Earth ChangesS


Igloo

US: Blast of Arctic Air Invades the South

The well-forecasted punch of arctic air has arrived over the eastern 1/2 of the United States and it will try to break a few records before it leaves.

Thanks to a large dip in the jet stream (trough), very cold air straight out of the arctic is blasting its way south and invading towns and cities not always accustomed to the very chilly air.



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Tuesday Highs
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Wednesday AM Lows


Cloud Lightning

US: "Like the Wizard of Oz" as Twister Hits Oregon Town

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© T. J. Gonzalez/The Statesman-Journal/AP This home was among several dozen damaged or destroyed by a twister in Aumsville, Ore., on Tuesday.
Aumsville's 'grandmother' survives; her plumbing store does not

A tornado struck a small Oregon town on Tuesday, tearing roofs off buildings, hurling objects into vehicles and homes and uprooting trees.

At least three homes were destroyed, as was the police chief's office, while dozens of properties were damaged, KGW TV reported.

"It literally came at an angle and just dropped down. The winds were so fast. My windows are shattered and I have glass all over in my house," Aumsville resident Vince Catron told KGW. "It looks like somebody just came through our house and just shook literally everything in it ... We have houses all around us destroyed."

No injuries were reported. There were early reports that some people had been trapped in cars.

The heaviest damage seemed to be in the central part of this town of 3,560 people located 45 miles south of Portland. Twisters are rare in this part of the country - just three others have touched down in the region over the last decade.

Igloo

Snow Storm Snarls Midwest: Is US Facing Another Extreme Winter?

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© Marcus Marter/South Bend Tribune/APA man walks across the Colfax Avenue bridge during a snow- storm on Monday in South Bend, Ind.
The driving early snowstorms and piercing cold winds blasting the Midwest, South, and East Coast - throwing commutes, air traffic, and football schedules into chaos - are the result of poorly understood atmospheric dynamics that may upset predictions of a milder winter for the eastern half of the US.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison are among those trying to understand the mysterious interplay between Pacific and North Atlantic weather phenomena that threaten to dunk the Eastern US into a second year in a row of 1970s-style blizzards and cold snaps.

"At this point, this winter looks similar to last winter," says Jonathan Martin, an atmospheric scientist at Wisconsin. "The next question is, why does it look similar, and we're currently not in a position to say definitely what's going on. There are some interrelationships between big pieces of circulation anomaly that feed into one another, including an anomalous pattern over Greenland that's tied into convection in the tropical Pacific Ocean."

Scientists speculate that heat released from storms racing up the US East Coast toward the Labrador Sea may be feeding the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation - nicknamed "The Greenland Block" - in ways that are not yet understood. The region of high pressure over Greenland has pushed huge troughs of Canadian air into the US, causing the fifth biggest snow storm on record in Minneapolis over the weekend and now threatening Orlando, Fla., with 20 degree F temperatures.

The atmospheric upset has had the opposite effect on parts of the West, where cities like Long Beach, Calif., and Phoenix saw record high temperatures Monday.

Bizarro Earth

US: Fungus Outbreak Hits Alabama Marshes; Could Oil Spill Sheens Be to Blame?

Alabama marsh grass
© Press-Register/Ben RainesSeeds of one of Alabama's primary salt marsh grasses are suffering from a fungal infection that renders them sterile. The long, purplish black claws protruding from the spartina seeds are symptoms of infection by Calviceps purpurea. The fungus is common in marshes, but usually not widespread. Scientists speculate that exposure to oil sheens may have reduced the ability of the marsh grasses to resist infection.
A widespread fungal outbreak is affecting one of Alabama's key marsh grass species, potentially rendering much of this year's seed crop sterile, according to scientists.

While the fungus is always present in coastal marshes, scientists speculated that repeated exposure to oil sheens floating on Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay this spring and summer might have played a role in the outbreak by reducing the natural resistance of the marsh plants to the disease. It is also possible that other factors, such as an ongoing drought, played a more important role than oil, they said.

There are records of the fungus in Alabama and Mississippi marshes dating to 1895, and the scientific literature describes some years where every seed was lost to the fungus, said Judy Stout, who has studied the Gulf's coastal marshes since 1972.

"The marshes and barrier islands were the areas that took the brunt of the oil and sheens," said Judy Haner, marine conservation director with the Alabama office of The Nature Conservancy. "This infection raises the possibility that our marsh system is more vulnerable because it has been stressed. This wasn't like a hurricane, over and done in a day. This area was subjected to months of repeated exposure."

A BP spokesman said that if federal damage assessments found problems in the marshes related to the spill, the company would act appropriately.

Affecting Spartina alterniflora, one of the two main grasses in Gulf Coast salt marshes, the fungus produces deep purple shafts that protrude from individual plant seeds like cat claws coming out of a paw. The fungus, Claviceps purpurea, does not kill the adult plants.

