Earth ChangesS


Snowman

Disruptive Snow Hitting from Arkansas to the Ohio Valley

The corridor from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee to the Ohio Valley has become the target of the latest cross-country snowstorm that will eventually head to the Northeast.





Places in the path of today's snow and plunging temperatures are sure to face disruptions to travel and daily routines.

Roads and sidewalks were a skating rink around Oklahoma City this morning. Freezing rain followed by a coating of snow and temperatures plunging into the teens led to numerous accidents and prompted officials to close schools.

A similar fate with precipitation and plunging temperatures is likely around Little Rock, Ark. this afternoon and Memphis this evening.

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© AccuWeather.com

Igloo

US: Snow for the Frigid Midwest, Great Lakes

The Great Lakes and Midwest will not only have to endure brutal cold through this weekend, but also snow from the lake-effect snow machine and an Alberta clipper.




Lake-effect snow is already under way across the western Great Lakes, and will continue to develop downwind of lakes Erie and Ontario as today progresses and frigid air invades the Northeast.

The AccuWeather.com Winter Weather Center is expecting up to several inches of snow to accumulate to the lee of the Great Lakes today.

Snow-covered, slick roadways will create travel hazards for motorists. Bitterly cold winds will worsen the situation by blowing and drifting the snow.

Poor visibility is an added danger where the most intense bands unleash a heavy burst of snow.

One of these intense lake-effect bands will continue to develop in the vicinity of Syracuse, N.Y., today. The heaviest totals from this band will approach a foot into tonight north of the city.

As the lake-effect snow machine cranks up, an Alberta clipper will continue to deliver snow to the northern and central Plains today.

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© AccuWeather.comThe Alberta clipper and its nuisance snow will move through the Great Lakes this weekend, especially during the first half

Cloud Lightning

'Amazing' Australian Floodwaters Enter New Towns

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© Agence France-PresseTwo locals walk through floodwater in the suburb of New Farm in Brisbane, Australia
Surging floodwaters broke levees in disaster-hit Australia on Monday to inundate more properties in the southeast, as residents sandbagged homes against the spiralling crisis.

Swollen rivers in the southeastern state of Victoria have created a flood zone measuring an estimated 90 kilometres (56 miles) long and 40 kilometres wide, the State Emergency Service said.

"This area has seen unprecedented flooding," SES spokesman Kevin Monk told AFP. "This is just amazing."

As the floodwaters rushed towards the Murray River, evacuation alerts were issued late Sunday and early Monday for the small communities of Pental Island and Murrabit West, home to about 400 people each.

In an emergency alert the SES said that levees around Murrabit West were failing, warning that the area would be inundated in the next 12 hours.

"They are being flooded now," Monk told AFP. "It's across properties. If they haven't sandbagged them, there may be some impacts on people's housing."

The Victoria floods stem from La Nina-provoked torrential rains which hit the state mid-January and followed weeks of widespread floods to the north that killed at least 30 people and devastated mining and farming in Queensland.

Radar

South Atlantic Anomaly and South Georgia Magnetic Observatory

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© British Geopolgical SurveyStormy weather in the mountains of South Georgia.
Why is BGS re-establishing a magnetic observatory on South Georgia?

The South Georgia observatory will plug a significant gap in the global network of magnetic observatories. In particular South Georgia observatory will allow better monitoring of the South Atlantic Anomaly and of changes occurring deep within the Earth. By establishing the new observatory, BGS will re-start continuous magnetic observations in South Georgia, last carried out in 1982.

What is the South Atlantic Anomaly?

The Earth's magnetic field, generated deep within the planet, is a shield against particle radiation from space. In the South Atlantic this shield is much weaker than elsewhere across the globe and radiation from space therefore penetrates deeper into the atmosphere. This region is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) and the radiation in the SAA is a known hazard to satellites, spacecraft and high-altitude aircraft.

Monitoring changes in magnetic field

The radiation input into the atmosphere depends on the Sun's magnetic and radiation activity and the geometry (or 'shape') of the Earth's magnetic field. So, understanding the space environment, particularly during magnetic storms, is important. Equally important is understanding any changes over time in the magnetic field observed across the surface of the Earth - see also Long-term monitoring of the Earth's magnetic field.

Igloo

New record cold temperatures in Minnesota

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Babbitt, Minnesota where a frigid morning low temperature of -46 degrees was recorded on January 21, 2011.
From NWS Duluth, MN, an old record beaten by five degrees:
Record weather event
National Weather Service Duluth, Minnesota

5:18 PM CST. Fri Jan 21, 2011

...Record Low Temperature Set At International Falls, Minnesota...

A record low temperature of -46 degrees F was set at International Falls, Minnesota today. This breaks the old record of -41 F set in 1954.

Igloo

US: Minus 36 degrees, minus 50 degrees in places! Two die as Arctic comes to Northeast

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© Mark Lennihan / Associated PressA wind chill made it feel like a few degrees below zero Monday morning as these folks waited for a bus in New York City.
Two people froze to death, including one woman whose frozen body was found on a driveway, as an Arctic blast hit the northern U.S., dropping temperatures as low as minus 36 degrees.

