Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - South of Panama

Panama Quake_050215
© USGS
Event Time
2015-02-05 04:40:54 (UTC)

Times in other timezones

Nearby Cities
  1. 314km (195mi) S of Punta de Burica, Panama
  2. 341km (212mi) S of Puerto Armuelles, Panama
  3. 351km (218mi) S of Pedregal, Panama
  4. 358km (222mi) S of David, Panama
  5. 545km (339mi) SSE of San Jose, Costa Rica
Scientific Data

Snowflake

New statewide snowfall record set in Eastport, Maine: Over 6ft in 10 days

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© Don DunbarSnow was piled up on sidewalks of Eastport on Tuesday, after a major storm brought several inches of snow to the small city in Washington County.
Seventy-six inches and counting.

That's how much snow has fallen in Eastport since Jan. 25, which is a new 10-day record for documented snowfall anywhere in Maine. The previous record of 71 inches was set more than 50 years ago at Ripogenus Dam, just west of Baxter State Park in Piscataquis County, over a 10-day period, from late December 1962 to early January 1963, according to the National Weather Service.

Victor Nouhan, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Caribou, emphasized Wednesday the amount of data and information available to the federal agency is limited, so he cannot say whether Eastport's 76 inches is the most snowfall ever in Maine in a week and a half. He said the Fryeburg area got an exceptionally heavy dumping of snow in February 1969, which may rival the amount that officially has been measured in Eastport.

Wolf

As black bear attacks increase, Florida may remove hunting ban

black bears
© Reuters / Rafael C. Torres
Black bear attacks are on the rise in Florida, prompting the state to contemplate how to keep the growing population in check. The government may remove a 20-year ban on hunting the animal as bears increasingly start to be seen as a suburban menace.

In December, two Floridians were attacked by bears. At the beginning of the month, 68-year-old Jeanne Barber was walking her dog when it spotted a bear at a construction dumpster, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The dog excitedly yanked at the leash, pulling her to the ground. Then the bear attacked, clamping its jaw around her arm. Her injuries were not life-threatening, but hers was the third attack in Central Florida's Seminole County over the past year.

Less than three weeks later, a 15-year-old was attacked in the Panhandle's Franklin County. Leah Rader was walking her dog, when it spotted a bear.

Comment: Considering that bear attacks appear to be growing globally, it is not surprising that wildlife management officials are seeking some kind of solution. The animal kingdom has been acting strangely, with all types of both wild animals and pets attacking people, often with no provocation. The articles below are just a few examples of recent bear attacks SOTT has been collecting:


Attention

Bottlenose dolphin dies off Sunny Isles Beach, Florida

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The bottlenose dolphin seen earlier.
A bottlenose dolphin was shivering off of Sunny Isles Beach Tuesday afternoon. Three rescuers stood in the water with the mammal until it died.

The light gray dolphin was stranded on the ocean near the Trump International Beach Resort, 18001 Collins Ave. The death comes as scientists continue to study a measles epidemic of unprecedented proportions that is targeting bottlenose dolphins along the east coast.

Laura Diaz, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the bottlenose dolphin was likely suffering from measles, also known as morbilli-virus.

Comment: See also: Update: Virus has now killed over 1,000 bottlenose dolphins along U.S. East coast in 2013

High number of Bottlenose dolphins dying off northeastern USA


Road Cone

Landslide smashes retaining wall at Italy's historic Pompeii site

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© AP/Cesare Abbate, Ansa
Heavy rains have provoked landslide at the ancient Italian site of Pompeii, partially collapsing a retaining wall and sending rubble into a garden at the house of Severus.

Italian officials on Wednesday said the affected area falls within the "Great Pompeii" joint EU-Italian restoration project and had been already closed to the public.

Pompeii, the ancient Roman city encased in volcanic ash near Mount Vesuvius, south of Naples, has suffered numerous collapses of walls and buildings in recent years, often due to rain. The problems have attracted widespread attention to Italy's difficulties in maintaining its cultural treasures.

Pompeii officials said firefighters were assessing the ancient site to determine areas at particular risk for collapse in a bid to shore them up.

Cloud Precipitation

Southern Europe flooding update: Evacuations in Macedonia and Turkey

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© Strshlen Widespread flooding in in Macedonia. , Krivogaštani Municipality is a municipality in western Republic of Macedonia.
The heavy rain that swept across southern Europe over the last few days has left 100,000 people in the Republic of Macedonia affected by flooding.

The worst affected areas are the southern, southeastern, southwestern, and central parts of the country.

Agricultural land, electrical infrastructure, roads, and a large number of homes have been severely affected.

