Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

First snow of the 2013 season breaks records in Valdez, Alaska

Lee Revis
Valdez Star
Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:30 UTC
Image
© Valdez Star photoThe 29.3 inches of snow – with record rain mixed in – was too heavy for this spruce tree which was growing out of the mountain ledge along Mile 8 of the Richardson Highway.

Sunday marked the first measurable snow day in Valdez and it was a record breaker according to the National Weather Service.

A respectable 24.4 inches of snow fell Sunday, beating the old November 10 record of 19.1 inches set in 1994.

But before the Valdez Buccaneer Ski team trades in water skis for snow skis, it is worth mentioning that Sunday also broke the record for precipitation on that date, with the weather service reporting 2.10 inches of rain mixing with that record snow.

"The old record precipitation from November 10 was 1.77 inches from 1976," the weather service website said. "This brings the total precipitation for the year to 86.94 inches...which is the third highest annual total."
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.8 - Scotia Sea


US Geological Survey
Fri, 15 Nov 2013 21:52 UTC
Scotia Sea Quake_161113
© USGS
Event Time
2013-11-16 03:34:34 UTC
2013-11-16 00:34:34 UTC-03:00 at epicenter

Location
60.400°S 46.900°W depth=32.0km (19.9mi)

Nearby Cities
923km (574mi) SW of Grytviken, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
1414km (879mi) SE of Ushuaia, Argentina
1662km (1033mi) SE of Punta Arenas, Chile
1687km (1048mi) SE of Rio Gallegos, Argentina
1181km (734mi) SSE of Stanley, Falkland Islands

Technical Details
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Cloud Grey

Australia's Surfers Paradise is turned apocalyptic by gigantic bizarre clouds that roll in over the beach

Ted Thornhill
The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:30 UTC
No wonder the person in the red T-shirt is pointing.

The huge dark clouds that formed dramatically over Surfers Paradise in Australia's Gold Coast have a distinctly end-of-the-world look about them.

Seen from Narrowneck beach on Thursday, they rose hundreds of feet into the air and turned a sunny afternoon dark and gloomy.

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Dramatic: A person in a red T-shirt points at the storm front as it approaches Surfers Paradise, as seen from Narrowneck beach
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Water world: The clouds brought sheeting rain with them
Image
Menacing: The Gold Coast is a popular spot for sun-seeking tourists - but only the hardiest of people braved the weather on Thursday afternoon
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Wolf

3-year-old Chicago boy attacked by a coyote


huffingtonpost.com
Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:08 UTC
Image
A 3-year-old boy is recovering after he was bit in the face by a coyote roaming in a city park on Chicago's West Side.

Family says Emeil Hawkins was bit Oct. 27 near Columbus Park after he and his mother mistook the animal for a German Shepherd. Thinking the coyote was a dog, Emeil tried to feed it before the animal bit him in the face, WGN reports.

"You can see how close it is to the neck, to the eye, to the mouth, to the nose," said Bryce Kyle, the boyfriend of Emeil's mother, describing the wounds. "It could have been a lot worse, but at the same time it was tragic. It's been horrible."
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Bizarro Earth

Dangerous new eruption at Sumatra's Sinabung volcano

Becky Oskin
LiveScience
Thu, 14 Nov 2013 16:50 UTC
Mount Sinabung
© TJUKTJUK/ShutterstockA photo of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra, Indonesia, before its latest eruption forced thousands of nearby residents to flee.
Superheated ash and gas flowing down the slopes of Indonesia's Sinabung volcano signals the intensity of eruptions may be increasing at the fiery mountain, according to local officials.

More than 5,000 people have been evacuated from towns and villages in North Sumatra's Karo Regency since Mount Sinabung awoke in October after a three-year dormancy. Karo is an agricultural region that supplies vegetables for surrounding islands.

The evacuation and devastating ash fall have affected crop harvests, leading to higher prices on vegetables and chilies elsewhere in Indonesia, according to the Jakarta Post.

The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation warned people not to approach within 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of Mount Sinabung.

On Monday (Nov. 11), a pyroclastic flow, a fast-moving avalanche of ash, lava fragments and air, was seen racing down the peak. Since then, the volcano has blasted out one to two ash explosions every day. Lava has flowed more than 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) from the top of the volcano.
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Igloo

Weather forecasts predict four inches of snow as Britain prepares for the 2013 big freeze

Nathan Rao
The Express, UK
Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:12 UTC
Image
© PAA woman struggles to walk on the ice and battles against gale force winds
The mercury is set to plunge below -10C (14F) in parts with wintry showers poised to hit huge swathes of the UK.

