A tiny new islet has been created in Japan after a dramatic volcanic eruption in the Pacific Ocean. The news was confirmed by officials on Thursday. It has happened for the first time that the nation has come across such a phenomenon. Smoke was spotted by the Navy to have engulfed 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of Tokyo on Wednesday. Birth of the islet was verified later on by Japan's coastguard around the Ogasawara island chain.

Plumes of smoke ash billowing from the 200-metre island can be witnessed through a video. "Smoke is still rising from the volcanic island, and we issued a navigation warning to say that this island has emerged with ash falling in the area", said a spokesman for the maritime agency.

Half a year's worth of rain fell in an hour and a half Monday night in the Italian island of Sardinia, flooding streets and killing at least 16 people.

Sardinia was pummeled by 17.3 inches of rain Monday by Cyclone Cleopatra, a drenching that Franco Gabrielli, head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, called "an exceptional event." According to Italy's Civil Protection Agency, so far 2,500 people have been displaced by the storm and more than 10,000 have lost electricity. The Italian government has declared a state of emergency on the island and has allocated about $27 million in rescue and relief aid.

Marco Vargiu, councilor for tourism in Olbia, a Sardinian city, told CNN that the city had been among the hardest hit - in some places in the city, water levels reached 10 feet.

"The worst conditions are here in Olbia," he said. "There are rivers of water in the town. In lots of houses the ground floors are full of water, one or two meters of water, and a lot of families have lost everything - their house, their car, their clothes, the furniture."

Gianni Giovannelli, Olbia's mayor, said the rain was so intense that it was like a "water bomb" and described the storm as "apocalyptic."

Sardinia wasn't the only region hit hard by flooding this week. Over the weekend, four people were killed when 0.79 inches of rain fell over 12 hours in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. The rainfall tally may not seem like much, but it's double the average November rainfall for the city. And since Riyadh has a desert climate, seemingly small amounts of rain can be cause for major concern.

"Typically, desert cities do not invest the same resources in drainage as do cities in wetter climates - much as warm-weather cities do not invest much in snowplows or road salt," weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen said. "As a result, rainfall amounts that might seem numerically insignificant in a place like Miami or New York can lead to major impacts in a desert metropolis."

Guatemala - Two lava flows are active on the upper slopes of the volcano at the moment, to the Taniluya (south) and Ceniza canyon (SE). The effusive activity started on 11 Nov and increased on 18 November, reaching a length of 600 m. Constant avalanches detach from the flow fronts. At the same time, explosive activity at the summit crater remained at low to moderate levels, with strombolian explosions that produce ash plumes of up to 800 m height and incandescent jets visible from distance. Some of the explosions generate shock waves that can be felt and heard in up to 15 km distance, causing roofs, doors and windows of houses to rattle. Fine ash fall occurred in Panimaché, Morelia abd Sangre de Cristo. -Volcano Discovery

Weak explosions at Yasur: Geohazards reports that the volcano continues to produce near-continuous ash emissions while explosions are relatively weak at the Yasur volcano on Vanuatu. This phase of ash emissions began on 3 November and are likely to continue into the coming days and weeks. Yasur Alert Level is still maintained at Level 1. Villages and communities located close and far away from the volcano, especially those in the prevailing trade winds direction (NW) are likely to receive ash falls. - Volcano Discovery

On Monday night and Tuesday morning, the Colima volcano showed two strong exhalations; ejecting lava down its slopes and ash skyward, that has reached several villages. Since last Sunday, the Volcan de Fuego de Colima was reactivated after several weeks of apparent calm and until Tuesday registered between 30 and 35 puffs per day, spewing lava down its slopes and ash that reached the people of Cheese, municipality of Cuauhtémoc, Colima, and some towns in the state of Jalisco.

Yesterday at 21:45 hours this morning between 8:00 and 8:30 am, the volcano emitted two strong exhalations heard that reached in the communities closest to the "granite colossus," mainly in the municipalities of Comala and Cuauhtémoc. From the city of Colima there was a big cloud of steam that rose to just over 2 miles. The chief operating officer of the State System of Civil Protection, Melchor Ursua Quiroz, said: "The volcano has been recharged" and in the last two days has been sharp exhalations, which triggered an alert status from monitoring equipment installed before this new volcanic activity.

