Earth ChangesS


Stop

Flashback UK: M45 shut for hours by freezing rain

The UK M45 motorway was shut for several hours by the Highways Agency for safety reasons after freezing rain fell.

Officials said the decision to shut the motorway, in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, was taken after two minor collisions early on Sunday.

The M45 was shut at about 0500 GMT to allow salt spreading to take place and it reopened westbound at about 0950 GMT and eastbound at 1030 GMT.

The agency said the motorway had been treated overnight.

Life Preserver

New Zealand: Storm pounds North Island

New Zealand flood
© Benjamin EitelbergAuckland, Kohimarama Road
Walls of sandbags are being erected as dozens of Auckland house owners prepare for a second bout of flooding in 24 hours.

The Auckland Civil Defence emergency coordination centre has been activated and controller Clive Manley says the region will continue to be affected by gales.

Residents of Herald Island are bracing for another surge of water at high tide.

About 30 Herald Island properties were evacuated and properties in Maratai, Leigh, Clevedon, Beachlands and Sandspit were flooded by intense rain which hit the city last night.

Manley says those areas are likely to be flooded again during high tide at midnight.

He has sent workers to shore up the Herald Is properties with sandbags.

"Those properties will remain evacuated overnight. People will keep away from those areas."

The weather has cut power in Remuera and in Mt Wellington, while in west Auckland, residents at Piha, Titirangi and Henderson have been without electricity.

Vector says it has been working on fixing the fault, but some areas may be without power because of damage to service lines.

Igloo

Video: U.S. shivers from season's coldest weather

Bitter cold grips most of U.S. Currently the North Eastern United States and as many as 32 Eastern States are seeing heavy winter snow. Temperatures in many states are seeing double digit negative temperatures.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Roses

Vietnam: Cold Ruins Peach Blossom Harvest

Vietnamese farmer w/ peach trees
© VNA/VNS/Thanh HaFarmers in Nhat Tan gardens in Ha Noi's Tay Ho District get peach trees ready for market. Local growers worry that the cold will prevent trees from producing blossoms in time for Tet.
Ha Noi - Horticulturalist Tran Tien Dung feels sad as he looks around his garden of 500 peach-blossom trees. More than half show no sign of being able to open their gorgeous red or pink flowers for Tet.

It is a poignant reminder for Dung, and all Hanoians, of the remarkable cold spell that is hovering over the north. The image of Tet with its banh chung xanh (green bean cake) and hoa dao do (red peach blossoms) has been engraved in their minds.

Peach flowers are believed to bring wealth and luck - and to chase away evil spirits. But this is not the case for Nhat Tan peach-flower village, the best known in the north, which has 30ha of peach trees in all sizes.

This year, there are many growers like Dung who are facing failure brought on by the bitter weather which hit the north in early January.

"In 20 years, this is the first time the weather has turned this cold. Most of the trees will be lucky to survive, let alone produce flowers," said Dung.

Bizarro Earth

US: Shallow 4.3 and 3.8 Magnitude Earthquakes hit Hawthorne NV within minutes of each other

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 17:29:25 UTC

Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 09:29:25 AM at epicenter

Location:
38.527°N, 118.407°W

Depth:
5.8 km (3.6 miles)

Region:
NEVADA

Distances:
19 km (12 miles) E (89°) from Hawthorne, NV

20 km (12 miles) W (277°) from Luning, NV

24 km (15 miles) SSW (203°) from Midway, NV

266 km (166 miles) E (90°) from Sacramento, CA

Comment: These are relatively shallow earthquakes. Perhaps they have to do with the Army Depot in Hawthorne that drills frequently in the area for geothermal energy. See page 2 of this link for the map of the rather impressive US Military Geothermal Resource locations across the US.


Radar

Best of the Web: Alarming NOAA Data Supports Observations of North Pole's Rapid Shift

Image
© Modern Survival Blog
The NOAA National Geophysical Data Center maintains a data set of annual magnetic north pole coordinates going back to the year 1590, derived from early measurements from ships logs to modern day techniques.

Noting that there has been lots of reporting of pole shift lately, to the point where the phenomenon is actually causing real-world issues such as temporary airport closures, a deeper investigation was in order.

After transferring 420 years of north pole position data from the NOAA Geo Data Center, configuring it to fit in an Excel spreadsheet, adding a complicated formula to determine exact distance between 2 sets of latitude-longitude coordinates, applying the formula to each data point in the series, and then finally plotting it all in a visual graph, it is alarming to discover the amount of pole shift just over the past 10 to 20 years.

Hourglass

Volcano in Russian Far East continues to spew ashy plume

Kizimen Volcano
© RIA Novosti. M. PevznerKizimen Volcano
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky -- The active Kizimen Volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula continues spewing plumes of ash at a height of up to six kilometers (3.72 miles), a representative for the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said on Thursday.

"Seismologists registered about 200 local tremors in the vicinity of the volcano over the past 24 hours," the spokesman said.

According to him, bad weather satellites cannot track the direction or the distance of the ash plume which has repeatedly caused falling ash in populated areas on the peninsula, including Petropavlovsk, where 60% of the Kamchatka Peninsula residents live.

However, the ash could affect the operations of aircraft. Particles of ash may get into the mechanisms of airliners and provoke an accident.

There are more than 150 volcanoes on Kamchatka, 29 of them active.

Snowman

Bitter cold snap grips Ontario

Image
© Jack Boland/QMI AgencyThe City of Toronto has issued an extreme cold weather alert.
If you're living in Ontario, hold on to your long johns. Another extreme cold weather alert is in effect for the Toronto, Niagara and London regions.

During the alert, outreach workers in Toronto will be trying to get homeless people off the streets and into emergency shelters and drop-in centres. TTC tokens will also be available for transportation to shelters.

The alert, issued Friday morning, will be in effect until at least Tuesday.

An alert is called whenever Environment Canada predicts a temperature of minus 15C or lower without wind chill, issues a wind-chill warning or predicts extreme weather conditions such as a blizzard, ice storm or sudden temperature drop.

If you're north of the city, things will be even worse: Environment Canada says parts of northern Ontario could reach lows of up to -50 C.

Bizarro Earth

State of emergency declared in remote Ontario town

Moonsoonee
© Theresa/The Weather NetworkMoosonee, Ontario, January 16, 2011
Cold dips to - 40C amidst prolonged power outage

Moonsoonee - A state of emergency has been declared in a remote northern Ontario town to deal with a prolonged power outage, as temperatures loom around -40C.

The power has been out since about 3 a.m. Saturday in Moosonee on the James Bay Coast, and officials say it is unknown when power will be restored. A state of emergency was declared at about 10 a.m.

Food, water and warmth is being provided at a college campus in town. Matters are made worse, as there is a boil water advisory for residents.

Question

India: Mysterious gas leak off Mumbai coast stumps authorities

More than 12 hours after a gas leak led to a scare in many parts of central Mumbai on Saturday morning around 8.30am, fire and civic authorities are still looking for the source of the gas leak which left many complaining of itchy eyes, coughing and nausea.

While admitting that the symptoms pointed strongly to the possibility that the leaked gas was ammonia, none of the authorities were willing to go on record saying so.

In the past seven months this is the fourth gas leak in the metropolitan region, which has thrown light on the casual attitude of authorities regarding gas leak incidents. In July 2010, there was a chlorine leak at Haji Bunder in Sewri which sent 123 people to the hospital. In the same month, a chlorine gas leak occurred in Bhivandi.

On Saturday morning, people residing in Matunga, Dadar and Mahim complained of a burning sensation in the eyes as well as sore throats. A fire brigade rushed to the spot to find the source of gas leak, but failed.