Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Prague evacuated, state of emergency as floods grip Czech Republic


RT.com
Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:26 UTC
Prague Floods_1
© AFP Photo / Michael CizekThe Vltava river is flooded on June 2, 2013 in Prague
At least two people have been killed in devastating floods gripping the western Czech Republic. The disaster caused by torrential rains has prompted the evacuation of metro stations, several hospitals and the zoo in the capital.

Heavy rain over the weekend has resulted in flood warnings in west, north, central and south Bohemia.

At least one woman is dead, after her home collapsed in Trebenice u Prahy, southwest of Prague and two people are missing after their raft overturned on the River Berounka in Hlasna Treban in central Bohemia.

In Prague, rescue workers, aided by the army, have set up flood barriers for the first time since the devastating floods of 2002. Hospitals, retirement homes and cultural institutions as well as the zoo are being evacuated across the city.

A state of emergency has been declared in the Czech Republic due to the threat of flooding, Prime Minister Petr Nečas announced in a televised address.
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Cloud Lightning

Tornado hunt team takes direct hit by tornado


weather.com
Sat, 01 Jun 2013 10:24 UTC

The Weather Channel Tornado Hunt Team is safe, but shaken up after their chase vehicles took a direct hit by a violent tornado west of Oklahoma City.

Meteorologist Mike Bettes was chasing the monster rain-wrapped tornado near El Reno, Okla. when he says the storm picked up the heavy chase SUV and threw it an estimated 200 yards.

"We were ahead of the storm. We stopped to broadcast and I saw a large violent wedge tornado," Bettes said in a live phone interview after he established phone connection after the incident.

"What we were trying to do was just get away from it and get to the south side of it," Bettes said. "But what ended up happening was all three of our vehicles that we chase with were all hit by it."

He remembers being thrown into the air.

"It was like we were floating. We were tumbling. We were airborne at least one point and we were floating. Then we weren't tumbling anymore and we came down hard."

Bettes was nursing minor injuries Saturday, including stitches in his hand. All the occupants were wearing safety belts and walked away from the banged-up vehicle.

"My life flashed before my eyes."

It's the first time one of the network's personalities has been injured while covering violent weather, spokeswoman Shirley Powell said.
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Cloud Precipitation

Best of the Web: 'Cursed spring' of relentless rain: Italy just went through its wettest spring in at least 150 years

Lizzy Davies
The Guardian
Fri, 31 May 2013 06:27 UTC
Italy shivers through 'cursed spring' of relentless rain

June normally heralds the arrival of summer heat, but 2013's capricious weather is fuelling new meteorological obsession

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© Alessandra Benedetti/CorbisPope Francis surrounded by Catholics sheltering from the heavy rain under umbrellas in St Peter's Square this week.
As the breeze swept in under the cafe's parasols and the sky darkened over Rome, waiter Apu Haq exchanged commiserations with a customer nursing an espresso and a scowl. "They said summer was going to arrive this week," remarked Haq, "and instead came winter." Within minutes, torrential rain was lashing the cobblestones as thunder rumbled in the distance. "It's all the wrong way round," said a bewildered Haq, from Bangladesh. "It's incredible. I've been here for 10 years now and I've never seen anything like it. It's too strange."

Italian springs are often strange, but this one will perhaps be remembered as particularly capricious. As with much of northern Europe, the country has shivered its way through a good deal of the year. In the north-west, according to the Italian meteorological society, residents have had the coldest May since 1991. In much of the north-east, the spring has been the wettest for at least 150 years. A mountain stage of the Giro d'Italia bike race was called off due to snow and ice. Beach resorts in Tuscany have been flooded. Many farmers have suffered huge damage to their crops.

Now, as June arrives, it should technically be summer. But it certainly doesn't feel like it. "Last year, by this point, we were going to the sea. At the beginning of June we went down to the Fori Imperiali and sunbathed," said Mario Ramelli, a street-corner florist in central Rome. This spring's brutto tempo has been a topic of conversation with many of his customers - that is, those who stop to buy a pot of pansies or, optimistically, some sunflowers. "When it's horrid and wet, people hurry by," said Ramelli. "It's not good for work."

Comment: How's the weather where you are?

Notice anything about the climate in the past couple of years?

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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - SSE of Buli, Taiwan


US Geological Survey
Sun, 02 Jun 2013 00:54 UTC
Taiwan Quake_020613
© USGS
Event Time
2013-06-02 05:43:06 UTC
2013-06-02 13:43:06 UTC+08:00 at epicenter

Location
24.000°N 121.000°E depth=10.0km (6.2mi)

Nearby Cities
4km (2mi) NE of Buli, Taiwan
32km (20mi) E of Zhongxing New Village, Taiwan
35km (22mi) ENE of Nantou, Taiwan
36km (22mi) ESE of Taichung, Taiwan
725km (450mi) ENE of Hong Kong, Hong KongTechnical Details
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Cloud Lightning

New twisters kill 5 in tornado traumatized Oklahoma; storms move East

Ben Brumfield, Chelsea J. Carter and Greg Botelho
CNN
Sat, 01 Jun 2013 23:14 UTC

The death and damage wrought by new tornadoes that plowed through Oklahoma won't be completely known until the sun comes up Saturday morning.

