Earth ChangesS


Attention

'Massive' cliff fall near Durdle Door, Dorset, UK


BBC News
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:52 UTC
Cliff fall
© MCAThe cliff fall happened overnight at St Oswald's Bay
A section of the South West Coast Path in Dorset has been destroyed by a massive landslip.

Portland Coastguard said the cliff fall happened overnight at St Oswald's Bay, east of Durdle Door.

A coastguard spokesman said: "It is huge - a massive fall has taken out part of the cliff. It is rather extraordinary."
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Sun

First "heat wave" of year sets in as record temperatures hit Balkans


b92
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:40 UTC
balkan temp map
© Unknown
The last day of April brought high temperatures and high UV radiation values throughout the Balkan region.

Temperatures in excess of 30 degrees centigrade have been reported in Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, and Albania, while citizens are advised not to stay in the sun for prolonged periods of time.

"This is certainly one of the hottest April since measurements are being taken," Nedeljko Todorović of Serbia's Hydro-Meteorological Service (RHMZ) said.
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Bug

Unbelievable swarm of flies hits city of Kraljevo, Serbia


KVO Kraljevo Online via YouTube
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:30 UTC
[Google translation] An unprecedented cloud of flies almost buried in swarms the city of Kraljevo. It is a natural phenomenon, according to the Veterinary Inspection.


Kraljevo tonight was engulfed by an unprecedented cloud of flies that are in swarms, with the first dusk, almost buried the entire city.
Miodrag Rajkovic of the Veterinary Institute in Kraljevo says that it is a natural phenomenon. Weather conditions, high temperatures and humidity shorten the development cycle of these flying insects explained Rajkovic.
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Question

Scotland: Rare sighting of 14 sperm whales in Firth of Forth


BBC
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:17 UTC
Image
Experts were able to identify the whales' tail flukes, dorsal fins and plumes of spray

The largest group of whales thought to have been seen travelling together in or near the Firth of Forth has been recorded from the air.

The pod of 14 sperm whales was seen on Thursday heading from the island of Fidra to the Lamb, just a mile offshore at North Berwick in East Lothian.

The whales then changed direction, heading towards Crail in Fife.

They were reported to the Scottish Seabird Centre by microlight pilots who saw them from a height of 500ft.

The whales were also spotted by Scottish Natural Heritage staff and other researchers on the Isle of May who were able to identify the whales' tail flukes, dorsal fins and plumes of spray.

Erich Hoyt, North Berwick-based marine conservationist and author, said: "Sperm whales are rarely seen in the Firth of Forth, and to see 14 of them travelling together is very special.

"The previous close sighting of sperm whales in North Berwick was exactly 10 years ago this month when a large sperm whale landed on the beach at Canty Bay, but this is certainly the largest group of living whales we've seen travelling together in or near the Firth of Forth.

"Sperm whales are usually residents of deeper waters off the north and west of Scotland where they hunt squid."
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Question

Dead birds "falling from the sky" in Port Arthur, Texas neighborhood

Adam Wright
12newsnow.com
Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:19 UTC

Port Arthur resident Lara Comeaux says over the course of just two days she and her neighbors have found at least 7 dead birds in their yards along Shady Cove Lane. "We've never had anything like this before, maybe a baby bird falling out of a nest in the front once or twice, but never birds just falling out of the sky," Comeaux told 12News Friday afternoon.
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Question

Japan: 17 crows, 1 pigeon found dead on Yokohama street


Japan Today
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:34 UTC
Yokohama - Health authorities on Tuesday were trying to determine what killed 17 crows and one pigeon whose bodies were found on the street in Yokohama earlier in the day.

According to police, the birds were found dead at around 8 a.m. in a 200-meter radius in an entertainment district about 400 meters from JR Kannai Station. NTV quoted police as saying there were no external injuries on the birds.

Health authorities said there was no sign of bird flu and believe the birds must have ingested poison of some kind.

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Snowflake Cold

Strange 'chandeliering ice' phenomena unfolds at Medicine Lake


KARE11
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:40 UTC

Plymouth, Minnesota - Many of us thought we'd seen it all when it comes to the winter of 2012-2013.

Think again.

On a day in which spring made its return to Minnesota with a vengeance, Nadalie Thomas caught Old Man Winter making his last stand with an ice-shattering spectacle known to some as "chandeliering."

Nadalie and her kids were down on the shores of Medicine Lake in Plymouth Saturday when they noticed large piles of ice that were splintering into fine shards similar to glass. As spectacular as the visual image was the ear-splitting sound that accompanied the icy scene.
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Bizarro Earth

Powerful 5.9 magnitude earthquake strikes off Azores archipelago


The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:28 UTC
Image
© USGS
An earthquake of magnitude 6 struck in the Atlantic Ocean 38 miles east of Ponta Delgada in Portugal's Azores archipelago on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but local authorities reported no immediate damage. The USGS downgraded the earthquake to 5.9 magnitude. The quake was at a depth of 9.4 miles, the survey said. "The quake was felt here, but it was not strong enough to do any serious damage on the island. We have not received any requests for help," a duty officer at the Ponta Delgada fire brigade told Reuters. -Reuters

USGS data
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Ice Cube

Ice Age Cometh: Spring disappears from northern hemisphere: the winter that won't end


The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:24 UTC
April has been a freakishly cold month across much of the northern USA, bringing misery to millions of sun-starved and winter-weary residents from the Rockies to the Midwest. "The weather map ... looks like something out of The Twilight Zone," Minneapolis meteorologist Paul Douglas of WeatherNation TV wrote on his blog last week. Record cold and snow has been reported in dozens of cities, with the worst of the chill in the Rockies, upper Midwest and northern Plains. Several baseball games have been snowed out in both Denver and Minneapolis.
Image
Cities such as Rapid City, S.D.; Duluth, Minn.; and Boulder, Colo., have all endured their snowiest month ever recorded. (In all three locations, weather records go back more than 100 years.) In fact, more than 1,100 snowfall records and 3,400 cold records have been set across the nation so far in April, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Unfortunately for warm-weather lovers, after some mild temperatures the past few days, the chill is forecast to return as the calendar turns to May: Accumulating snow is forecast overnight Tuesday night and Wednesday in Denver and in Minneapolis-St.Paul by Wednesday night and Thursday, said AccuWeather meteorologist Mark Paquette.
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Ice Cube

Ice needles on a beach in Minnesota?

Claudine Zap
The Sideshow
Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:54 UTC
Springtime in Minnesota: the sun, the beach, the ice.

Wait, what?

Despite temperatures climbing to almost 80 degrees on Sunday, beachgoers to a lake in eastern Minnesota saw spiky mounds of ice in almost volcanic-looking formations along the edge of the beach.

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