The wind chill in some areas of New England was expected to make it feel as cold as 50 degrees below zero.

Schools in western and northeastern Pennsylvania, across upstate New York and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire closed their doors or delayed openings to protect students.

In upstate New York, the National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories and warnings for much of the region on Monday, including the Adirondacks where the low was 36 below in Saranac Lake early Monday morning.

The Arctic temperatures led Amtrak to suspend rail service Monday morning between Albany and New York City because the extreme cold affected signals and switches. Amtrak hoped to resume limited service between the two cities later Monday. Other rail lines are still running.

In Montpelier, Vt., it was 21 below at 7 a.m.

"Snot-freezing cold," was how Kelly Walsh, 28, described it, walking home from an auto parts store after buying a new battery for her car, which wouldn't start Monday morning.

"I usually really like it. Today is a bit of nuisance," she said.

Others agreed.

Will Forest, a 53-year-old web designer who was walking to work, called the cold "indescribable."

Bizarro Earth

Weird Weather Patterns Perplex Scientists

Scientists perplexed by weird weather patterns
© Chris Hondros/Getty ImagesTwo of the 10 largest snowstorms in New York history occurred last year, including the one that disrupted travel right after Christmas.
Without doubt, the winter weather that began and ended 2010 was remarkable.

Judging by the weather, the world seems to have flipped upside down.

For two winters running, an Arctic chill has descended on Europe, burying that continent in snow and ice. Last year in the United States, historic blizzards afflicted the mid-Atlantic region. This winter it is the Deep South that has endured unusual snowstorms and severe cold, and a frigid Northeast is bracing for what could shape into another major snowstorm at midweek.

Yet while people in Atlanta learn to shovel snow, the weather 2,000 miles to the north has been freakishly warm the past two winters. Throughout northeastern Canada and Greenland, temperatures in December ran as much as 15 or 20 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Bays and lakes have been slow to freeze; ice fishing, hunting and trade routes have been disrupted.

Iqaluit, the capital of the remote Canadian territory of Nunavut, had to cancel its New Year's snowmobile parade. David Ell, the deputy mayor, said that people in the region had been looking with envy at snowbound American and European cities. "People are saying, 'That's where all our snow is going!'" he said.

The immediate cause of the topsy-turvy weather is clear enough. A pattern of atmospheric circulation that tends to keep frigid air penned in the Arctic has weakened during the past two winters, allowing big tongues of cold air to descend far to the south, while masses of warmer air have moved north.

The deeper issue is whether the pattern is linked to the rapid changes that global warming is causing in the Arctic, particularly the drastic loss of sea ice. At least two prominent climate scientists have offered theories suggesting that it is. But many others are doubtful, saying the recent events are unexceptional, or that more evidence over a longer period would be needed to establish a link.

Bizarro Earth

Tajikistan - Earthquake Magnitude 6.1

Tajikistan Quake_240111
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time
Monday, January 24, 2011 at 02:45:29 UTC

Monday, January 24, 2011 at 07:45:29 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
38.437°N, 72.749°E

Depth
89.6 km (55.7 miles)

Region
TAJIKISTAN

Distances
95 km (60 miles) SW of Karakul, Tajikistan

150 km (90 miles) NE of Khorugh, Tajikistan

150 km (95 miles) SSW of Sary-Tash, Kyrgyzstan

350 km (215 miles) E of DUSHANBE, Tajikistan

Black Cat

Bye Bye Blackbird

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© Warren Watkins/The Daily Citizen/AP/FileA worker with US Environmental Services, a private contractor, picks up a dead bird in Beebe, Ark. on Jan. 1. The USDA said it killed hundreds of starlings in South Dakota this week.

It's not the "aflockalyptic" fallout from a secret US weapon lab as some have theorized. But the government acknowledged Thursday that it had a hand in one of a string of mysterious mass bird deaths that have spooked residents in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Kentucky in the last month.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) took responsibility for hundreds of dead starlings that were found on the ground and frozen in trees in a Yankton, S.D., park on Monday.

The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.

Fish

US: Sea otter deaths on the rise; 304 found dead on Central Coast in 2010

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© Sentinel FileA female otter floats on her back with her pup resting on her belly in Elkhorn Slough. A recent study shows otters are on the decline along the Central Coast.
2010 was a hard year for Central Coast otters.

A preliminary report from the U.S. Geological Survey shows that 304 otters were found dead along the coast between Half Moon Bay and Santa Barbara, according to the Monterey-based Otter Project.

When compared to the total spring count of 2,700 otters, 11.2 percent dead may not seem catastrophic, especially when compared to the 8 percent found dead in 2009. However, the jump from 232 dead otters in 2009 to 304 in 2010, makes scientists concerned for the species.

"Young pups and females died this year; if pups are dying, you have no future, and if females are dying you have no reproductive future," said Steve Shimek, chief executive of the Otter Project. "This suggests that we don't have a trend that will turn around too easily."

Though there was a peak of more than 3,000 otters in 2007 and there are a variety of causes for their death, what's unusual to Shimek is the number dying from disease.