Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Alabama, US: 4 Tornado Tracks Added in Marshall County by Weather Service

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© The Huntsville Times/Paul GattisAlred Marina on Lake Guntersville was damaged in an April 27 tornado track added Thursday by the National Weather Service.
Huntsville - The historic wave of tornadoes that struck the state on April 27 grew in number yet again on Thursday.

The National Weather Service office in Huntsville added four new tornado tracks, all in Marshall County, to raise the total to 37 separate tornadoes in North Alabama.

The Huntsville office on Friday also upgraded the deadly EF-4 that struck DeKalb County, raising the estimates to an EF-5. That's the most powerful level on the Enhanced Fujita scale, indicating winds exceeding 200 mph. The only other EF-5 on April 27 ran along the ground from Hackleburg to Madison County.

The National Weather Service office in Birmingham has also identified 30 tornadoes on April 27. Six of those tornadoes continued into North Alabama and were surveyed by both offices.

Cloud Lightning

North Carolina, US: Strong Storm in Cape Fear Region Stirs Tornado Fears

Residents grew nervous Saturday evening when strong winds blew through the region, bringing bad memories of the April 16 tornado.

The National Weather Service in Raleigh said the storms contained no rotational activity, just heavy winds gusting between 21 and 59 miles per hour.

No serious damage was reported, but at least 1,574 residents in Cumberland County lost power, according to Progress Energy's website.

The dark skies and swaying trees frightened many residents still shaken from the April 16 tornado.

That storm killed one person, wrecked 945 homes and caused more than $100 million in damage in the county.

On the Fayetteville Observer's Facebook page, some residents in neighborhoods heavily damaged by the tornado expressed their fear.

Cloud Lightning

New Zealand: New Plymouth Rocked by Tornado Terror

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© Mat Henderson
Houses were moved off their foundations and residents feared for their lives as tornadoes ripped through New Plymouth early today.

The Fire Service has confirmed there were two tornadoes, and a possible third. They went through the city at about 4:20am.

One hit the city centre, causing substantial damage to businesses. The other hit a hotel and St Mary's Church Hall on Vivian St, a few blocks from the CBD, breaking roof tiles and ripping up a tree.

Canon pastor Bill Marsh said he was thankful the damage was all repairable.

The Fire Service said there may have been another tornado in the nearby town of Bell Block, where there has been more damage to buildings.

Emergency services have been inspecting damage around the city, and say business owners in the affected area should also check their properties.

Binoculars

Air Travel Disruptions from Chilean Volcano Spread to South Pacific

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© UnknownThe impact on air transport of the recent eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle volcano range was relatively limited early last week, but by the weekend its effects spread across the southern hemisphere to Australia and New Zealand.
The impact on air transport of the recent eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle volcano range was relatively limited early last week, but by the weekend its effects spread across the southern hemisphere to Australia and New Zealand.

The impact on air transport of the recent eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle volcano range was relatively limited early last week, but by the weekend its effects spread across the southern hemisphere to Australia and New Zealand.

Disruption to air traffic in South America caused by the eruption of the Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle range of volcanoes in Chile spread to Australia and New Zealand over the weekend, after shifting winds had initially allowed flight activity to return to normal throughout most of South America within four days of the June 4 eruptions in an area 500 miles south of the capital Santiago.

Binoculars

Passengers Stranded as Chilean Volcano Continues to Cause Flight Disruptions

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© ReutersA view is seen of a cloud of ash from Chile's Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near sunset at the mountain resort San Martin de Los Andes in Argentina's Patagonia June 12, 2011.
A cloud of ash from an erupting volcano in southern Chile has - for a third day, Tuesday - disrupted air travel in South America, Australia and New Zealand, causing widespread delays. More than 60,000 passengers have been stranded.

While flights in some areas have resumed, including Melbourne, planes to and from New Zealand and Adelaide, Australia remain grounded Tuesday.

The volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain in Chile has been erupting for several days, putting South American air travel into chaos as it spews ash high into the atmosphere, spreading eastward around the globe until reaching Australia, New Zealand and beyond in the Pacific.

