Earth ChangesS


Phoenix

Despite hurricane and record flooding, fire crews dealing with large bog fire near Aberystwyth, Wales

Cathy Owen
Western Mail, UK
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 09:14 UTC
Image
Large parts of Cors Fochno (Borth Bog) wetland nature reserve are on fire

We know it sounds strange with all this wet weather, but bog land near Aberystwyth is well alight this morning

Firefighters from Aberystwyth are tackling a major fire at bog land in Borth, near Aberystwyth.

The first call came at 5.20am, but fire crews were having difficulty accessing the land where the fire is raging because of the terrain.

A spokeswoman for Mid and West Fire Service said that around a hectare of land was alight, and that fire crews were assessing the situation as the fire is near to the railway line.

The area has been made famous in the recent Hinterland programme, with the final programme being set in and around the bogland.

Scottish Power has also sent representatives to the area because the fire is close to overhead cables.

Comment: Actually, it's the sogging wet grasses that are on fire, not the peat.

See also:

Flashback: 2 April 2013: Huge wildfires across Scottish Highlands

28 Jan 2014: Many Tibetan monasteries and famous sites destroyed this winter by mysterious 'wildfires'

29 Jan 2014: Third 'winter wildfire' breaks out in Norway - Second in two days - What is going ON?!

10 Feb 2014: As wildfires break out in Alaska and Oregon, Georgia declares state of emergency due to continuing snowfall

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Cow Skull

Pod of nine Orca whales die on New Zealand beach after being stranded overnight

Reissa Su
International Business Times
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 08:17 UTC
Image
© SouthlandScientists examine orcas who stranded on New Zealand beach
Marine biologists are baffled by the mysterious deaths of nine orca whales stranded on New Zealand's Southland beach on Feb 12. New Zealand experts continue to investigate and conduct scientific testing to determine the cause.

Nine orca whales, including a calf, had died while beached on Te WaeWae Bay overnight. The deaths of the orca whales were described as a tragedy for the entire species in New Zealand. According to reports, the population of orca whales in New Zealand waters is estimated to be less than 200. The stranded pod of whales accounted for five per cent of the total population in the country, but New Zealand scientists have been unable to identify the dead whales.

Did earthquakes cause the stranding?

Orca Research Trust founder and whale expert Dr Ingrid Visser said it was possible the whales came from southern waters and became stranded on the bay. Dr Visser has been working with orca whales in the country for about 20 years. She said scientists still have no explanation why the whales became stranded.

Ms Visser declared the recent deaths of the orca whales is the "third largest stranding" of the species in New Zealand. When seen from an international perspective, it could be included in the world's top 10.
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Palette

Global laughing stock UK Met Office - "Lost touch with reality...Corrupted valuable British institution"

Pierre Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 03:18 UTC
Met Office predictions
© Pugh
Just days ago I posted on a how veteran German Die Welt journalist Ulli Kulke was amazed at how supposedly one of the world's best meteorological outfits, the Met Office of England, had botched 13 of the last 14 annual forecasts. Read here.

Kulke accused the Met Office of "systematic false alarms", saying they "refuse to accept the reality" of no warming and that it was "stunning" that they "never learn."

Today Paul Homewood's site features an article that focuses on the very competence of the Met Office Director asking: Can Slingo Get Anything Right? Homewood writes:
Last April, Julia Slingo told us that 'climate change was loading the dice towards freezing, drier weather.'

Apparently, she actually meant milder, wetter weather."

Comment: Super computer or not makes no difference to the essential fact called the GIGO principle: Garbage In, Garbage Out!

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Igloo

20-inch snow dump burying parts of Northeast in massive winter storm

Greg Botelho and Ben Brumfield
CNN
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 02:59 UTC
snow clearing
© AP Don Hammond of Newtown shovels his driveway as snow continues to fall in Connecticut on February 13

As if the East Coast hadn't gotten the point by now, Mother Nature drove it home yet again -- that this is winter, hear it roar.

The storm that threw down a concoction of sleet, snow and freezing rain over the South is pounding an icy path from Philadelphia to Maine Friday.

It is burying many places in the Northeast under up to 20 inches of total snow accumulation, the Nation Weather Service says.

The skies will be teeming with flakes falling at a rate of 2-3 inches per hour in the northernmost regions. Massive piles of snow will become a stumbling block to most people there.

But closer to Philadelphia, freezing rain could make things dangerously slick, the weather service said.

Winter storm wallops Northeast Snowplow kills pregnant woman in NYC Vehicles slipping and sliding in the storm Storm might ruin Valentine's Day

Even in the North, where people are more accustom to dealing with winter's trickery than their compatriots farther South, fast-falling snow on Thursday caused tractor-trailers to jackknife. It prompted authorities in New York to ban commercial traffic on Interstate 84 -- a major east-west highway running through the state.
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Footprints

Two dead and 200,000 told to evacuate as Indonesia's Mount Kelud erupts

Bintang Senandung Nacita
The Jakarta Post/AFP
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 02:34 UTC
Mount Kelud eruption
© APA pedicab makes its way on a street covered with volcanic ash from an eruption of Mount Kelud, in Solo, Central Java, Friday. Volcanic ash from a major eruption in Indonesia shrouded a large swath of the country's most densely populated island on Friday and closed three nearby international airports.
A spectacular volcanic eruption in Indonesia has killed at least two people and forced mass evacuations, disrupting long-haul flights and closing international airports Friday.

