Earth ChangesS


Magnet

Magnetic North Has Shifted 10 Degrees, A Full Magnetic Flip Is Overdue

Following up on The Tampa Tribune's report that the Tampa, Florida airport authority had its runway landing sights repainted to reflect Magnetic North's lurch into Siberia, mainstream TV news has picked up on the story and ponders whether the planet is due a complete polar reversal.


Igloo

Winter weather slams US South with snow, icy roads

Several inches of snow and freezing rain were expected to make the Monday morning commute for those forced to venture out nearly impossible in parts of the South, including Atlanta, where countless cars were stuck on impassable highways and roads while the world's busiest airport canceled thousands of flights.

The winter blast rolled across the South on Sunday, coating bridges and roads with snow, sleet and freezing rain and causing at least one death in Louisiana. The governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee declared emergencies and schools and colleges called off classes. Snow and ice had blanketed several cities, including up to 3 inches in parts of Atlanta, which rarely gets so much.

"We don't have weather events like this," Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in an on-air interview with CNN. "I think the amount of snow we're getting is probably a 10-year event for the city of Atlanta."

Despite officials imploring people to stay off the roads, interstates around Atlanta were clogged with cars early Monday.

Bizarro Earth

German cities threatened by flooding after winter thaw

Image
© UnknownA boat was the only form of transport in Zell in southern Germany
Rivers in many parts of Germany have burst their banks, flooding several cities, because of melting winter snow.

In the west, the Rhine has overflowed in Bonn and Cologne and levels are set to peak in Koblenz where it meets the River Mosel.

Firefighters are searching for a man whose car was found abandoned in the central state of Thuringia beside the swollen River Unstrut.

The body of a kayaker was pulled from the River Enz in the south.

Experts are blaming the high river levels on the record amounts of snow that fell in December and the sharp rise in temperatures that has brought about a fast thaw.

Up to 30 villages in the wine-growing area south of Koblenz on the River Mosel have been flooded but the centre of attention appears to be Koblenz itself, where the Mosel flows into the Rhine at Deutsches Eck.

Some low-lying areas of Koblenz are already under water and officials expect the waters to reach 7.7m (25ft) on Monday afternoon. The normal level is around 2.4m, reports say.

In Cologne, river levels are not expected to reach their peak until Tuesday, although two districts have already been affected.

Hourglass

Australia: Queensland Residents On Edge As Floodwaters Rise

Queensland Floods 1
© Tomas GuerinA car is engulfed by floodwaters in Toowoomba
Sodden Queensland continues to battle its week-long flood crisis, with one town facing its second inundation since Christmas, residents forced to evacuate in several areas and waters receding ever so slowly in other drenched cities.

Toowoomba in the state's south-east is currently in shock after a raging torrent of water swept through the city this afternoon, claiming the lives of at least two people and leaving enormous damage across the city.

Elsewhere in the south-east, emergency services are focused on Dalby and Gympie, which are both on flood alert.

Comment: Here is a sample of what took place in Toowoomba earlier today. A deadly torrent of water unleashed its force with unbelievable fury - it was gone as quickly as it appeared.




Better Earth

Switzerland hit by three minor quakes

Three small earthquakes shook the west of Switzerland overnight but there were no reports of damage, Swiss police said on Sunday.

The quakes, which registered between 2.8 and 3.3 on the open-ended Richter scale, were recorded in the Valais canton.

Bizarro Earth

Triple Punch Hole Clouds

Hole Punch Clouds
© Wesley TylerHole punch clouds over Myrtle Beach.

"I've lived by the sea for many years, but never seen anything like this," reports Wesley Tyler of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "On Friday, Jan. 7th, there were three punch hole clouds in the same place." He grabbed his camera and recorded the phenomenon.

