Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

Record snow - 500% typical snowpack, Finland fireball, Rocky Ross 128b

Oppenheimer Ranch Project
You Tube
Fri, 17 Nov 2017 16:30 UTC
Get your skis, sleds and snowshoes ready, winter-sports lovers: The snowpack level is up to 5 times deeper than normal.
© Erika Schultz / The Seattle TimesGet your skis, sleds and snowshoes ready, winter-sports lovers: The snowpack level is up to 5 times deeper than normal.
Jackson Hole is reporting 100″ of "record" snow and nearby Grand Targhee is already up to 105″ for the season.

Near-record early season snowfall hits mountains; Olympics at 500% typical snowpack. SEATTLE — The snow is falling and ski resorts are opening. That's par for the course in a Pacific Northwest November. But the amount of snow we're seeing this early in the year is almost unprecedented. According to a snow-depth information report released Wednesday by the Northwest Avalanche Center, most area passes are seeing well-above average snowfall for this time of the year.


Sources
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Bug

Man dies after being attacked by a swarm of bees in Victoria, Australia

Josh Hanrahan
Daily Mail
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 16:13 UTC
bees
A man has died after being stung by a swarm of bees on a farm in country Victoria.

The 30-year-old man came under attack about 10am while working on a property on MacArthur Street, at Dunkeld, in western Victoria.

It is understood the man was working at the property as a gardener.

Worksafe officers attended the scene and a report is being prepared for the coroner.
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Snowflake Cold

Two ski areas in Wyoming hit 100″ of snow before opening day

Chris Spears
denver.cbslocal.com
Thu, 16 Nov 2017 15:38 UTC
Jackson Hole
Jackson Hole ski resort
Colorado resorts haven't been able to buy a flake of snow but it's been a different story to our north.

Jackson Hole is reporting 100″ of "record" snow and nearby Grand Targhee is already up to 105″ for the season.

Heavy snow has been reported at ski resorts all across the Pacific Northwest over the past few weeks thanks to a parade of storms on a persistent jet stream.

It's a weather pattern that is very common during La Niña, which was declared active by meteorologists at NOAA earlier this month.
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Snowflake Cold

Nearly 3 feet of snow falls in California mountains; 5 feet snow depth in the Cascades, Oregon

Max Golembo
ABC News
Fri, 17 Nov 2017 15:19 UTC
This sort of weather doesn’t usually happen until later on in the winter
© APThis sort of weather doesn’t usually happen until later on in the winter
Almost 3 feet of snow has fallen over the past 48 hours in the Sierra Nevada mountains in a storm expected to dump heavy rain on the Midwest and Northeast at the start of next week.

The Sierra Nevada in California has seen 30 inches of snow since Wednesday. Oregon's Cascades Mountains have seen heavy snow in the past week, with 5 feet of snow on the ground -- the highest snowpack ever recorded this early in the season.

As the storm moves through the Rockies and into the western plains, watches and warnings have been extended from California to Oklahoma and up into the northern plains.

The storm system is moving out of California on Friday and moving through the Rockies with heavy snow expected.
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Attention

Baby sperm whale dies at Juno Beach, Florida

Sabrina Lolo
cbs12.com
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 14:06 UTC
Stranded whale reported near Juno Beach pier
© Matthew LongfellowStranded whale reported near Juno Beach pier
A baby Sperm whale that was stranded near the Juno Beach Pier on Wednesday has died, Jupiter police said.

Video posted to Twitter by Matthew Longfellow shows dozens of beachgoers trying to help the whale. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was also on scene.

However, the whale died a few hours later while being sedated.

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Fish

Sea creatures 7 miles down are eating plastic

Victoria Allen
Daily Mail
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 20:26 UTC
Crustaceans, such as the tadpole shrimp (pictured), are eating plastic, scientists have confirmed
Crustaceans, such as the tadpole shrimp (pictured), are eating plastic, scientists have confirmed
Sea creatures in one of the deepest places on Earth have been found for the first time with plastic fibres in their stomachs.

Crustaceans almost seven miles down in the darkest depths of the Pacific Ocean are eating plastic, scientists have confirmed.

The finding, which is the deepest possible record of microplastics, means nothing living in the world's seas is now likely to be untouched by manmade rubbish.

Every creature sampled at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific had swallowed microscopic fragments including nylon, polyethylene and polyvinyls similar to PVC.

Dr Alan Jamieson, from Newcastle University, who led the study, called the results 'immediate and startling'.
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Fish

Tons of dead fish found along 1.3 km of beach in Liepaja, Latvia

Mu Xuequan
Xinhua
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 20:00 UTC
File Photo
© Juho KuvaFile photo
Environmental experts are investigating the death of several tons of fish that have been washed onto a beach in Latvia's southwestern seaside city of Liepaja this week, local media reported on Wednesday.

About three tons of fish washed ashore on a 1.3 km long stretch of the Liepaja beach, authorities said.

Andris Junkurs, head of resource control at the Latvian State Environmental Service, said that although initially it was thought that the fish had been dumped into the Baltic Sea by some fishermen, this hypothesis had to be ruled out eventually.

The environmental authority's fish control department analyzed satellite images in an attempt to detect the fishing boat that might have dumped an unwanted catch of round goby at sea.
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Snowflake

Sundogs seen in southern Mississippi sky

Wesley Wiliams
WLOX
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 18:13 UTC
Sundogs over Southern Mississippi
© WLOX
If you looked up in Monday afternoon's sky, you may have noticed a strange weather phenomenon. The sun appeared to have a halo and two bright spots on either side of it: this is called a sundog.

Sundogs occur when light interacts with ice crystals in the sky.

Thin and wispy cirrus clouds high in the sky are made up of ice crystals. And as the sun's light shines down through those ice crystals, the rays of light are bounced off of each ice crystal, forming unusual arcs of light on either side of the sun.

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Sun

Impressive sun halo spotted over Las Vegas, Nevada

Brian Donegan
weather.com
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 17:50 UTC
Sun halo over Las Vegas
© National Weather Service - Las Vegas
An impressive sun halo appeared in the sky over Las Vegas on Monday morning thanks to the presence of a thin layer of high-altitude cirrus clouds.

Halos are rings of light that can encircle the sun or the moon, and they usually occur when cirrus clouds are covering the sky.

A mix of chemistry, physics and geometry are the main components for sun halos.

The atmosphere consists of a mix of gases, including oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor. At high altitudes in the sky, water vapor condenses and then freezes into ice crystals. As sunlight passes through those ice crystals, the geometry of the crystals causes sunlight to refract, or bend, similar to what happens when light passes through a prism.
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Rainbow

Spectacular series of sun phenomena appear in the skies of northern Chile


Strange Sounds
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 17:15 UTC
Sun halo over Chiile
© Via Instagram/mekamiro
High altitude cirrus clouds sometimes contain a large number of hexagonal ice crystals, and if these are struck by sunlight at just the right angle, with the sun elevated at least 58 degrees, the sky suddenly looks like somebody waved a giant magnet in front of an old-school computer monitor.

But, yesterday was more than unusual in Antofagasta, Chile. A series of different sun halos lit up the sky over the whole day, baffling sky-watchers as if they've finally discovered the gateway to Oz.

At around midday, a double solar halo - circumhorizontal arc below the very common 22-degree halo - amazed onlookers for approximately half an hour.

Then around 3:30pm, another sun halo appeared before an incredible sundog or two suns phenomenon around 6:30pm. Chemtrailing? Approaching storm? or just weaponized weather art in the heart of Atacama desert? Will see that in the news in the next day. Meanwhile enjoy as if you weren't aware of the weather war going on.

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