Temperatures in Moscow may be scorching this week, but in southern Siberia the weather has proven to be a whole lot chillier - and destructive.

At least seven people suffered serious head injuries after walls of hail the size of golf balls rained down on residents in the Altai Republic, the local branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry said Tuesday.

About 3,000 buildings and countless cars were damaged in the downpour, which shattered an estimated 1,600 square meters of glass, the ministry said in a statement.

A video uploaded to YouTube attests to the size of the hail, which fell Monday in the region's Maiminsky and Gorno-Altai districts.

Winter comes to summer including freak hailstorms, mega-flooding but also wild fires.
Thermometers have been yo-yoing in July as Siberia copes with weather extremes that have seen record-breaking summer temperatures in major cities. Despite this, freak hailstones larger than hen eggs hit Kemerovo while a beach and park in Novosibirsk was left with an icy sheen of white, like in winter.

In Chelyabinsk region on the western fringe of Siberia, snow fell giving a ground cover of up to an unprecedented ten centimetres in the southern Urals.

In Magadan, in the extreme east, three months of rain fell in a day and a half, with locals water skiing along highways.

Last month, Yakutsk - capital of Siberia's coldest republic, Sakha, also known as Yakutia, recorded its highest-ever 21 June temperature of 35C.

The Earth sings every day, with an electric chorus. With the right tuning, radios can eavesdrop on this sizzling symphony of crackles, pops and whistles - the melody of millions of lightning bolts. A listener in New Zealand can even hear a volcano in Alaska erupt, a new study reports.

Lightning strikes unleash intense bursts of visible light and very-low-frequency (VLF) radio waves, among other kinds of energy. With a VLF receiver, anyone can listen to the constant chatter of Earth's lightning, estimated at 8 million strikes every day. (Not every lightning bolt becomes a whistler.)


A worldwide listening network is tuned to one particular lightning sound, called whistlers. These eerie electronic signals supposedly got their name from soldiers, who compared the sound to falling grenades. Modern ears might liken whistlers to a video game's "pew-pew-pew" soundtrack. [Listen to the Volcanic Whistling]

Whistlers are pulses of VLF radio energy that have traveled into space, leaping from one side of Earth to the other along the planet's magnetic field lines. Scientists monitor whistlers because the beautiful noise tells them about the planet's protective bubble of charged particles, called the plasmasphere. Whistlers on Venus and Jupiter suggest lightning also crackles on other planets.

Now, however, researchers have also linked a flurry of whistlers detected in Dunedin, New Zealand, to processes deep inside the Earth. For the first time, scientists have connected whistlers to volcanic lightning, according to a study published July 2 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"I think it's really cool," said Jacob Bortnik, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. "We're establishing a new connection between deep Earth and space."

Firefighters have rescued people trapped in their homes and cars following flash flooding in west London this morning.

The Met Office recorded more than 42.6mm of rainfall in Northolt at 8am, causing train stations and roads to be closed off in the Hillingdon area.

In some areas, more than two weeks' worth of rain fell in an hour.

Fire crews rescued two women who became stuck in a car engulfed in floodwater close to South Ruislip Station. The women escaped uninjured but they were forced to leave the car in situ.

50 properties were reported to have been flooded on Bedford Road in Ruislip. Tube lines were also hit with the Metropolitan Line suspended between Ruislip and Rayners Lane.

The A40 Western Avenue in Uxbridge was closed because of flooding and the AA's Special Operations Response Team said six cars were stuck in floodwater in the surrounding area.

Dozens of dedicated bird watchers have been getting into a flap at a beauty spot near Tamworth after an ultra-rare bird flew in - thousands of miles from where he should be.

Flustered 'twitchers' have descended on the RSPB's Middleton lakes armed with long-lens cameras after a Pacific Golden Plover was spotted in the site's Jubilee Wetlands.


The arrival of the bird, which is spotted gold and black on the crown, back and wings, was quite a surprise.

That's because at this time the year it should be in its breeding ground, thousands of miles away in the Arctic tundra, from northernmost Asia into western Alaska.

There have been several significant developments over the past few decades in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) which now require special and immediate attention. The multitude of oil spills - both large and small - require extraordinary remediation measures, as well as the application of safe and proven technologies which will not make the existing hydrocarbon pollution worse. There are other major sources of water pollution in the GOM which have also became apparent, particularly since the eye-opening 2010 BP oil spill.

The Gulf of Mexico is Dying: A Special Report On The BP Gulf Oil Spill

The BP Gulf Oil Spill drew the world's attention to the GOM for a variety of reasons. The sheer volume of oil spilt was unprecedented, as were its profound and lasting effects on a large geographic area. Because it occurred in such a large body of water, many population centers were adversely impacted as they continue to be up to this very day. However, it was the incompetent and negligent oil spill response from BP that received the justified scrutiny of the entire world.

Some have since advanced the notion that global oil spill response has been forever changed for the better, because of how profoundly BP mismanaged the spill for all to see. In this regard, they speak of a literal sea change regarding the methodologies and modalities, process and procedure, science and technology that are now accepted by many of the nations of the world.

The entire world watched in horror as millions of gallons of the dispersant Corexit were used to 'disappear' the gushing oil in the Macondo Prospect throughout 2010 and beyond. Disappearing the oil actually meant sinking it, after micronizing it, so that both BP and the US Federal Government could be 'applauded' for a successful response. However, the known health risks/dangers and environmental damage caused by Corexit became so well publicized that it has now been banned in those countries which have learned from the BP fiasco. The following article provides more details in this regard.

Reindeer herders find more craters in the far north in a deepening puzzle for scientists.
Millions of people around the world glimpsed the first giant hole after it was revealed by The Siberian Times here and on The Siberian TimesTV here.

Now news has emerged of two new similar formations in the permafrost, prompting more intrigue about their creation.

You probably haven't heard about this from the mainstream media.

Arctic approaches ten year summer sea ice maximum

Thanks to jbird for this link

"Check it out while there is still time, i.e. before they change the data," says jbird.

Source: ocean.dmi.dk

The drought is bringing out all kinds of animals, but one has a bite you don't want to mess with.

Len Ramirez says his rattlesnake removal business says this is one of the busiest year's he's seen in nearly 30 years. And it's only halfway done. "We've made four calls today, and tonight I don't know how many I'm going to make this evening, but it's going to be a long evening," he said.

A room where he keeps rattlesnakes he catches before releasing them into the wild is evidence of how busy he's been. "We've removed 72 rattlesnakes this week," he said.

Drought conditions have kept the calls coming in from people spooked by a snake that's way too close for comfort. "For a lot of homeowners just moving in from the Bay Area, first-time encounter with a rattlesnake is very scary," he said.

More snakes are coming closer to homes, something he says is likely because of the drought. People aren't watering as much, so there isn't water all over the ground away from homes. That leads rodents that are a food source for the snakes closer to homes in search of water.

He says pets could be most at risk if they accidentally sniff a spot a rattlesnake calls home. He also recommends keeping garage doors closed.

As is usually the case, Britain has paid for its blast of summery weather with lashings of hail, lightning strikes and flooding.

Storms hit the Hove, Brighton and Worthing areas of Sussex during Monday morning rush hour.

A lightning strike caused electrical supply problems for rail passengers while some commuters were forced to struggle through a hail storm in an experience described by one as a "zombie apocalypse".