Considered a mystery for many years, punch hole clouds appear on rare occasions all over the world, sometimes attracting widespread attention, e.g., the famous Moscow UFO cloud of 2009. Recently meteorologists have penetrated the mystery: punch holes form when airplanes fly through thin layers of high altitude clouds. If water droplets in the cloud are supercooled (below freezing but still liquid), they can suddenly turn to snow when shocked by the passage of the plane. This mini-snowstorm occurs over a circular area much wider than the airplane itself.

Igloo

The Met Office Fries While the Rest of the World Freezes

Russian icebreaker Krasin
© Getty ImagesThe Russian icebreaker Krasin is sailing to the relief of fishermen trapped in the Sea of Okhotsk
As the Met Office desperately tries to salvage its reputation, another of this 'warm' winter's ice disasters is unfolding in the Sea of Okhotsk.

First it was a national joke. Then its professional failings became a national disaster. Now, the dishonesty of its attempts to fight off a barrage of criticism has become a real national scandal. I am talking yet again of that sad organisation the UK Met Office, as it now defends its bizarre record with claims as embarrassingly absurd as any which can ever have been made by highly-paid government officials.

Let us begin with last week's astonishing claim that, far from failing to predict the coldest November and December since records began, the Met Office had secretly warned the Cabinet Office in October that Britain was facing an early and extremely cold winter. In what looked like a concerted effort at damage limitation, this was revealed by the BBC's environmental correspondent, Roger Harrabin, a leading evangelist for man-made climate change. But the Met Office website - as reported by the blog Autonomous Mind - still contains a chart it published in October, predicting that UK temperatures between December and February would be up to 2C warmer than average.

So if the Met Office told the Government in October the opposite of what it told the public, it seems to be admitting that its information was false and misleading. But we have no evidence of what it did tell the Government other than its own latest account. And on the model of the famous Cretan Paradox, how can we now trust that statement?

Bad Guys

Biggest Cover-up in US History

oiled pelican/gulf
© unknown
Months after the US government declared the waters in the Gulf of Mexico safe, thick layers of oil have been found along Louisiana coastal marshes, prompting local officials to accuse relevant authorities of 'cover-up.'

Louisiana officials say parts of the state's coastline are still being fouled more than eight months after British Petroleum's (BP) Deepwater Horizon rig caused the biggest oil disaster in the United States.

"This is the biggest cover-up in the history of America,'' Associated Press quoted Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser as saying.

On Friday, Robert Barham, secretary of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, joined Nungesser on a tour of the area.

"It has been eight months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, and five months since the well was capped. While workers along the coast dedicated themselves to cleaning up our shores there is still so much to be done," Barham said in a statement.

The heavily saturated area that reporters saw was 30 feet (9 meters) to 100 feet (30 meters) wide in sections.

"There's been no mechanism to clean that up thus far," the parish president said.

"Every day, this shoreline is moving inland," lessening flood protection for residents, Nungesser added.

Meteor

Noctilucent clouds filmed from Space Station - why are these 'nightshiners' visible at ever lower altitudes?

Noctilucent clouds were captured on the following video by the International Space Station's Science Officer, Ed Lu, in 2003. Now, the rare high-altitude clouds are showing up at lower and lower latitudes and scientists aren't sure why.


Comment: You may want to read these, then wake up and smell the ozone:

A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Cooling Upper Atmosphere

Shields down! Earth's magnetic field may drop in a flash

Earth's Magnetic Field Is Fading


Bizarro Earth

Vanuatu - Earthquake Magnitutde 6.4

Vanuatu Quake_100111
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, January 09, 2011 at 17:21:55 UTC

Monday, January 10, 2011 at 04:21:55 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
19.281°S, 168.132°E

Depth:
32.8 km (20.4 miles)

Region:
VANUATU

Distances:
125 km (75 miles) WNW of Isangel, Tanna, Vanuatu

170 km (105 miles) S of PORT-VILA, Efate, Vanuatu

250 km (155 miles) N of Tadine, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia

1785 km (1110 miles) ENE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia