Earth ChangesS


Windsock

Cyclone Narelle set to bring dangerous conditions to Western Australia

Aleisha Orr
WA Today
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:14 UTC
Cyclone Narelle
© Higgins Storm ChasingThis satellite image shows Cyclone Narelle forming off the north-west coast of WA.
People in the Pilbara are preparing for dangerous weather conditions, as Cyclone Narelle bears down ominously on WA's north-west coast

The eye-catching photographs accompanying this story were captured by Brett Martin just before sunset on Wednesday afternoon, 25 nautical miles north-west of Onslow.

They depict a "tropical squall line" and a "gust front ahead of a storm line", with the red tinge resulting from dust picked up in the Pilbara on the way out to sea.
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Boat

Boat caught in middle of dolphin stampede off Dana Point, California


LA Times
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:24 UTC

It was a rare, breathtaking sight: In a flash, a pod of about 1,000 common dolphins began a stampede, churning across the blue-gray waters off Dana Point at a rapid pace.

Dave Anderson, the captain of Capt. Dave's Dolphin and Whale Safari, said that in the decades he's spent on the water and out among Southern California's dense dolphin population, it's a phenomenon he's encountered only rarely.

Yet last weekend, it happened again ... and it happened twice: once on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning. Boat hands captured Sunday's stampede on video.

"It's one of those things you can hope for it, but you can't plan for it," he said.

"It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of beautiful and interesting things" on the water.
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Cloud Precipitation

Residents watching out for flash floods in Louisiana

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch
NOLA.com
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:34 UTC
Image
© National Weather ServiceHeavy rain is expected in southeast Louisiana today.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser is advising residents to stay off the roads on Thursday. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch until 2 p.m. Thursday and flash flood watch until Thursday evening for most of southeast Louisiana.

View full size Heavy rain is expected in southeast Louisiana today. National Weather Service

Plaquemines drainage canals have been pumped down and all drainage pump stations are fully staffed, according to Plaquemines Parish government.
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Cloud Precipitation

Severe winter storm brings snow, flash flooding and strong winds to Mideast

Jamal Halaby & Barbara Surk
The Associated Press
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:03 UTC
Snowball Fight
© Bilal Hussein/The Associated PressSyrian refugee children have a snowball fight at the mountain town of Bhamdoun, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday. The fiercest winter storm to hit the Middle East in years has unleashed flash flooding, strong winds and a snowstorm that killed six people in the past few days.
Amman, Jordan - The fiercest winter storm to hit the Mideast in years brought a rare foot of snow to Jordan on Wednesday, caused fatal accidents in Lebanon and the West Bank, and disrupted traffic on the Suez Canal in Egypt. At least eight people died across the region.

In Lebanon, the Red Cross said storm-related accidents killed six people over the past two days. Several drowned after slipping into rivers from flooded roads, one person froze to death and another died after his car went off a slippery road, according to George Kettaneh, operations director for the Lebanese Red Cross.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, a Palestinian official said two West Bank women drowned after their car was caught in a flash flood on Tuesday. Nablus deputy governor Annan Atirah said the women abandoned their vehicle after it got stuck on a flooded road, and their bodies were apparently swept away by surging waters. Their driver was hospitalized in critical condition.

In the Gaza Strip, civil defence spokesperson Mohammed al-Haj Yousef said storms cut electricity to thousands of Palestinian homes and rescuers were sent to evacuate dozens of people.
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Igloo

Athens snow closes roads and schools; city opens homeless shelters


ekathimerini.com
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:44 UTC
Heavy Snow
© Ekathimerini.com
Heavy snowfall in northern parts of the Greek capital on Tuesday prompted authorities to close roads and schools, while municipal authorities made three public buildings to the homeless shelters as temperatures dropped to the 0-Celsius mark.

The Penteli ring road was closed early on Tuesday due to ice and fog and was reopened to traffic later in the morning, while Dionysos Avenue remains off limits from Anatoli to Dionysos and drivers were advised to use snow chains on the road between Katsimidiou and Aghiou Merkouriou in Tatoi.

The old national highway linking Thiva to Athens was shut off to lorries and other heavy vehicles, with regular cars allowed access only with snow chains, as the road leading from the funicular to Mont Parnes Casino on Mount Parnitha remained closed from Sunday.

Several schools were also given the day off in Dionysos, Penteli, Nea Penteli, Kapandriti, Kalamos, Malakasa, Petroupoli and Liosia, among other parts of northern Attica.

Meanwhile, the city of Athens opened three emergency centers for the homeless on Monday at buildings on the corners of Lenorman and Alexandreias, Mamouri and Dymis, and Aghiou Meletiou and Xenagora. The 1960 hotline will also be operating 24 hours a day where citizens can report the location of homeless people in distress.

Municipal day centers for the elderly (KAPI) will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, providing heated shelter.