Cow Skull

US southwest could see 60-year drought

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© na

Washington - A worst-case scenario devised by US researchers shows that the American southwest could experience a 60-year stretch of heat and drought unseen since the 12th century.

Researchers at the University of Arizona examined studies of temperature changes and droughts in the region over the past 1,200 years and used them to project future climate models in the hope that water resource managers could use the information to plan ahead.

An examination of the past, through human-kept records but also via rings in the cores of trees that can show periods of wetness or drought, showed that dry spells of earlier centuries were much worse than any we have seen in modern times.

Bizarro Earth

US: Cold, Snow Hit Schools, Travel in Many States

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© Reuters/Eric MillerEmily Feiten helps dig out a friend's car after it was plowed in, following 17 inches of snowfall, in Minneapolis December 12, 2010.
Bone-chilling cold swept across the snow-hit Great Plains and Midwest on Monday, closing schools and playing havoc with travel plans, with the sub-freezing temperatures reaching as far south as Florida.

Minnesota and Wisconsin shivered in temperatures not expected to top single digits -- with wind-chills much colder than that -- and motorists spent hours awaiting rescue on impassable roads in northwest Indiana.

Air traffic was gradually returning to a semblance of normal after hundreds of flights were canceled at airports in Midwestern and East Coast hubs during the worst of a snow storm on Sunday.

Another 75 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport on Monday, but delays were called minor.

"We aren't anticipating any more cancellations," said American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan.

There were winter storm warnings posted for parts of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, western Pennsylvania, western New York and Vermont, forecasters said.

Alarm Clock

Sperm Whales Show Signs of Toxic Contamination

Sperm Whales
© Brandon ColePod of sperm whales underwater

The skin and blubber of sperm whales from across the Pacific Ocean carry evidence of exposure to a class of toxic pollutants, with whales living around the Galapagos Islands showing the strongest signs of exposure, according to a new study.

"This is the first time this kind of pollution study has been done on a whole ocean level using a threatened species as a sentinel species," said Celine Godard-Codding, the lead researcher and an environmental toxicologist at Texas Tech University.

Sperm whales can live up to 70 years, feeding on squid, fish and octopus. Males of the species can grow up to 60 feet (18 meters) long. As large, long-lived carnivores, they can accumulate pollutants in their body fat.

Question

Costa Rica Investigates Mysterious Death of Sea Turtles

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© UnknownLepidochelys kempii
Scientists in Costa Rica are studying the death of at least 10 and 12 more ailing turtles in the southern zone. Universidad Nacional (UN) told the press that the environmental organization MarVia found the 22 turtles floating near Matapalo beach.

Ten of the Kemp's Ridley turtles died within days of bringing them to shore and biologists and veterinarians have no idea of what caused their deaths.

According to Widecast Network, this occurs when creatures have been floating adrift in the water for a prolonged period.

Widecast diretor, Claudio Quesada, told the La Nación that the turtles could have been at sea for more than two months, as they showed dehydration and lack of feeding for weeks.

Stop

US: Snowstorm wreaks havoc, barrels east; Metrodome roof collapses

A powerful snowstorm barreled east through the Midwest on Sunday, bringing with it more precipitation and gusty winds and leaving behind a trail of significant damage, large snow drifts and subarctic temperatures, according to the National Weather Service.


Winter storm warnings and advisories Sunday extended as far west as Illinois, as far east as Pennsylvania, and as far south as northern Alabama and Georgia.

Meanwhile, residents of the upper Midwest who braved at-times blizzard conditions on Saturday faced the prospect Sunday night of wind chills dipping, in spots, as low as 30 degrees below zero. This comes after up to 23 inches of snow fell in parts of Minnesota and as many as 18.5 inches in Wisconsin since Friday.

"We could see wind chills (that are) obviously extremely dangerous for people, to have that kind of exposure for any length of time," said Tod Pritchard, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Emergency Management agency.

Cloud Lightning

Storms bring flood threat to Washington, Oregon rivers

Storm system
© Associated Press
Record rainfall in the Pacific Northwest triggered mudslides and threatened to cause severe flooding of some Western Washington rivers Sunday.

Although the rain had eased in much of southwest Washington and northwest Oregon, including Portland, downpours continued from Seattle north, swelling rivers and threatening some small towns. The rain was expected to lessen Sunday evening, with the worst of the flood danger over by early Monday.

Still, flood watches or warnings remained in effect for the region, and forecasters said storms could dump 6 inches or more of rain in the Cascade Range and Olympic Mountains.

"We're looking at the wettest storm system we've had for in almost two years," said National Weather Service meteorologist Kirby Cook in Seattle.