Earth Changes

Lake Tahoe weather: Season snow totals near 400 inches

Northern Nevada Business View
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 15:34 UTC

A man removes snow from his car after a winter storm this February.

A winter storm dumped over 3 feet of snow at some Lake Tahoe ski resorts in a 24-hour span this weekend, according to reports published Sunday morning, Feb. 10, from regional ski resorts.

The impressive numbers follow a light dusting Friday night and early Saturday morning, putting season snow totals at impressive levels heading into President's Day this weekend.

According to Squaw Valley's snowfall tracker, the resort has recorded 393 inches of snow at upper mountain (8,000 feet), with 242 inches reported at its 6,200-feet base, as of Sunday morning.

Gray whale found dead in Altata, Mexico

The Mazatlan Messenger
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 14:17 UTC

Gray whale

A few days ago reports of a gray whale swimming at Altata Bay (North of Sinaloa) were reported. Unfortunately, on Sunday the whale was found dead.

The whale displayed injuries on it's tail and dorsal fin, and according to marine life experts the injuries were consistent with a shark attack.

Every winter, hundreds of Pacific gray whales return to their traditional breeding and birthing grounds around Mexico's Baja Peninsula. Their migration from Alaska's Bering Sea to the warm waters of Baja's Pacific lagoons is the longest mammal migration on Earth.

Of the original three gray whale populations, one in the North Atlantic is extinct, one is critically endangered in the Western North Pacific (with as few as 150 individuals remaining), and one has recovered from very low levels in the Eastern North Pacific and was removed from the U.S. Endangered Species List in 1994.

Beached whale shark dies on coast of West Java, Indonesia

The Jakarta Post
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 14:04 UTC

The Whale Shark stranded at the Wharf Port of Nusantara Palabuhanratu Nusantara

A whale shark was found dead on Tuesday by locals and fishermen near the dock of a fishing port in Palabuhanratu, Sukabumi regency, West Java.

"I used to run into these [sharks] in the sea, and they had never disrupted our work. However, this time, we found one of them stranded on the dock," an unnamed fisherman, who claimed to have discovered the beached shark first, said on Tuesday as quoted by Antara.

The stranded shark, known for its distinct white spots and stripes, weighed around 300 kilograms and was around 2 meters-long.

Rare black-browed albatross from the southern hemisphere turns up in Cornwall, UK

John Bett and Jeff Reines
Cornwall Live
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 13:16 UTC

The black browed albatross rarely ventures from the Southern Hemisphere but one has been spotted in Cornwall

Twitchers are flocking to Cornwall desperate to catch a glimpse of a bird rarely seen outside the southern hemisphere. Toby Phelps, 20, spotted a black-browed albatross and managed to get a picture of it while on a sea watching expedition.

He was stationed at the Lizard Point and, although he only saw it flying for a few minutes, experts were able to confirm the sighting.

They have now described it as a "red letter day" and said it was even more intriguing as it is believed it may be the same bird which visited Britain last year.

Toby, from Falmouth, who is studying zoology at university, said: "I was sat right on the edge of Lizard Point, by the cafe. We went down looking for birds, not specifically the albatross, we were sea watching and it just so happened to fly past.

Comment: There have been two other extremely rare records of this species in recent years (2015 and 2016) off the UK coast, see also: Another albatross species turns up in the wrong hemisphere, this time on Suffolk coast, UK

Lost black-browed albatross from the southern hemisphere seen along the coast of Yorkshire, UK

6 killed, 1 injured in landslide in Myanmar's northernmost state

Xiaoxia
Xinhua
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 12:35 UTC

Six Jade Scavengers Killed in Myanmar Cliff Collapse in Kachin State 2019-02-11

© Zaw Moe Htet
People watch rescuers remove the bodies of six jade scavengers who died when a cliff collapsed at a jade mine near Spot village of Sate Mu village tract in Hpakant township, northern Myanmar's Kachin state, Feb. 10, 2019.

Six people were killed with one injured in a landslide in Myanmar's northern mining region, said the Home Affairs Ministry on Tuesday.

The landslide occurred at a jade mining site near a village in Hpakant in Kachin state on Sunday.