In addition to Argentina and Chile, flights have been disrupted in the South American countries of Brazil and Uruguay.

Binoculars

Eritrea Volcano Disrupts East Africa Air Travel

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© Agence France-PresseA natural-color image released by NASA shows plumes billowing from Nabro volcano in Eritrea on June 13, 2011
A volcanic eruption in Eritrea has sent a plume of ash across the Horn of Africa, disrupting airline schedules and sparking health concerns.

Satellite photos show a column of ash rising from the long-dormant Nabro volcano in far southeastern Eritrea, near its border with Ethiopia and the city-state of Djibouti. The eruption is also about 100 kilometers from the coast of Yemen, just across the mouth of the Red Sea.

A photo posted on the website earthobservatory.nasa.gov shows the ash plume spreading westward toward Sudan.

The ash cloud prompted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to cut short a visit to Ethiopia, where she addressed the African Union Monday. It has also disrupted commercial aviation. Several major airlines cancelled flights to destinations in the region.

Sun

How's the Weather?

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© Jacob Magraw
Lately, the Sun has been behaving a bit strangely. In 2008 and 2009, it showed the least surface activity in nearly a century. Solar flare activity stopped cold and weeks and months went by without any sunspots, or areas of intense magnetism. Quiet spells are normal for the Sun, but researchers alive today had never seen anything like that two-year hibernation.

Now that the Sun is approaching the peak of its magnetic cycle, when solar storms - blasts of electrically charged magnetic clouds - are most likely to occur, no one can predict how it will behave. Will solar activity continue to be sluggish, or will solar storms rage with renewed vigor?

Luckily, policy makers are paying attention to space weather. Late last month, President Obama and the British prime minister David Cameron announced that the United States and Britain will work together to create "a fully operational global space weather warning system." And just last week, the United Nations pledged to upgrade its space weather forecasts.

Nuke

Midwest Floods: Both Nebraska Nuke Stations Threatened

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Tens of millions of acres in the US corn belt have flooded, which will spike the cost of gas and food over the next several months. Worse, several nuclear power plants sit in the flooded plains. Both nuclear plants in Nebraska are partly submerged and the FAA has issued a no-fly order over both of them.

On June 7, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant filed an Alert with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after a fire broke out in the switchgear room. During the event, "spent fuel pool cooling was lost" when two fuel pumps failed for about 90 minutes.

On June 9, Nebraska's other plant, Cooper Nuclear Power Station near Brownville, filed a Notice of Unusual Event (NOUE), advising it is unable to discharge sludge into the Missouri River due to flooding, and therefore "overtopped" its sludge pond.

Play

Kamchatka Shiveluch Volcano erupts in Russia

Volcano activity overview : Shiveluch volcano is a 3283m (10770 feet for our US viewers) high andesitic volcano which is the largest within the Kliuchevskaya volcano group in Kamchatka. It is the most active in the group (at least 60 eruptions in the last 12000 years have occurred) and has been erupting often within 2011 sending ash between 3 and 8 km into the air. The latest set of activity started on June 10, 2011

UPDATE: 17:22 UTC : A Russian TV station has reported yesterday from this Eruption with some video footage from the eruption. Russian volcanoes are not often videotaped.

Sun

Volcano Supercharges Sunsets Far and Wide

Volcanic Sunset
© Patricio Rodriguez, ReutersVolcanic Sunset
A cloud of ash from Chile's Puyehue volcano (map), which began erupting on June 4, creates a golden-hued sunset near the mountain resort of San Martín de Los Andes in Argentina on June 12. (Pictures: Chile Volcano Plume Explodes With Lightning.)

The corrosive and obscuring volcanic ash has grounded airplanes all across South America and even in Australia, but the tiny dust and glass particles are also responsible for an optical effect that has lead to spectacular sunsets and sunrises filled with bright gold, fiery orange, and blood red hues around the globe.

"The wavelength of light coming from the sun is being diffracted differently, and that's what causes the visual effect that we see," explained Jay Miller, a volcanologist at Texas A&M University.