Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Canada: Blizzard Warning Issued for Southwestern Ontario

Image
© Weather Underground/Associated PressThis U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite image taken Tuesday at 12:45 a.m. ET shows a storm system over Texas and the central U.S. The front is expected to hit southwestern Ontario Tuesday evening with heavy snow and high winds
Environment Canada has upgraded a warning about a snowstorm expected to hit Ontario late Tuesday, saying there will be blizzard conditions in certain areas of southwestern Ontario.

"This major winter storm is quite large in size and will have a major impact on travel, especially tonight and on Wednesday," Environment Canada said in a warning issued Tuesday.

It will be "the strongest storm of the season" for urbanized areas like Toronto that are outside the Ontario snowbelt.

The weather agency had upgraded a winter storm watch in southern Ontario, stretching from Windsor to Kingston, to a winter storm warning.

Environment Canada added the blizzard warning for London, St. Catharines, Sarnia and Hamilton just after 3:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

A warning is typically issued between six and 24 hours before the start of severe weather.

By the time the storm finishes Wednesday, large swaths of southern Ontario could have snowfall accumulations of between 20 and 30 centimetres, the agency predicted.

Heavy snow is expected to hit southwestern Ontario on Tuesday evening and the Toronto area around midnight. It is then predicted to move into eastern Ontario on Wednesday morning.

The snow will be accompanied by gusting winds of 50 to 70 km/h at their strongest, Environment Canada said. The high in Toronto is forecast to be - 5 C on Wednesday, and the low will dip to - 9 C.

Plenty of people in Toronto were dashing out to stores on Tuesday to stock up on storm supplies.

Fraser Perkin was doing a brisk trade in salt and shovels at the Home Hardware location he manages at Highway 7 and Woodbine Avenue in Markham, Ont., Tuesday afternoon.

Bizarro Earth

US: Hundreds More Fish Found Dead In Arkansas River

Little Rock - Nearly 500 fish were found dead in the Arkansas River near Ozark late last week, about a month after 83,000 fish were found dead or dying in same area, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officials said Monday.

The latest find occurred Friday in the river near the Ozark Lock and Dam, said Chris Racey, assistant chief of fisheries with the commission.

More than 83,000 dead or dying fish were found in the same area on Dec. 29.

Cloud Lightning

Tropical Cyclone Yasi

Cyclone Yasi
© Earth Observatory, NASATropical cyclone Yasi, acquired February 1, 2011.
On February 1, 2011, Tropical Cyclone Yasi continued on its path toward Queensland, Australia. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this natural-color image at 10:00 a.m. Queensland time (00:00 Universal Time) on February 1. The storm extends over the Solomon Islands and grazes Papua New Guinea. Part of the Queensland coast appears in the lower left corner.

At 1:00 a.m. Queensland time on February 2, the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Yasi was roughly 450 nautical miles (835 kilometers) east-northeast of Cairns, Australia. Sporting a well-defined eye, Yasi had maximum sustained winds of 120 knots (220 kilometers per hour) and gusts up to 145 knots (270 kilometers per hour). True to earlier forecasts, favorable conditions led the storm to intensify rapidly over the Pacific Ocean.

Igloo

U.S. Colossal storm roars through nation's heartland

Image
© Associated Press/L.G. PattersonChris Gubbels walks his dog, Frank, in the snow in Columbia, Mo.
Chicago - A winter weather colossus roared into the nation's heartland Tuesday, laying down a paralyzing punch of dangerous ice and whiteout snow that served notice from Texas to Maine that the storm billed as the worst in decades could live up to the hype.

Ice-covered streets were deserted in Super Bowl host city Dallas. Whiteouts shut down Oklahoma City and Tulsa. And more was on the way. Chicago expected 2 feet of snow, Indianapolis an inch of ice, and the Northeast still more ice and snow in what's shaping up to be a record winter for the region.

The system that stretched more than 2,000 miles across a third of the country promised to leave in its aftermath a chilly cloak of teeth-chattering cold, with temperatures in the single digits or lower.

