Earth Changes

Residents watching out for flash floods in Louisiana

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch
NOLA.com
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:34 UTC

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser is advising residents to stay off the roads on Thursday. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch until 2 p.m. Thursday and flash flood watch until Thursday evening for most of southeast Louisiana.

View full size Heavy rain is expected in southeast Louisiana today. National Weather Service

Plaquemines drainage canals have been pumped down and all drainage pump stations are fully staffed, according to Plaquemines Parish government.

Severe winter storm brings snow, flash flooding and strong winds to Mideast

Jamal Halaby & Barbara Surk
The Associated Press
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:03 UTC

© Bilal Hussein/The Associated Press
Syrian refugee children have a snowball fight at the mountain town of Bhamdoun, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday. The fiercest winter storm to hit the Middle East in years has unleashed flash flooding, strong winds and a snowstorm that killed six people in the past few days.

Amman, Jordan - The fiercest winter storm to hit the Mideast in years brought a rare foot of snow to Jordan on Wednesday, caused fatal accidents in Lebanon and the West Bank, and disrupted traffic on the Suez Canal in Egypt. At least eight people died across the region.

In Lebanon, the Red Cross said storm-related accidents killed six people over the past two days. Several drowned after slipping into rivers from flooded roads, one person froze to death and another died after his car went off a slippery road, according to George Kettaneh, operations director for the Lebanese Red Cross.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, a Palestinian official said two West Bank women drowned after their car was caught in a flash flood on Tuesday. Nablus deputy governor Annan Atirah said the women abandoned their vehicle after it got stuck on a flooded road, and their bodies were apparently swept away by surging waters. Their driver was hospitalized in critical condition.

In the Gaza Strip, civil defence spokesperson Mohammed al-Haj Yousef said storms cut electricity to thousands of Palestinian homes and rescuers were sent to evacuate dozens of people.

Athens snow closes roads and schools; city opens homeless shelters

ekathimerini.com
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:44 UTC

Heavy snowfall in northern parts of the Greek capital on Tuesday prompted authorities to close roads and schools, while municipal authorities made three public buildings to the homeless shelters as temperatures dropped to the 0-Celsius mark.

The Penteli ring road was closed early on Tuesday due to ice and fog and was reopened to traffic later in the morning, while Dionysos Avenue remains off limits from Anatoli to Dionysos and drivers were advised to use snow chains on the road between Katsimidiou and Aghiou Merkouriou in Tatoi.

The old national highway linking Thiva to Athens was shut off to lorries and other heavy vehicles, with regular cars allowed access only with snow chains, as the road leading from the funicular to Mont Parnes Casino on Mount Parnitha remained closed from Sunday.

Several schools were also given the day off in Dionysos, Penteli, Nea Penteli, Kapandriti, Kalamos, Malakasa, Petroupoli and Liosia, among other parts of northern Attica.

Meanwhile, the city of Athens opened three emergency centers for the homeless on Monday at buildings on the corners of Lenorman and Alexandreias, Mamouri and Dymis, and Aghiou Meletiou and Xenagora. The 1960 hotline will also be operating 24 hours a day where citizens can report the location of homeless people in distress.

Municipal day centers for the elderly (KAPI) will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, providing heated shelter.

The meteorological service expects the cold snap to continue through Wednesday, with temperatures starting to climb back up on Thursday and Friday.

Russian Trans-Caucasian highway closed due to heavy snowfall

The Voice of Russia
Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:28 UTC

Storm hits displaced Syrians, turning Jordanian camp into freezing swamp

The Times of Israel
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:20 UTC

© AP/Mohammad Hannon
A Wounded Syrian refugee makes his way over water and mud at the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp, near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, on Tuesday

A winter storm is magnifying the misery for tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the country's civil war, turning a refugee camp into a muddy swamp where howling winds tore down tents and exposed the displaced residents to freezing temperatures.

Some frustrated refugees at a camp in Zaatari, where about 50,000 are sheltered, attacked aid workers with sticks and stones after the tents collapsed in 35 mph (60 kph) winds, said Ghazi Sarhan, spokesman for the Jordanian charity that helps run the camp. Police said seven Jordanian workers were injured.

After three days of rain, muddy water engulfed tents housing refugees including pregnant women and infants. Those who didn't move out used buckets to bail out the water; others built walls of mud to try to stay dry.

Biggest winter storm in a decade slams Israel bringing snow, floods

Haaretz
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:08 UTC

© Nir Keidar
Flooding in Taibeh
Snow envelops northern Israel, roads close due to ice; police close Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway; hundreds of people rescued from their homes after massive floods.

As Israel battled its stormiest winter in a decade, cities across the country found themselves nearly paralyzed. Major highways closed, power outages were reported, the entrance to Tel Aviv was all but blocked, and residents of some neighborhoods awaited possible word of evacuation.