Mount Kelud, considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the main island of Java, spewed red-hot ash and rocks high into the air late Thursday night just hours after its alert status was raised.

TV images showed ash and rocks raining down on nearby villages, while AFP correspondents at the scene saw terrified locals covered in ash fleeing in cars and on motorbikes towards evacuation centres.

A man and a woman, both in their 60s, were crushed to death after volcanic material blanketed rooftops, causing their separate homes in the sub-district of Malang to cave in, National Disaster Mitigation Agency Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

"The homes were poorly built and seemed to have collapsed easily under the weight," he said.

Some 200,000 people in a 10-kilometre (six-mile) radius from the volcano were ordered to evacuate, according to national disaster officials, though many tried to return to their homes to gather clothing and valuables -- only to be forced back by a continuous downpour of volcanic materials.

"A rain of ash, sand and rocks is reaching up to 15 kilometres (nine miles)" from the volcano's crater, Nugroho said.
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Bizarro Earth

Thousands flee explosive eruption at Mt. Kelud


Jakarta Globe
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 23:38 UTC
Mt. Kelud
© Wikimedia CommonsMount Kelud in Kediri, East Java.
Thousands of people were reported to have fled their homes in the East Java district of Kediri when Mount Kelud erupted late on Thursday night.

The eruption shot a column of smoke 10 kilometers into the atmosphere, according to Surono, the former head of the Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG), as quoted by Viva, and sent gravel raining down as far as 50 kilometers from the crater of the volcano.

The eruption at 10:50 p.m. was preceded by a seismic earthquake was felt as far away as the Central Java town of Solo, the Jakarta Globe's Ari Susanto reported, and heard as far away as Yogyakarta, 200 kilometers away, according to Tempo.
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Music

Strange howling sound awakens St. Paul, Minnesota

Tim Nelson
MPR News Org
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 08:08 UTC
Was it an animal in distress? Heavy equipment tearing up concrete before dawn? A train accident?

Not that anyone in St. Paul could tell. But a distant, howling scraping sound woke people up about 4 a.m. this morning in St. Paul's Highland Park and Mac-Groveland neighborhoods.

You can hear it here:


The sound echoed for miles through the city
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Igloo

Where's the snow? On the ground in 49 of 50 states

Doyle Rice
USA Today
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:05 UTC
Snowstorm in Washington
© Michael Reynolds, epaThe Washington Monument is barely visible behind visitors to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Feb. 13.

Some snow is on the ground at the highest elevations of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Snow is on the ground in 49 out of the 50 states - only the Sunshine State of Florida is completely snow-free, according to a map produced Thursday morning by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

(This doesn't mean that those 49 states are snow-covered, of course, only that some part of each state has snow.)

Although this map doesn't show it, there is snow in Hawaii, where webcams are showing snow on the high peaks of the mountain volcanoes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.

HAWAII SNOW: Webcam from peak of volcano

The map also doesn't include Alaska, but it's a given that most of that state is snow-covered this time of year. A quick check with the National Weather Service forecast office in Fairbanks found 19 inches of snow on the ground there.

There doesn't appear to be much snow on the ground in Texas or Louisiana, and with the forecast of mild temperatures, it doesn't figure to last much longer there, if it even makes it through the day Thursday.

The map shows how sparse the snow is in parts of the West, as only small parts of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico are showing snow because of the ongoing drought and warmth.

How dry and warm has it been in the Southwest so far this winter? January 2014 was the driest January ever recorded in New Mexico, while Arizona had its second-driest January on record, according to data released Thursday by the National Climatic Data Center.

As for warmth, both Arizona and New Mexico, along with California, had a top-10 warm January.
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Cloud Lightning

Dolphins, seals and birds killed in storm onslaught in Cornwall, UK

W B Miles
West Briton
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 13:37 UTC
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Seals, dolphins and sea birds have all been killed in the succession of storms in Cornwall.
Wildlife in Cornwall has taken a battering in the relentless storms with "an unprecedented number" of dead birds, dolphins and seals washing up on the coast.

Dead sea birds including puffins, razorbills and guillemots, gannets and cormorants have been washed up all along the north and south coasts according to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT).

The charity said seals in particular were struggling, with many of this year's new pups being found stranded, injured, weak and often dead on our shores.

CWT said 29 birds, 14 seals and 9 dolphins were recorded dead on the shores of Cornwall in the last four weeks.
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Attention

Whale carcass washed up on the coast of Minahasa, Indonesia

Ronny Adolof Buol
demotix.com
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 13:26 UTC
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© Ronny Adolof BuolA dead whale washed up on the beach Minahasa, North Sulawesi.
The whale already thought to be dead, beached at Minahasa, North Sulawesi. The size of the whale's body was about 10 meters, with a width of 2 meters and weighed 300 kilograms.
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