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An Italian photographer has filmed a town being blanketed in stone and ash as it fell from the sky like hail stones after Mt Etna erupted again on Saturday. Footage shows the town covered in inches of black ash spewed out by the volcano and pushed hundreds of kilometers across the Strait of Messina from Sicily to the mainland. It rained down from dark cloud above and spread over the town's streets and cars.
Some residents used umbrellas to shield them from the chunks of ash that were almost 2cm in size.
Mt Etna has erupted several times this year, one as recently as Saturday 16 November, but its last major eruption was in 1992. There were no evacuations from yesterday's eruption, but a highway was closed for half-an-hour and four air corridors that service Sicily's Catania Airport, south of the volcano, were closed for some time.
© USGS
2013-11-25 06:27:33 UTC
2013-11-25 02:27:33 UTC-04:00 at epicenter
Location
53.881°S 54.882°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi)
Nearby Cities
314km (195mi) SE of Stanley, Falkland Islands
877km (545mi) E of Ushuaia, Argentina
998km (620mi) ESE of Rio Gallegos, Argentina
1031km (641mi) SE of Puerto Deseado, Argentina
314km (195mi) SE of Stanley, Falkland Islands
Technical details
Additional commentary
The November 25, 2013 M7.0 earthquake (06:27:33 UTC) southwest of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean occurred as the result of strike slip faulting, on either a left-lateral fault striking ENE-WSW, or a right-lateral structure striking NNW-SSE. The location of the earthquake, near the ENE-WSW trending plate boundary between the South America and Scotia tectonic plates, suggests it is likely associated with left-lateral faulting along this margin. At the location of this earthquake, the Scotia plate moves ENE with respect to South America at a rate of approximately 9.5 mm/yr.
The November 25, 06:27:33 earthquake was the largest of 5 M5+ events that occurred in a similar area over an approximate 2-hour period, including a M5.6 earthquake 24 seconds prior to the M7.0 mainshock. Though this region experiences moderate-sized earthquakes relatively frequently - 15 M5+ events have occurred within 250 km of the November 25 earthquake over the past 40 years - large events are fairly uncommon. The largest nearby earthquake over the same time period was a M6.6 event in September 1993, 210 km to the east of the November 25 earthquake.
© USGS
2013-11-25 06:27:09 UTC
2013-11-25 02:27:09 UTC-04:00 at epicenter
Location
53.987°S 54.923°W depth=15.1km (9.4mi)
Nearby Cities
321km (199mi) SE of Stanley, Falkland Islands
872km (542mi) E of Ushuaia, Argentina
997km (620mi) ESE of Rio Gallegos, Argentina
1036km (644mi) SE of Puerto Deseado, Argentina
321km (199mi) SE of Stanley, Falkland Islands
Technical Details
© Wikimedia CommonsThe Pacific Ring of Fire.
Sadly, most Americans cannot even tell you what the Ring of Fire is. The following is how Wikipedia defines the "Ring of Fire"...
An easy way to think about the Ring of Fire is to imagine a giant red band stretching along the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean.The Ring of Fire is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. It has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.
And yes, that includes the entire west coast of the United States and the entire southern coast of Alaska.
© Micah Lidberg
This year, for or the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn't come, at least not on the Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year's low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.
"It does not look good," said Lincoln P. Brower, a monarch expert at Sweet Briar College.
It is only the latest bad news about the dramatic decline of insect populations.
Another insect in serious trouble is the wild bee, which has thousands of species. Nicotine-based pesticides called neonicotinoids are implicated in their decline, but even if they were no longer used, experts say, bees, monarchs and many other species of insect would still be in serious trouble.
© Reuters/Roni BintangMount Sinabung ash cloud.
Almost 7,000 miles away in Mexico, the Colima volcano blew its top after a period of relative calm. A steam and ash cloud rose two miles into the sky and the grumbling of the mountain could be heard in towns a few miles away.