As local government officials work to mitigate the immediate damage, World Health Organisation experts are working closely with the national health authorities to determine the support the country needs.

In a statement today, WHO said:
WHO/Europe has joined national disaster response officials in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to respond to the floods that have affected a large population of the country. Experts from WHO and national authorities took stock of the situation at a crisis operations meeting in Kocani city, located in the eastern part of the country.
Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, as well as Macedonia have all been affected by the flooding, which first struck over the weekend of 31 January 2015.


Cloud Lightning

Lightning kills 7 family members in Zimbabwe

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National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba in a statement yesterday identified the deceased as Marian Nebvuma (32), her children Fadzai (11) and Gloria Chenjerai (5); and four other family members, namely Claudia (4) and Crywind Mugwinyi (6), Odrey Masunda (4) and Esther Muchagara (5).

Charamba said Marian was in her bedroom hut while the rest of the family were in the kitchen hut when both huts went ablaze and trapped them inside.

She said the victims' charred remains had since been taken to the Silveira Mission Hospital mortuary while burial arrangements were yet to be announced.

The incident happened at around 5pm during a heavy downpour in Mugwinyi village.

Ice Cube

New Brunswick braces for fourth snow storm in a week; state of emergency declared in Saint John

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© Dan Culberson for The Globe and Mail
New Brunswick is bracing for another blast of snow after being battered by a third storm in less than a week.

A local state of emergency has been declared in the southern peninsula of Saint John, whose streets are piled high with snow. Environment Canada says more snow is expected to begin Wednesday night in some areas of New Brunswick and will continue well into Thursday.

Snow vs. Snow: How high is it?

So far this year, Saint John has seen more than 160 centimetres of snow. Normally, Saint John has 15 to 20 centimetres accumlated at this time of year. Environment Canada meteorologist Claude Cote said Wednesday night's incoming system could bring 15 to 25 more centimetres to the city.

For some perspective on how much snow that is: Here's how Saint John's recent snowfall compares with one of the city's most famous sons, actor Donald Sutherland. Recently renowned for playing President Coriolanus Snow in the Hunger Games film franchise, Mr. Sutherland is 6-foot-4, yet his hometown's piles of snow would nearly bury him.

Saint John's snowfall is also formidable when compared with the rest of Canada, parts of which saw less snow in a month than Atlantic Canada has seen in three days.

Atlantic Canada's snowy week
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Saint John

Mayor Mel Norton says it was the first time in almost three decades that the city declared a state of emergency, which allows the city to ban on-street parking.

He says the state of emergency will be in effect for up to a week in the city's southern peninsula.

Comment: Listen to SOTT's interview with the authors of Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection, for an in depth look at the crazy weather we are having here on the planet and the possible human connections.


Snowflake

Record-breaking 113cm of snowfall in Luleå, Sweden

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© TTLuleå resident Anitha Andesson enjoying the record snowfall.
The people of Luleå in northern Sweden are used to white winters, but this Tuesday the snowfall hit new heights - or new depths - breaking a record set almost 50 years ago.

As snow continued to fall across Sweden, an impressive snowfall was measured at Luleå airport on Tuesday morning, breaking the town's previous record of 111 cm in 1966.

"This has happened very fast. On January 28th they had 56 cm. In a week they have doubled their snow depth," Alexandra Ohlsson, a meteorologist at SMHI, told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

Cloud Lightning

Electric Universe: Two 'rare' observations of red sprites over South America - a few days apart

Red sprites
© P. Horálek/ESORed sprites (right) captured from ESO’s VLT platform by Petr Horálek.
At the ESO's observatories located high in the Atacama Desert of Chile, amazing images of distant objects in the Universe are captured on a regular basis. But in January 2015, ESO photo ambassador Petr Horálek captured some amazing photos of much closer phenomena: red sprites flashing in the atmosphere high above distant thunderstorms.

The photo above was captured from ESO's Paranal Observatory. A few days earlier during the early morning hours of Jan. 20 Petr captured another series of sprites from the La Silla site, generated by a storm over Argentina over 310 miles (500 km) away.

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Sprites spotted from ESO’s La Silla observatory by Petr Horálek (left horizon)
So-named because of their elusive nature, sprites appear as clusters of red tendrils above a lighting flash, often extending as high as 55 miles (90 km) into the atmosphere. The brightest region of a sprite is typically seen at altitudes of over 40-45 miles (65-75 km).

Because they occur high above large storms, only last for fractions of a second and emit light in the portion of the spectrum to which our eyes are the least sensitive, observing sprites is notoriously difficult.