Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Six killed by lightning strikes in Maharashtra, India


India Today
Sat, 10 Jun 2017 18:10 UTC
lightning
Six persons were killed when lightning struck them in separate incidents in Maharashtra, officials said today.

In the first incident, four persons were killed after being struck by lightning in Dhanur village in Gadchiroli district last evening, District Disaster management officer Krishna Reddy told PTI.

A group of 13 villagers were attending a pooja at an agricultural farm when lightning struck them, he said.

All the 13 injured were rushed to a government health centre in Aheri, where four were declared brought dead, Reddy added.

The deceased have been identified as Sandip Khusnake (30), Ritesh Kinake (25) Jankiram Todsam (43) and Shyamrao Kanake (58), the official added.

Comment: Elsewhere in India over the last few days a bolt killed 3 family members in Odisha state while 2 women were killed by another strike in Meghalaya.

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Attention

Three volcanoes are restless on the Alaska Peninsula

Avery Lill
kdlg.org
Fri, 09 Jun 2017 14:28 UTC
A volcanic plume from Bogoslof on June 5, 2017
© US Fish & Wildlife ServiceA volcanic plume from Bogoslof on June 5, 2017
Bogoslof volcano has a new lava dome. Cleveland volcano continues to put up ash and extrude lava, and the alert level for Pavlof volcano was raised to "advisory."

Over the last week there has been quite a bit of volcanic activity along the Alaska Peninsula. The Bogoslof, Cleveland, and Pavlof volcanoes are all showing signs of unrest. Most recently, the Bogoslof volcano erupted briefly Wednesday around 9:30 p.m.

"Bogoslof has been continuing its eruptive activity that started in December 2016 with a series of small activities," says Jessica Larsen, a geologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory. "Now we have new evidence that there's a lava dome growing at the Bogoslof Island."

A lava dome is a mound of lava that has been extruded from the volcano. This is characteristic of previous Bogoslof explosive periods.
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Wolf

1-year-old boy dies following mauling by Rottweiler in Phoenix, Arizona

Trisha Hendricks
12news.com
Sat, 10 Jun 2017 13:07 UTC
canine attack
© Angela Antunes / CC by 2.0
A 1-year-old boy died after a dog attack in a South Phoenix home.

A fire official said a grandmother was watching the child at the time of the incident. Police said she was at home doing laundry when she put down the baby boy. The woman opened a house door and the dog got inside the room the boy was in, according to police.

Officers said the dog grabbed the baby and dragged him outside.

A Phoenix police officer shot the Rottweiler dog to make it stop attacking the boy. The boy, identified as Marcos Raya Junior, was taken to a local trauma center in extremely critical condition, and later pronounced dead.

Marcos Raya Junior's family is devastated. His mom told 12 News he was their miracle baby and that she prayed for him for 11 years. They called him MJ.


Comment: A couple of days earlier than the above incident 2 Rottweilers savagely attacked a 7-year-old boy in Niagara Falls, New York:
A 7-year-old boy, brutally attacked by two rottweilers in Niagara Falls, is fighting for his life. Kaeden Mitchell's mother says her son was at his babysitter's house on 70th Street where the two dogs are normally locked up when kids are around.

Vikki Avino says she got a call at work Wednesday afternoon that the dogs broke out of their cage as Kaeden and a 4-year-old girl were outside and attacked. Avino says the little girl managed to climb over a fence and get away, and the dogs' owner tried to intervene and shield Mitchell, but the dogs were relentless.

"He had had his ears ripped off, his eyelids, he's got big holes in his neck. He has lacerations everywhere. Legs, arms, stomach, neck head," she said by phone.

Avino says her son has already had several surgeries at a Buffalo hospital, with more expected.


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Camera

Circumzenithal arc, sun dogs seen over England's Waveney Valley

Ian Carstairs
iwitness24.co.uk
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 13:15 UTC
Circumzenithal arc over Harleston in the Waveney Valley

As the storm approached a circumzenithal arc and sun dogs formed ahead of the thicker clouds .
Circumzenithal arc and sun dogs over England
© Ian Carstairs/iwitness24
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Snowflake

Snow and heavy rains disrupt mining operations in desert region of northern Chile

Fabian Cambero
Reuters
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 15:52 UTC
snow halts mining in Chile
© REUTERS/StringerBHP Billiton's Escondida, the world's biggest copper mine, is seen snow covered after heavy rains lashed the high altitude desert region of Antofagasta overnight and into Wednesday in northern Chile June 7, 2017.

Mines in northern Chile have suspended key operations after heavy rains lashed the high altitude desert region of Antofagasta overnight and into Wednesday, companies told Reuters.

BHP Billiton's Escondida, the world's biggest copper mine, said it was snowing and all operations had been suspended.

State-run Codelco [COBRE.UL] said mining activities at its flagship Chuquicamata deposit and at nearby Radomiro Tomic and Ministro Hales had been suspended as a preventative measure, while Antofagasta said Centinela and Zaldivar had suffered intermittent interruptions.

