Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

At least 500 lightning strikes in one hour for Suntree-Viera, Florida

J.D. Gallop
Florida Today
Wed, 09 Sep 2015 18:32 UTC
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© Craig Rubadoux / Florida TodayLightning strikes
At one point Tuesday, meteorologists recorded at least 500 lightning strikes mostly concentrated in Suntree-Viera during a one hour period.

Storm-rattled residents will get a slight break from the intense lighting and heavy rains that rumbled through the Labor Day holiday, but weather officials are already warning that the powerful storms could return by the weekend.

"The storms in the last couple of days have been pretty unusual. We've also had a lot of heavy rain and lightning strikes. It's not been technically severe but it has been an active Labor Day weekend," said Scott Kelly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne.

"It was an impressive lightning show but what we've also heard is that people have been getting a lot of flooding. With the storms people have been getting one or two inches of rain and they're noticing the water on the roads and in their yards, especially in Rockledge and Viera," he said.

At one point Tuesday, meteorologists recorded at least 500 lightning strikes mostly concentrated in Suntree-Viera during a one hour period of time as the intense storms rolled across Central Brevard.
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Bizarro Earth

Ice Age Cometh: Scientists fear 'Day After Tomorrow' climate change

Tony Dokoupil
MSNBC
Thu, 10 Sep 2015 17:38 UTC
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© Scott Olson/GettyMist rises from Lake Michigan on Jan. 6, 2014 in Chicago, Ill.
In the 2004 disaster-flick "Day After Tomorrow," abrupt man-made climate change knocks the planet into a state of utter chaos. At the time, the movie's vision of the apocalypse wasn't seen as realistic. But that's begun to change.

Two new studies deepen the fear that global warming could shut down the circulation of the oceans, much as the movie portrays, dropping vast stretches of Asia into drought and exposing the whole Northern Hemisphere to severe ice and snow.

Unlike gradual climate change, where the planet warms steadily, this change would be sudden and sharp enough to roil civilization—happening in as little as three years and resulting in as much as an 18-degree Fahrenheit drop in average temperatures.

Jud Partin is the lead author of the stronger, more ambitious of the two studies. He's also a geophysicist at the University of Texas, and an unabashedly close viewer of a certain summer blockbuster starring Dennis Quaid as hero-scientist Jack Hall.

"In the movie they defy the laws of physics. They have hurricanes developing over land and tornados in Los Angeles and other impossible stuff," Partin told MSNBC. "But they got the climate science pretty right."
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Wolf

Jackal usually found in southeast Europe turns up in Denmark

Christian W
The Copenhagen Post
Thu, 10 Sep 2015 17:12 UTC
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© Attis1979The European jackal is usually found in southeast Europe
Denmark seems to be attracting all kinds of interesting animals these days.

First the wolves made a spectacular return to Denmark after a 200-year absence, and now the European jackal has suddenly popped up in the Jutland countryside.

It has been confirmed that a dead male European jackal - which is usually found in southeast Europe (mostly in Greece and Serbia) - has been found near Karup in Jutland, and nothing suggests that it has been released or has escaped from captivity.

"It's always very exciting and quite rare to see new mammal species in Denmark's nature," said Ella Maria Bisschop-Larsen, the president of the conservation society Danmarks Naturfredningsforening. "Although we have experienced the raccoon dog and the wolf recently."

"We're not too happy about the raccoon dog, but the wolf, which is a native species, needs protecting. Now we must discuss how we will handle it if there are more jackals out there or if more arrive."
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Arrow Down

Five-metre-deep sinkhole almost swallows lorry, worker rescued, Hong Kong


Coconuts Hong Kong
Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:23 UTC
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Yesterday at 2pm a large five-metre-deep and five-metre-wide pothole suddenly appeared under a lorry as it drove down Sunny Street in Ngau Tau Kok.

The road collapsed under the cab of the lorry, which was carrying Watson water jugs, but thankfully the driver and three passengers were able to climb out onto terra firma, reports Apple Daily.

A worker arrived on the scene to figure out how to tow the truck out of the hole, but unfortunately as he stood peering over the edge of the water-filled sinkhole, it eroded further, causing him to fall in.

The 65-year-old swam to the edge of the hole and was able to tread water until he was rescued by other workers. He was thankfully unharmed.

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Fireball 5

Huge chunk of ice slams into house in Modesto, California


KCRA
Wed, 09 Sep 2015 15:27 UTC
Chunk leaves gaping hole in roof, damages car
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The chunk of ice punctured the roof, two floors and damaged a car in the garage

Neighbors are flocking to one Modesto home after a large chunk of ice fell from the sky and landed on the garage Wednesday morning.