A handful of fresh storms killed at least five people Friday, authorities said, less than two weeks after a monstrous cyclone waylaid the town of Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City. At least 71 others were injured statewide.

Two of the victims in Oklahoma died within twenty miles of Moore, said medical examiner spokeswoman Amy Elliot.

Though the tornadoes were not as strong as the EF-5 twister that killed 24 on May 20, fear drove some people into their cars to flee them, some of whom got caught in heavy rains and flash flooding.
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Attention

Explosive activity of Vanuatu's Mt Yasur increases


Radio New Zealand International
Thu, 30 May 2013 10:43 UTC
Image
Explosive activity at Vanuatu's Mt Yasur volcano has increased in recent days.

According to observations by the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards department, the activity level of the volcano on Tanna island is still at alert level 2 but an increase to 3 in the near future is possible.
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Red Flag

The disgraceful episode of Lysenkoism brings us global warming theory

Peter Ferrara
Forbes
Sun, 28 Apr 2013 10:26 UTC
Image
© WikipediaTrofim Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko became the Director of the Soviet Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the 1930s under Josef Stalin. He was an advocate of the theory that characteristics acquired by plants during their lives could be inherited by later generations stemming from the changed plants, which sharply contradicted Mendelian genetics. As a result, Lysenko became a fierce critic of theories of the then rising modern genetics.

Under Lysenko's view, for example, grafting branches of one plant species onto another could create new plant hybrids that would be perpetuated by the descendants of the grafted plant. Or modifications made to seeds would be inherited by later generations stemming from that seed. Or that plucking all the leaves off of a plant would cause descendants of the plant to be leafless.

Lysenkoism was "politically correct" (a term invented by Lenin) because it was consistent with certain broader Marxist doctrines. Marxists wanted to believe that heredity had a limited role even among humans, and that human characteristics changed by living under socialism would be inherited by subsequent generations of humans. Thus would be created the selfless new Soviet man.

Also Lysenko himself arose from a peasant background and developed his theories from practical applications rather than controlled scientific experiments. This fit the Marxist propaganda of the time holding that brilliant industrial innovations would arise from the working classes through practical applications. Lysenko's theories also seemed to address in a quick and timely manner the widespread Soviet famines of the time arising from the forced collectivization of agriculture, rather than the much slower changes from scientific experimentation and genetic heredity.
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Snow Globe

UK sees coldest spring in 50 years, says Met Office

Tom Bawden
The Independent, UK
Thu, 30 May 2013 10:17 UTC
Image
Tomorrow calls time on the coldest spring in more than 50 years, as the past fortnight of below average temperatures dragged the average thermometer reading during March, April and May putting it on course for its lowest level since 1962.

Apart from being a bit of a pain generally, the prolonged bout of unseasonably-cold weather has caused severe problems for farmers, prompting a surge in the number of livestock deaths and damaging vast areas of crops.

The average temperature over the period came in at 6.0C, which is 1.8C, or nearly 25 per cent, lower than is typical for the time of year, according to the Met Office.

This makes it the fifth coldest spring since records began in 1910 and the chilliest for 51 years.

A Met Office spokesman said: "The colder than average conditions have been caused by difference patterns at certain times, but generally this season has seen frequent easterly and northerly winds which have brought cold air to the UK from polar and northern European regions."

Rainfall was lower than normal in March and April but May has been wetter than usual, the Met Office added. As a result, spring has been slightly drier than average, but not as dry as the springs of 2010 and 2011.

The Met Office data runs up to the end of March 28, meaning that it does not take into account the final three days of spring.
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Attention

Hundreds of dolphins flee pod of killer whales - video


The Guardian
Sat, 01 Jun 2013 10:00 UTC

A pod of around 500 dolphins are caught on camera by the Japanese coastguard in one of the country's southern seas. Also captured is a pod of killer whales, which are thought to have been chasing the dolphins as prey. Officials believe there are at least 50,000 killer whales in the wild.

Source: ITN
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Cloud Precipitation

Top U.S. corn state Iowa receives most spring rain on record

Sam Nelson
Scientific American
Fri, 31 May 2013 04:12 UTC
Top U.S. corn and soybean producing state Iowa has received the most spring rainfall since records began 141 years ago, slowing crop plantings and threatening to reduce yields, an Iowa climatologist said on Friday.

Top U.S. corn and soybean producing state Iowa has received the most spring rainfall since records began 141 years ago, slowing crop plantings and threatening to reduce yields, an Iowa climatologist said on Friday.

"From March through May, which is our spring record keeping period, Iowa had received 17.48 inches of rain as of Thursday," Iowa State Climatologist, Harry Hillaker said. "There may be another 0.15 inch added to that today."

Hillaker said the old record of 15.36 inches was set in 1892 but rainfall seen from March through to May is the most since records began.

Hillaker said typical March-May rainfall in the state was 10.22 inches. "That would be normal and is based on rainfall received for the past 30 years," he said.

Excessive wet weather in the U.S. Midwest has slowed seedings of corn and soybeans, pushing corn plantings up to the end-of-May deadline that farmers can plant without suffering cutbacks in crop insurance coverage.
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