Over 50,000 people were mobilized Tuesday to clear snow in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, after the city's worst snowstorm in more than 50 years continued past 60 hours.

Since Saturday, Harbin proper has seen an average daily snowfall of 11.4 mm, the highest level since daily weather recording began in the city in 1961, according to Harbin's weather station.

Residents, police and volunteers have helped to clear snow and ice on the streets, and special snow clearing machines and vehicles have also been mobilized, according to the city government.

Education authorities requested that all kindergartens, primary and high schools in the urban area close on Monday and Tuesday, as the accumulated snow on streets exceeded 10 cm in some areas.

The National Meteorological Center on Tuesday issued a blue alert for snowstorms, forecasting continuous snow in the eastern part of Heilongjiang for the next 24 hours. Snowfall is expected to reach 10 to 14 mm by 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

Climate alarmists' tactics -- exaggeration, misrepresentation, smear and scorn -- have hurt the movement more than helped it. No surprise there. Cultist are always the last to recognise the folly of their ways.

When the idea of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (AGW) from fossil fuel emissions arose it found strong resonance across a variety of important interests. For researchers it meant funding and recognition. With the media it was attention-grabbing drama. To activists it was the mother of all eco-threats. Business saw huge profits to be made, while bureaucrats recognised the potential for massive increases in power and control.

For politicians it was a no-brainer, with strong popularity on one side and only denigration on the other.

An impressive AGW bandwagon soon assembled and fired-up a luxurious hundred billion dollar gravy train. In late 2009 everything was on track for a glorious triumph by AGW forces at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, which was to have been the gateway to the clean, green new world promised by the eco-prophets.

Then came Climategate and the wheels started to come off.

In reality the whole vast AGW structure was built on a flimsy foundation of highly dubious prophesies by a small coterie of third-rate academics whose reputations and careers have been based almost entirely on dramatic claims about climate change which have proved to be either wrong, doubtful, or at best, yet to be verified. The description of their being "third rate" is used with due consideration. The attention-grabbing claims concerning AGW have been both fraught with uncertainty and subject to diverse unrefuted criticism. Well-founded credentials and reputations in research are not based on iffy speculation and un-verified predictions. Competent scientists avoid such speculation and take care to clearly qualify the limits and uncertainties involved in any opinions or predictions they may offer.

Aerial photos of Washington, Illinois, show the heartbreaking scale of the description visited on the town after tornadoes touched down there Sunday night.

Eighty one separate twisters were reported across the Midwest. The devastating storm outbreak brought winds of up to 200mph that flattened hundreds of homes and killed six people.

Residents of Washington, a downstate town of 15,000, were left to pick up the pieces Monday and begin recovering from the disaster.

Bits of American flags and insulation from destroyed houses clung to trees that had been stripped of most of their branches and remaining leaves by the twister.

Event Time
2013-11-19 13:32:54 UTC
2013-11-19 22:32:54 UTC+09:00 at epicenter

Location
2.647°N 128.402°E depth=63.6km (39.5mi)

Nearby Cities
110km (68mi) NNE of Tobelo, Indonesia
232km (144mi) NNE of Ternate, Indonesia
236km (147mi) NNE of Kota Ternate, Indonesia
382km (237mi) ENE of Bitung, Indonesia
850km (528mi) SW of Koror Town, Palau

Technical details

The storm that this Saturday affected Catalonien has accumulated up to 30 inches of snow in the Pyrenees and has even reached the regions of Ponent and Terres de l'Ebre, which have accumulated up to five inches of snow, which has left bleached landscape prints unusual for November, with snow down to elevations of only 300 or 400 meters in some areas.

Great Odin's ravens! The world is set to end in 100 days but according to Norse mythology the mighty Thor could save the day.

Viking folklore had its own take on the apocalypse called Ragnarok which would involve gods smiting each other, the sky stained with poison and three freezing winters - so we're a third of the way there already.

Norse experts have calculated that the viking gods are going to start flinging magic hammers at each other on February 22 2014 as Thor's dad Odin gets mauled to death by a wolf which will get the ball rolling for the armageddon.

Skandinavian cultural boffins at York's Jorvik viking centre have heralded the beginning of the end by blowing a sacred war trumpet.

Mythology states that the god Heimdallr would blow the magical Gjallerhorn to warn of Ragnarok which means Doom of the Gods. This will alert Odin's sons like Thor to the battlefield.