Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Schools Prepare as Record Cold May Follow Snow, Sleet in Dallas-Fort Worth

Bruce Tomaso
Dallas Morning News
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:41 UTC
Image
© Michael Hamtil / StaffA lone pedestrian crosses the snowy, windswept DART tracks on Bryan Street Wednesday morning in downtown Dallas.
The arctic cold that sent temperatures tumbling Wednesday and left streets and highways treacherously slick with sleet and ice will continue Thursday with record low temperatures overnight - in the single digits some places - and more icy road conditions.

From 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Dallas police responded to more than a dozen accidents on North Central Expressway and LBJ Freeway. Althought most of the exposed freeway roadways are clear, ice remains dangerous underneath bridges and overpasses.

Conditions on highways deteriorated throughout Wednesday as sleet and snow fell - up to 3 inches in McKinney, which was among the hardest-hit spots locally. A winter storm warning is in effect through 6 p.m.

School officials were already making plans for the freezing weather overnight.

Frisco, McKinney and Allen ISDs said they would open on a two-hour delay on Thursday, while other area districts are so far opting to wait until Thursday morning to make a decision.

Southern Methodist University , which had been open during the day, canceled Wednesday night classes at its Dallas and Plano campuses. A decision regarding Thursday will be announced in the morning.

But even though afternoon temperatures will struggle to reach the freezing mark, Thursday should be the end of the brutally cold weather across the Dallas area for the next week to 10 days, forecasters said.
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X

Blizzard roars through US's snow-weary midsection


Associated Press
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:17 UTC
A second powerful blizzard in a week roared through parts of the nation's midsection on Wednesday, whipping up biting winds and dumping a foot of snow in areas still digging out from last week's major storm.

Image
© Associated Press Photo/Salina Journal, Tom DorseyAnn Gaines is caked with snow Tuesday morning Feb. 8, 2011, as she cleans her driveway in Salina, Kan. Between three to four inches of snow fell in the Salina area by mid-morning, with the temperature at 5 degrees.
The storm that rolled into Oklahoma on Tuesday had dropped about a foot of snow by Wednesday morning in Bartlesville, about 50 miles north of Tulsa, and another 9 inches across the state line in Siloam Springs, Ark., said Michael Lacy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa. He said strong winds created blizzard conditions that limited visibility and made travel hazardous.

Heavy snow was reported in parts of Kansas and Texas, where many school districts cancelled classes in anticipation of yet another round of unusually icy weather.
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Question

UK: Government vets investigate five swans' deaths


BBC
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:13 UTC
swan
© Unknown
Government veterinary officers are working to establish how five swans died in the County Down area.

It is understood two more birds are ill. The dead birds' remains were found on private land in the Killyleagh area.

A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Dard) said the swans had been removed so that post-mortem exams could be carried out.

"This is the second case that has been brought to our attention," he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Next Central U.S. Earthquake May Not Strike New Madrid

Mark Johnson
Journal Sentinel
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 10:06 UTC
The most powerful earthquakes known to have hit the central U.S. were the New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812. Now, a new study suggests that the next 'Big One' in the region may not occur along the New Madrid fault, but somewhere else.

The new research, published in the journal Lithosphere, examined earthquake records in China. Earthquakes have been recorded and described in China for some 2,000 years, but have never occurred twice in the same place.

"In North China, where large earthquakes occur relatively frequently, not a single one repeated on the same fault segment in the past 2,000 years," said Mian Liu, a professor of geological sciences at University of Missouri and one of the authors of the new study. "So we need to look at the 'big picture' of interacting faults, rather than focusing only on the faults where large earthquakes occurred in the recent past."

Different faults form a web of interacting stresses. A large earthquake on one fault can increase stress on a different fault. Important faults can remain dormant for years then jolt awake in a brief period of violent activity.
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Better Earth

SOTT Focus: Pole Shift in March? Not Likely!

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
SOTT
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:51 UTC
I've recently become aware, via some Facebook posts, that there are a number of people posting videos on youtube about an alleged coming Pole Shift in March of this year. It seems that these people are using my posts about Comet Elenin along with my astronomer friend's little comet animation, without our permission to promote this ridiculous idea.


Comment: See also: Bright Prospects for Comet Elenin?

Comet Elenin is Coming!

Abnormal Sunbound comets may mean larger one to come

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Bizarro Earth

CALIPSO Spies Polar Stratospheric Clouds


Earth Observatory, NASA
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:54 UTC
Polar Stratospheric Clouds
© Earth Observatory / NASANASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using CALIPSO data provided by the Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center, with meteorological analyses by Andreas Dörnbrack, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.
Polar Stratospheric Clouds_1
© Earth Observatory / NASA
NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite was in the right place at the right time earlier this month. On January 4, 2011, while flying over the east coast of Greenland, CALIPSO caught a top-down glimpse of an unusual atmospheric phenomenon - polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), also known as nacreous clouds.

Clouds do not usually form in the stratosphere because of the dry conditions. But in the polar regions, often near mountain ranges, atmospheric gravity waves in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) can push just enough moisture into the high altitudes. The extremely low temperatures of the stratosphere condense ice and nitric acid into clouds that play an important role in depletion of stratospheric ozone.
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Bizarro Earth

Icelandic Volcano 'Set to Erupt'


Telegraph.co.uk
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:53 UTC
Scientists in Iceland are warning that another volcano looks set to erupt and threatening to spew-out a pall of dust that would dwarf last year's event.

iceland,eyjafjallajokull,volcano
© ReutersLava and ash explode out of the caldera of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano
Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after evaluating an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island's second largest volcano.

Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides "good reason to worry".
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Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 5.2: Off Coast Of Oregon


US Geological Survey
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:51 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Tuesday, February 08, 2011 at 22:02:01 UTC

Tuesday, February 08, 2011 at 02:02:01 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
43.405°N, 127.119°W

Depth:
10.1 km (6.3 miles)

Region:
OFF THE COAST OF OREGON

Distances:
235 km (145 miles) W of Coos Bay, Oregon

275 km (170 miles) NW of Brookings, Oregon

280 km (175 miles) WSW of Newport, Oregon

370 km (230 miles) WSW of SALEM, Oregon
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Cloud Precipitation

Sri Lankan floods pile on misery: UN


Sify News
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:34 UTC
The United Nations said Tuesday that recent monsoon flooding in Sri Lanka had hit hundreds of thousands of victims who were forced from their homes just weeks ago.

"The impact on people of this second wave of floods is even greater than the first in large part as peoples' capacity to cope was already diminished," UN Colombo chief Neil Buhne said in a statement.
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Attention

Southern Africa May Face Worst Flooding in Decades

Joe DeCapua
VOA News
Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:25 UTC
In the coming months, parts of southern Africa may experience the worst flooding in the last 20 or 30 years. That's the warning Monday from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

It says the La Nina weather phenomenon has brought heavier than normal rainfall, destroying thousands of hectares of agricultural land and crops so far. The seasonal rainy season is only half over and the cyclone season is expected to peak this month.
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