Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

10-Km-High Ash Column Rises From Russia's Shiveluch Volcano

Mark Dunphy
Irish Weather Online
Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:31 UTC
An explosive eruption is taking place at Russia's Shiveluch volcano (sometimes called Sheveluch or Sopka Shiveluch), located in the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, prompting no fly zones to be imposed in the region.

Ash plumes have risen to 34,500 ft (10.5 km) while seismic activity is ongoing. The official Itar-Tass news agency reported on Monday that the highest-level warning has been issued for aviation.

Image
© NASA/Google/IWORussia’s Shiveluch volcano.
The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) in Anchorage, Alaska, reported that ash falls are possible at Klyuchi (50 km to the south-west from the volcano); Ust'-Kamchatsk (90 km to the east-southeast from the volcano); and Ust'-Khairyuzovo (280 km to the west-northwest from the volcano).

The NOAA-operated VAAC added: "Moderate potential hazards are caused by ash plumes, ash falls, pyroclastic flows, hot avalanches and lahars. The volcano constitutes a potential hazard to international and local airlines at Kamchatka because its eruptive clouds can rise to a height of 3-20 km ASL and extend for hundreds of kilometers from the volcano."
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Cloud Lightning

Storms Kill Dozens in Central America


The Star Phoenix
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 18:53 UTC
search for victims of a landslide 170 kilometres west of Guatemala City
© Getty Images, Agence France-PresseRescuers search for victims of a landslide 170 kilometres west of Guatemala City on Friday. Guatemala remains under red alert with 56.000 people affected by torrential rains.
Two storm systems left at least 38 people dead and forced tens of thousands from their homes after heavy rains battered Central America and Mexico's Pacific coast, officials said Friday.

Guatemala alone accounted for 21 killed, according to local authorities and emergency services.

The toll in Mexico rose to eight Friday with three more reported dead from flooding and landslides in the wake of Hurricane Jova, which hit the Pacific coast as a category two hurricane Tuesday before weakening to a tropical storm.

Torrential rains destroyed and carried away bridges in Guatemala, where authorities confirmed 21 deaths and 55,000 people affected by a tropical depression, which hit Central America at the start of the week.
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Bizarro Earth

Spewing volcano forces Spain to close island port


The Sacramento Bee
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:51 UTC
Madrid -- Spanish authorities say activity by an underwater volcano has led them to close access to a port on El Hierro island.

Ships have been ordered away from waters around La Restinga and aircraft have been banned from flying over the island's southern tip.

The port's 600 residents were evacuated Tuesday after volcanic activity began.

The regional government of the Canary Islands says scientists have detected airborne volcanic fragments called pyroclasts rising from the sea off La Restinga.

The government said it awaited scientific reports on the danger posed by pyroclasts, but a research vessel that was collecting samples there has been ordered to desist.

TV channel La Sexta reported Saturday that journalists also have been told to clear the area.
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Cloud Lightning

Australia: Hail storms lash southeast Queensland, killing one and causing flash flooding, havoc on roads


The Courier-Mail
Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:21 UTC
Southeast Queensland will be hit with a second day of heavy rain after yesterday's violent storms killed a driver seeking shelter.


The deadly rain and thick hail that lashed the southeast on Thursday left thousands of homes without power and hundreds of homes and businesses severely damaged.

The 42-year-old Crestmead man was killed by a tree that fell on his car as he parked at the side of Johnson Rd at Hillcrest in Logan City.

A woman was killed when a car smashed into two other cars that had stopped on a road in the heavy rain at Pittsworth, near Toowoomba.
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Cloud Lightning

Residents Evacuate From Thai Floodwaters

Paula Hancocks
CNN
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:32 UTC
The Thailand government is diverting floodwaters to protect Bangkok's inner city.

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Bizarro Earth

US: California-Nevada Border Region Hit By 4 Magnitude Earthquake

Mark Dunphy
Irish Weather Online
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:32 UTC
A 4.0 magnitude earthquake was recorded close to central California's border with Nevada early on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has reported.

