Earth Changes
Six deceased dolphins were found stranded on the northern point of Ruakākā Beach on Sunday. Locals suspect they went unnoticed due to the dense cloud covering the beach that morning.
Richard Addis discovered the dolphins around 10.30am on Sunday as he drove along the popular fishing spot in his 4WD with his two children.
Addis said the six dolphins, between six and eight feet long, were dead upon their arrival. He described himself and his children as feeling "sorry to see" such a sight.
Saturday's storms hit the region in two waves. The first round of thunderstorms swept toward the Golden Horseshoe during the morning hours, bringing widespread severe thunderstorm warnings to the region.
Communities in the path of those early storms saw high winds, large hail, and rotation. A funnel cloud was reported north of Caledonia, and experts are surveying damage in the area to see if a tornado touched down.

Chopper 12 was over the scene at Smith Point County Park’s outer beach where a dead humpback whale washed ashore early Friday.
Atlantic Marine Conservation Society Chief Scientist and Executive Director Rob DiGiovanni Jr. says the whale was over 35 feet long and looks to have been dead for a while.
He says this is the 13th deceased whale this year to wash up in the tri-state area.
"We are currently in the middle of an unusual mortality event for three species of large whales - the humpback whale, the right whale, as well as the minke whale," DiGiovanni says.
The girl and three others were swimming in Blue Hole Park in Mayes County on Saturday when lightning struck at about 10:45 a.m., local time. The girl died on Wednesday, according to KOAM. Her three companions were injured but have since been released from the hospital.
"Wadi Al Hajar", located in the Al-Dahra region and approximately 50 kilometres from the city centre of Ibri, is a renowned valley visited by locals and tourists alike during the rainy season.
Wildfires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, have destroyed homes and businesses in Lahaina, a beachfront town on the island of Maui that was once the capital of the kingdom of Hawaii. Dozens more people have been injured, and there have been 13 evacuations for three fires in the area.
Flames roared throughout the night and day, forcing adults and children to dive into the ocean for safety.
"As the firefighting efforts continue, 36 total fatalities have been discovered today amid the active Lahaina fire," a Maui county statement said. "No other details are available at this time."
Coral at the reef has been bouncing back sharply for a number of years, with a record 36-year high reported in 2022. But the news of this spectacular recovery has been largely ignored in most media since it had previously been a go-to poster scare story for collectivist Net Zero promoters. But connecting the fate of tropical corals to global warming was always a difficult ask since they grow in waters between 24-32°C. Short boosts in local temperatures can cause temporary bleaching, but it is scientifically impossible to pin it on human-caused climate change, although pseudoscientific 'attribution' computer models try very hard.
In the latest year, there was a short local temperature rise, but little bleaching was reported during the 2023 summer. No cyclones hit the reef and crown-of thorns starfish attacks were limited. Nevertheless, natural stresses will always affect the eco-system and AIMS states that these paused the growth of hard coral on some of the reefs.
Comment: Let's give Mother Earth a little credit regarding her cycles of growth and decline. To quote George Carlin: "The planet is fine, the humans are f****d!"

High waves crash a shore as the Tropical Storm Khanun approaches to the Korean Peninsular, in Busan, on Aug. 10.
More than a foot of rain fell in eastern and southern areas after the storm made landfall on the mainland in the morning. Emergency workers responded to increasing reports of flooding and landslides by the afternoon.
More than 15,000 people, mostly in southern regions, were evacuated from their homes as emergency workers responded to landslides, flood-damaged homes and rising rivers and streams. As of Thursday night, workers managed to restore electricity to 38,000 of the 40,300 homes that experienced power outages.
The two collared dingoes were involved in the separate attacks on Thursday, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service said.
The dangerous canines approached and circled seven adults at Eli Creek just before midday.
One dingo attacked, lunging at a woman and "mouthing" her on the thigh, before a member of the group threw a stick to scare the animals off.
Within minutes, the animal stalked a second woman at Eli Creek, on the island's eastern side, approaching her from behind.

The 9-foot shark found Monday was taken for a necropsy — animal autopsy — and found to be “in good overall body condition with no evidence of significant trauma.”
The latest incident was reported Monday, Aug. 7, and the male shark was still alive when it appeared on Greenwich Beach in Prince Edward Island National Park, according to the Marine Animal Response Society in Nova Scotia.
"Unfortunately, the animal passed," the society wrote in an Aug. 8 Facebook post. "Incidents involving endangered white sharks are usually very rare in the Maritimes (eastern provinces). However, this is the fourth animal in 9 months to have been reported ashore."
A cause remains vague.
Comment: Update August 11
The Independent (UK) reports: