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Brittany flood alert is extended


The Connexion
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Southbrittanycottage.com
A red alert for flooding in Finistère has been extended until tomorrow morning after high tides saw many streets in coastal and riverside towns flooded.

Météo France issued the red alert yesterday while much of the rest of Brittany was on orange alert along with Loire-Atlantique.

Residents in Quimperlé, Finistère, had been sand-bagging their homes to try to limit the damage but high tides early this morning saw floods washing through the town's streets, with around 50 homes and businesses affected.

More high tides are due this afternoon and tomorrow morning and authorities fear more flooding, with the rivers Oust, Blavet and Vilaine in danger of breaking their banks.

Anyone planning to use cross-Channel ferries should contact their company. Brittany Ferries has already cancelled some Plymouth-Roscoff crossings and today's 18.30 Cherbourg-Poole service has been put back to 20.30. The Portsmouth-Caen sailing on Monday is being diverted to Cherbourg due to port maintenance.

The new warning comes 10 days after the north of France was lashed by the Christmas storm and follows three days of heavy rain and violent winds.
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Snowflake Cold

Toronto 'exploring' call to army for ice storm help, deputy mayor says

Josh Wingrove
The Globe and Mail
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 08:49 UTC
Image
© FRED LUM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
A Toronto Hydro worker uses a chainsaw to clear branches from around power lines at Pine and Willow Avenue in Toronto on Dec. 23, 2013.
Toronto's deputy mayor says he is "exploring" whether to call in the army, with the city facing a lengthy and costly cleanup after an ice storm that knocked out power to 300,000 homes and other buildings.

Norm Kelly said extra hands could be needed to get rid of fallen trees, branches and other debris as the scale of the task ahead becomes clear - on Thursday, the city said cleanup will cost $75-million and take up to eight weeks.

The notion of calling in the army was raised among city staff early in the ice storm response, Mr. Kelly said. "And it was met with guffaws because people remember Mel Lastman moving around town in an armoured carrier," he told The Globe and Mail, referring to the former mayor's 1999 decision to call in the army to battle a snowstorm.

But as cleanup cost figures were made public Thursday, Mr. Kelly - who was handed extra powers when council stripped Mayor Rob Ford of some of his roles - asked his staff to explore how they'd make a request for soldiers.

"It's just [a question of] manpower. It's just, if we can get a lot of guys here and we can get into neighbourhoods and just say, 'Hey, can we give you a hand and get that stuff out?' ... I'm not sure technically how the army and its reserves could fit into that, so it's something I'm exploring," he said.
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Arrow Down

U.S. hog herd falls more than expected as virus strikes

Theopolis Waters
reuters.com
Sat, 27 Dec 2014 08:34 UTC
* Pig virus offsets U.S. hog herd expansion

* USDA report seen bullish for CME hogs Monday (Adds analysts' comments, background on pork production, CME futures prices)

Image
The U.S. hog herd fell by 1 percent in the latest quarter, slightly more than forecast, U.S. government data showed on Friday, as a deadly swine virus thwarted pork producers' efforts to rebuild herds.

"This confirms that PED is in the nation's hog herd, which was not shown nor implied in their previous report (September)," Rich Nelson, chief strategist at Allendale Inc, said after seeing USDA's lower hog numbers on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Friday reported the U.S. hog herd as of Dec. 1 at 99 percent of a year ago, or 65.940 million head. Analysts, on average, expected 66.307 million head, or 99.9 percent of a year earlier. The U.S. hog herd for the same period last year was 66.374 million head.

The quarterly report was the first to show a noticeable drop in hog numbers, which analysts attributed to Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv), reinforcing expectations that herds will shrink as the industry struggles to develop vaccines to treat the virus that has killed thousands of young pigs across 20 states.

The virus outbreak was largely undetected in USDA's September survey.

In Friday's report, hog numbers in all of the three major categories used by traders and producers as an insight into the state of the market - all hogs and pigs (or inventory), breeding and marketing - came in under expectations.
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Snowflake Cold

Heavy snowstorm slams northeastern U.S. as arctic cold descends

Elizabeth Dilts and Scott Malone
reuters.com
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 08:18 UTC
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Officials at Boston's Logan International Airport said that up to a quarter of its scheduled flights had been canceled on Thursday afternoon and evening.
A major snowstorm producing blizzard-like conditions hammered the northeastern United States on Friday, causing 2,000 U.S. flight delays and cancellations, paralyzing road travel, and closing schools and government offices.

The first major winter storm of 2014 brought bone-chilling temperatures and high winds from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast, with nearly 2 feet of snow falling in some areas of Massachusetts.

Much of the U.S. Northeast saw heavy snowfall and plummeting temperatures late on Thursday and early on Friday, said Jared Guyer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The weather service said the mass of Arctic air would drop temperatures to 20 to 30 degrees below normal, with record lows possible on Friday.

It was still snowing in some places, such as Boston, "but we are probably past the peak in terms of intensity at this point," Guyer said, adding that the bitter cold and snow-scattering winds showed no signs of letting up.
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Cloud Lightning

Floods hit homes and closes roads as tidal surge hits Wales


BBC
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 03:40 UTC
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The scene in Laugharne after the tide hit early on Friday morning
Several rivers have burst their banks and flood protection systems are taking a battering as a tidal surge hits the Wales coastline.

Four severe flood warnings are in place in Wales - two in Flintshire, one at Barmouth in Gwynedd, and another in the Usk Estuary at Newport.

Police have been called to move people from Burry Port pier and a woman is trapped in a caravan in Llantwit Major.

Some homes in Newport were evacuated overnight.

Across much off the south and west coast of Wales, more than 50 flood warnings are in force.