Winds topped 60 mph in Texas. The newspaper in Tulsa, Okla., canceled its print edition for the first time in more than a century. In Chicago, public schools called a snow day for the first time in 12 years, and both major airports gave up on flying until at least Wednesday afternoon.

Sun

Coronal Hole Spewing Stream Of Solar Wind Into Space

Image
A dark croissant-shaped hole has opened up in the Sun's atmosphere, and it is spewing a stream of solar wind into space. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory took this picture of the vast opening during the early hours of Jan. 31st.

Researchers call this a "coronal hole." Solar rotation is turning the coronal hole toward Earth. The stream of solar wind pouring from it will swing around and hit our planet in early February, possibly sparking polar magnetic storms. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras between Feb. 2nd and 4th.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquakes rattle Wyoming

Image
© USGS
Minor earthquakes have rattled two areas of Wyoming.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a temblor with a magnitude of 3.0 struck early Tuesday about 25 miles northwest of the ghost town of Jeffrey City.

The quake comes almost a week after another minor earthquake struck Wright. A 3.2 magnitude earthquake struck at 10:16 p.m. Thursday. It happened just 7 miles northeast of Wright, about 5 miles underground.

At first the USGS thought it might be a mine blast, but later deemed it a genuine earthquake.

David King, Campbell County's emergency management coordinator, said the county sits on several fault lines which have caused 10 recorded earthquakes since 1967.

Thursday's quake is the county's fourth quake since 2000. Quakes in 2009, 2008 and 2004 all occurred about 17 miles underground away from Gillette at a magnitude of about 2.5.

The county's largest earthquake occurred in September 1984 west of Gillette by the Johnson County line at a magnitude of 5.1. There were two other earthquakes in the county that year - a magnitude 5 and 2.5.

There are no recorded earthquakes in Gillette.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 3.1 - Idaho

Image
© USGS
Geologists say a small earthquake has rattled a remote and unpopulated area west of the central Idaho town of Salmon.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports a quake with a magnitude of 3.1 was detected Tuesday at 4:25 a.m. in rugged, mountainous terrain 29 miles west of Salmon near the former mining town of Cobalt.

The quake was first detected by staff at the Earthquake Studies Office at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. Director Mike Stickney says a 3.1 magnitude is barely enough to cause people to notice and it's not likely the tremor caused any serious damage to the landscape.

Stickney says it's not uncommon for small quakes to jolt the vast, mountainous backcountry north of Salmon and Challis.

Cloud Lightning

Best of the Web: Monster Storm Bears Down On Australia, Hits Category 5

Image
Tropical cyclone Yasi seen off the coast of Australia, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi was upgraded to category five off north Queensland this morning as the weather bureau warned it was likely to be "more life-threatening" than any storm seen in Australia in living memory.

The weather bureau says Cyclone Yasi is a large and very powerful tropical cyclone and poses an "extremely serious threat" to life and property within the warning area, especially between Port Douglas and Townsville.

"This impact is likely to be more life-threatening than any experienced during recent generations," the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said this morning.

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing their homes ahead of the monster storm, which is expected to hit the coast between Cairns and Innisfail some time tonight.

This morning it was estimated to be 650 kilometres east north-east of Cairns and 650 kilometres north-east of Townsville, moving west south-west at 30 kilometres per hour.

"There's still potential for it to become stronger ... as a strong category five we could see wind gusts in excess of 320 kilometres an hour (200mph). Which is just horrific."

Question

Snow spirals appear in US

As a winter storm of historic proportions prepares to sweep across the USA later this week, midwesterners should be alert for some unaccustomed sights. One of them is snow spirals. Michael French photographed this specimen in Frederick, Maryland, on Jan. 29th:

Image
© Michael French

Meteor

Best of the Web: Presence in the Force: 'Disturbance' in Interplanetary Magnetic Field blows hole in Earth's magnetosphere

According to the official forecast, the odds of geomagnetic activity on Jan. 31st were less than 10%. That was good enough for Kjetil Skogli of Troms, Norway. "We went out to look in spite of the low expectations--and there it was!" An aurora-burst was in progress directly overhead:
Image
© Kjetil Skogli