Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

Winter arrives early in southern Siberia

Cap Allon
Electroverse
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 05:30 UTC
Siberia cold


Northern Siberia has been tracking anomalously warm of late, while the south has been unusually cold — a setup serving as yet another example of the meridional (wavy) jet stream flow brought about by the historically low solar activity we're currently receiving.

On Sept 15, 2020 NOAA and NASA announced that the new Solar Cycle 25 has begun. Since then, the sun has been blank almost 90% of the time, writes Dr. Tony Phillips of spaceweather.com. Our star has been devoid of sunspots for 199 day in 2020, or 71% of the time. This sustained lack of spots shows that Solar Minimum of SC24 is not over; that SC25 is still too weak to break its icy grip.

Comment: See also:

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Snowflake Cold

Ice and fire in Argentina - 2 feet of late snowfall in Patagonia after storm

Robert W. Felix
Ice Age Now
Sat, 03 Oct 2020 19:07 UTC
snow
Two feet of snow and far below freezing in some areas, temperatures up to 43°C in others.

Meteorología de la República Argentina

PATAGONIA - Snowflakes 50 to 60 cm (2 ft) of snow in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. With temperatures below zero, it differs from the North Argentina, registering thermal contrasts of + 40°C.

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Question

Short-tailed shearwaters fail to arrive at breeding ground for second year running in Victoria, Australia

Daniel Miles
ABC News (Australia)
Sat, 03 Oct 2020 18:42 UTC
The short-tailed shearwater is a prodigious but extremely punctual traveller — but that's not been the case for the past few years.
© Eric WoehlerThe short-tailed shearwater is a prodigious but extremely punctual traveller — but that's not been the case for the past few years.
Bird experts are concerned after a migratory shorebird colony failed to arrive in south-east Australia in time for start of the breeding season for the second straight year.

The short-tailed shearwater, or mutton bird, is one of Australia's most common and hardy birds.

Each year the birds clock up more than 32,000 kilometres, following the warm weather between the northern and southern hemispheres as they chase an "eternal summer".

Known for their endurance and accuracy, the birds usually arrive along Victoria's south-east coast to breed within 48 hours of September 22.

But last year only half of the 40,000-strong colony at Port Fairy's Griffiths Island turned up.

This year the island's bird count remains at zero more than a week after they were expected to arrive.
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Fire

Four million acres burned in California wildfires

Olga R. Rodriguez
Fire Engineering
Fri, 02 Oct 2020 18:26 UTC
A firefighter battles the Glass Fire burning in a Calistoga, Calif., vineyard Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020.
© AP/Noah BergerA firefighter battles the Glass Fire burning in a Calistoga, Calif., vineyard Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020.
California is poised to hit a fearsome milestone: 4 million acres burned this year by wildfires that have killed 30 people and incinerated hundreds of homes in what is already the worst fire season on record.

Flames have scorched an area larger than Connecticut and fire crews at a blaze in the northern wine country were on high alert as forecasters warned of red flag conditions of extreme fire danger into Saturday morning.

Winds up to 30 mph (48 kph) were forecast to push through the hills in Napa and Sonoma counties as the Glass Fire, exploded in size earlier in the week, continued to threaten more than 28,000 homes and other buildings.

"It's a time of nervousness," said Paul Gullixon, a spokesman for Sonoma County.

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Apple Red

Tomato production fell 20% due to the intense heat in July in Extremadura, Spain


Fresh Plaza
Wed, 16 Sep 2020 18:21 UTC
tomato
According to Extremadura's Grouping of Agricultural Cooperatives (Acopaex), this season's tomato production will be 20% lower than the figures that were initially expected as a result of the intense heat in the month of July. The president of Acopaex, Domingo Fernandez, said that 2.1 million tons had been contracted but that they would collect 500,000 fewer tons.

After the last few years of good harvests, the production has suffered; not only in Extremadura, but also in other producing territories such as Andalusia, Portugal, or Italy. Producers are worried about this situation, especially because they won't have enough tomatoes to be profitable, as prices have been very tight for years.

The production of the current campaign will also be 20% lower than last year's production when producers obtained a similar figure than what had been contracted. "This had not happened for many years. We might sometimes produce 2, 3, or 5% less than what was contracted, but 20% less is a very large amount," Fernandez stated.

