Earth ChangesS


Hardhat

Kamchatka's Shiveluch volcano spews ash cloud 9 km high


Voice of Russia
Wed, 04 Dec 2013 05:58 UTC
Kamchatka
© RIA Novosti
Kamchatka
The Shiveluch Volcano erupting in Kamchatka has spewed ash nine kilometers high, the Kamchatkan territorial emergency situations department reported on Tuesday. No ashfall has been reported from towns nearby.

"The volcanic event occurred on Tuesday afternoon. The ash cloud stretched northwest, bypassing populated areas," the report said.

No ashfall has been reported from towns nearby, it added.

Nevertheless, rescuers advised tour operators to avoid paths around the volcano, for which a red alert has been issued.

Shiveluch is the northernmost active volcano of Kamchatka situated 45 kilometers away from the town of Klyuchi in the Ust-Kamchatsky district with a population of approximately 5,000.

It is also one of the largest Kamchatkan volcanoes. Shiveluch became active in May 2009 and got a fissure that is almost 30 meters deep in its dome.
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Igloo

Southern Alberta digging out from massive winter storm

Chris Epp
CTV News
Wed, 04 Dec 2013 03:27 UTC
Alberta snowstorm
© Unknown
The blizzard that hit Calgary may be over, but residents are now left to dig themselves out from the mounds of snow left in the storm's wake.

The city declared a snow route parking ban would begin Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., which would allow crews to begin cleaning up Calgary roads.

The parking ban is the first of this season and only the fifth issued in the last three winters. City officials estimate Wednesday's ban will affect about 60,000 people across Calgary.

In the past, parking bans were issued only when there was an accumulation of five centimetres of snow or more, said Julie Yepishina-Geller, spokesperson for the City of Calgary

"But that's been changed this year in the bylaw, so now it's just a significant accumulation, so we basically are reserving parking bans for the few times a year where we actually do see really significant snowfalls," Yepishina-Geller told reporters.

Comment: Comment: Interesting prediction: "...colder but shorter winter...". Maybe they are not going to count this snowstorm as part of winter as it is officially only fall.

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Cloud Lightning

Russian volcano Klyuchevskoy sends pillar of fire 1,000 meters into the air


The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:44 UTC
Image
© Marc SzeglatKlyuchevskoy
With a pillar of fire stretching up into the clouds, this spectacular image captures the moment a volcano erupted in remote Russia. The stream of lava rose up to a kilometer above the summit of Klyuchevskoy, one of the active volcanoes on the Kamchatka peninsula in the east of the country. The volcano, which erupts around every two years, is one of the largest on-land active volcanoes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It stands at 15,584f t on the north end of a belt of 30 active volcanoes.

Comment: From the recent chain reaction on the 'Ring of fire':
Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula: Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia had a busy weekend after its busy week - and a lot of the action was caught on the webcams pointed at the volcano or by satellite. For much of Friday and into Saturday (October 18-19), the volcano continued to produce some vigorous lava fountains and lava flows, mixed in with Strombolian explosions that sent bombs down the slopes of the volcano. This activity was significant enough to cause some aviation alerts even over the western Aleutian Islands.
Source: Why have 10 major volcanoes along the Ring of Fire suddenly roared to life?

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Bizarro Earth

Another European river turns 'blood' red overnight, this time in Slovakia!

Sara Malm
Mail Online
Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:42 UTC
Image

Rumours were rife in a Slovakian town this week when a river running through turned bright red.

The river in Myjava, a small municipality on the border to the Czech Republic, had changed colour over night and turned into 'blood'. Police have been called in to investigate the matter, but it is believed to be a faulty filtering system from a slaughterhouse upstream.

Roman Podbrezova, 65, had gone for a morning walk when he saw the drastic change to the river which runs through the centre of the town.

'I just could not believe my eyes,' he said. 'The river was dark red. It was like something from a horror film. Blood cascading through the centre of town.'

Comment: Note that no source is provided for the claim that "a faulty filtering system from a slaughterhouse upstream" was responsible for the river turning red. The local police meanwhile have a different opinion on what caused it, while other residents have theirs...

We wonder if this is related to all those other instances of lakes, rivers, seashores, lagoons, ponds and canals turning blood red the world over in recent years?

River turns blood red overnight in The Netherlands, 01 Nov 2013

Waters at Bondi Beach, Australia turn blood red, 28 Nov 2012

Yangtze River turns red, 07 Sep 2012

Lebanon: Beirut River mysteriously runs blood red, 16 Feb 2012

Texas Lake Turns Blood-Red, 01 Aug 2011

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Snowflake Cold

Arctic Plunge: Winter storm wallops Rockies, Plains, 2 to 3 feet of snow on the way

Daniel Arkin and Elizabeth Chuck
NBC News
Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:00 UTC



Winter storm Cleon is heading toward the Pacific Northwest and, besides bringing chilly temperatures and cold winds, is expected to drop 2 to 3 feet of snow.

A winter storm dropped 30 inches of snow in Idaho Tuesday, and is forecast to bring temperatures well below zero elsewhere in the country as the week goes on.

Frigid temperatures swept across the northern Rockies and the northern Plains on Tuesday, and heavy sheets of snow are likely in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and swaths of North Dakota. Parts of nine states were under winter storm warnings; nine other states were under various levels of advisories for current or future wintry precipitation.

