Earth ChangesS


Cow Skull

Phalaris blamed for thousands of sheep deaths in Australia

Kate Dowler
weeklytimesnow.com.au
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 06:18 UTC
Thousands of sheep have died across the Western District in recent weeks from phalaris poisoning.
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Vets have dubbed the condition "phalaris sudden death" but the causes are not yet fully understood and are different from the more commonly-known phalaris staggers.

Part of the reason is believed to be a build-up of toxins in the plant over a long period of dry conditions in the lead-up to the autumn break.

Livestock Logic vet David Rendell, who is based in Hamilton, estimated "thousands" of sheep would have been lost due to the phalaris sudden death outbreak in recent weeks.

"We need to get more data on this so we can understand the factors influencing it," he said.

Producers who have introduced sheep on to phalaris after the break are being urged to complete a survey at www.livestocklogic.com.au
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Phoenix

18 specialist firefighters killed battling Arizona wildfire


FoxNews.com
Sun, 30 Jun 2013 22:58 UTC
Yarnell fire
© AP/The Arizona RepublicJune 30, 2013: Flames top a ridge as the Yarnell Hill Fire moves towards Peeples Valley, Arizona.

Yarnell - Local fire officials have confirmed that at least 18 firefighters have died while battling the Yarnell Hill Fire in central Arizona.

The Prescott Fire Department confirmed to MyFoxPhoenix that the firefighters,all part of a group called the Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshots, had passed away Sunday evening.

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office has notified residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell to evacuate.

Roxie Glover, spokeswoman at Wickenburg Community Hospital, told The Associated Press that the hospital has been told to expect residents with injuries and firefighters.

Earlier Sunday, the fast-moving fire prompted the evacuation of at least 50 homes in the Buckhorn, Model Creek and Double A Bar Ranch areas about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix.

Comment: What a horrible tragedy, the single worst such incident in the U.S. since 1933:
The tragedy ranks as the greatest loss of life among firefighters from a single wildland blaze in the United States since 29 men died battling the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles, according to National Fire Protection Association records.


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Cloud Lightning

Flash floods force evacuations in East-Central New York


Indian County Today Media Network
Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:54 UTC
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© FacebookCNY flooding Prospect Street in Herkimer, New York, on June 28, 2013.


Flooding fueled by heavy rains has driven hundreds of residents of east-central New York State from their homes in several counties, including Oneida, Chenango, Madison and Herkimer.

Many downtown Oneida streets were inundated on Friday June 28 after the levy along Oneida Creek overflowed, the Oneida Dispatch reported. The water was expected to crest in the early afternoon, said Dave Nicosia of the National Weather Service, speaking to the Dispatch. Oneida creek was at "record levels," he said, up at 16.7 feet, which surpassed the previous record of 15.6 in September 2011.

The Oneida Animal Hospital had to be evacuated as well, and numerous residents were moved to a shelter set up by the Red Cross at the city's armory. In addition severe rainstorms and flooding led the town of Kirkland to declare a state of emergency, the Dispatch reported.

The National Weather Service also warned resident in vulnerable areas along streams and creeks to expect flooding and poor drainage conditions, according to Syracuse.com.

"I haven't seen it this bad since the 1950s," said 71-year-old Joe Salerno to the Dispatch as he watched Oneida Creek overtake his back yard and flow into the cellar of his childhood home, where his son now lives.
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Phoenix

Fire in Arizona prompts evacuation of 50 homes


USA Today
Sun, 30 Jun 2013 21:56 UTC

A one square-mile wildfire burning in a central Arizona community has led to the evacuation of at least 50 homes that are threatened by the blaze.

Yaenell - A fast-moving wildfire burning in a central Arizona community has led the evacuation of at least 50 homes that are threatened by the blaze, and by Sunday afternoon, authorities had asked even more residents to leave.

The wildfire also forced the closure of about 15 miles of state Route 89, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced. The department did not have an estimate of how long the closure would last but advised drivers to use U.S. 93 or Interstate 17 as alternate routes.

Fire information officer Mike Reichling said earlier Sunday that no homes had been lost in the fire northwest of the Yavapai County community of Yarnell.

Early estimates put the number of evacuated homes at 120, but the number was downgraded by officials closer to the fire.

Reichling says the blaze was within a mile of some homes but was burning away from them.

The Yarnell Hill Fire prompted evacuations in the Model Creek, Buckhorn and Double A Bar Ranch areas about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. The blaze also was within 200 yards of the Model Creek School.

Crews cleared brush and did other work around the evacuated homes to help guard against the fire.
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Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole raises concern in West Hempfield, Pennsylvania

Ryan Robinson
Lancaster Online
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 12:43 UTC
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© lancasteronline.com
A large sinkhole opened up near Route 23 in West Hempfield Township on Tuesday - and it might be fixed very soon.

