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Phoenix

Wildfire warning issued for Alaska - apparently freeze-dried vegetation can 'spontaneously combust'

Devin Kelly
Anchorage Daily News
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 12:37 UTC
State officials issued a rare winter wildfire advisory for the Mat-Su area Thursday, cautioning against open burning at a time of sunny skies and dry conditions.

Warm weather in recent weeks has melted much of the snowpack in the area. From the north Knik River Bridge, open fields are exposed across Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge and in areas around Palmer and Wasilla.
Image
© wikipedia
Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Valley shown shaded in red north of Anchorage, Alaska
"Attention residents -- the Mat-Su Valley is dry," begins a public service announcement released by the state Division of Forestry.

Cooler temperatures can lead to a freeze-dried effect in grassy fields, said Norm McDonald, a state fire management officer.
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Phoenix

Winter wildfire strikes Tuscon, Arizona

Sarah Sanchez
KVOA
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 12:23 UTC
Coronado National Forest crews are mopping up a wildfire that began Thursday afternoon on Mt. Lemmon.
Image
© Unknown
The Little Bear Fire began around Noon near mile post 11 off of Catalina Highway, according to Mt. Lemmon Fire Chief Randy Ogden.
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Cloud Precipitation

Welcome to the new normal: Extreme weather is here to stay in the UK

John Vidal
The Guardian
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:59 UTC
Southern England, the south-west and west Wales have been warned to expect more wild weather, with heavy rain and high tides possibly leading to coastal flooding and travel disruption over the weekend.
Image
© Toby Melville/Reuters
A police officer inspects flooded areas near Muchelney, a village on the Somerset Levels where 25 sq miles of farmland is under water.
"Another very deep area of low pressure will spread heavy rain and strong to gale-force winds eastwards across the south-west during Friday. Up to 30mm of rain is likely during the period, possibly exacerbating the current flooding situation," said the Met Office, which has issued an amber warning covering most of the south-west and south Wales. There are 43 flood warnings in place, and 162 less serious flood alerts.
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Cloud Precipitation

UK weather: Six 'threat to life' warnings issued for floods

Claire Carter
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 10:40 UTC
Image
© EPA
Members of the emergency services help a resident arrives back to dry land from the village of Muchelney, Somerset
The Environment Agency has issued six of the most serious 'threat to life' warnings and more than 200 flood alerts as rain and gales are set to batter Britain, bringing more flooding chaos

Six of the most severe 'danger to life' warnings have been issued as Britain prepares for more rain and floods this weekend.

The Environment Agency has issued 83 warnings across the UK where flooding is likely and six of the most severe warnings for coastal areas in north Devon and Cornwall where floods could be so dangerous they could threaten people's lives.

There are also more than 200 flood alerts issued - with more than 100 in the South East which has been worst hit by the floods in recent weeks.

Up to 1.6 inches (40mm) of rain is forecast in areas of the South West and Wales today and 70mph gusts expected this weekend in conditions which forecasters say are likely to continue until mid February. Students in Wales have been evacuated as a precaution and speed restrictions

The downpours come as the military was called to the Somerset Levels on Thursday, where acres of farmland have been underwater for a month and villages are accessible only by boat after the South East recorded its wettest January for more than 100 years.
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Eye 2

UK pensioner kept almost 200 snakes in her semi-detached house


Evening Standard
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:17 UTC
Image

Snakes alive: Pauline Wallace and part of the reptile collection found in her home
Snake woman banned from keeping reptiles and fined £310 in case which cost RSPCA £150k

A pensioner who kept almost 200 snakes in her semi-detached house has been banned from keeping reptiles for a year following a prosecution which has cost the RSPCA more than £150,000.

Pauline Wallace, 64, admitted keeping the animals in poor conditions at her home in York, including 114 in her bedroom.

Today, at York Magistrates' Court, Wallace was given a 12-month community order with supervision as well as the reptile-keeping ban.

She had pleaded guilty to nine counts of animal cruelty at a previous hearing.

Phil Browne, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told the bench the charity has incurred costs of £156,000 since they discovered Wallace's huge colony of at least 186 snakes.