Source: hoy.es
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Fire

Wildfires tear through drought-racked Paraguay amid record heat

William Costa
The Guardian
Fri, 02 Oct 2020 11:55 UTC
Members of Paraguay’s highway patrol and local residents try to extinguish a fire on 27 September in San Bernardino, east of Asuncion, Paraguay.
© Norberto Duarte/AFP/Getty ImagesMembers of Paraguay’s highway patrol and local residents try to extinguish a fire on 27 September in San Bernardino, east of Asuncion, Paraguay.
Country faces more than 5,000 fires, with yellow smoke reaching the capital as neighbouring Brazil and Argentina face blazes

Devastating wildfires have broken out across across Paraguay, as drought and record high temperatures continue to exacerbate blazes across South America.

A total of 5,231 individual wildfires broke out across the country on 1 October - up 3,000 on the previous day. Most of were concentrated in the arid Chaco region in the west of the country, but thick yellow smoke had reached as far as the capital, Asunción.

Paraguay's outbreak came as the southern hemisphere heads into summer and neighbouring countries also face unprecedented wildfires. The Brazilian Amazon is recording its worst blazes in a decade, with numbers up 61% on the widely reported fires of last year, and separate fires in the southern Pantanal region.

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Cloud Lightning

Tropical Storm Gamma reaches coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula - trees knocked over, streets flood


Bloomberg
Sun, 04 Oct 2020 11:35 UTC
Trees were whipped around as high winds and heavy rain hit Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Tropical Storm Gamma passed through on Oct. 3.
Trees were whipped around as high winds and heavy rain hit Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Tropical Storm Gamma passed through on Oct. 3.
Tropical Storm Gamma hit the resort-dotted coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula at near-hurricane force on Saturday, flooding streets, knocking down trees and stranding people trying to return from outlying islands.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the northern half of the peninsula's Caribbean coast, covering Cancun, the Riviera Maya and other resorts.

The storm came ashore near Tulum with maximum sustained winds of nearly 70 mph (110 kph) — 4 mph (9 kph short of hurricane force), according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.

By mid afternoon, winds had dipped to 65 mph (100 kph), and it was centered about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north-northwest of Tulum, moving to the northwest at 8 mph (13 kph).

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Snowflake

Monmouth County, NJ receives its earliest snow ever (in 127 years of record keeping)

Lou Russo
943thepoint.com
Sat, 03 Oct 2020 07:11 UTC
Monmouth County snow
Each year we wonder just how bad our winter is going to be here at the Jersey Shore, and after nine months of 2020, it's hard to be optimistic about this upcoming winter.

For me, the thing I like least about the winter is worrying about snow and roadway conditions. Yes, we root for snow for the kids, but outside that, I don't really mind if the snow misses us altogether.

You may think it's a little early to be worried about snow, right? I mean, it's the first week of October. Not so fast. I did a little research on the earliest accumulating snow ever recorded in Monmouth County and the date will certainly surprise you.

Anyone who remembers the aftermath of Sandy knows that October snow has definitely happened relatively recently, but that was the end of the month. So how early in October has Monmouth County seen snow?

We checked with our friends at NOAA and the Center For Weather & Climate, and they dug deep to find the answer for us. They looked all the way back to 1893 in the official records, and they came up with the answer for us.
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Cloud Precipitation

Severe floods hit Monteforte Irpino, Italy on Sept. 27

Disaster Compilations
YouTube
Sun, 27 Sep 2020 18:54 UTC
flood
(Translated from Italian):Strong bad weather in Irpinia, Campania. There are many flooded streets, which after a few minutes of downpour become real rivers in flood. In Monteforte Irpino the streets of the town have become rivers of mud and water, with several cars being overwhelmed and submerged. Several fire brigade teams at work, after dozens of citizens called the operations room frightened. There are also several fallen trees and the Fenestrelle river would have overflowed along via Macchia.

Read more (article in Italian): https://www.fanpage.it/napoli/maltemp...

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Cloud Precipitation

Deadly floods and landslides in Adjara region, Georgia - at least 5 killed


Floodlist
Sat, 03 Oct 2020 17:27 UTC
Heavy rainfall triggered a landslide in the Adjara region of Georgia on 02 October 2020.
© Georgia EMSHeavy rainfall triggered a landslide in the Adjara region of Georgia on 02 October 2020.
Heavy rainfall from 01 October 2020 caused flash flooding and landslides in the Adjara region of Georgia. At least 5 people are thought to have died.

A landslide struck in the village of Jocho, Khelvachauri municipality swept away a house and a vehicle, leaving several people missing. The country's Emergency Management Service (EMS) says that over 100 rescuers are working to find the missing individuals. As of 03 October, 5 bodies had been found with one more person thought to be missing.

Heavy rain caused flooding in other areas of the region, damaging homes and other buildings. EMS said they received 440 calls for assistance.

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