The Ayalon River near Tel Aviv, usually a dry bed, flooded beyond capacity as storms overtook central Israel overnight Tuesday. The nearby Ayalon Highway was closed between Glilot Junction and Hashalom Street in both directions over the course of the morning, opening up from Hahalakha Junction northbound in the afternoon. Highway 1 was closed between Shapirim and Kibbutz Galuyot junctions in the early afternoon, and traffic was halted or congested across Tel Aviv through the morning and afternoon hours. The Israel Police has asked drivers to stay out of central Tel Aviv, and to avoid driving if possible.

Due to the weather, Israel's Airport Authority offers free bus service to Tel Aviv.

Price of vegetables in China jumps 55% in historic cold snap

Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:27 UTC

A cold snap in China hasn't gotten much attention here, but it might start to get more, as it's causing massive food inflation.

The Daily Dim Sum translates a Xinhua article:

Monitoring results of the Ministry of Agriculture show that prices of 27 vegetables in the first week of 2013 increased 4.5 percent week-on-week for an average price of CNY 4.17/kg. In the past ten weeks, average price of vegetables has jumped 55 percent.

Weather.com reports on the exact weather numbers:

China is experiencing unusual chills this winter with its national average temperature hitting the lowest in 28 years, and snow and ice have closed highways, canceled flights, stranded tourists and knocked out power in several provinces.

China Meteorological Administration on Friday said the national average was 25 degrees Fahrenheit since late November, the coldest in nearly three decades.

The average temperature in northeast China dipped to -4.5 degrees F, the coldest in 43 years, and dropped to a 42-year low of -18.7 degrees F in northern China.

Humpback grouper invades Keys waters from the Pacific - equivalent of a hunter in North America finding a zebra

Kevin Wadlow
Miami Herald
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:49 UTC

© Wayne Grammes / KeysNet.com
Greg Caterino of Tavernier hoists the humpback grouper -- a Pacific Ocean species -- he speared off North Key Largo in late December.

Deep-diving spearfishermen surfaced with a mystery last month south of Pacific Reef Light off North Key Largo. "I was shocked when I saw it," Wayne Grammes said. "It's an ugly-looking fish with a face on it that looks like a tripletail and a tail like a jewfish." The 15-pound, 27-inch fish speared by Greg Caterino of Tavernier turned out to be a humpback grouper - a species native not to Pacific Reef but to the tropical Pacific Ocean off Asia. "This is the equivalent of a hunter in North America finding a zebra," said Grammes, who was fishing Dec. 23 with Caterino.

"We've seen the successful marine invasion of lionfish," Reef Environmental Education Foundation Project Director Lad Akins said this week. "We certainly do not want to see it happen again with another Pacific species." Akins, a renowned expert in fish identification, confirmed the speared fish was a humpback grouper. With an array of black spots, it's also known as a panther grouper.

"This is not the first time these have been sighted in Florida," Akins said. "There have been five or six reported as far back as the 1980s, but all from different parts of the state." "The juveniles are really popular in the aquarium trade," Akins said. "It's quite likely that this is released fish."

Young humpback grouper sport a brilliant white color with an attractive spray of black spots. But they outgrow most privately owned saltwater tanks - and cast a hungry eye on other tank fish. "Just like lionfish, they are carnivores," Akins said.

Yellowstone and Louisiana sinkhole jarred by 7.5 magnitude Alaskan earthquake?

BeforeItsNews.com
Sat, 05 Jan 2013 08:03 UTC

The following graphs/charts show that the 7.5 Earthquake that struck Alaska earlier today also dealt a jarring blow to both the Yellowstone Supervolcano as well as to the Louisiana Sinkhole. According to the USGS, the Alaskan quake struck on 2013-01-05 at 08:58:19 UTC. The charts below show proof that the EQ was felt at both the Yellowstone Supervolcano as well as at the Louisiana Sinkhole. The first chart below shows the Alaska EQ in blue and Yellowstone's reaction to it in red. Purple shows the overlap. Source

Earthquake swarm rattles seafloor along Carlsberg Ridge, Indian Ocean

The Extinction Protocol
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 07:49 UTC

Because the Carlsberg Ridge is one of the slowest-spreading, and so supposedly less active oceanic ridges, many had thought it unlikely to be the location of a major volcanic eruption.. At ridges such as this, heat is thought to be released more slowly from the underlying magma. However, we may have to rethink that previous assessment. The Carlsberg Ridge region is currently being shaken by a major seismic swarm, which could very well be volcanic in nature. The strongest tremor in the current swarm is a magnitude 5.0. Nature journal said in previous eruption, "A huge plume of hydrothermal chemicals, drifted up to 1.4 kilometers above the vent site and 70 kilometers along the underwater ridge was seen some years ago. It's by far the biggest vent plume ever seen, and confirms that such plumes form following volcanic eruptions at the sea floor, even at slow-spreading oceanic ridges." ¹