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Bizarro Earth

US: Colored Clouds Over Nebraska


Space Weather
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:52 UTC
Auroras in Nebraska are rare, but who needs auroras when you've got iridescence? University of Nebraska freshman Evan Ludes took this picture of cloud-colors over Omaha on the morning of Nov. 10th:

Colored Skies
© Evan LudesImage Taken: Nov. 10, 2011
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
"I walked out of class this morning and was greeted by one of the best iridescence displays I've ever seen!" says Ludes. "The colors formed on the leading edge of a long stretch of cirrocumulus clouds."

Iridescent colors appear when sunlight shines through water droplets in the edges of clouds. The mechanism is diffraction. The colors are at their brightest and most distinct when the droplets are small and uniformly-sized.

"I'm no optics expert," says Ludes, "but I'm guessing the colors were particularly vivid since these clouds were newly formed and therefore likely had water droplets of similar shape and size. It was incredible how distinct the bands of colors were even when zoomed in at 300mm!"
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Bizarro Earth

US: Oklahoma Struck By Biggest November Tornado on Record

Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:58 UTC
Tornado
© Steve Grabman/NWSThe biggest November tornado in Oklahoma's history.
Oklahoma earlier this week became witness to the state's biggest November tornado since reliable records began in 1950.

The tornado touched down in Tipton, Okla., earlier this week and was upgraded yesterday (Nov. 10) to an EF-4, the second-highest rating on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado damage scale, after a storm survey team analyzed its destruction.

"We've had some biggies come through from time to time, but never an EF-4 in November," said Gary McManus, of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, which operates the Mesonet weather data collection towers across the state. One of the 30-foot-tall (10 meters) weather collection towers was toppled by the EF-4 tornado.

The massive fall twister demolished an Oklahoma State University extension office, according to the storm survey report from the National Weather Service (NWS) in Norman, Okla. The tornado had estimated winds between 166 and 200 mph (267 kph to 322 kph), significantly stronger than its EF-2 preliminary rating.
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Bizarro Earth

First Picture Emerges of Infant Underwater Volcano

Katherine Tweed
OurAmazingPlanet
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:37 UTC
New Volcano
© IEO/MICINNThis image was recently taken and shows the new volcano and its lava tongue that descends in the path of the old underwater valley.
It is rare that the birth of an island can be watched by humans in real-time, but that could be what is happening in Spain's Canary Islands.

Residents of La Restinga on the island of El Hierro were recently evacuated after weeks of earthquakes and the growing threat of an erupting underwater volcano that is making its presence known on the surface with an expanding, bubbling patch of dark debris.

The seismic activity off the coast alerted scientists to the fact that something interesting was happening under the sea. To get a better look, a team of researchers from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) went out on the water and were able to get a high-resolution picture of the volcano in less than two weeks.

The volcanic cone stretches nearly 330 feet (100 meters) above the seafloor, and is 2,300 feet (700 m) wide at its base. Lava is currently oozing out of a crater in the center that is about 390 feet (120 m) wide.
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Nuke

International atomic agency reports unusual radiation concentrations in Europe


Associated Press
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:33 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The U.N. nuclear agency is reporting "very low" - but higher than usual - levels of radiation in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says the "very low levels of iodine-131 have been measured in the atmosphere over the Czech Republic" and elsewhere on the continent.

Its statement on Friday said the current levels do not seem to pose a public health risk.

IAEA says the cause is not known, but it is not the result of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which spread radiation across the globe in March.
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Bizarro Earth

Villages deluged with ash from Indonesia's Merapi eruption now fear for their lives


The Jakarta Globe
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:30 UTC
Image
© AntaraA local watches a makeshift bamboo bridge damaged from cold lava floods from the Merapi volcano on Wednesday
Sleman, Central Java - The arrival of the rainy season has triggered the time bomb experts have long feared: volcanic mudflows comprised of millions of tons of ash and debris blanketing Merapi's slopes after last year's eruptions.

The impact is spreading this week. Mudflows are affecting not just residents of Sleman's north and east, but those in the west as well as the Progo River threatens Kisik 1 village, which sits about 1.2 kilometers from its edge.

The river has experienced extreme shallowing due to the sedimentation of ash. Volcanic mud has repeatedly spilled over its banks and flooded residents' homes, gardens and rice fields.

Past experience has made Kisik 1 resident Samirin wary.

"If there's mudflow in the Putih and Krasak rivers, it is bound to end up in the Progo River," he said. "Almost all the levees are damaged or have been washed away. Even the east bank of the river, which was four meters high, has been washed out."
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Bizarro Earth

US: EPA Finds Fracking Compound in Wyoming Aquifer

Abrahm Lustgarten and ProPublica
Scientific American
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:06 UTC
Image
© USGSEPA monitoring wells have detected compounds used in fracking in a Wyoming aquifer.
As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution.

A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The findings are consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there.

Last year -- after warning residents not to drink or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered -- the EPA drilled the monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.
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Igloo

Tehran's Early Winter Snow Surprizes Citizens

Amir Mehdi Kazemi
Press TV
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:32 UTC

It finally arrived. Tehran's winter snow started to fall on the capital but much sooner than expected. After days of continuous raining Tehran was suddenly clad in white. With temperatures falling to nearly zero degrees Celsius, life in Iran's most populous city suddenly changed.
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Monkey Wrench

U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing

John Daly
Oilprice.com
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:49 UTC
Image
© http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.comFracking Injects High Pressure Fluid Deep in Rock Bed
On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois. Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state.

Why? In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state.

Cause and effect?

The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.
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Igloo

Huge Alaska storm passes, leaves widespread damage

Mark Thiessen
STL Today
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:25 UTC
Alaska storm
© AP Photo/Peggy FagerstromWaves splash up on the shore near homes in Nome, Alaska. Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011.
A massive storm that battered Alaska's western coast with hurricane-strength winds and towering sea surges has passed out of the region in a much weaker state, leaving behind widespread damage and a missing man who may have been swept out to a churning sea.

So far, 37 communities have reported some form of damage, said Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the state's emergency management agency.

The strongest storm to hit the state in four decades also left behind tales of human endurance.
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Bizarro Earth

Greece: Earthquake Magnitude 5.2 Northwest of Athens


The Extinction Protocol
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:34 UTC
Image
© USGS
A 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck about 167 km (104) miles from Athens and about 27 km from Patras, Greece. The shallow earthquake was reported at a depth of just 6.9 km (4.3 miles) below the surface. There have been no initial reports of damages.
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