Earth ChangesS


Cloud Precipitation

Britain awaits worst storm in five years

Sam Jones
The Guardian
Sun, 27 Oct 2013 11:17 UTC
St. Jude storm
© Craig Shepheard/Demotix/CorbisFlooding in St Albans last week: the Met Office is predicting that 20-40mm of rain could fall overnight.
The worst storm in five years is forecast to hit England and Wales on Sunday night, bringing heavy rain, high winds and the threat of flooding and travel chaos.

Winds of more than 80mph could leave a trail of destruction across large parts of the UK, knocking down trees and causing major structural damage and power cuts.

The storm, named after St Jude - the patron saint of lost causes whose feast day is on Monday - will develop over the Atlantic and is expected to hit the south-west late on Sunday, before moving north-east across England and southern Wales.

David Cameron said he had spoken to the organisations responsible for public safety during the storm. The prime minister wrote on Twitter: "I've just chaired a call with various government departments and agencies to hear about all the plans to ensure people are protected from tonight's storm."

The weather system is expected to have moved out over the North Sea by Monday lunchtime, leaving strong breezes in its wake.

With the Met Office predicting that 20-40mm of rain could fall within six to nine hours overnight, insurance companies are advising households to protect themselves and their property.


Comment: The headline and article from The Guardian sounds a little alarmist. If 20-40 mm of rain within a six to nine hour period is a cause for flooding and major upset, then it is more a sign of a failing infrastructure than of a severe storm.
Or comparison, in Japan the other day 850 mm of rain fell within 24 hours:
Japan's shocking, deadly deluge from Typhoon Wipha: 33 inches of rain in 24 hours

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Bizarro Earth

Mount Etna erupts, shuts down Italian airport

Rebekah Marcarelli
Headlines & Global News
Sat, 26 Oct 2013 14:27 UTC
Mt.Etna
© NASAAn image of Mt.Etna erupting taken from the International Space Station in 2008.

Europe's most active volcano shot sparks, flames, and ash into Italy's sky Saturday.

Mount Etna erupts relatively frequently, but the volcano has not had a major eruption since 1992. Saturday's eruption sent a wall of ash so high into the air it could be seen through most of eastern Sicily, the Associated Press reported.

The eruption just before dawn forced the Catania airport to shut down the surrounding airspace. The order was lifted only a few hours later.

No evacuations were necessary as a result of the eruption. There were not fatalities reported, a the Wall Street Journal reported.

The volcano has been famous throughout history. The ancient Greeks believed it was the home of Vulcan, the god of fire. When Mt. Etna erupted the Greeks believed it was because Vulcan was creating weapons for the the god of war, Mars, LiveScience reported.

Mount Etna also sent lava hundreds of feet into the air in January of 2011.
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Radar

Best of the Web: Signs of change in October 2013

HawkkeyDavis Channel
YouTube
Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:01 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/NSW Rural Fire Service, James MorrisFirefighters are battling scores of wildfires in southeastern Australia as authorities evacuate national parks and warned that hot, dry and windy conditions were combining to raise the threat to its highest alert level.
Dozens of typhoons and cyclones slamming into Southeast Asia, Japan and India, record heat and hundreds of wildfires in Australia, record snow and rainfall in the Northern and Midwestern US states, mile-wide tornadoes in Nebraska, hundreds of dead dolphins washing up all along the U.S. Atlantic coast, a powerful earthquake in the Philippines... these are just some of the extreme weather and geological events that took place around the world in October 2013.


This series does not imply the world is ending! This video series just documents extreme weather and geological events that are leading to bigger Earth Changes. If you are following the series, then you are paying attention to the signs.

Music Used:
Xtortion Audio - Tournique
Position Music Abandoned freedom
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Eye 2

Escaped snake found in Walthamstow, London temple

Amelia Burr
thisislocallondon.co.uk
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 08:57 UTC
Image
The snake is being looked after at a specialist centre
The hunt is on for the owner of a snake discovered in a temple.

Master Wang, master of the I-Kuan Tao temple in Orford Road, Walthamstow, spotted the brightly-coloured red corn snake slithering down the stairs on Wednesday.

The red corn snake can grow up to six feet in length and swallow prey such as rats and birds whole.

Master Wang, whose wife suffers from a snake phobia, managed to entice the animal into a plastic bottle, which he pierced with air holes and filled with food before calling the RSPCA.

Mrs Wang has a phobia of snakes, forcing her to stay upstairs all day.

The snake was then taken to a specialist reptile centre where it will live until the owner or a new home is found.

Jasmin Ong, 35, was attending a feng shui class at the temple on Wednesday and identified the snake before putting posters up around the area appealing for information.

"It was a bit of a shock. The temple master's wife is terrified of snakes so she had to stay upstairs all day," she said.

I-Kuan Tao is a non-religious temple which shares teaching from Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, as well as running classes on yoga and feng shui.

If you have any information, call the RSPCA on 0300 1234 999.
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Heart - Black

At least 12 eagles amongst birds killed by hunters in Malta


wildlifeextra.com
Wed, 23 Oct 2013 08:46 UTC
Death toll mounts as eagle massacre continues
Image
Short-toed Eagle in Buskett on Malta

The confirmed body count of eagles shot down by hunters in Malta and Gozo reached 12 in the last few days, after two more of these rare and highly protected birds of prey were killed in front of watching BirdLife Malta volunteers.