The 30.5-meter high cliff wall collapsed, killing six jade scavengers and injuring a man, who was in a six-wheeled truck buried in the landslide at 01:15 p.m. local time, the release said.

The bodies of the jade scavengers were recovered in the evening on that day and the injured was brought to the Hpakant General Hospital.

Historic winter storm hits Hawaii with record-high waves, flooding, extreme winds and rare snow

The Province
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 20:40 UTC

An extremely powerful winter storm is pulling away from Hawaii after unleashing damaging winds, massive waves, coastal flooding, and snow in unusual places.

The storm, which the National Weather Service office in Honolulu described as "historic," first began pounding the islands Friday. Hawaii News Now reported a 66-year old California man died in the rough surf off northwest Maui on Friday.

"(Forecasters) are calling this an unprecedented event and we concur that we rarely if ever have seen the combination of record high on-shore waves, coupled with gale force winds," said Sam Lemmo, administrator of Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR).

The storm's most extreme blow was generated on the Big Island's towering peak of Mauna Kea where a 191-mph wind gust blasted the mountain summit at 4:40 p.m. local time Sunday.

"That's the strongest wind gust I've ever seen up there," said Jon Jelsema, senior forecaster at the Weather Service office in Honolulu. "We tend to get a gust maybe to 150 mph once a winter or so, but never 191 mph."

Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten global collapse of nature'

Damian Carrington
Guardian
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 18:00 UTC

© Entomologisher Verein Krefeld
The rate of insect extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.

The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems", according to the first global scientific review.

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.

Comment: See also:

And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

Chimpanzees build ladder to escape from Belfast zoo

Tim Sandle
Digital Journal
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 21:14 UTC

© NELSON ALMEIDA, AFP
A female chimpanzee holds her baby at the Great Apes Project (GAP), a sanctuary for apes in Sorocaba, some 100km west of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Most of us would wish to escape from captivity and a group of abstract thinking chimpanzees temporarily managed this feat by building a makeshift ladder to escape from Belfast Zoo.

In February 2019, a group of enterprising chimpanzees managed to get out of their enclosure at Belfast Zoo (Northern Ireland) by propping a tree branch against the wall to enable their improvised escape. Video footage provided by NPR (see below) shows two chimpanzees making it it to the top of the wall with one of the chimpanzees scurrying away. In all, five chimpanzees left their enclosure.

The escaped chimpanzee was later seen striding down an embankment and onto a roadway. However, later all of the chimpanzees returned home, apparently not caring much for human habitats. Speaking with The Guardian, Zookeeper Alyn Cairns states that the trees in the enclosure had been weakened by the storms (such as the recent Storm Eric), providing structures for the chimps to break and use as ladders to escape.

He adds, about the chimps returning home: "They're intelligent primates and know they're not supposed to be out of their enclosure, so got back in themselves."

New Zealand is battling its worst wildfire in more than 60 years

Casey Quackenbush
TIME
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 09:34 UTC

A massive bushfire has churned through more than 5,600 acres on New Zealand's South Island in what is believed to be the country's worst forest fire since 1955, BBC reports.

A state of emergency was declared on Feb. 6, two days after the Pigeon Valley Fire began near the city of Nelson. As of Monday, the blaze was still scorching the island's arid countryside, but as firefighting conditions improved, around 3,000 evacuated residents were allowed to return home.

Local MP Nick Smith described the region as a "tinderbox" and said 70,000 residents in the fire's range remain "on edge."

Twenty-three helicopters and two planes have reportedly been deployed to combat the blaze in the nation's largest aerial firefight on record, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Fire chiefs have warned that the flames could continue until March.

The bushfire follows a heatwave that saw some areas of New Zealand sweating out 90°F days last month. The New Zealand Drought Index reports "extremely dry" conditions in the Nelson area, which has reportedly been parched since November 2018.

Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Global warming = All time record cold

Adapt 2030
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 14:15 UTC

New articles out trying to explain away the recent record cold in N. America and record snow in Europe. I break down how the article forgets to include discussions of Earths weakening magnetic field, polar wander or solar activity as a reason jet streams are wandering into the wrong locations across the globe and with it extreme weather. The only reason I bring it up is that it is a cycle and irregular harvests mean global food instability.