In Carmarthenshire the A4066 is closed at Laugharne after the river Taf burst its banks, and the main road in Pendine is also closed due to flooding.

Ron Cant from Carmarthenshire council said some people were ignoring the dangers and the police had been called.
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2 + 2 = 4

'Stuck in our own experiment': Leader of trapped team insists polar ice is melting against evidence of his own experience

Paul Tilsley
Fox News
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
© WattsUpWithThat
The leader of a scientific expedition whose ship remains stranded in Antarctic ice says the team, which set out to prove climate change, is "stuck in our own experiment."

But Chris Turney, a professor of climate change at Australia's University of New South Wales, said it was "silly" to suggest he and 73 others aboard the MV Akademic Shokalskiy were trapped in ice they'd sought to prove had melted. He remained adamant that sea ice is melting, even as the boat remained trapped in frozen seas.

"We're stuck in our own experiment," the Australasian Antarctic Expedition said in a statement. We came to Antarctica to study how one of the biggest icebergs in the world has altered the system by trapping ice. We ... are now ourselves trapped by ice surrounding our ship.

"Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up," the Australasian Antarctic Expedition said in a statement.

Turney later told FoxNews.com the ice surrounding his ship is old, rather than recently formed, and likely from a particular 75 mile-long iceberg that broke apart three years ago. Climate change may have prompted the iceberg to shatter and float into the previously open sea where the mostly Australian team finds itself stranded, Turney said.

"The ice was swept across to this area by the South-East wind, its pieces creating a knock-on domino effect," Turney told FoxNews.com, speaking from a tent erected on the stranded ship's top deck. "We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

But the situation has global warming skeptics poking fun at the scientists.
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Snowflake

Now that passengers from the 'Ship of Fools' have been rescued, tough questions need to be asked

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That?
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 18:23 UTC
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Since the Guardian reporters shown above probably won't do anything but complain about beds and lack of milkshakes (that video has now been "disappeared") while writing glowing reports about the "adventure" of it all, it will be left to others to ask the tough questions. Now that they are on their way to Casey Station in Antarctica, Andrew Bolt starts off with these questions. I have a few of my own.
  1. Who paid for this expedition?
  2. How did the expedition team come to include Turney's wife and two young children?
  3. How serious was this scientific endeavor?
  4. Was the choice of ship wise, given it is not an icebreaker?
  5. How did the ship, in these days of satellite imaging, high quality weather forecasts and radar, come to get stuck in ice?
  6. How much did the rescue cost?
  7. Who pays for this rescue?
  8. Why have the ABC and Fairfax media, so keen at first to announce this expedition was to measure the extent and effects of global warming, since omitted that fact from their reports after the expedition became ice-bound?
  9. Why have all those reports - and the expedition leader himself - neglected to mention that sea ice around Antarctica has increased over the past three decades - and is greater than the ice cover Douglas Mawson found a century ago?
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Cloud Lightning

UK weather: Britain faces more 'exceptional' storms, with floods, strong winds and rain ahead

Adam Withnall
The Independent, UK
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 12:37 UTC
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More than 50 ‘severe’ flood alerts have been issued – the Environment Agency’s highest category warning
Britain is facing a new bout of "exceptional" bad weather, the environment secretary has warned, with heavy rain, strong winds and high tides forecast to arrive early tomorrow morning.

The warning from Owen Paterson came after a meeting of the Government's emergency committee Cobra, where ministers heard that the Environment Agency will issue "severe" flood warnings - the highest category available.

In London the Thames Barrier has been closed to protect those living along the river, and power companies and councils are being told to brace for the impact of the storms.

Mr Paterson told Sky News: "I have just chaired a further Cobra meeting as we have further bad weather coming in. We are looking to have a combination of exceptional rain, wind and a surge in sea and high tides and so there are nearly 50 warnings put out around the whole of the west coast and south coast.

"We had a range of ministers from right across Government attending the meeting, who will be working very closely with local councils, power companies, utility and transport companies, making sure that all of those organisations are absolutely prepared for the bad weather that is coming."
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Question

Mysterious creature washed up in East Malaysia


New Straits Times
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 14:14 UTC
Kuching: A remains of an unidentified sea creature was found washed up at Pantai Pasir Pandak in Santubong earlier this morning.

A villager Hamzah Pelita said he found the remains at 7.50 am along the beach.

"The creature is three meters long and it is stranded 50 meters away from the water. It is my first time seeing this creature as I am not sure the species of it," said Hamzah.

He informed the Santubong police station at 8am. The authorities are unsure whether it is a baby whale or a dolphin as the remains were decomposed.
Mysterious Remains
© Mas Adib Saie
Authorities inspecting the mysterious remains of a sea creature.
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Info

Antarctic rescue under way as helicopter lands next to global warming research ship trapped in ice

Bridie Jabour
The Guardian
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 03:24 UTC
Image
© Laurence Topham/Guardian
Crew emerge from the Chinese helicopter that arrived at the trapped Antarctic expedition ship.
Saga of passengers on board the Akademik Shokalskiy trapped in sea ice for more than a week finally coming to an end

A rescue mission is under way for scientists, tourists and journalists on a ship trapped in ice off Antarctica.

A helicopter sent from the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long landed next to the trapped Akademik Shokalskiy on Thursday afternoon and the first group of passengers was due to be evacuated shortly after 8pm local time (7am GMT). The passengers were due to be taken off in five groups, with two further flights to pick up their baggage.

By 8.30am GMT, the second group of passengers had been successfully airlifted and the helicopter had returned to pick up the third.

In a change of plan, the passengers would be taken not the Xue Long, but to an ice floe near the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which tried but failed to break through to the trapped ship earlier this week.
      Read More...
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