Earth ChangesS


Cloud Precipitation

14 killed and 16,000 displaced in Madagascar flooding

Richard Davies
floodlist.com
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 18:40 UTC
Image
© Arif Ali, AFPFlooding Madagascar
In a statement made earlier today, Madagascar's disaster management agency, the Bureau National de Gestion des Risques et des Catastrophes (BNGRC) said that at least 14 people have died in floods in the capital, Antananarivo, since yesterday, 26 February 2015.

The floods came after a night of torrential rainfall. WMO report that 75 mm of rain fell in Antananarivo in 24 hours between 26 and 27 February.

The heavy rain caused three rivers in the area to overflow and several dams to break. BNGRC's statement called for vigilance. They said that relief and evacuations are ongoing and encouraged people to remain vigilant to the various risks of landslides, building collapse and rising flood water.

Levels of the Ikopa river rose by 70cm in 24 hours in Anosizato. River levels stand at 4.67m at Bevomanga - already 17cm above flood stage.
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 7.0 - 132km N of Nebe, Indonesia


US Geological Survey
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:18 UTC
Nebe Quake_270215
© USGS
Event Time
  1. 2015-02-27 13:45:05 (UTC)
  2. Times in other timezones
Nearby Cities
  1. 132km (82mi) N of Nebe, Indonesia
  2. 152km (94mi) NNE of Maumere, Indonesia
  3. 198km (123mi) NNE of Ende, Indonesia
  4. 200km (124mi) S of Baubau, Indonesia
  5. 363km (226mi) WNW of Dili, East Timor
Scientific Data
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Wolf

Weimeraner survives cougar attack in Sierra National Forest, California


examiner.com
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 14:00 UTC
Image
© yourcentralvalley.comWeimeraner survives cougar attack
A weekday rendezvous with Mother Nature gave a group of California hikers much more than they expected. What started out as a pleasant mountain jaunt for a four-year-old weimeraner and her owner in Oakhurst, California went south very quickly when they came face-to-face with a mountain lion. On Feb. 19, Candace Gregory was hiking with friends in the Sierra National Forest with her dog Sally. As Gregory tells it, she and her friends were about 30 feet behind her dog when she saw "a flash of something tannish".

Before it could even register, the big cat had Sally's head in it's jaws and it's paws wrapped around the pooch's body. Fellow hiker Rick Lawin said he heard a "blood curdling screaming sound of an animal in its death throes." He ran up and started hitting the mountain lion with his hiking stick, to help out Sally and protect his fellow hikers. That worked, because the hungry animal dropped the dog and jumped into the trees. They estimate that the big cat must have weighed at least 120 pounds.
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Wolf

Two coyotes attack dog in Cleveland, Ohio cemetery

Donna J. Miller
Cleveland.com
Thu, 19 Feb 2015 13:41 UTC
Image
© Beverly SinghMaitri, a 70-pound greyhound-mix, was attacked by two coyotes soon after this photo was taken.
A Cleveland Heights dog is recovering from being attacked Sunday by two cold and hungry coyotes at Lake View Cemetery.

Yes, a cemetery island of grass and trees amid the busy streets at the intersection of Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and East Cleveland was the scene of a coyote encounter and more proof that Ohio's coyote population is rebounding.

Maitri, a 70-pound greyhound-mix, was lucky she had speed on her side. She escaped with a gaping flesh wound to a hind leg that required six stitches.
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Cloud Lightning

Thundersnow or meteor event the cause of flashes in Arctic sky over Alaska?

Carey Restino
Alaska Dispatch News
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 13:05 UTC
Image
Thundersnow
Facebook lit up almost as brightly as the sky over Kotzebue and other areas of the Arctic last Sunday morning, as people speculated about what the bright flashes in the sky were.

More than a dozen people reported seeing several bright flashes in the sky, unexplained by air traffic or other human activity. One thought neighborhood children were pulling a prank at first. Another suggested a meteor had split into three parts. Another reported hearing booms.

Then came a post showing a Chicago-based meteorologist on The Weather Channel standing in a blinding snowstorm with the sky flashing behind him. The ecstatic reporter hooted as he and his camera man captured "thundersnow" on camera several times in the course of a few minutes.

Though rare, thundersnow is a real phenomenon, a snow thunderstorm that occurs under circumstances similar to a thunderstorm as a cold or warm front moves into an area. The thunder is often muffled by the snow, but the flashes may still be visible.

"It's pretty rare, but it's not out of the question in the winter," said John Lingaas, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. "The conditions have to be just right."