The meteorological service expects the cold snap to continue through Wednesday, with temperatures starting to climb back up on Thursday and Friday.
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Snowflake Cold

Russian Trans-Caucasian highway closed due to heavy snowfall


The Voice of Russia
Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:28 UTC
Trans-Caucasian highway snow
© RIA Novosti
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Cloud Precipitation

Storm hits displaced Syrians, turning Jordanian camp into freezing swamp


The Times of Israel
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:20 UTC
Syrian refugee
© AP/Mohammad HannonA Wounded Syrian refugee makes his way over water and mud at the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp, near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, on Tuesday
A winter storm is magnifying the misery for tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the country's civil war, turning a refugee camp into a muddy swamp where howling winds tore down tents and exposed the displaced residents to freezing temperatures.

Some frustrated refugees at a camp in Zaatari, where about 50,000 are sheltered, attacked aid workers with sticks and stones after the tents collapsed in 35 mph (60 kph) winds, said Ghazi Sarhan, spokesman for the Jordanian charity that helps run the camp. Police said seven Jordanian workers were injured.

After three days of rain, muddy water engulfed tents housing refugees including pregnant women and infants. Those who didn't move out used buckets to bail out the water; others built walls of mud to try to stay dry.
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Snowflake Cold

Biggest winter storm in a decade slams Israel bringing snow, floods


Haaretz
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:08 UTC
Flooding in Taibeh Israel
© Nir KeidarFlooding in Taibeh
Snow envelops northern Israel, roads close due to ice; police close Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway; hundreds of people rescued from their homes after massive floods.

As Israel battled its stormiest winter in a decade, cities across the country found themselves nearly paralyzed. Major highways closed, power outages were reported, the entrance to Tel Aviv was all but blocked, and residents of some neighborhoods awaited possible word of evacuation.

The Ayalon River near Tel Aviv, usually a dry bed, flooded beyond capacity as storms overtook central Israel overnight Tuesday. The nearby Ayalon Highway was closed between Glilot Junction and Hashalom Street in both directions over the course of the morning, opening up from Hahalakha Junction northbound in the afternoon. Highway 1 was closed between Shapirim and Kibbutz Galuyot junctions in the early afternoon, and traffic was halted or congested across Tel Aviv through the morning and afternoon hours. The Israel Police has asked drivers to stay out of central Tel Aviv, and to avoid driving if possible.

Due to the weather, Israel's Airport Authority offers free bus service to Tel Aviv.
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Igloo

Price of vegetables in China jumps 55% in historic cold snap

Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:27 UTC
Vegetable
© Flickr user thebittenword.comBabi bok choi.
A cold snap in China hasn't gotten much attention here, but it might start to get more, as it's causing massive food inflation.

The Daily Dim Sum translates a Xinhua article:
Monitoring results of the Ministry of Agriculture show that prices of 27 vegetables in the first week of 2013 increased 4.5 percent week-on-week for an average price of CNY 4.17/kg. In the past ten weeks, average price of vegetables has jumped 55 percent.
Weather.com reports on the exact weather numbers:
China is experiencing unusual chills this winter with its national average temperature hitting the lowest in 28 years, and snow and ice have closed highways, canceled flights, stranded tourists and knocked out power in several provinces.

China Meteorological Administration on Friday said the national average was 25 degrees Fahrenheit since late November, the coldest in nearly three decades.

The average temperature in northeast China dipped to -4.5 degrees F, the coldest in 43 years, and dropped to a 42-year low of -18.7 degrees F in northern China.
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Bizarro Earth

Humpback grouper invades Keys waters from the Pacific - equivalent of a hunter in North America finding a zebra

Kevin Wadlow
Miami Herald
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:49 UTC
Image
© Wayne Grammes / KeysNet.comGreg Caterino of Tavernier hoists the humpback grouper -- a Pacific Ocean species -- he speared off North Key Largo in late December.
Deep-diving spearfishermen surfaced with a mystery last month south of Pacific Reef Light off North Key Largo. "I was shocked when I saw it," Wayne Grammes said. "It's an ugly-looking fish with a face on it that looks like a tripletail and a tail like a jewfish." The 15-pound, 27-inch fish speared by Greg Caterino of Tavernier turned out to be a humpback grouper - a species native not to Pacific Reef but to the tropical Pacific Ocean off Asia. "This is the equivalent of a hunter in North America finding a zebra," said Grammes, who was fishing Dec. 23 with Caterino.

"We've seen the successful marine invasion of lionfish," Reef Environmental Education Foundation Project Director Lad Akins said this week. "We certainly do not want to see it happen again with another Pacific species." Akins, a renowned expert in fish identification, confirmed the speared fish was a humpback grouper. With an array of black spots, it's also known as a panther grouper.

"This is not the first time these have been sighted in Florida," Akins said. "There have been five or six reported as far back as the 1980s, but all from different parts of the state." "The juveniles are really popular in the aquarium trade," Akins said. "It's quite likely that this is released fish."

Young humpback grouper sport a brilliant white color with an attractive spray of black spots. But they outgrow most privately owned saltwater tanks - and cast a hungry eye on other tank fish. "Just like lionfish, they are carnivores," Akins said.
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