Earth Changes
Christopher Reynolds said he and his wife were leaving his mother's Newton home Sunday when he spotted a snake near the road and stopped to look at the reptile.
Reynolds said he and his wife initially thought the snake, which had a strange object in its mouth, was dead, but it soon surprised them by starting to move.
One cause likely is domoic acid poisoning, which has taken a toll on birds and marine mammals throughout California in recent months.
Domoic acid is a naturally occurring toxin in the algae.
Fish eat the algae but generally not enough to harm them. Sea lions and birds, however, eat so many of the fish that they are getting a level that is toxic to them.
For a while, the hardest hit type of bird seemed to be loons, said Julia Parker, animal care director for the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network.
"Now, it's affecting the pelicans," she said.
Police and MetService say it was likely just thunder, but residents aren't so sure.
One local believed it could have been a meteor, another thought it was an earthquake, while a third believed a "sonic boom" was the cause.
Helen Lynam wasn't convinced that it was thunder. "It was loud and like a boom/bang sound. I didn't think it was thunder, it didn't have that sort of sound to it."
A member of the Tauranga Weather Facebook group said her pets had been "going weird" in the moments before the noise was heard.
Pictures posted on social media showed uprooted trees, shattered bus shelters and a construction crane that blew over in the storm.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin offered his condolences to the victims and said that several hundred trees were uprooted. "We are taking the necessary measures to deal with the consequences," he said on Twitter.
"The hurricane was unprecedented for Moscow," TASS news agency quoted him as saying.
He said hundreds of trees were toppled, as meteorologists reported winds of up to 80kmh.
Comment: Monday's storm is one of the deadliest on record in the Russian capital. Nine people died and 165 were injured in the city in a similar disaster in 1998, while at least nine people were killed in a storm in 1904.
"Winds gusted as high as 70 mph during the storm, which is rare for Moscow," said weather.com meteorologist Brian Donegan. A top emergency official said that 60,000 people in Russia's Stavropol region are being evacuated due to the threat of flooding.
Update 30 May 2017, 21.30 CET
The latest figures place the death toll at 16, with at least another hundred people injured, and the number of fallen trees at 27,000. And it was all over in just ten minutes...
This was therefore the worst storm to hit Moscow in living memory, and probably the worst since the 19th century.
SFGate reader Amie Quirarte of Tahoe Vista noticed what's known as a 22 degree halo at around 1 p.m. while sitting in her backyard with her husband, and shared the image above.
"I have not seen this before," Quirarte, who works as a real estate agent in Tahoe, wrote in a message to SFGate. "I looked up in gratitude and noticed a rainbow around the sun. I instantly told my husband to check it out. When he reassured me I wasn't crazy, I took a couple photos and posted them on social media. Within a few minutes, I had comments from friends saying they could see the same phenomenon in the sky.
People living in Medway, the Isle of Sheppey, Deal and as far north as Bromley and Beckenham reported hearing the noise.
One Rochester resident took to social media to say the bang was so loud that birds flew out of a tree.
The woman was riding her bike in the outskirts of the city, and was evidently caught off guard by the thunderstorm, according to a police spokesperson.
Her body was then discovered by a passerby under a tree on Monday evening.
The fire department reported that the surge of electricity had caused the bike chain to melt. When emergency responders arrived, they could not do anything but declare her dead.
The incident comes after warm weather triggered thunderstorms in several parts of Germany on Monday night, going into Tuesday.
Between 6pm on Sunday and 6am on Monday morning there were up to 500 flashes a minute.
Experts described the conditions as an "intense, dangerous supercellular storm". A supercell storm is the least common — and most perilous — of the four classifications of thunderstorms.
The storm battered Kent from about 1am after a sudden change of course, setting the roof of one house, in Staplehurst, on fire when it was hit by lightning. A second house, in Folkestone, was also struck. Residents described losing TV and phone signals.
Sources
Comment: See also this more recent report: Another earthquake registered around Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland
Britain's bank holiday "weather curse" has dampened spirits as Brits quit resorts early due to unsettled conditions threatening thundery downpours, flooding and power cuts.
In some regions, up to a month's worth of rain could fall in one hour today with deluges delivering up to 40mm.
The Met Office said the UK was hit with around 70,000 lightning strikes overnight - sparking safety fears across the nation.














Comment: See also: Algae toxin killing marine mammals along Southern California coast