Earth ChangesS


Bug

Rasberry crazy ants starting to appear in Williamson and Travis counties, Texas

Claire Osborn
Statesman.com
Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:35 UTC
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© David J. Phillip/APExterminator Tom Rasberry lets his namesake crazy ants crawl on his arm in 2008. The ants don't bite, but they can cause more trouble than fire ants.

There's a new ant in town, and wherever it goes, fire ants start disappearing. It also doesn't sting or bite. But don't get excited yet. The Rasberry crazy ant which showed up in Travis County and Round Rock this fall swarms into homes by the hundreds of thousands in search of food.

In the Houston area, where the ants are much more prevalent, they have already made some homeowners miserable, said Roger Gold, professor of entomology at Texas A&M University.

"People that have them said they wish they had the fire ants back," he said. "We have pictures of families sweeping them up with brooms where there are piles of ants. ... They can get into AC systems and short them out."

When the ants get electrocuted they produce a pheromone that causes other ants to rush in, Gold said, leading to so many ants in the electrical system that it shorts out. An infestation of the ants temporarily shut down a Pasadena chemical plant, causing a $1 million loss, he said.

"They have huge populations made up of hundreds of thousands to multiple millions," Gold said.
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Cloud Lightning

Flash Flood Warning - Texas community absorbs 10 inches of rain in a few hours

Nick Valencia
CNN
Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:31 UTC
A community just outside of Austin, Texas, was pounded by about 10 inches of rain over a few hours early Tuesday, causing flash floods and leaving at least 15 residences surrounded by water, a Texas emergency management official told CNN.

Webberville, Texas, near the western edge of Bastrop County, received about 10 inches of rain starting around 5 a.m., according to Mike Fisher, the county's emergency management coordinator.

"Residents at the end of the subdivision are our concern right now, if anybody's home," Fisher said around midmorning, before the water started receding.

At least four residences were evacuated, but it was unclear how many people were affected by the flooding, he said.

"It was a slow-moving thunderstorm that came through in that one particular little spot of Webberville," Fisher said.

By 12:30 p.m. the water had receded and everything was "back to normal," said Sue Cerf of emergency management department. No one was injured, she said.
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Cloud Lightning

Torrential Rain - Scotland put on weather alert as heavy rain and floods are set to cause chaos


Daily Record
Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:27 UTC
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© UnknownParts of Edinburgh have already been flooded this week
Torrential rain could chaos traffic chaos and flooding across Scotland in the next 36 hours - with Edinburgh and East Lothian set to be hit hardest.

The Met Office have issued rain alerts for most of Scotland, including an Amber Warning of likely flooding covering South West Scotland and the Lothian and Borders area.

The Scottish Environmental Portection Agency say Edinburgh and East Lothian in particular could be badly hit on Wednesday as river levels rise.

A Yellow Warning of potential flooding has also been issued for Central, Tayside, Fife and Strathclyde.

Transport Minister Keith Brown said: "Unfortunately some of those communities who were caught up in the heavy rain in over Edinburgh and the Lothians at the weekend are now being warned to expect more testing conditions over the next 24 to 36 hours.
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Snowflake

Cold snap in Chile kills 16 homeless persons


bbc.co.uk
Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:07 UTC
chile, homeless person
© ReutersPeople sleeping on the streets are being encouraged to seek shelter
Freezing temperatures in central and southern Chile have led to the deaths of 16 homeless people so far this year, officials say.

The latest deaths were at the weekend when two victims were found in the capital, Santiago.

Temperatures in some parts of the city dropped to -8C, but forecasters said the cold snap was set to ease.
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Bizarro Earth

Hurricane Emilia packs the biggest punch of 2012 season- swells to Category 4

Andrea Thompson
Cristian Science Monitor
Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:44 UTC
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© REUTERS/NASAHurricane Emilia shown in the eastern Pacific Ocean when still designated a tropical storm in this July 8, 2012 NASA satellite image. Emilia's maximum sustained winds have now reached 140 miles per hour, as a Category 4 hurricane.
Hurricane Emilia has swelled to a Category 4 hurricane, the first major hurricane of this season. Hurricane Emilia, 700 miles southwest of Baja California, is expected to go out to sea.

Within 24 hours of becoming a hurricane, Hurricane Emilia has rapidly strengthened into a major Category 4 storm, making it the strongest storm of the hurricane season so far.

Emilia first formed as a tropical storm on Saturday night, and strengthened into a hurricane early yesterday morning (July 9). It then rapidly gained Category 2 strength on the Saffir-Simpson scale and as of this morning had strengthened further into a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (220 kph).
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Calculator

US Drought Could Trigger Higher Food Prices

Steve Baragona
Voice of America
Tue, 10 Jul 2012 07:03 UTC
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© APThe ground is cracked at the edge of a corn field near England, Arkansas, where oppressive heat is affecting the crop.
World food prices are likely to rise in the coming months in the wake of record-breaking temperatures and drought in the major maize and soybean producing regions of the United States, economists say.

It would be the third spike in food prices in the past five years.

