Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Unlike anything seen before: Solomon Islands flash floods kill at least 19 people


The Guardian
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 12:10 UTC
solomon floods
© Rachel Skeates/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople search through the debris on the beach near the Solomon Islands capital of Honiara
Forty people are missing and 49,000 homeless after entire communities washed away following heavy rains

Devastating flash floods in the Solomon Islands have killed at least 19 people, while 40 are still missing and an estimated 49,000 people are homeless.

Entire riverside communities and bridges were washed away when the Matanikau river in Honiara broke its banks on Thursday. The government declared a state of emergency.

Rivers in the north-west, central and north of the island also flooded, destroying homes and displacing communities.There are more than 5,500 people in three of the most populous of the 13 evacuation shelters in Honiara, where aid groups report dengue fever is threatening to spread.
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Arrow Down

Flint City plans to mend large sinkhole in local neighborhood, Michigan

Emmy Lucas
abc12.com
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 10:20 UTC
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What started out as a small inconvenience, turned into a major problem for some residents in this Flint neighborhood.

Brittney Lewis and her sister say the growing sinkhole is just steps away from their Flint home near the intersection of Dupont and Bagley Streets.

"it's real big now, scary," Brittney said.

It was just a small divot less than a week ago...and now measures over six feet at its widest point. It's no wonder concerns are growing as fast as the sinkhole itself.

"I'm nervous about the kids running back and forth across the street and they might fall down. That's why I tell my little sister, just stay up here by the driveway and the cars," said Brittney.

The school busses. They mostly come down right there. It makes me nervous," said Sterlisha Alexander, who lives across the street from the sinkhole.

While some residents are worried, others have met the situation with a sense of humor and trust Flint will fix it.

"Michigan has brought a little bit of Florida to us and we have our own sinkhole. Flint's trying, but it's going to take some time," said Terry Schlosser who lives in the neighborhood of the sinkhole.
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Snowflake Cold

Hundreds of dead and dying palms legacy of big chill in Florida


Pensacola News Journal
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 09:50 UTC
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© MARK KULAW
What's up with all the dead palms?

From the towering palms at Pensacola International Airport to backyard cabbage palms, the legacy of this winter's unprecedented freeze in early January left hundreds and hundreds of damaged or dead palm trees.

The harsh cold, which saw temperatures in the teen for an extended period, took a toll on plant life in the area, but palm trees in particular have suffered, leaving folks wondering whether they will come back if pruned or whether they should be removed.

"A lot of the palm trees that you see in the area are not recommended for the zone that we're in," said Carol Lord, an environmental horticultural technician at Escambia County Extension. "So they may not come back."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a Hardiness Zone Map that provides information that helps gardeners determine what plants will grow in their area.
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Info

30 Dead dolphins have washed up at Galveston since oil spill


newsfixnow.com
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:39 UTC
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© AP/Jennifer ReynoldsGerald Joubert bags oil-soaked sand on the Texas City Dike as crews start the clean-up after the Galveston Bay oil spill.

Just as it seemed the clean-up efforts from last months oil spill under control, there's new evidence washing ashore that proves to the public just how much nearly 168,000 gallons of oil affects wildlife.

The U.S. Coast Guard confirms that 30 dead dolphins have been found in the Galveston area since the wreck, 48 total in March. That's well above average, and very well above last years recovery of only 15.

A high number of dead dolphins is typical during what is called the stranding season from January through March, but so far, 2 have been confirmed to have oil on their bodies and two more are being tested for possible oil exposure.

Though it's not proven that oil is the definite cause of the increase in stranding yet, it's definitely a concern, and until the murky waters are all cleared up, we won't know exactly how much our wildlife will be impacted.
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Arrow Down

Sinkhole shuts down Roanoke City roadway in Virginia

Rachel Lucas
wsls.com
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 10:31 UTC
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With recent rainfall, a sinkhole has opened up on a Roanoke City roadway.

The sinkhole is about four feet in diameter and about one foot deep.

The sinkhole has closed a portion of Southern Hills Drive in the Southwest portion of the city.

The closure is between the 4200 and 4300 blocks, or from where Southern Hills Drive intersects Van Winkle and Griffin roads. Police say they are advising drivers to take alternate routes.
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Cloud Lightning

'Several' planes struck by lightning during one storm in Bay Area, California


The Press Democrat
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:31 UTC
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© KRON
Northern California authorities say several planes have been struck by lightning as rain fell Monday on the drought-stricken San Francisco Bay Area.

