A drought affecting farmers in prime wheat growing country means that this season’s wheat crop is expected to be smaller than previous seasons
Sources
Earth Changes
A drought affecting farmers in prime wheat growing country means that this season’s wheat crop is expected to be smaller than previous seasons
Sources
Mt Hotham ski resort in Australia has posted a 102cm snowbase as the snowfall of the past few days moves up a notch ahead of what looks certain to be an epic powder weekend down under.
Sources
© Erik Thomsen
A turnstone on a patch on snow in Zackenberg, Greenland.
A turnstone on a patch on snow in Zackenberg, Greenland.
Also explainable stone spheres similar to those in Costa Rica are in one of the remotest areas of our world that range from twelve to three feet in height / diameter. Perhaps a lost civilization?
Sources
© Maja Suslin / TT / NTB Scanpix
A forest fire in Ljusdal in Sweden on Tuesday.
A forest fire in Ljusdal in Sweden on Tuesday.
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) said two Italian firefighting aircraft had been sent to assist in badly hit areas of central Sweden, while Norway had dispatched six helicopters.
Norway has suffered from considerable forest fires of its own over the last week, with wildfires in 100 locations in the south last week, some of which were triggered by lightning.
One Norwegian firefighter lost his life responding to the blazes while the country's Home Guard has also been deployed to relieve strained fire services.
But the many forest fires that raged across southern Norway in recent days, particularly on Saturday and Sunday, are now under control or completely extinguished, news agency NTB reported on Wednesday.
Despite that, the Home Guard is still assisting fire services in some areas, VG reports.
© PTI
At least 17 persons died in lightning strikes at different places in five districts of the State on Friday. While seven persons have been reported dead in Balasore and five in Mayurbhanj, one death each was reported from Khurda and Kendrapara districts due to lightning.
In Bargarh district, three persons died after being struck by lightning. The places experienced heavy rainfall soon after the lightning struck.
In most of the cases, the mishap took place when the victims were working in paddy fields. Sources said the death toll is considered to be the highest on a day this year after June 8 when 10 persons were killed and eight injured in six districts in the State.Reports from Balasore district indicated that one elderly woman from Singakhunta village under Soro police limits, one each from Sikharpur and Raibania villages under Jaleswar police limits, two from Barunagadia under Basta police limits and one each from Maheswarpur under Sadar police limits and Narayanpur under Baliapal police limits have died after they were struck by lightning.
© VCG
Armed police officers rescue a victim of a flash flood on Thursday in Linxia prefecture in China’s northwestern province of Gansu.
Armed police officers rescue a victim of a flash flood on Thursday in Linxia prefecture in China’s northwestern province of Gansu.
In addition to the dead and missing, another 39 were hospitalized in the worst-hit area of Dongxiang county, local authorities said. Dongxiang and two neighboring counties comprise the Muslim-populated Linxia prefecture in central Gansu.
In Dongxiang alone, the flood forced more than 2,400 people to relocate after their houses, fields and roads were submerged in rising water. By Thursday night, economic losses were estimated at 320 million yuan ($47 million) in the county, which has a population of 300,000, the Linxia government said.
The bizarre animal was photographed by Amy Cesar during a Thursday morning stroll along Higgins Beach. The image soon sparked great media interest, with people taking to social media to ponder what abnormal sea creature it could be.
"Isn't that the flying creature from the 'Neverending Story'?" one person asked.
Meanwhile, another Twitter user labelled the creature a "sort of ocean alien unicorn sea beach thing."
But experts from Marine Mammals of Maine have stepped in to help identify the 600-pound carcass. According to the agency, the rotting remains were actually once a species of shark.
Comment: The death of this basking shark could be natural, but it could also be more ominous:
- The terrifying phenomenon plummeting species towards extinction
- What is causing the mass die-off of Russian seals and other animals around the world
- Marine Monster mystery on South Carolina Beach
- Iceland lake monster does exist
Today, a scant few months later, thanks to NASA's Earth Observatory, we hear: Cape Town's Reservoirs Rebound
After nearly running dry six months ago, Cape Town's reservoirs have risen dramatically. Rain has poured down on southern Africa on several occasions in recent months. According to Cape Town's Department of Water Affairs, water levels in the city's main reservoirs stood at 55 percent of capacity on July 16, 2018.
Comment: An alternative reason for the water shortage is the fact that Cape Town's water supply has not kept up with population growth, which has grown from 2.4 million in 1995 to 4.3 million in 2018. As one expert argues, financial restraints and political mismanagement were to blame:
Firstly, South Africa's budget planning is myopically short-term. The country has lurched from election cycle to election cycle as both national and local spheres attempt to plug the deep holes in social expenditure and exclusion. Politically, elected office bearers regard this as providing immediate benefits to the poor and in return, expecting electoral rewards at the polls.
Ultimately, the constant election cycles over the five-year period - punctuated mid-term by local government elections - exacerbate this short-term planning. As a result, holding back funds or the reallocation of budgets is simply put on the back burner. It's all about instant gratification from the limited funding options available. [...]
The underperforming domestic economy which largely failed to recover following the global credit crunch has been further dampened by a deteriorating political environment, in which graft and wasteful expenditure further limited available resources.
Add to this the deep debt malaise for both individual citizens and municipalities and once again, the options for critical longer-term delivery becomes limited.
Hurricane threat to East Coast due to natural factors
First at his most recent Saturday Summary, the 40-year meteorologist first warns that in-close developing hurricanes of the sort seen in the 1930s are a risk to the US East Coast this year, due the current Atlantic temperature pattern. The reason has nothing to do with CO2 in the atmosphere, but because of natural sea surface temperature cycles.
© Gary Cameron / Reuters
The northern snakehead is an aggressive species that typically eats other fish. Nicknamed the "frankenfish," the invasive species could wreak havoc on the environment if it's allowed to spread.
The northern snakehead is an aggressive species that typically eats other fish. Nicknamed the "frankenfish," the invasive species could wreak havoc on the environment if it's allowed to spread.
The northern snakehead is an aggressive species that typically eats other fish. Nicknamed the "frankenfish," the invasive species could wreak havoc on the environment if it's allowed to spread, according to a fact sheet on the species authored by the US Geological Survey.
"Should snakeheads become established in North American ecosystems, their predatory behavior could drastically disrupt food webs and ecological conditions, thus forever changing native aquatic systems by modifying the array of native species," the agency wrote of the bloodthirsty fish.
The cannibalistic ecology-wrecker has no lack of scary features. For one, it is said to be able to "walk" on land - although it's actually more like wriggling or snake-like slithering and it mostly does so to get back to water, not to crawl into your house and murder you while you sleep.
Comment: Global cooling: Excessive spring snowfall results in non-breeding year for shorebirds in north-east Greenland - 1 meter deep snow