Previous hikes - during 2007 and 2008, and again in 2010 and 2011 - triggered riots and social instability in dozens of countries around the world.

Whether rising food prices will again trigger unrest is unclear, especially since different crops are affected.

Crops shrinking

Despite early predictions of a record maize crop, estimates have plummeted after a string of record-high temperature days and dry conditions stretching across the farm states of the U.S. Midwest.

"We need rain, and it doesn't look like we're going to get it," says Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes.

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Sun

U.S. Corn Growers Farming in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads

Jeff Wilson
Business Week
Mon, 09 Jul 2012 06:55 UTC
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© Erik M. Lunsford/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT/Zuma PressCorn in Belleville, Illinois.
The worst U.S. drought since Ronald Reagan was president is withering the world's largest corn crop, and the speed of the damage may spur the government to make a record cut in its July estimate for domestic inventories.

Tumbling yields will combine with the greatest-ever global demand to leave U.S. stockpiles on Sept. 1, 2013, at 1.216 billion bushels (30.89 million metric tons), according to the average of 31 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That's 35 percent below the U.S. Department of Agriculture's June 12 forecast, implying the biggest reduction since at least 1973. The USDA updates its harvest and inventory estimates July 11.

Crops on July 1 were in the worst condition since 1988, and a Midwest heat wave last week set or tied 1,067 temperature records, government data show. Prices surged 37 percent in three weeks, and Rabobank International said June 28 that corn may rise 9.9 percent more by December to near a record $8 a bushel. The gain is threatening to boost food costs the United Nations says fell 15 percent from a record in February 2011 and feed prices for meat producers including Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD)
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Cloud Lightning

Floods damage Russian grain export routes

Melissa Akin
Reuters
Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:46 UTC
Floods that hit Russia's Black Sea coast have wrought chaos on major road and rail links to its main grain export outlet, but stocks at the port of Novorossiisk are high and may delay any impact on exports, traders and analysts said on Monday.

The effects were likely to be short-lived but laid bare the infrastructure risks faced by Russia as it attempts to secure and strengthen its status as a dominant global wheat exporter by exploiting its vast reserves of farmland.

Russian Railways said it had halted rail traffic to the port of Novorossiisk to repair a bridge southwest of Krymsk, the town hardest hit when floodwaters came crashing down suddenly in the early hours of Saturday, killing at least 171 people.

The state rail operator said the rail bed also was washed out in places. Later in the day it said traffic had resumed between Krymsk and Novorossiisk, but only southbound trains were moving and passenger trains had priority.

The Russian government has an ambitious target for grain exports to rise to 40 million tonnes a year. Russia emerged from a catastrophic drought in the 2010/11 crop year to export a record 28 million tonnes in the year to June 2012, IKAR analysts said on Monday.

The biggest obstacle to export growth is infrastructure. Novorossiisk, the main grain export port, has two terminals that are linked to the wheat fields north of the Caucasus mountain foothills by a single rail link and by mountain roads.
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Powertool

Earthquake-damaged Washington Monument may be closed into 2014

Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post
Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:37 UTC
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Source: National Park Service. Cristina Rivero/The Washington Post. Published on July 9, 2012, 7:55 p.m.
Repairs that could keep the earthquake-damaged Washington Monument closed into 2014 will require the exterior and part of the interior of the 555-foot structure to be shrouded in scaffolding, the National Park Service has announced.

The estimated $15 million project will necessitate the temporary removal of part of the granite plaza surrounding the monument, and the bracing of huge stone slabs that now rest on cracked supports near the structure's top.

Robert A. Vogel, superintendent of the Park Service's National Mall and Memorial Parks, said the project also may require the temporary removal of some of the plaza's flagpo
les and benches.

The marble and granite monument was extensively damaged by the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the area last Aug. 23.
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Arrow Down

45-foot deep sinkhole closes US 24 north of Leadville, Colorado

Randy Wyrick
Vail Daily
Tue, 10 Jul 2012 05:28 UTC
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© Vail DailyA 45-foot hole under the highway between Red Cliff and Leadville will keep US 24 closed indefinitely.
A 45-foot hole under the highway between Red Cliff and Leadville will keep road closed indefinitely

Leadville - A 20-by-30-foot round sinkhole that is at least 45 feet deep is keeping U.S. Highway 24 north of Leadville closed indefinitely.

Forty-five feet is as deep as Colorado Department of Transportation crews could measure Monday afternoon before engineers and geologists arrived, said Ashley Mohr, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

After about 45 feet deep, the hole starts to curl back under the highway, sort of like an asphalt-eating serpent. They're not entirely certain how far it curls under the highway, Mohr said, they're just certain that it does.

The hole puts the highway, and motorists, in danger. CDOT closed the highway Monday afternoon to traffic in both directions.

It'll stay closed until they can figure out what happened and how they might fix it.

Comment: It might be 'your' second sinkhole in recent years, but in the meantime Sott.net has received hundreds of sinkhole reports from all over the globe. Search 'intitle: sinkhole'...

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