Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Britain freezes on the coldest October night for 17 years as mercury plummets to -6C

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Last winter the UK and much of Northern Europe were hit by severe snow and ice
Given the unexpectedly cold nights Britain has been enduring over the last few days, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was January instead of October.

It will come as no surprise then that the wintry conditions made last night the coldest in October for 17 years in some regions.

Temperatures in West Freugh in south-west Scotland dipped to a bone-rattling -5.2C, falling below the previous record of -5.1C which was endured in October 1993.

But it was even colder in Sennybridge, south Wales, where the mercury dropped to -6.4C, beating the -6.2C record set 13 years ago in 1997.

Met Office spokesman Charlie Powell said: 'Last night was the coldest in Sennybridge for 17 years and was very cold everywhere.

'It was well below freezing across the bulk of the UK.'

The outlook for this week is marginally better, with temperatures picking up slightly, although it will remain cold.

Tonight will remain dry with clear skies for most places, although it will be breezy along the North Sea coast with a chance of the odd shower.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 7.7 - Kepulauan Mentawai Region

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Monday, October 25, 2010 at 14:42:22 UTC

Monday, October 25, 2010 at 09:42:22 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
3.484°S, 100.114°E

Depth:
20.6 km (12.8 miles)

Region:
KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA

Distances:
240 km (150 miles) W of Bengkulu, Sumatra, Indonesia

280 km (175 miles) S of Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia

305 km (190 miles) W of Lubuklinggau, Sumatra, Indonesia

795 km (500 miles) WNW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Question

US: Mountain goat kills man in Olympic National Park

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Robert H. Boardman was with wife and a friend
Robert H. Boardman set out on a hike Saturday with his wife and a friend on an Olympic National Park trail popular because it is short, beautiful and close to town.

The Port Angeles man never completed it.

Boardman, 63, died after trying to shoo away a mountain goat at the top of Klahhane Ridge, about four miles north of the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center, National Park Service officials said Sunday.

He is believed to be the first person to have died in an incident involving an animal in the park, spokeswoman Barb Maynes said. Rangers found and killed the animal, which was to be taken to Monroe for a necropsy, she said.

Accounts of the incident are murky.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia orders evacuations as volcano threat peaks

Indonesia raised its alert for Mount Merapi to its highest level on Monday and ordered people living near the rumbling volcano to move immediately to safer ground. Seismic activity has escalated dramatically at the volcano on the densely populated island of Java, with increasing lava spurts and about 500 multi-phased volcanic earthquakes recorded over the weekend, officials said.

The state office of volcanology upgraded its alert level to red at 6:00 am (2300 GMT), signalling an eruption could be imminent.

"The magma has been pushed upwards due to the escalating seismic energy and it's about a kilometre (mile) below the crater," government volcanologist Surono said.

People had been ordered to evacuate a danger zone of 10 kilometres (six miles) from the crater of the 2,914-metre (9,616-foot) mountain.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 4.6 - Wyoming

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 17:43:59 UTC

Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 11:43:59 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
43.626°N, 110.331°W

Depth:
5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region:
WYOMING

Distances:
40 km (25 miles) ENE of Jackson, Wyoming

60 km (35 miles) W of Dubois, Wyoming

95 km (60 miles) NNW of Pinedale, Wyoming

530 km (330 miles) WNW of CHEYENNE, Wyoming

Newspaper

California, US: Three Beaches Closed After Deadly Shark Attack

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© Spencer Weiner/AP PhotoAirmen 1st class Daniel Clark, left, and Staff Sgt. Keri Embry, post a sign warning surfers of a recent shark attack Friday, Oct. 22, 2010, at Vandenburg Air Force Base, Calif.
A string of beaches on California's Central Coast were shut down Saturday and there was no word on when they would reopen after a deadly attack on a bodyboarder from what some scientists said was probably a great white shark, authorities said.

The three beaches north of Santa Barbara - including Surf Beach where the attack took place - would be closed at least through the weekend and officials on Monday would decide when to reopen them, said Jeremy Eggers, spokesman for Vandenberg Air Force Base, which owns the beach property.

Eggers said he expected base officials would reopen the beaches Monday, but there was too much uncertainty and confusion surrounding the attack to say for sure.

"There's a lot of fog and friction in these kinds of situations," said Eggers. He said his bosses determined the shutdown "was the right thing to do as a safety precaution."

Binoculars

Dolphins "Walk" on Water

Dolphins in the wild are teaching themselves to "walk" with their tails along the surface of water, biologists have claimed.


The mammals, which are celebrated for their playful natures, are developing the skill "just for fun", according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) in Australia.

Dolphin tail-walking has no known practical function and has been likened to dancing in humans.

WDCS researcher Dr Mike Bossley, who has observed Adelaide's Port River dolphins for the past 24 years, said he had documented spectacular tail walking in two adult female dolphins, known as Billie and Wave.

Bizarro Earth

Thai floods 'worst in 50 years'

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© ReutersResidents carrying their belongings wade through floodwaters in Nakhon Ratchasima province, north-east of Bangkok, in Thailand.
A quarter of Thailand has been inundated in the worst flooding in half a century with riverside areas of Bangkok set to be affected by rising water.

The death toll from the floods has now risen to 12 and is mainly attributed to flash flooding which has washed away homes.

Four people died in Buriram, in eastern Thailand, as waters gushed through the streets, while the death toll in severely affected Nakhon Ratchasima has risen to four.

The central provinces of Rayong and Trat have both reported one casualty, while a further two people were killed in Lopburi.

Rescue teams have helped evacuate stranded people by boat, as homes and huge swathes of farmland have been deluged.

The area to the north-east of Bangkok is worst affected after twice the amount of rain compared to this time last year.

Cloud Lightning

7 die in typhoon-triggered landslide at temple

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© Associated PressEmergency rescue team members extract a body from the flood debris caused by passing Typhoon Megi at a temple in Ilan county, north eastern Taiwan on Friday.
Seven people were killed when a mudslide buried a Buddhist temple and a bus containing 19 Chinese tourists was missing Friday, as one of the worst typhoons in 50 years battered Taiwan.

Six other people were missing and a number of vehicles were trapped on a highway as Typhoon Megi swept toward southern China, where landfall is expected late Friday or Saturday.

The storm earlier killed 26 people and damaged homes and crops in the Philippines.

Megi dumped a record 45 inches of rain in Taiwan's Ilan county over 48 hours. It had winds of 90 mph and was about 275 miles southeast of Hong Kong on Friday evening local time, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

The seven people who died were at the White Cloud Temple in Suao city along the eastern coast when it was engulfed by the mudslide, Taiwanese cable TV stations reported.

Cloud Lightning

Two dozen missing in Taiwan as typhoon nears China

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© HKO/AFPTwo dozen missing in Taiwan as typhoon nears China
Typhoon Megi unleashed torrential rains over Taiwan leaving two dozen people missing and hundreds more trapped by landslides Friday, as it bore down on cities along China's southeast coastline.

Megi, the strongest storm to hit the northwest Pacific in two decades, has already killed at least 36 people in the Philippines and was expected to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday in Fujian province in southeast China.

Authorities have evacuated more than 150,000 people from low-lying areas of the province, while 10,000 others have been moved to safer ground in Guangdong. Thousands of fishing boats have been ordered not to put to sea.

"Megi could bring the largest concentration of rainfall this year and will have a serious impact on the province's coast," Fujian's civil affairs department said in a statement.

Projections by the Hong Kong Observatory showed the typhoon was likely hit near the southern Chinese cities of Xiamen and Shantou -- between them home to more than seven million people.