Earth Changes
"Is that seriously happening out there right now?" flabbergasted Twitter user Michael Phillippi wrote on Twitter Sunday, in response to a photo of a winterlike scene shared by the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Duluth, Minnesota.
Phillippi is far from the only social media user to express his dismay with the winter display. Meteorologist Joe Moore declared the May snow in Duluth was 'CRAZY.' Many other social media users responded with disappointed memes about the snowy post.
The victims were standing under a thatched platform in the field located on the outskirts of Rajapur village of Dharur mandal in the district, taking cover from the unexpected heavy rain.
The victims were identified as Khaja Bee(38), her daughter Tabassum(16) and son Akram(12), while the head of the family Fakruddin received injuries in the incident. Two goats belonging to the family also died due to lightning. According to police, Fakruddin along with his second wife Khaja Bee and her two children went to their maize field located on the outskirts of the village.

Ominous moment caught on camera where a strong tornado slowly starts approaching Ballinger in West Texas.
The imposing twister was spotted in the town of Ballinger in Runnels County, central Texas, making its way across an empty field. Several structures can be seen in the background but it was unclear how far they were from the tornado.
Comment: Accuweather storm chaser, Reed Timmer recounts his up-close encounter with a tornado in McCook, Nebraska, one of several major tornadoes that touched down across the region.
More storm photos:

A tornado tore through a field between McCook and Culbertson, Nebraska Friday evening, May 17, 2019.

A rare occurrence of twin tornadoes touched down near Farnam, Nebraska on May, 17, 2019.
In Oman, images out of Muscat's international airport showed very strong downpours on Sunday evening. Visibility was reduced to several hundred metres and flights were delayed while the storms moved through.
A bit further south in Oman, the town of Sur has picked up 66mm of rain in the last 48 hours. This is well above average for the month of May when the town would normally only see about 1.7mm.
A family of 6, including a 28-day-old baby boy, were reported missing after their car was swept away in a flooded wadi in Oman.
According to the Times of Oman, the Indian family are feared dead after their day trip took a turn for the worst. The father of the family -- Sardar Fazal Ahmed -- recounted how the tragedy unfolded. The Oman-based expat said that he managed to hold on to a palm tree branch and pull himself out of the fast-flowing waters in Wadi Bani Khalid.
A look at the fast rising reservoir inflow totals at Oroville Dam as there is a possibility that it will fill to capacity like it did in 2017, using the emergency spillway.
Guardian changes lexicon to make climate change more scary.
Sources
Australia is normally the biggest wheat exporter in the Southern Hemisphere, but the prolonged drought has fried its grain crop in recent years. In 2018, output tumbled 20% to just over 17 million tonnes, the lowest in more than a decade, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
On May 9, 2019 the Australian government had no choice but to import 60,000 tons of wheat from Canada.
The cargo is expected to arrive in the next 6 to 8 weeks and will be processed at Manildra Group's Shoalhaven Starches plant in NSW.
Comment: From across the world some recent articles exploring similar themes of how increasingly extreme weather events are impacting crop production:
Persistent cold weather slows planting in France
Floods, hail and bad weather affect fruits and vegetables in Italy
Devastating drought in the state of Yucatan, Mexico - much of the harvest lost
North Korea drought: Lowest rainfall in 100 years leaves millions at risk of starvation
Total catastrophe for U.S. corn production: Only 30% of U.S. corn fields have been planted - 5 year average is 66%
France was battered by a brutal cold front during the second half of April and first half of May — the key planting window — with the mercury hitting all-time lows and effectively slamming the brakes on sowing efforts.
France is the third largest corn exporter in the world, meaning a delayed or poor harvest will have a pronounced impact on global markets.
Severe frosts have been widespread these last four-or-so-weeks, from the lowlands to Brittany to South Ouest, with farmers regularly lighting frost-fires in an attempt to protect fragile crops.
According to the Red Cross report, the flooding struck after a sudden torrential downpour that lasted several hours. Six communes in the city were affected, in particular Niamakoro where 10 fatalities were reported. Flood water was up to 2.5 metres deep in some locations.
"The damages on peaches, apricots, nectarines and some goji plants are enormous, with damaged fields and fruits that will rot in a few days. We had just finished with the thinning of the apricots and waited for them to be completely ripe to proceed with the harvest", says Anna Camarda, a farmer from Basilicata who has her crops in Metaponto. "The varieties of apricots affected are Vitillo and Thirintos (early apricot), while for peaches it is Sagittaria. The citrus orchards in bloom are also affected."















Comment: Three days prior to the above incident lightning also killed 2 people and 2 cattle in the same Indian state while 2 woman were fataly struck in Odisha on the 16th of May. In Bangladesh strikes killed a total of at least 6 people on the 19th of May and 2 family members died after being hit by a bolt on the 14th.