Forecasters warned that a mass of bitterly cold air from the Arctic is set to smother the country.

Up to four inches of snow will carpet parts of the North while the first flurries are expected in central and southern regions.

The bleak news comes as long-range forecasters warn that Britain could be crippled by a "record-breaking and historical" big freeze this winter. Prolonged cold weather and relentless heavy snowfall threaten to grind the country to a halt until the beginning of spring.

Remote parts of the North - including the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland - could see the mercury plummet as low as -15C next Tuesday.

Jonathan Powell, forecaster for Vantage Weather Services, said the worst weather is due to hit during the middle of next week.

He warned that a ferocious "Polar plunge" of bitterly cold winds could see overnight temperatures dive to -10C with windchill in the North while the South will shiver in lows of -5C.
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Snowflake Cold

Athens, Georgia breaks century-old record low

Rodney Harris
cbsatlanta.com
Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:06 UTC
Athens broke a record low temperature Thursday that previously stood for over 100 years.

The temperature dropped to 23 degrees at 5:48 a.m. Wednesday morning in Athens which broke the record low of 24 degrees previously set in 1911.

The cold temperatures are a result of an arctic airmass that moved southward into the U.S. from Canada.

Atlanta did not break a record Wednesday, but did see its coldest temperature, 28, since March.
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Sun

Two-day North America 'GridEx II' emergency power grid drill allegedly seeks to 'expose security flaws'

Justin L. Mack
Jconline.com
Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:04 UTC
Blackout
© Unknown
For the average resident, a blackout is typically a short-term inconvenience. But what happens when a cyberattack or natural disaster leaves millions of citizens without power for weeks or months on end?

That's the question federal government and electric utility employees hope to answer during GridEx II - a two-day security exercise that simulates a nationwide collapse of the electric grid due to cyberterror or other attacks. The exercise is designed to assess the readiness of the electricity sector, strengthen utilities' crisis response functions and provide input for internal security program improvements.

"To put it simply, it's important because if the grid gets attacked and stops working, people lose power. If people lose power they lose heat, the ability to provide important services, they lose banking ... they lose more than just the day-to-day comforts," said Marcus Rogers, a Purdue University professor of computer and information technology and director of the Purdue Cyber Forensics Lab. "They're running the simulation to try and get an idea of how secure it really is."

Comment: Is it really security flaws they're concerned about?

Or something else?

See also: Conditioning people to fireballs from space and Earth Changes...

and Something Wicked This Way Comes

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Blackbox

Enormous sinkhole swallows two homes, threatens others in Dunedin, Florida


ABCNews.com
Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:19 UTC
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A growing sinkhole in Florida has swallowed at least one home, caused another to begin collapsing and forced at least six homes to be evacuated. The sinkhole began opening in a neighborhood just north of downtown Dunedin, Fla., near Tampa, early this morning, according to ABC News affiliate WFTS-TV in Tampa.

By 7 a.m., the sinkhole was estimated at 80 feet wide and 40 feet deep, and still expanding, Dunedin Deputy Fire Chief Tripp Barrs told WFTS. Power and utility lines were cut off and officials evacuated at least six surrounding homes amid reports that a neighboring pool was also cracking.

Television footage also shows a boat and screened-in porch at the homeowner's property had collapsed into the hole.


The Pinellas County homeowner Michael Dupre told TV station Bay News 9 that he heard what sounded like a "sledgehammer pounding on a wall" as the sinkhole began to open up. He also told the station a sinkhole-prevention company had been at his home the past two days pouring grout to stabilize the home's foundation.
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Magnify

Deconstructing the hype on Super Typhoon Haiyan - Yolanda

Paul Homewood
Watts up with that
Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:29 UTC
With special thanks to John Fuller and Agar012 (and Dr. Ryan Maue for review)

Now we have had a few days to reflect on the terrible events of last week, we can start to piece together some of the facts.

First of all, as it is the thing that really matters above all, fatalities. The good news, if it can be termed that, is that the death toll is likely to be around 2000 to 2500, according to the Philippine President. This is much less than the 10,000 originally feared to have died.

As far as the storm itself was concerned, the official statistics from the Philippine Met Agency, PAGASA, remain the same as those issued at the time. The table below compares these with the original satellite estimates put out by the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, JTWC, and that were subsequently used by the media around the world to claim that Yolanda was the "strongest storm ever".

. PAGASA JTWC
Sustained Wind Speed mph 147 195
Gust mph 171 235

http://www.ndrrmc.gov.ph/attachments/article/1124/Update%20SWB%20No.6%20re%20TY%20YOLANDA%205AM.pdf

http://www.webcitation.org/6KyWsFio5

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24878801
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