In Guatemala the 'Fire Mountain' belched out lava and sent up a moderate ash cloud causing an ash fall over nearby towns. The explosions and shock waves occurring in the volcano can be felt by residents over 6 miles away. Doors and windows are reported to be rattling, but there has been no damage so far.
In Vanuatu the Yasur volcano is giving some cause for concern. Although the explosions are quite weak the continuous ash that is coming from the mountain is starting to build up on farming land.
© townhall
Earth's geological, archaeological and written histories are replete with climate changes: big and small, short and long, benign, beneficial, catastrophic and everything in between.
The Medieval Warm Period (950-1300 AD or CE) was a boon for agriculture, civilization and Viking settlers in Greenland. The Little Ice Age that followed (1300-1850) was calamitous, as were the Dust Bowl and the extended droughts that vanquished the Anasazi and Mayan cultures; cyclical droughts and floods in Africa, Asia and Australia; and periods of vicious hurricanes and tornadoes. Repeated Pleistocene Epoch ice ages covered much of North America, Europe and Asia under mile-thick ice sheets that denuded continents, stunted plant growth, and dropped ocean levels 400 feet for thousands of years.
Modern environmentalism, coupled with fears first of global cooling and then of global warming, persuaded politicians to launch the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its original goal was to assess possible human influences on global warming and potential risks of human-induced warming. However, it wasn't long before the Panel minimized, ignored and dismissed non-human factors to such a degree that its posture became the mantra that only humans are now affecting climate.
Over the last three decades, five IPCC "assessment reports," dozens of computer models, scores of conferences and thousands of papers focused almost entirely on human fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide/greenhouse gas emissions, as being responsible for "dangerous" global warming, climate change, climate "disruption," and almost every "extreme" weather or climate event. Tens of billions of dollars have supported these efforts, while only a few million have been devoted to analyses of all factors - natural and human - that affect and drive planetary climate change.
You would think researchers would welcome an opportunity to balance that vast library of one-sided research with an analysis of the natural causes of climate change - to enable them to evaluate the relative impact of human activities, more accurately predict future changes, and ensure that communities, states and nations can plan for, mitigate and adapt to those impacts. You would be wrong.
30 cm (12 inches of snow expected. Up to 70 cm (27½ inches) in a few areas.
Western, northern, and central Newfoundland can expect snow at times heavy beginning tonight (Nov 20) with widespread snowfall accumulations between 20 and 40 centimetres (16 inches). Areas of higher terrain could possibly get up to 70 cm.
Western, northern, and central Newfoundland can expect snow at times heavy beginning tonight (Nov 20) with widespread snowfall accumulations between 20 and 40 centimetres (16 inches). Areas of higher terrain could possibly get up to 70 cm.
In some areas the snow has already exceeded 30 inches.
Winter hits full-force. The eastern half of France is under code orange for snow, and in some areas the snow has already exceeded 30 inches.
Residents of the town of Saint Etienne were surprised and unprepared for the snow.
Their streets became impassable, and cars remained snowbound at the entrance to the city.
Thanks to Alex Tanase for this link
Winter hits full-force. The eastern half of France is under code orange for snow, and in some areas the snow has already exceeded 30 inches.
Residents of the town of Saint Etienne were surprised and unprepared for the snow.
Their streets became impassable, and cars remained snowbound at the entrance to the city.
Thanks to Alex Tanase for this link
© AP Photo/Carmelo ImbesiSmoke billows from the Mount Etna, Europe's tallest active volcano, Sicily, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013.
The eruption Saturday did not force any evacuations, but a highway was closed for half an hour as a precaution. Authorities also briefly closed two of four air corridors serving the nearby Catania airport but air traffic was not interrupted.
Etna erupts occasionally. Its last major eruption occurred in 1992.
Source: Associated Press
Comment: Can you see the normalcy bias in action? People are just walking about as usual, using umbrellas to shield against the rocks/ash as though the danger is and will remain benign.