Despite the presence of six BirdLife Malta teams and as many ALE (Maltese Environment Police) units in the Buskett area this morning at least one Booted eagle was shot down inside Buskett Gardens as it left its roost this morning. Several others, including Short-toed and Booted eagles, were shot at and many more were seen carrying injuries after last night's shooting spree by hunters in Dingli, Buskett, Girgenti, Siġġiewi and Zebbuġ.

This morning's second confirmed victim was a Short-toed eagle shot down in Gozo.

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Attention

Update: Fukushima tsunami alert after 7.3 magnitude earthquake strikes off coast of Japan

Rob Williams
The Independent, UK
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:37 UTC
Japan's Meteorological Agency raised a 1-meter (3-foot) tsunami warning for a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast, including Fukushima

Image
An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 has struck off the coast of Japan prompting emergency services to issue a tsunami advisory for the Fukushima area.

Japan's Meteorological Agency raised a 1-meter (3-foot) tsunami warning for a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast, including Fukushima. The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not post warnings for the rest of the Pacific.

There were no initial reports of damage on land, although the AFP agency cited reports saying that workers had been evacuated from the stricken nuclear power plant.

Comment: RT.com is now reporting that the earthquake's magnitude was recorded at 7.3

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Ice Cube

A new record: The most sea ice in Antarctica in 30 years by extent and by volume

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That?
Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:05 UTC
Image
© Stefan Hendricks, AWIPolaris in the polar night of the Antarctic winter
Translated by Google from this press release in German at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany:

Never so much sea ice at Antarctica in the last 30 years

In light of global warming, it seems paradoxical that the sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean has covered a larger area in the past month than in the last decades. Only in the mid-70s was observed a similar expansion.

Image
Average sea ice extent in September (1973-2013) with trend line

Image
Seasonal variability of sea ice extent (as at 13.10.2013)
The means were 19.48 million in September 2013 square kilometers, an area once covered more than 50 times larger than Germany with sea ice. The absolute maximum of 19.65 million square kilometers was reached on 18 of September. Although this maximum in the ice-covered surface can not be equated with a maximum of the total volume or mass, suggest that sea ice physicist Marcel Nicolaus and Stefan Hendricks from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) "This winter there is in Antarctica as much ice as long gone, if it has ever been since the beginning of the regular satellite observations ever so much sea ice."
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 7.3 - Off the east coast of Honshu, Japan


US Geological Survey
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 12:27 UTC
Honshu Quake_251013
© USGS
Event Time
2013-10-25 17:10:16 UTC
2013-10-26 03:10:16 UTC+10:00 at epicenter

Location
37.194°N 144.663°E depth=10.0km (6.2mi)

Nearby Cities
325km (202mi) ESE of Ishinomaki, Japan
326km (203mi) E of Namie, Japan
331km (206mi) SE of Ofunato, Japan
333km (207mi) ESE of Yamoto, Japan
475km (295mi) ENE of Tokyo, Japan

Technical Details
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Igloo

Record daily snowfall set in Dayton, Ohio

Frazier Smith
Dayton Daily News
Wed, 23 Oct 2013 22:32 UTC
Record Snowfall in Dayton
© Dayton Daily News/Storm Center 7
A record daily snowfall was set at Dayton International Airport on Wednesday, Storm Center 7 Meteorologist McCall Vrydaghs said Wednesday evening.

The airport recorded 1 inch of snow, which breaks the previous record of 0.2 inches set in 1917. This is not the earliest snowfall of an inch or more, she said. That record was set Oct. 19, 1989, with a total of 4.8 inches. A dusting or coating of snow had been forecast for the early morning.

The record snowfall comes in advance of a freeze warning for the area that begins at 2 a.m. Thursday and ends at 10 a.m.

Stray rain or snow showers are possible by morning, she said, with a high in the mid 40s. At times, it will feel as though the temperatures are in the upper 30s because of afternoon winds that are expected to reach 10 to 15 mph.

Friday morning will be frosty, Vrydaghs said, and temperatures will plunge to their lowest marks in months.
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Bizarro Earth

Researchers alarmed by 'puzzling' changes in resident orcas


The Canadian Press
Thu, 24 Oct 2013 15:27 UTC
Orcas
© The Canadian PressResearchers from the Vancouver Aquarium say they are puzzled over observed changes in a pod of resident Orcas in the Salish Sea, such the unusual death of seven matriarchs in the past two years and a lack of vocalizations between whales.
A Vancouver Aquarium whale researcher is sounding the alarm over "puzzling" changes observed in the resident killer whale pods that live off the northern coast of B.C. and Alaska.

Dr. Lance Barrett-Lennard, a senior marine mammal scientist with the aquarium, says he fears changes in the ocean environment are prompting odd behaviour and an unusually high mortality rate, after spending the summer observing the whales aboard a research vessel.

Barrett-Lennard says one resident pod has lost seven matriarchs over the past two years, an unusually high death rate, and he's also noticed a lack of vocalizations from the normally chatty mammals.
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