Sunsets are bursting lately with dazzling colors, shapes and textures, and we asked an expert: Why?

The answer has mainly to do with high clouds, said meteorologist Jamie Moker of the National Weather Service.

"The way the light reflects and refracts through the clouds causes it to basically make those brighter colors," Moker said. "The sunsets lately have had a lot of mid and upper-level clouds. Those clouds seem to refract light."

And while pollution can sometimes enhance sunsets, in this case it's a lack of pollution that is doing the job, he said.

Light passing through low clouds also passes through a lot of fine particles. Higher clouds are largely free of it, allowing colors to look more vivid.

"It's not dulled out by pollution - particulates in the lower atmosphere," Moker said.

Little Rock - An Arkansas Game and Fish Commission official says parasites and bacteria have been eliminated as causes of a fish kill last week in the Arkansas River.

Fisheries division chief Mark Oliver told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it will take three more weeks to determine whether the 80,000 to 100,000 drum that died were killed by a virus. Samples were sent to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff's fish-disease diagnostic laboratory for testing.

A tugboat operator first noted the dead fish Dec. 29 near the Roseville community boat ramp. The fish were seen for nearly 20 miles, from the Ozark-Jeta Taylor Lock and Dam near Ozark to near Hartman.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality determined that the deaths weren't related to river pollution.

Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Folly Beach-- The fish kill was Gene Nelson's opportunity to scoop up free fertilizer. Nelson arrived early Friday to collect buckets of dead menhaden, filling three or four loads of the finger-length fish. He plans to bury them as tree feed ahead of planting season.

"You've got to put them in the ground right away," said Nelson, of North Charleston, who wore rubber gloves as he bent over on his hands and knees pulling loads in.

Nelson wasn't the only scooper on site. Down the beach, work crews hired by the city of Folly Beach used shovels and heavy duty earth-moving equipment to clean a mile-and-a-half stretch of thousands of stinking menhaden carcasses that had washed ashore earlier this week. Officials expect the work to be all done by today, at a cost of between $5,000 and $6,000.

While state wildlife officials said the die-off appears to be a product of the recent cold and lower sea temperatures, some locals said there is reason to be concerned about stress on the ocean's environment.

In what is seen as a case of civic negligence, thousands of fish have been found dead mysteriously at Iblur Lake near HSR Layout.

Narayana, the licensed contractor for the fish in the lake, blamed untreated sewage water from several residential areas in Bellandur Gate as the cause of the deaths. He alleged that the sewage water is sent to the drain without treating, thus depleting the oxygen level of the lake water.

"I have already suffered huge losses thrice and though I complained to BBMP officials of Bellandur and HSR wards, no action has been initiated so far. The officials are inefficient and we are the ones who incur the loss," said Narayana.

The park by the lake, which once had people frequenting it, now wears a deserted look. Visitors say the foul smell emanating from the lake is getting worse by day and spoiling the mood and environment that persisted in the lake a few years ago.

Heavy rains fell in eastern Australia on Thursday, bringing fresh misery to flood-hit communities as the mayor of the flooded city of Rockhampton warned it could take up to a year to recover from the worst flooding in decades.

Officials were only beginning to see the scope of the damage as river levels across Queensland started dropping despite new thunderstorms. Floodwaters were expected to stay high in many areas for at least another week and officials warned evacuated residents to stay away from their waterlogged homes.

"It's important for the community to remember that this event is not over yet," said Brad Carter, mayor of the inundated city of Rockhampton, which has evacuated 500 people. "Those residents who were required to evacuate their homes will not be able to return to their homes until the flood waters recede."

Four thousand people across Queensland have been evacuated from their homes since driving rains that began just before Christmas left much of the region under a sea of murky water. Around 1,200 homes have been inundated, with another 10,700 suffering damage in the flood zone, an area greater than France and Germany combined.

By now, we've all seen the news reports of the "Aflockalypse." The New Year came in with a bang in Beebe, Arkansas when thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky. As news reports of the eerie incident spread, similar stories began surfacing all over the world: Massive fish kills by the thousands in Brazil, New Zealand, the Arkansas River and the Chesapeake; more bird deaths in Louisiana, Kentucky and Sweden; and tens of thousands of dead crabs (aptly named dead devil crabs) washing ashore in the U.K.

2011 seems to have gotten off to an ominous start, but so far no one credible has come up with a theory to link all these occurrences together. They appear to be mostly isolated catastrophes. Sadly, this kind of stuff happens a fair bit, and in our uber-connected world, it's getting easier and easier to share when they do. Although I do admit that some of the purported explanations thus far sound kind of far-fetched. The 100 or so dead jackdaws in Sweden were explained by a veterinarian to a local news outlet: "Our main theory is that the birds were scared away because of the fireworks and landed on the road, but couldn't fly away from the stress and were hit by a car."

One car? Really? I can't imagine being the driver who kills 100 birds simultaneously. But the other incidents, perhaps, have better explanations that are largely due to either weather (cold snap) or environmental factors (fireworks, lightening, disease). As for Britain's crabs -- well, it turns out that this is the third year in a row it has happened, which may or may not be comforting, depending on how you look at things.

The only upside to these die-offs has been the rapt attention of readers, which is great; however, no offense to jackdaws and dead devil crabs, but there are a whole lot of other species on the brink that could use the publicity.

Tens of thousands of trees are being felled on National Trust-owned forests in the southwest of England in an attempt to stop a disease spreading which threatens to destroy up to 100 species of hardwoods and conifers.

The disease, known as "sudden oak death", was discovered in shrubs in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset five years ago after it was introduced by an infected plant from the United States. It has also been found in Ireland.

It has since been discovered in the larch, a conifer, and most significantly in rhododendrons, which have defied efforts over decades by foresters to get rid of the pest that was brought into the UK in the 19th century.

Nearly 60,000 larch trees are being felled in two forests in Somerset in an attempt to stop the spread of the airborne fungus, which has already been found in more than 2,000 hectares of land in the region.

Magnetic North Is On The Move

A surface low will develop in Eastern Texas by later Sunday. This will likely bring a snow belt beginning from Dallas/Fort Worth eastward and through the beginning of next week significant snowfall may be possible across the Deep South.

It is quite likely that if the current pattern holds, cold air advecting intot he air on top of a very cold air mass in the mid-levels will make for heavy snowfall. These numbers are not a normal number seen.

In fact, this is quite opposite of La Nina's pattern and a realistic six to eight inches of snow will be possible through Southern Arkansas, Central MS, Central AL, Central GA, and Western SC and the southern range.

The National Weather Service in North Little Rock examined a speck on the radar that showed up around the same time all the birds fell out of the sky from alleged trauma on New Year's Eve.