Earth ChangesS


Snowman

Early snow records set to be broken

Image
© europics.atAustria’s provincial capitals are expected to see their earliest snowfalls in history today (Mon) as Arctic air sweeps the country.
Austria's provincial capitals are expected to see their earliest snowfalls in history today (Mon) as Arctic air sweeps the country.

Josef Haselhofer from Vienna's Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) said today (Mon) Arctic air would probably result in the first snow cover in provincial capitals before 20 October in history and said Innsbruck, Salzburg and St. Pölten were likely to see snow.

He said as much as 30 to 40 centimetres of snow was likely down to 1,200 metres and snow could fall as low as 400 metres later this week, adding it had already begun to fall in Vorarlberg. He also predicted low temperatures would be minus five degrees at higher elevations and zero degrees in the lowlands by Thursday morning.

Haselhofer warned of possible impassable snow drifts in some places and the danger of avalanches in low-lying areas.

Bizarro Earth

Water demand puts Canadian rivers at risk

Mackenzie River
© Rick Bowmer/Associated PressThe Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories is under threat, according to a WWF-Canada study released Thursday.
Increasing demands on Canada's fresh water is putting rivers at risk, according to a new report.

Growing more food, generating more electricity, expanding cities and industry are all taking a toll on Canada's rivers, according to the World Wildlife Fund Canada.

The report released Thursday, Canada's Rivers at Risk: Environmental Flows and Canada's Freshwater Future, examines the health of 10 major rivers from the perspective of water flow.

"As temperatures rise, and industrial water withdrawals and interest in hydropower increase, we must start planning now to protect river flows to ensure water security for the communities and economies that depend on them," said Tony Maas, director of fresh water with WWF-Canada.

Cloud Lightning

El Nino's predicted winter footprints: Warm for US West and North; opposite for Southeast

The Midwest and Northern United States are likely to get a warmer winter, while the Southeast can expect just the opposite: cooler and wetter conditions.

In Thursday's winter outlook, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says an El Nino weather event - warming in parts of the Pacific that affects weather worldwide - will be a major player in America's winter temperatures.

Forecasters predict warmer than usual temperatures would reach a swath from Washington to Michigan, dipping south to central New Mexico. Alaska also has a higher chance of warmer temperatures.

They also say cooler temperatures are expected from southern Texas to the Mid-Atlantic and in Hawaii.

Other places, such as the Northeast and California, can go any which way on temperatures.

Cloud Lightning

Hurricane Rick builds to Category 5 off Mexico

Image
© AP Photo/NOAAThis image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Rick taken at 11 p.m. EDT Saturday Oct. 17, 2009.
Hurricane Rick grew Saturday into the strongest storm in the eastern North Pacific Ocean in more than a decade.

The 'extremely dangerous' Category 5 hurricane had sustained winds of 180 mph (285 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported, though it said Rick was likely to lose some of that punch before hitting land.

The hurricane was projected to stay well off the Mexican coast for several days before bending east over cooler waters and hitting the Baja California Peninsula as a Category 1 or Category 2 hurricane sometime Wednesday.

Authorities in the resort city of Acapulco closed the port to small craft after Rick kicked up heavy waves and gusts of wind.

Acapulco's Civil Protection Department had warned that rains from the outer bands of the storm could cause landslides and flooding in the resort city, but no such effects were reported.

Cloud Lightning

Pacific storm Rick strengthens to hurricane

Washington - Pacific storm Rick reached hurricane strength on Friday and was forecast to become a powerful category four storm by early next week, the US national weather service said.

The hurricane was churning off Mexico's southern coast Friday, with maximum sustained winds nearing 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour.

At 8:00am Pacific time (1500 GMT) Rick's center was about 290 miles (470 kilometers) south of Acapulco, Mexico.

Cloud Lightning

Looming Storm Prompts Philippines Evacuation Call

Flood
© AP Photo/Pat RoqueResidents use an elevated footbridge built on a road intersection as others ride on a makeshift outrigger passing below the bridge on a flooded street Friday, Oct. 16, 2009 in Pasig City, east of Manila, Philippines.
Manila - Officials told residents still reeling from mudslides that recently buried hundreds in the northern Philippine mountains to be ready to abandon their homes again if a storm approaching Friday becomes the third typhoon in a month to hit the country.

The warning came after back-to-back storms since Sept. 26 caused the worst flooding in 40 years in and around the capital Manila and unleashed landslides in the Cordillera mountains in the north of the country, killing 773 people and affecting more than 7 million.

Tropical Storm Lupit may intensify into a super typhoon by the time it makes landfall next week with winds up to 143 miles (230 kilometers) per hour, forecasters said. It was expected to enter Philippine waters late Friday.

Evil Rays

Java earthquake causes minor damage

Indonesia was hit by its second earthquake in just over two weeks earlier today when a quake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck in the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java, around 200 kilometres to the west of the capital Jakarta.

Buildings in the capital swayed for several minutes, but there appears to be little damage and so far there are no reports of casualties. The earthquake on 30 September which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale killed at least 1,115 people on the island of Sumatra.

Cloud Lightning

Lucky strike: San Francisco photographer captures dramatic lightning on early morning drive

If woken by a tumultuous storm outside, most of us will wisely pull the covers over our heads and try to go back to sleep. For one plucky photographer though, it was the chance to dash outside and capture some truly electric images.

Frank Fennema, 56 from California made the trip from his home in Tiburon, north of San Francisco, down to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Image
© Frank Fennemma

Bizarro Earth

Satellite Data Look Behind the Scenes of Deadly Earthquake

Surface
© Jianbao Sun; ALOS data: JAXAAn ALOS Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) interferogram that shows the surface deformation associated with the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.
Using satellite radar data and GPS measurements, Chinese researchers have explained the exceptional geological events leading to the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake that killed nearly 90,000 people in China's Sichuan Province.

"One of the very fundamental issues for understanding an earthquake is to know how the rupture is distributed on the fault plane, which is directly related to the amount of ground shaking and the damage it could cause at the surface," said Dr Jianbao Sun of the Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration (IGCEA).

To learn this, Sun and Prof. Zhengkang Shen of IGCEA and Peking University's Department of Geophysics, and collaborators acquired two kinds of satellite radar data: Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) data in C-band from ESA's Envisat satellite and Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data from Japan's ALOS satellite.

Applying a technique called SAR Interferometry (InSAR) on the data, the researchers produced a set of 'interferogram' images covering the entire coseismic rupture region and its vicinity. This interferometric map revealed the amount and scope of surface deformation produced by the earthquake.

Bizarro Earth

5.7 Earthquake Hits Andaman, Santa Cruz Islands

A moderate earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale hit Andaman Islands region at 5.29pm on Wednesday, the Malaysian Meteorological Department said.

In a statement, it said the quake's epicentre was 65km northeast of Little Andaman, India and 908km northeast of Langkawi, Kedah.

Meanwhile, a weak 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck Santa Cruz Islands at 5.35pm.

The earthquake's epicentre was 751km southeast of Honiara, Solomon Islands and 5,627km southeast of Kunak, Sabah.