Comment: See also: Weatherman goes berserk over 'thundersnow' in Boston

Freak 'thundersnow' storm wreaks havoc on Toronto

Rare thundersnow in Dallas, Texas: 'How is this possible?'

Virginia, US: 'Thundersnow' behind mysterious blue flashes of light?

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Arrow Down

Catastrophe-hopping Spiegel: German news magazine rolls out latest climate horror vision: A burning North Pole

Pierre L. Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 04:27 UTC
This week's hard copy of Spiegel features the front cover story dubbed "Der verheizte Planet" - The heated planet - (see image below). Thus, Spiegel is returning and keeping to its long tradition of promoting end-of world scenarios.

The following image sequence shows how the burning planet is just the latest and newest climate catastrophe designed to get an apocalypse-weary public to worry (and to buy its magazines). So far the reaction, however, has been a big yawn. The world is, after all, full with other real concerns.
Climate
© SpiegelSpiegel depictions over the last decades. 1986 and 2015 were even front cover images. 1974: cooling. 1986: sea level rise. Now, 2015: it’s a burning planet.
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Eye 2

Snake makes a rare winter appearance in Stephenville, Maryland

Angela Price
The Star Democrat
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 22:58 UTC
Image
© Jake ClaypooleA Snake in Winter
Jake Claypoole of Stevenville spotted something unusual when he took his son sledding near the park and ride across from Kent Landing Shopping Center, commonly called Kmart hill, about noon Wednesday, Feb. 18. He noticed a 3-foot snake on top of the ice on the storm water management pond.

Claypoole said he thought the snake was dead at first, but then he noticed its tongue moving and it began slithering toward the snow.
He said he watched and took pictures for about 20 minutes as the snake made its way off the ice, across the snow and into some nearby brush.

He said he had never seen a snake out in the winter on snow or ice before.

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Ice Cube

King crab from Arctic waters found on Redcar beach, UK

Dave Robson
The Gazette
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 22:24 UTC
Image
King Crab on Redcar beach

Red king crab could be first on our shores, crustacean is usually found in icy waters like the Arctic

He's spent his working life beneath the sea but even oceanographer David McCreadie was baffled by a rare visitor to Redcar.

For the formidable-looking red crustacean found by David's fiancee Diane Weinoski looks for all the world like a king crab - and they hardly ever stray from considerably icier waters.

Members of the lithododid family, king crabs are large, tasty and usually found in seas MUCH colder than Redcar's.

And despite having worked and played in oceans across the world since the mid-1960s, David has never heard of one being found this far south.
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Ice Cube

Deadly winter takes toll on waterfowl in Michigan

Tony Wittkowski and Liz Shepard
The Times Herald
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 20:14 UTC
Image
© Andrew Jowett / Times HeraldDucks sit on a shelf of ice Monday along the St. Clair River in Port Huron.
Harsh weather is taking a toll on the waterfowl concentrated in the St. Clair River.

Terry McFadden, a wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said waterfowl across the state are dying because of the extreme cold and growing ice cover.

Below-zero temperatures have caused rapid ice formation, blocking ducks from food sources in the water and sometimes trapping the birds in the ice.

"Most likely it's going to be similar to last year, we lost quite a few last year," McFadden said. "We don't have a really good estimate, but it was in the thousands."

McFadden said waterfowl, including long-tailed and canvasback ducks, are concentrated in the St. Clair River, where some of the region's only remaining open water is located.

That large concentration of birds depletes available resources as the ice forms.

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Ice Cube

Massachusetts animal shelters report large numbers of suffering wildlife due to record cold weather

Bella English
The Boston Globe
Thu, 26 Feb 2015 19:51 UTC
Image
© John Tlumacki/Globe StaffA screech owl sat on a perch mending a fractured wing at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth.
The casualty list is wide ranging: possums with frostbite, a turtle frozen in a block of ice, a swan hit by a plow, a fox hit by a car.

If this month's record cold and snowfall have taken a toll on human residents in Massachusetts, they have also wreaked havoc on the animal population, particularly wildlife. Animal shelters are beyond capacity with weather-related injuries.

"This is the worst winter that we've seen in terms of straight-up starving animals coming in," said veterinarian Maureen Murray, who practices and teaches at the Tufts University Wildlife Clinic in North Grafton. "With this historic amount of snow and extremely low temperatures, animals need more energy to stay warm, but they're not able to find food sources for that energy, so it's a really big strain on them."

Although it's difficult to determine whether wildlife populations have suffered permanent damage, local experts say it's clear the animals are under extreme stress.
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