"It sounded so loud so it must have been traveling pretty fast," said Lisa Lawrence. She was sitting outside her home on Briggs Avenue around 11 a.m. when she saw something unusual.

"It looked like a garbage bag flying in the air," she said. "I looked up at it, and it was a big old ball of ice, bigger than a basketball and I watched it go down and it went off like a bomb."

That block of ice landed just a few doors down, slamming straight into a roof on Ackerman Way, eventually ending up on the bumper of a car.


Comment: From earlier this year:

Chunk of ice, megacryometeor, falls from sky mysteriously crashing through Chicago man's ceiling

From a couple of years ago:

Megacryometeor? Giant ice meteor slams to Earth near kids playing in Tennessee

And from 8 years ago:

50-pound Ice Chunks Fall From Sky
Car-destroying chunk may be icy meteor

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Fire

Wildfire season in the US has worsened dramatically in recent years, and 2015 is set to be the worst yet

Chris Mooney
Washington Post
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 15:12 UTC
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The wildfire outside Los Angeles in July this year that torched vehicles on its way through a major highway
As of Tuesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than 8 million acres have burned in U.S. wildfires in 2015. 8,202,557 of them, to be precise. That's an area larger than the state of Maryland.

And the numbers are still growing: 65 large fires are currently raging across the country, particularly in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. That includes three Washington state fires or fire complexes that are larger than 100,000 acres burned.

As of this writing, the United States remains at wildfire preparedness level 5 — the highest level — where it has been since Aug. 13.

There are only six other years that have seen more than 8 million acres burned — 2012, 2011, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004 — based on National Interagency Fire Center records that date back to 1960. It is hard not to notice that all of these years came since the year 2000.

Comment: And it's not just the US; the whole world is on fire:



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Attention

Magnitude 3.7 earthquake in western Quebec


cbc.ca
Wed, 09 Sep 2015 14:15 UTC
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© Earthquakes CanadaA magnitude 3.7 earthquake registered at 3:17 p.m. ET in the area of Shawville, Que., on Sept. 9, 2015.
Earthquakes Canada reports a magnitude 3.7 quake near Gracefield, Que.

An earthquake registering at magnitude 3.7 shook an area in western Quebec on Wednesday afternoon.

Natrual Resources Canada reported the quake about three kilometres south-southwest of Gracefield, Que., which is a popular spot for earthquakes.

The federal agency said the quake, which hit at 3:17 p.m. ET on Wednesday, should not lead to damage due to its small scale.
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Attention

5.5 magnitude earthquake jolts Islamabad, parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan


The Express Tribune
Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:05 UTC
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© AFP
An strong earthquake jolted Islamabad along with north-western parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa early on Thursday morning, Express News reported.

According to the meteorological department, the earthquake, measuring 5.5 on the Ricther scale, was felt in the federal capital Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Abbottabad, Chitral and other mountainous regions.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the epicentre of the earthquake was just 36 kilometers north east of Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan at a depth of 93km.

However, there was no immediate reports of any loss of life or property.
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Attention

5.5 magnitude earthquake strikes off Mexican coast


RT
Tue, 08 Sep 2015 13:58 UTC
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© usgs.gov
An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale has struck off the Pacific coast of Mexico, the US Geological Survey reported. The quake occurred near the towns of Pijijiapan and Mapastepec.

The quake took place 135 kilometers from the town of Pijijiapan and 136 km from the town of Mapastepec.

Mexico, one of the world's most seismically active counties, has a long history of earthquakes, according to the USGS. In July 2014, five people died after a 7.1-magnitude quake struck the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and neighboring Guatemala.
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Windsock

Family survives surprise wind blasts, as four microbursts blamed for localized damage in Kansas

Kathy Hageman
Abilene Recorder Chronicle
Wed, 09 Sep 2015 10:28 UTC
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© Chancy Smith (Dickinson County Emergency Management)Family and friends of the Travis Bartley family look for salvageable items Tuesday morning after a microburst with winds around 110 miles per hour destroyed their home located in the 1700 block of Eden Road.
Travis Bartley was counting his blessings Tuesday afternoon.

"We were lucky. We were very, very lucky," Bartley said, recalling how his family's home was destroyed Monday night by what the National Weather Service in Topeka is calling "multiple microbursts."

Travis and his wife, Kim, and sons Easton, 6, and Jake, 3, were at home around 8 p.m. in the 1700 block of Eden Road, southwest of Abilene, enjoying a quiet Labor Day evening.
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