Snow accumulation was racking up by Tuesday afternoon. By 3 p.m. ET, 30 inches of snow had fallen in Idaho's Saddle Mountain, and 22 inches had fallen north of Two Harbors, Minn. Stuart Mountain in Montana received 20 inches. Duluth had gotten 14 inches of snow and was forecast to receive another foot-plus as the flakes continued to fall.
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Snowflake Cold

Arctic plunge: Up to eight inches of snow to sweep parts of Britain

Nathan Rao
Daily Express
Mon, 02 Dec 2013 16:48 UTC
Cars in snow
© GettyForecasters say the cold weather is going to kick off on Thursday

An "Arctic plunge" is set to trigger freezing temperatures this week and could bring snow across much of Britain by Friday.

Severe gales are expected to sweep in from the North and cause blizzards on high ground.

This could be only the start of a particularly bad winter with below-­average temperatures and heavy snow for three months, warn forecasters. They say the blast of cold air could see the mercury dip to -13C (9F) overnight in the North, bringing eight inches of snow with wintry showers as early as tomorrow and heavy snow forecast for Wednesday.

It will feel bitterly cold in the South with night temperatures of -7C.
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Moon

Strange sound recorded at the One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan: wind?

Jane Janeczko
Huffington Post
Tue, 03 Dec 2013 15:07 UTC
When it gets windy in Lower Manhattan, residents report hearing a strange, high-pitched, ghostly sound from the top of One World Trade Center.

Kenny Cummings, who lives a few blocks away from One WTC, told Tribeca Citizen in an email that he first noticed the eerie whistling during Hurricane Sandy, and most recently heard the noise early on November 27:
Have you ever heard from neighbors about the wailing World Trade Center? I live a couple of blocks from the tower, and first heard this very eerie sound during Hurricane Sandy last year. I've heard it only once afterwards, sometime last winter. I assumed once the building's framework and windows went in, the airflow would be redirected.

At 3:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, I awoke to the sound. It was slightly different in timbre, with two tones this time. I couldn't be sure what it was at first, but after a moment I realized it was the Trade Center. Outside it was raining but the trees were calm. I can only imagine at that height the weather is different. I'm sure all of downtown hears this - it's unmistakable and very chilling. I had to get up and record it. [You can hear it especially well around :20.] It seemed to calm down about 5 a.m.
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Ice Cube

Best of the Web: The Ice Age Cometh: Scientists increasingly moving to global cooling consensus

Jack Minor
US Finance Post
Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
Critics of those who claim that man-made global warming is a serious threat to the planet and settled science frequently point to the fickleness of scientists on the issue, noting that in the 60s and 70s scientists were warning of just the opposite. It now appears the critic's claims may have merit as a new consensus is beginning to once again return to the global cooling model.

Adherents of man-made global warming have supported the issue in a way akin to that of religious zealots, even to the point of attempting to cover up evidence that runs contrary to their beliefs or portrays it in a negative light.

Comment: New Ice Age 'to begin in 2014'
The coming of a new Ice Age
What's Happening to the Sun? Could its unusual behavior herald a new ice age?

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Sun

Our changing atmosphere: V-shaped halo appears over setting sun in Florida


Spaceweather.com
Tue, 03 Dec 2013 11:02 UTC
At the end of Thanksgiving Day when the sun was setting over Sumterville, Florida, Paula Phillips took a break from her meal, stepped outside and saw something odd--a pair of luminous 'Vs' in the deepening twilight:
V-Shaped Halo
© Paula Phillips
"I've never seen anything like this before," says Phillips. "I photographed the phenomenon with a simple small Samsung camera."

They're sun halos, caused by sunlight shining through ice crystals. Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains:
"These two 'V' shaped halos, one rare and one common, change shape dramatically as the sun climbs," he says. "Near sunrise or sunset is the only time to catch them like this. The lower 'V' is an upper tangent arc from horizontal hexagonal prisms of ice.

The upper one is a rare sunvex Parry arc from similar crystals that - strangely - are fixed so that two prism faces are always horizontal. In the full-sized image, we also see just a trace of a 22o halo and stretching upwards from the sun a sun pillar."
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Attention

Huge Snowy Owl invasion becomes official in Canada and U.S.


indianadunesbirding.wordpress.com
Sun, 01 Dec 2013 10:17 UTC
A few years ago, Indiana birders enjoyed a decent flight of Snowy Owls. The winter of 2011/2012 saw 46 individuals reported. It beat the previous record Snowy Owl flight when 40 were counted during the winter of 1996/1997. It was a memorable flight that made news across the nation. Snowy Owl's invaded much of the county, but the Great Lakes were especially noteworthy. Owls were seen as far south as Texas, and Hawaii recorded it's first state record of this amazing white ghost.

Image
Snowy Owl reports from eBird.com, 2010-2013.
Birders often wait years or even a decade to see another flight like this. Now, only two winters later, it appears the Indiana Dunes and much of the US is undergoing another invasion. It began light, but by November's end, sightings were literally snowballing in. Already, this invasion is getting more press than the 2007/2008 incursion. Likely due to the fact that the concentrations on the east coast are higher this time around. More people seeing them= more press.

So what have been the early highlights? Early returns? Well, December has just began and we have the following interesting reports:

Comment: See also: Ice Age Cometh: Snowy Owl invasion coming in North America?

Maine experiencing a Canadian owl invasion

Incredible Hawk Owl invasion in Estonia!

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