The quake struck at 04:42AM local time (12:42PM GMT) and struck at a shallow depth of 9.8 km (6.1 miles).

The epicentre was located at Antelope Mountain on the eastern edge of the Yosemite National Forest, about 40 km (25 miles) NNE (15°) from Toms Place, CA; 45 km (28 miles) S (184°) from Qualeys Camp, NV; 47 km (29 miles) NE (51°) from Mammoth Lakes, CA; and 264 km (164 miles) ESE (105°) from Sacramento, CA.

Image
© Google-IWOEpicentre of Saturday's earthquake.
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Evil Rays

Pennsylvania, US: Mystery booms, rumbling was caused by earthquake

Ben Russell
WHPTV
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:07 UTC
Image
© www.swataratwp.com
Mysterious shakes in one Dauphin County neighborhood last week have been confirmed earthquakes.

A professor of earth science at Millersville University, Charles Scharnberger, tells CBS 21 News there were four earthquakes in Swatara Township.

He says they all happened in a small area only about a mile across. He also compared them to the earthquakes that have been felt in Dillsburg.
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Igloo

Iceland: Katla Rumbling Fuels Fears of a Volcanic Eruption that 'would be worse' than Last Year's Eyjafjallajokul


Daily Mail Online
Fri, 14 Oct 2011 02:06 UTC
Image
Fearsome: Lightning streaks across the sky as lava flows from Eyjafjallajokul last year. The eruption wrought havoc on international travel
An Icelandic volcano that could have a more devastating impact than the one that paralysed air traffic last year may erupt at any moment, experts have warned.

Seismologists are nervously watching rumblings beneath Katla, a volcano on the southern edge of the north Atlantic island nation, which could mean an eruption is imminent.

Katla is a much bigger volcano than nearby Eyjafjallajokul, the 2010 eruption of which cost airlines £1.27billion after ash grounded flights across Europe.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Mysterious Disease Killed Scores of Seals in Alaska

Yereth Rosen
Reuters
Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:56 UTC
Diseased Seal
© Reuters/North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management/HandoutA diseased ringed seal in Alaska is shown in this handout photo released to Reuters October 13, 2011.
A mysterious disease, possibly a virus, has killed scores of ring seals along Alaska's coast, according to local and federal agencies.

The diseased seals have been beaching themselves on the Arctic coastline since July, with numbers picking up in subsequent months, biologists with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management and other agencies said on Thursday.

About 100 of the diseased animals have been found near Barrow, the nation's northernmost community, and half of those have died, the borough biologists reported.

Elsewhere in the sprawling borough, villagers have reported 146 ringed seals hauling themselves onto beaches, and many of those were diseased, the biologists said.

Ringed seals rarely come ashore, spending most of the year in the water or on floating ice, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service.
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Bizarro Earth

Antarctic Ozone Hole 5th Largest on Record


Live Science
Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:51 UTC
Ozone Hole
© NOAAShown here is the total ozone concentration over the South Pole on Sept. 14, 2011. The "hole" is designated as the area where the total ozone concentration is below 220 Dobson units (a measure of thickness) and shown in red.

The ozone hole above the Antarctic has reached its maximum extent for the year, revealing a gouge in the protective atmospheric layer that rivals the size of North America, scientists have announced.

Spanning about 9.7 million square miles (25 million square kilometers), the ozone hole over the South Pole reached its maximum annual size on Sept. 14, 2011, coming in as the fifth largest on record. The largest Antarctic ozone hole ever recorded occurred in 2006, at a size of 10.6 million square miles (27.5 million square km), a size documented by NASA's Earth-observing Aura satellite.

The Antarctic ozone hole was first discovered in the late 1970s by the first satellite mission that could measure ozone, a spacecraft called POES and run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The hole has continued to grow steadily during the 1980s and 90s, though since early 2000 the growth reportedly leveled off. Even so scientists have seen large variability in its size from year to year.
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