Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Scotia Sea

Scotia Quake_080214
© USGS
Event Time
2014-02-08 19:50:36 UTC
2014-02-08 16:50:36 UTC-03:00 at epicenter

Location
60.435°S 45.239°W depth=18.3km (11.3mi)

Nearby Cities
862km (536mi) SW of Grytviken, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
1503km (934mi) SE of Ushuaia, Argentina
1750km (1087mi) SE of Punta Arenas, Chile
1772km (1101mi) SE of Rio Gallegos, Argentina
1245km (774mi) SE of Stanley, Falkland Islands

Technical Details

Bizarro Earth

Huge waves and heavy rain flood southern Britain

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© SkynewsNetwork Rail released this image of the flooded rail line at Bridgwater.
The Coastguard warns of "phenomenal" 14-metre waves as 80mph winds hit the coastline of southern England

Southern Britain was on alert as hurricane-force winds and heavy rain combined with high tides threatened more flooding misery.

South Wales and the South West were the first areas to be hit by the storm, which moved over the rest of southern England during the afternoon.

The Coastguard in Brixham, Devon, said waves of up to 46ft (14m) were forecast to hit some areas.

The extreme weather also puts more pressure on inland areas including the crisis-hit Somerset Levels.

Residents there have endured weeks of rain, with many evacuated over the last 48 hours with help from the Royal Marines.

Some 1,500 military personnel remain on standby in case the storm caused significant damage.

An elderly woman was taken to hospital with serious injuries after a tree fell on to the car she was travelling in.

The woman, thought to be in her 70s, suffered a chest injury and a broken leg during the accident in Yardley, Birmingham.

Another female passenger in the car was taken to hospital with neck pain.

Attention

Huge waves smash into British coastline, swells up to 75 feet recorded off-shore, UK government considers establishing tsunami-warning system

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© GettyPorthcawl, Wales takes a battering from yet another fierce Atlantic storm.
The largest wave ever seen in British waters was recorded at 3.30am yesterday by a buoy operated by the Plymouth Coastal Observatory at Porthleven, Cornwall.

The beast destroyed the previous record British wave of 67ft and forecasters warned it was only the beginning of 72 hours of storm hell.

It came as experts recommended a TSUNAMI warning system be installed in the Atlantic to protect Britain and Ireland from enormous waves they claimed were 'increasingly likely'.

The UK was battered by 90mph winds and torrential rain again overnight - but by far the most violent storm forecast in recent times is yet to hit with widespread damage and disruption expected in the coming days.

Parts of a key railway line were destroyed and nearly 10,000 homes were left without power as the brutal weather wreaked havoc yesterday.

Police helicopters were scrambled to help evacuate 150 properties in the Somerset flooding danger zone as David Cameron set up a £100million emergency fund to assist communities in coping with the crisis.

Winds of 105mph were recorded on the Isles of Scilly, off Cornwall while one pub in Chesil Beach, Dorset was completely submerged by a giant 60ft wave.

Cloud Lightning

500 flood alerts across England and Wales as southwest UK braces for yet ANOTHER hurricane-force storm

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© Matt Cardy/Getty ImagesWaves break at high tide in Porthleven, Cornwall, on Saturday as south-west England and Wales braced for more storms and flooding
Somerset, Devon and Dorset at greatest risk of flooding as Environment Agency issues warnings as far north as Hull

Large areas of England and Wales are on flood and storm alert as a new storm is poised to hit the south and south-west with winds of up to 80mph.

The flooded Somerset Levels where many residents have already been forced from their homes after weeks of heavy rain remain at the highest risk of continued flooding on Saturday.

The Environment Agency said there was a risk of flooding along the coast of Devon and Dorset from the combination of high tides and high winds.

There are more than 300 low-level flood alerts and nearly 200 medium-risk flood warnings in place across Wales and southern and central England as far north as Hull.
"Storm was like a freak of nature, I thought it was the end of the world"...

Attention

Car-sized boulder breaks off mountain in French Alps, smashes into first carriage and leaves train dangling over steep embankment - 2 dead, 10 injured

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© GregLeclerc, exclusive by Nice-MatinThe train with two carriages was carrying 34 passengers when the accident happened
Two people were killed when a falling boulder derailed a tourist train in the southern French Alps, local officials and firefighters say.

At least nine people were injured.

The train was travelling from Nice to the town of Digne-les-Bains on a line which crosses gorges and viaducts at up to 1,000m (3,200ft) above sea level.

Images from the scene show the two-carriage train dangling from the tracks, the side of one carriage caved in by the rock.


Info

Satellites show no global warming for 17 years 5 months

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The monthly satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomaly from Remote Sensing Systems, Inc., is now available.

Taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on this dataset (the bright blue horizontal line through the dark blue data), there has now been no global warming - at all - for 17 years 5 months.

Would readers like to make a projection of how many mainstream media outlets will report this surely not uninteresting fact?

It shows that the Hiatus hernia for true believers in the New Religion continues.

My own prediction is that the number of media reporting 17 years 5 months without any global warming will be approximately equal to the number of general-circulation models that predicted such a long Pause notwithstanding ever-rising CO2 concentration.

Print out the graph as a postcard and send it to the editor of a newspaper near you that has shut down democratic debate by announcing that it will refuse to print any letters at all from "climate deniers".

Arrow Down

Firefighters save dog from sinkhole in Buffalo, New York

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© APFirefighter Michael Paveljack, right, gets a kiss from Mack the dog he rescued from a sink hole in Buffalo, N.Y. Sunday Feb. 2, 2014.
A German shepherd is back on solid ground after being rescued from a sinkhole that opened up in a Buffalo park.

The 3-year-old dog dropped more than 10 feet to the bottom of the watery hole during a Sunday morning walk with his owner, Mattie Moore, who nearly fell in herself.

Buffalo firefighter Michael Paveljack said rescuers put plywood around the 2-foot hole to stabilize the ground, then widened the gap for the rescue. Paveljack climbed down a ladder and fashioned a makeshift harness from the dog's leash that allowed rescuers to hoist it from the hole.

Moore told The Buffalo News the dog has a sore hip but otherwise seems fine.

The sinkhole appears to have been caused by a broken underground water pipe that eroded the soil.

Source: The Associated Press.

Question

What's killing trumpeter swans in Washington state?

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Majestic trumpeter swans, the largest of all waterfowl, whose wingspans can reach eight feet, are dying at a higher than normal rate in their winter haven in northern Puget Sound. And Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists think they know why.

They've counted 261 dead swans so far this winter in Whatcom County. That's about a 75 percent increase over the normal death rate in winter when their physical and environmental challenges are greatest.

"We believe and have some evidence that aspergililosis is playing a factor in the mortality," said state wildlife biologist Chris Danilson, while standing near a Skagit Valley field dotted with Trumpeter Swans and drenched in brilliant winter sunshine.

"It's a fungus that they'll usually pick up in the feed that they're eating," he said. "So a lot of times it's in the grains or corn, wastage in fields left over from the harvest. It can get moldy."

Calendar

UK: Wet weather here to stay as jet stream blamed

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© SkynewsParts of England have been hit by severe flooding.
Forecasters have told Sky News the unsettled weather that has brought heavy rain, strong winds and flooding is set to remain until at least the middle of this month.

After that, conditions "may start to calm down and the second half of February could be slightly more settled", said a Met Office spokeswoman.

The relentless wet weather that has pummelled much of the UK for the past couple of months has been caused by a powerful jet stream, experts said.

It pushed an "exceptional" succession of low pressure systems across the Atlantic Ocean, as powerful winds and a deluge of rain struck the country, especially southwest England.

There have been a number of major winter storms during December and January and the Met Office said it was the relatively short time between each one that has led to major flooding.

It said: "It was their rapid succession, with further rain falling on already saturated ground that caused the significant flooding problems."

Shopping Bag

Stores close early as twin Winter storms sock U.S. Northwest


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© AP/Register-Guard/Chris PletschEugene, OR
Snow expected to turn to freezing rain in many areas


Northwest residents absorbed the second blow of a 1-2 winter punch Friday by taking a snow day and keeping their cars in the garage.

In downtown Portland, streets coated with a thin layer of packed snow were nearly traffic-free before the first flurries fell in the afternoon. Shops closed early or didn't open at all, office buildings generally packed with workers were quiet, and the city government was closed to all but essential personnel.

It was a similar scene throughout western Oregon and southwest Washington as the region awaited and then received its second winter storm in two days.

The storm was expected to drop a foot or more of snow in mountainous parts of southern Oregon and 2 to 8 inches in western Oregon valleys that got slammed Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

The snow was expected to turn to freezing rain Friday night and Saturday in many areas. That will turn roadways icy and increase the possibility of downed power lines, forecasters warned.

The first storm dropped more than a foot of snow on parts of the Pacific Northwest and left one person dead in an Interstate 5 pileup in southwest Washington. It also closed schools and offices.

The new storm did not lead to any immediate reports of fatal crashes or massive traffic jams.