Earth ChangesS


Arrow Down

Atlanta sinkhole traps fire truck

Image
© AJC.comA sinkhole engulfed the wheel of an Atlanta Fire Department truck on Monday along Ashby Grove in southwest Atlanta.
A 13-foot sinkhole opened up beneath a Atlanta firetruck early Monday afternoon in southwest Atlanta.

Around 12:45 p.m., Atlanta Fire & Rescue Department spokeswoman Janet Ward said Ladder Truck 1, from Station 1 near Castleberry Hill was going west on Ashby Grove when the road crumbled under the truck.

No one was hurt, Ward said.

"Miraculously, there are little signs of damage," she said.

The truck was quickly rescued from the eight-foot deep sinkhole by department vehicles, the street was cordoned off and City ofAtlanta officials have been notified, authorities said.

The cause of the sinkhole is unknown at this time.

Bomb

Powerful eruption from Guatemala's Pacaya volcano

Image
© APAsh was spewed 2.3 miles into the sky as Pacaya erupted over the weekend
Thousands of people could face evacuation in Guatemala after its most active volcano - and popular visitor attraction - erupted, shooting plumes of ash and vapor more than two miles into the air and spewing glowing-hot rocks.

The Pacaya volcano, just 24 miles from the tourist town of Antigua and near the capital Guatemala City, erupted early on Sunday, sending an ash plume high into the sky.

Flights to the area have been cancelled and an amber alert has been issued, warning the 3,000 people who live nearby to be ready for evacuation.

Bizarro Earth

Yellowstone National Park: Land is rising, and helium emissions increase

Yellowstone1
© MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
More interestingly, helium-4 emissions have increased dramatically.

During the last five months, station NRWY GPS has recorded about 3.5 inches of lift (the land is rising) and about 1 cm (0.4 in) of movement toward the southeast.

Measurements from other stations in northern Yellowstone show smaller movements forming a circular pattern of deformation of the park floor.

Bizarro Earth

Unusual blue auroras seen over Norway

Northern Lights are usually green, and sometimes red. Those are the colors produced by oxygen when it is excited by electrons raining down from space. On Feb. 22nd, Micha Bäuml of Straumfjord, Norway, witnessed an appariton of aurora-blue:
Blue Auroras
© Micha Bäuml Taken by Micha on February 22, 2014 @ Straumfjord Norway.
"All of a sudden the sky exploded," says Micha. "The aurora looked like a giant flame."

In auroras, blue is a sign of nitrogen. Energetic particles striking ionized molecular nitrogen (N2+) at very high altitudes produces a cold azure glow of the type captured in Micha's photo. Why it overwhelmed the usual hues of oxygen on Feb 22nd is unknown. Auroras still have the capacity to surprise.

Any auroras tonight, blue or otherwise, will be a bit of a surprise. Geomagnetic conditions are quiet. NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 5% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on March 3rd.

Eye 2

10ft python devours crocodile after five-hour battle in Australian lake

Image
© EPAA 10ft python used its flexible jaws to devour a crocodile in one piece near Queensland’s Lake Moondarra

A snake took on a crocodile and won following a dramatic five-hour long battle.

The snake - thought to be python measuring around 10ft - constricted the crocodile to death, before dragging it to shore and eating it whole in fifteen minutes in front of a shocked crowd of onlookers.

The incident was captured on camera by author Tiffany Corlis at Lake Moondarra in Queensland, Australia.

Ms Corlis, from nearby Mount Isa, was enjoying breakfast at the idyllic spot when a group of canoeists alerted her to the fierce fight.

She said: "When we reached the water's edge the snake had wrapped itself around the croc and was tightening.

Galaxy

What ever happened to plain old Apocalypse?

Image
For those of us of a certain age, it seems as if the world has always been ending. It's easy now to forget just how deep fears and fantasies about a nuclear apocalypse went in the "golden" 1950s. And I'm not just thinking about kids like me "ducking and covering" at the advice of Bert the Turtle, while sirens screamed in the big city and the emergency warning system Conelrad blared from a radio on our teacher's desk. Here, from Spencer Weart's book Nuclear Fear, is a typical enough description of everyday life in that nuclearized America. "Operation Alert" was a set of exercises that started in 1954 and were meant to prepare the populace for imminent attack. As Russian nuclear-armed bombers "supposedly approached," writes Weart, "citizens in scores of cities obeyed the howl of sirens and sought shelter, leaving the streets deserted. Afterward, photographs of the empty streets offered an eerie vision of a world without people. The press reported with ghoulish precision how many millions of Americans 'died' in each mock attack."

Comment: For more on the truth surrounding this very important subject, check out:
Celestial Intentions: Comets and the Horns of Moses
Crowded Skies
Xenophobic Self-Destruction Or, How the Odyssey and the Old and New Testaments Can Predict Our Future


Cloud Lightning

Texas weather turns on a dime: Spring one day, thundersleet the next

Image
© CBS
If there was ever any doubt Texas weather can turn on a dime, it was crushed under the weight of thundersleet today.

After two balmy days in the 80s, temperatures crashed Sunday into the 20s. A precipitous drop with, yes, precipitation to go with it.

We've seen freezing rain and sleet on and off most of the day across North Texas, with some heavier pockets of thundersleet at times. Thundersleet is basically a thunderstorm that produces sleet instead of rain...but it still has lightning & thunder associated with it.
Image
© CBS

Ice Cube

Great Lakes approaching 100% ice cover - for the first time ever recorded

Image
Lake Ontario is the only major holdout, and the forecast there is for extreme cold during the next two weeks.

Igloo

Winter storm Titan forecast: Snow, ice spreads through East

Image
  • Thunder and lightning with snow, sleet and/or freezing rain reported in at least eight states
  • Snow pushes through Middle Atlantic and Central Appalachians into Monday afternoon, tapering off by evening.
  • 5+ inches of snow in Washington; 1 to 3 inches in Philadelphia; Little to no accumulation in New York City.
Winter Storm Titan will deliver its final round of winter weather to parts of the East on Monday.

Here are the latest forecast details.

48-Hour Snow Forecast Power Outage Potential Monday AM Forecast Monday PM Forecast Snow, Ice Impacts

Arrow Down

Traffic disrupted by sinkhole in Oxnard, California

Image
© Rob Vaerla, VC Star