Polish miner KGHM's Sierra Gorda said it was considering whether to restrict some operations as a precaution.

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Rainbow

'High altitude rainbow' seen over Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Mark Alan Lovewell
Vineyard Gazette
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 12:28 UTC
Circumhorizontal arc in Martha's Vineyard
© Jenifer StrachenCircumhorizontal arc in Martha's Vineyard
Last Sunday morning a number of Vineyarders spotted an extraordinary atmospheric event in the sky, a peculiar high altitude rainbow. This was not the usual rainbow we are all familiar with following a summer shower, where rain clouds are nearby. This was different.

What our friends saw on Sunday was what meteorologists call a circumhorizontal arc, not a very attractive name for a pretty event, created by sunlight passing through high altitude ice crystals.

A circumhorizontal arc is far more related and a cousin to a halo and also a sun dog. Though all three are rare, the rarest of them all is the circumhorizontal arc. This is an event that takes place way up high in the neighborhood of cirrus clouds, well over 20,000 feet above ground.

Our changing atmosphere is a giant part in the creation of Sunday's show. The air around us was dry and stable, while high aloft there was change, an approaching cold front. High in the sky, there was bitter cold air interacting with moisture creating ice crystals. One more ingredient in this phenomena involves the relative angle between us, the crystals and the sun.

Sun dogs, halos and circumhorizontal arcs were used to predict the weather. They were a sign of an advancing change in the air. Last Sunday, the cold front passed over the Vineyard and brought with it rainy weather by the end of the day.
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Cloud Lightning

60 killed by lightning strikes since the start of year in the Indian state of Jharkhand

A.S.R.P. Mukesh
The Telegraph (India)
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 19:06 UTC
lightning
The state emergency response centre, a centralised unit set up in Dhurwa to coordinate with districts and issue timely alerts, has stopped functioning from February, and the government displays no urgency to revive it even though Jharkhand has already recorded more than 60 deaths due to lightning strikes since January.

Today, according to police, three persons died after being struck by lightning while working in the fields at Garadih village at Kairo in Lohardaga. So far in June, 13 people have died of lightning strikes in the state, according to media reports and estimates provided by independent disaster management experts. In May, the toll was 40 across the state with 21 in East Singhbhum alone.

According to sources, the state emergency response centre has ceased to function because state disaster management's special projects officer's post has been lying vacant ever since the contract of Col Sanjay Srivastava, an expert from UNDP, expired over three months back.

The special projects officer was to act as the nodal officer of the disaster management department, under the state home department, and coordinate with district disaster management officers (DDMOs), local administrations and stakeholders during exigencies.
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Cloud Precipitation

8 inches of hail falls near Canyon, Texas

Karl Wehmhoener
My High Plains
Fri, 09 Jun 2017 18:21 UTC
hAIL
© Camp Don Harrington
After Thursday night's hail storm, staff at Camp Don Harrington are getting ready for 150 Cub Scouts to attend camp today.

Officials at the camp say over 8 inches of hail came down and damages several areas and caused flooding in other parts.

"Mrs. Ranger" Brenda Hutson posted that some staff tents were damaged during the storm and some water got into the buildings.

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Cloud Precipitation

Evacuations following floods in Vrsac, Serbia

Richard Davies
Floodlist
Fri, 09 Jun 2017 18:07 UTC
Department for Emergency Situations in Serbia carried out flood rescues in areas near Vršac.
© Serbia Ministry of InteriorDepartment for Emergency Situations in Serbia carried out flood rescues in areas near Vršac.
One person has died and as many over 40 people were evacuated when a storm and heavy rain caused flooding in parts of north eastern Serbia on Wednesday 07 June, 2017.

Serbia's Ministry of Interior reported flooding in the villages of Uljma, Izbiste, and Šušara, near Vršac in the province of Vojvodina. Vršac is around 75 km north east of the capital Belgrade, close to the border with Romania.

The Ministry of Interior reported that the Department for Emergency Situations had evacuated 42 people in the affected villages. Dozens of homes were inundated although much of the flood water soon subsided. Local media say that one person, thought to be an elderly woman, died in the floods.

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Attention

First shark attack on surfer recorded in the UK


Surfer Today
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 18:00 UTC
handcut
A 30-year-old surfer survived a shark attack in Bantham Beach, near Devon, in England.

Rich Thomson was grabbed by the leg and bitten by a three-foot smooth-hound shark. As a result, he suffered cuts to his hands and a bruised leg.

According to researchers, it is the first time in the UK that the ocean's predator attacks a surfer. And the strike would have caused worse injuries if he had not worn a thick wetsuit.

"I turned around and saw this little shark was on my thigh and wriggling its head side to side. I hit it on the head, and it swam off. My hand was cut to pieces. I had a quite a sizeable bruise about three inches across," explained Thomson.
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