Mr Browne said that it was costing the society between £7,000 and £16,000 a month to house 60 of the reptiles that were seized and did not have to be put down.
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Arrow Down

Large sinkhole forming by Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Perry Stein
Washington City Paper
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 04:20 UTC
Image
© DDOT
A large sinkhole is forming alongside Massachusetts Avenue SE between 34th and N streets, on the southwestern end of Fort Dupont Park, according to the District Department of Transportation. The Metropolitan Police Department closed the road in both directions around 3 p.m.

DDOT spokesman Reggie Sanders says it's possible that the sinkhole extends to the roadway.

Image
© DDOT
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Bizarro Earth

High school student crashes car on ice-covered road in Cherokee County, Georgia, before watching it be swallowed up by giant sinkhole


11alive.com
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 04:01 UTC
Image
While many motorists were stranded on Georgia's roads and highways Tuesday night, one young man may have had the scariest commute of all.

A Woodstock High School student driving home from school shortly before 1 p.m. lost control of his car on an icy part of Towne Lake Parkway.

The 1995 Mercedes-Benz C280 slid down a hill, jumped a curb and hit a fire hydrant, which began to spew water.

The driver, Alec Monroe, managed to get out of the car before a sinkhole formed. Within half an hour, the Mercedes was submerged.

Monroe said his mother's credit card, all his school supplies and his winter jacket were inside the car. Thankfully, he was not hurt.


Comment: A 'rare' event?

Once upon a time, perhaps!... These are from just the last two months:

Sinkhole eats up trash truck in Philadelphia!

Truck falls into sinkhole on rain-soaked Hawaii island

Virgina sinkhole swallows car

Sinkhole swallows car in Bakersfield, California

Sinkhole swallows up truck in Chicago on Thanksgiving

Sinkhole nearly swallows pickup truck in Philadelphia

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Fish

Hundreds of dead fish surface in Kings River fishing spot, California

Rick Montanez
abclocal.go.com
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 04:02 UTC
Image

Hundreds of dead fish are surfacing in a popular fishing spot in the Kings River. The dead fish began showing up earlier this week. California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials think it may be something missing from the water.

Several clusters of dead, decomposing carp line a segment of the Kings River south of Stratford. The rotting fish are leaving a strong, disgusting odor in the air.

Tony Gonzalez and his nephew picked a different spot to fish Wednesday, after finding the fish kill. They say the area is very popular to catch fish year round.

The dead fish began getting attention after a video posted to YouTube. Chango Thao was stunned to see so many fish just floating on the surface of the water. He recorded the video to show his fishing buddies. "Oh, it was horrible," Thao said. "Just the stench of it, I couldn't stick around too long. Getting home I still smelled it in my nose, seriously."
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Bizarro Earth

Mysterious undersea 'crop circles' finally explained

Nadia Drake
Wired.com
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:34 UTC
Undersea crop circles
© Jacob T. Johansen
Undersea crop circles spotted off the coast of Denmark.
Mysterious undersea circles spotted off the coast of Denmark are not the work of aliens, or spiders. Or alien spiders, unfortunately. Rather, the rings are the result of poisonous sulfides tucked into the mud coating the seafloor.

Photos of the underwater rings first surfaced in 2008. Since then, people have compared the mysterious things to crop circles or fairy rings - those enchanting little fungal designs that can sometimes spring up on your lawn. But nobody knew what the aquatic rings were, or why they were there. Some of them measured nearly 50 feet across - were they World War II-era bomb craters?

In 2011, scientists determined that the rings themselves were made of eelgrass, a native type of seagrass that hosts small fish and other crustaceans.
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Bizarro Earth

Decapitated silver sea blob washes up in the Philippines

Rie Takumi/VC
GMA News
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 19:08 UTC
Like the unholy offspring of a giant squid and a mollusk without its shell, a mysterious creature washed up the shore of a village in Aparri, Cagayan Thursday, prompting residents to seek help - and take pictures.

24 Oras showed pictures of the silver creature on the beach decomposing, fraying at the ends, and absolutely headless.


At five to six meters long, the creature was never weighed; it is now buried under the sand it was found in, after two days of residents enduring its rotten stench.

In a phone interview with GMA News Online, Leonarda Labugen of Region II's Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) said the creature had been stewing in the ocean for a week before washing up on Aparri's shores. Its prolonged decomposition, she said, made it necessary for the local government and BFAR to bury its corpse.

She said there was no time to take samples from the corpse, though a technical report is due to be issued within the week.
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