Alaska Airlines spokesman Bobbie Egan says Alaska Airlines flight 2589, operated by Horizon Air, was on its way to Oakland, Calif., from Portland, Ore., when it was struck by lightning.

Egan says that planes are designed to withstand lightning strikes and that no one on board was harmed.

The flight landed at Oakland International Airport just before 1 p.m. Monday and was expected to be back in service by Tuesday.
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Arrow Down

Two cars trapped by sinkhole in Detroit, Michigan


myfoxdetroit.com
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 10:15 UTC
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A fresh sinkhole in Detroit along McClellan and Felch streets, near Gratiot Avenue, trapped two vehicles Friday evening.

Davonte Reed says he thought he was driving over a drainage backup when his Ford Focus became abruptly stuck in the ground.

"It's - BOOM. I just leaned forward, my face hit the steering wheel, and it's just crazy," he says.

He says he called police who told he they couldn't provide assistance, and suggested he call a tow truck. While Reed was waiting to be towed, he called and alerted FOX 2 to his situation and we sent a crew to the scene.

The tow truck came and pulled out Reed's vehicle. But, shortly after, a second vehicle drove over the same spot and also got lodged in the sinkhole because no barricade had been placed.

That accident was caught on FOX 2 camera. The photographer was shooting the tow truck driving away from the scene, carrying the Ford Focus. In just a matter of seconds after the tow truck drove out of the shot, the Jeep drives into the sinkhole. The photographer unfortunately did not have time to warn the driver because the tow truck was blocking his line of sight, and when he realized what was happening it was too late.
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Butterfly

Bye-bye butterfly: monarchs' are about to disappear

Tim Johnson
Miami Herald
Mon, 31 Mar 2014 08:55 UTC
monarch butterfly
© Tim Johnson / MCTA monarch butterfly lands on the head of an unsuspecting photographer in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico's Michoacan state, March 21, 2014
On a high mountain slope in central Mexico, a patch of fir trees looks dusted in orange and black. In fact, millions of monarch butterflies cloak the trees. The forest murmurs with the whir of their flapping wings.

Every year, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies, each so light that 50 together weigh barely an ounce, find their way on what may be the world's longest insect migration, traveling the length of North America to pass the winter in central Mexico.

Yet the great monarch migration is in peril, a victim of rampant herbicide use in faraway corn and soybean fields, extreme weather, a tiny microbial pathogen and deforestation. Monarch butterfly populations are plummeting. The dense colonies of butterflies on central Mexican peaks were far smaller this year than ever before.

Scientists say Mexico's monarch butterfly colonies, as many as several million butterflies in one acre, are on the cusp of disappearing. If the species were to vanish, one of the few creatures emblematic of all North America, a beloved insect with powerhouse stamina that even school kids can easily identify, would be gone.
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Sun

NASA releases footage of M6.5 solar flare


RT
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 12:49 UTC
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© Reuters/NASA
A spectacular mid-level solar flare was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which released stunning footage of the looping whip of fire.

According to the North American Space Agency (NASA), the sun emitted the mid-level solar flare on Wednesday at 14:05 GMT. The flare was classified as an M6.5 example. M-class flares are ten times less powerful than the most intense X-class flares. Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9.n (apart from X), so that an X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, an M2 is twice as powerful as an M1, and so on.

The video captured by the observatory shows the flare "in a blend of two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light: 304 Angstroms and 171 Angstroms, colorized in yellow and red, respectively."
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Hourglass

Volcano Shiveluch in the Russian Far East erupts ash at altitude of 6 km


ITAR-TASS
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 07:37 UTC
Volcano eruption
© ITAR-TASS
Volcano Shiveluch has erupted ash at an altitude of six kilometres above sea level in Russian Far East's Ust-Kamchatsky municipal entity, Kamchatka branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences geophysical service stated on Sunday.

The ash plume has spread northwest of the volcano towards Bay Ozernoy not affecting any settlements, the Kamchatka territorial emergency situation department said. No threat exists for settlements.

The volcano is ranked with orange aeronautical code of high eruption hazard.
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