snowflake Cold

"Bomb cyclone" Storm Grayson brings travel mayhem, high winds and icy flooding to US northeast - UPDATE

US bomb cyclone Jan 2018
© AP / Michael Dwyer
On Thursday, airliners canceled more than 3,600 flights after a major winter storm, the fearsomely termed bomb cyclone, dished out mayhem across the northeastern US, according to FlightAware.com, an online flight tracking service.

More cancellations are expected Friday as the storm lingers in New England.

Comment: Also See:


Snowflake Cold

15k New Yorkers lose heat, airports close amid 'very serious storm'

New York City
© Benjamin Kanter / Mayoral Photography Office

Thousands of New Yorkers were left in the cold as parts of the city were blanketed under more than a foot of snow. All inbound and outbound flights at JFK and LaGuardia airports were temporarily suspended.

Winter Storm Grayson hit New York City hard Thursday, causing more than 6,500 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartments to lose power. Six NYCHA developments, which house more than 15,000 people, all lost heat, hot water, or both at some point, according to New York City Patch.

Dominoes

Heading for a big one? Series of small earthquakes hit San Andreas fault

California San Andreas fault earthquake
© Getty images
California braced for the big one as series of earthquakes hit San Andreas fault
Earthquakes have hit California sparking frantic speculation the terrifying 'big one' is on its way.

In the last 48 hours, the southwestern State in the US has been rocked by eight tremors, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

All but three of the tremors have come along the San Andreas fault - a deadly line which runs through California and is one of the most seismically active regions in the world.

The strongest of the quakes came in Berkeley, near the east coast of California, which measured 4.4 on the Richter scale.

Californian residents took to social media to share their experiences of the earthquakes, with many fearing that the worst is yet to come.

Comment: Nobody knows when the dreaded 'big one' will come - yet it will come.


Attention

Kamchatka volcano in Russia spits up ash 5-7 kilometers high

Klyuchevskoy Volcano
© Igor Buymistrov/TASS
Klyuchevskoy Volcano
The Klyuchevskoy Volcano in the Kamchatka Region has been spewing up ash for three days in a row, the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) at the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences told TASS on Friday.

"The volcano emitted ash as high as 5.5 km [above sea level.] The volcano itself is 4.75 km high," the response team specified. The ash spread 92 km in a north-western direction from the volcano.

This is the third time Klyuchevskoy erupted ash in 2018. On January 3, it spewed up ash as high as 6 km, and on January 4 an orange hazard code was declared for aircraft after the second eruption at the same height.

Tornado1

Storm Eleanor causes havoc across Europe, gusts of 100mph/161kmh reported

storm eleanor UK
The first windstorm of the new year has caused damage and major travel disruption across western Europe.

Locations from the British Isles into France, Netherlands and Germany all endured powerful winds, rain and coastal flooding.

Attention

Dead sperm whale found near Armona Island, Portugal

dead whale
A whale weighing more than 10 tons has been found dead near the island of Armona in the Algarve.

Olhão harbour master, Nunes Ferreira, said the sperm whale was towed to port at high tide by a life boat.

He said the whale, which measured 8.5 metres could be the same one that was beached on Monte Gordo beach on Sunday.

A sperm whale was beached on Sunday in Monte Gordo, but locals and the maritime police managed to get it back out to sea.

Snowflake Cold

Record flooding unleashed in Massachusetts as Winter Storm Grayson hammers Northeast U.S.

Winter Storm Grayson hits the US East Coast with heavy snow
© GETTY
US snow: Winter Storm Grayson hits the US East Coast with heavy snow
Winter Storm Grayson has left at least one dead in the Northeast and triggered what officials believe is Massachusett's highest high tide on record as of Thursday.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said flooding from the "historic high tide" prompted the deployment of National Guard high-water rescue vehicles to aid residents and stranded vehicles, the Associated Press reports.

Philadelphia authorities announced a death Thursday as the storm made its sheer power felt by millions.

Local police told AP that a passenger was killed after a vehicle was unable to stop at the bottom of an icy, steep hill and crashed into a commuter train. The driver managed to escape, but the passenger remained inside as the car went through a gate at the railroad crossing. Police later discovered the body along the tracks.

As tides rose in the afternoon hours, coastal areas saw flooding in addition to the wintry precipitation from the storm.

Storm surge poured into the streets in towns like Scituate, Massachusetts, flooding the roads with partially frozen salt water. In the town of Rockport, The Weather Channel storm tracker Jim Cantore watched as water levels rose quickly Thursday afternoon and threatened to wash away several parked cars that were left behind.


Comment: According to the Weather Channel, Winter Storm Grayson has undergone what meteorologists call bombogenesis, defined by a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure of 24 millibars or more in a period of 24 hours.


In over four decades-worth of data compiled by Dr. Andrea Lopez Lang from SUNY-Albany and David Roth from NOAA's Weather Prediction Center, this bombogenesis rate of 59 millibars in 24 hours through 10 a.m. EST Thursday was a record magnitude for this part of the western Atlantic Ocean, dating to 1976.

According to NOAA's ensemble tracks forecast, Grayson's central pressure will drop further today. For comparison, past Northeast storms such as Nemo (February 2013), Juno (January 2015) and Stella (March 2017) had minimum central pressures in the 970s millibars.

See also: North America enters a freeze so deep even the penguins are panicking


Question

At least 20 starlings found dead along road in Lyons Brook, Canada

A large number of birds were seen lying on the ground dead in Lyons Brook Tuesday
© Sueann Musick
A large number of birds were seen lying on the ground dead in Lyons Brook Tuesday
A flock of starlings flying through Lyons Brook met with a violent death Tuesday.

Motorists driving through the village Tuesday would have noticed at least 20 or more starlings scattered over the road near the turnoff to Hardwood Hill.

Shavonne Meyer, a biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said Wednesday that based on photos and observations by DNR technicians, it is most likely the birds died after striking a vehicle.

She said a transportation truck drove through the area at 8 a.m. Tuesday and the road was clear, but when the driver returned a short time later, the birds were on the ground. This allowed DNR to pinpoint a time when the strike took place.

Comment: Looking at the image above of the snowy road conditions, it seems unlikely that any vehicle was traveling at any great velocity on the day of the incident. Starlings, well-known for their speed and aerial maneuverability would (one can reasonably argue) normally easily avoid any collision as suggested in this report ( even if the vehicles were moving at normal speed) unless their ability to fly was impaired or were disoriented by some unknown environmental factor.

There have been a sizeable number of similar mysterious incidents in recent years, here's just a small sample of such reports:- Dozens of blood-soaked starlings found scattered along road in Bad Wildungen, Germany

Starlings fall to the ground along motorway near Vienna, Austria

Dozens of dead and dying starlings found on road in Wichita, Kansas

Flock of dead starlings falls out of sky in Bolton, England after 'loud bang' heard overhead

Double deja vu on December 31st? Up to 300 starlings litter roadway and fields in Seymour, Tennessee

Scientists baffled by over 100 dead starlings in Missouri

Grisly Mystery After Scores of Starlings Fall Out of the Sky and Lie Dying...in a SINGLE Front Garden