The sinkhole is 20 to 25 feet deep and ranges from 8 to 10 feet wide at the surface to 30 to 40 feet wide underground, township police Sgt. Russell Geier said.

The hole is in a retention-pond area about 50 feet north of Route 23, near Corporate Boulevard.

Dale Getz has worked as the township's director of public works for five years, and in municipal government for about 20 years.

The sinkhole is the largest of the five or six he has seen during that time, but curious residents should keep their distance, he said.

"It wouldn't be advisable to get near it, because there's no stable ground underneath," he said.
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X

Over 10,000 feared dead in India floods


RIA Novosti
Sun, 30 Jun 2013 13:31 UTC
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© REUTERS/ Danish SiddiquOver 10,000 Feared Dead in India Floods
The death toll in floods and landslides, triggered by heavy rains in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, has probably exceeded 10,000 people, China's Xinhua news agency said on Sunday citing local authorities.

Previous estimates put the death toll at 6,500 people. Regional officials earlier said that nearly 3,000 people are listed as missing.
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Bizarro Earth

Texas meteorologists picked up an apocalyptic-like storm on their radar that turned out to be a huge cloud of dust, bugs, pollen and even birds


DailyMail.co.uk
Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:01 UTC
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What's that in the sky?

What appeared to be an unusual and unexpected storm turned out to be a cloud of dirt, dust, pollen, bugs and even birds.

National Weather Service forecasters in Dallas-Forth Worth Texas picked up the strange phenomenon on their radar on Friday while the weather remained hot and dry, reaching record highs of 105 and 106 degrees in the Austin area to the south.

'It looked like it was raining,' Jennifer Dunn, a meteorologist for the weather service office that covers the Dallas-Fort Worth region, told the Austin American-Statesman.

'We thought something was wrong with the radar, but we checked our instruments and measurements. Everything was working fine.'

Dunn and her colleagues said their best guess was that the anomaly was a giant swarm of bugs.

But a meteorologist for the weather service office in New Braunfels, which includes Austin, told the Statesman that insects likely made up less than 1 per cent of the unusual matter in the air over the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
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Question

Over 1 thousand dead seagulls discovered in Kazakhstan sector of Caspian Sea


engrinews.kz
Thu, 27 Jun 2013 09:00 UTC
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Mass mortality of seagulls has been registered at Shalyga island in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports.

1,200 dead birds were discovered at the island in the end of last week, a special ecological prosecutor of Atyrau oblast Kairat Uteuliyev told Interfax-Kazakhstan on June 26.

According to him, several dead birds were transferred for tests to the oblast branch of the state veterinary laboratory of the Veterinary Control Commission of Kazakhstan Agriculture Ministry. "We will get the test results very soon and only then we will be able to talk about causes of the mass mortality of these birds. After that the respective authority will react to the incident and evaluation activities of the state environmental protection authorities that are responsible for controlling the fauna," Uteuliyev said.
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Snowflake

Unprecedented summer snow in Norway June 29th


BT.no
Sat, 29 Jun 2013 09:06 UTC
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In the trenches: The British couple had to call the tow truck before they could continue their holiday. - They are not so used to driving on this road conditions, says Morten Hansen from Traffic surveillance. There have been no reports of other accidents associated with snowfall.
Snow fell on highway 7 over Hardangervidda on Saturday, but the snow plow came too late for this British couple.

- They had not driven more than 400 meters before they ended up in the ditch, says Kari Varberg (50), who owns and operates Dyranut Fjellstov

She sat at the breakfast table when it started snowing on Saturday morning.

Shortly after, she was called upon to take care of the two British campers who ended up in the ditch.

- They had woken up and seen that it was snowing, so they wanted to get out quickly on the fells, she says.
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Fireball 2

Meteorite fragment from Chelyabinsk explosion located in Urals lake


Space Daily
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 00:00 UTC
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© RIA NovostiChebarkul Lake
A huge fragment of meteorite that slammed into Russia's Urals region in February was located on the bottom of Chebarkul Lake in the Chelyabinsk Region, a scientist said on Friday.

On February 15, a meteorite landed with a massive boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, injuring 1,200 people in the area.

The meteorite broke into approximately seven large fragments and one of them is believed to have fallen into Chebarkul Lake, forming a hole in the ice about eight meters in diameter. In late March, a radar probe of the bottom of the lake has revealed a crater possibly created by a fragment of a meteorite.

Viktor Grokhovsky, a senior researcher with the Urals Federal University was among scientists who measured the magnetic field in the area where a meteorite chunk has presumably fallen. He said that the measurements indicated that an object, most likely a meteorite fragment about 60 centimeters (about two feet) in diameter and weighting approximately 300 kilograms (over 661 lbs), is lying on the bottom of the Chebarkul Lake.

He added that an eyewitness caught on camera how the meteorite exploded above the lake and apparently crashed through the ice, sending a massive jet of water into the air.
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