Earth Changes
The blizzard-conditions have dumped more than 20 centimetres of snow on the mountain side but has confined a number of skiers to their digs high on the Whakapapa ski fields.
Ruapehu Alpine Lifts commercial executive manager Simon Dickson said about 20 or 30 people were this morning taken in two convoys of snow grooming trucks back to their cars at the ski field's main car park. Many of these had to get back home for work or school tomorrow.
Hikers and berry pickers have been flocking to Hatcher Pass to check out the early-season snowfall, which dumped a couple inches at the Independence Mine State Historical Park. Although the area is still a ways off from being skiable, the park access road is now closed. However, the parking lot below the park is open year-round, and hikers need only walk about a half-mile to access the park, which contains mine ruins and abandoned out-buildings that remain from the 20th century gold mining operations.
Earthquake Magnitude 4.8M, Depth:37.54km20 Sep 2015 03:01:04 UTC524964 people within 100km
Whether international humanitarian aid is needed must be decided by an expert.
See the GDACS website for live news coverage (including OCHA Situation Reports), the full earthquake report
For information on emergency response, please consult the GDACS Virtual OSOCC.
New Zealand has experienced a couple of earthquakes above magnitude four within minutes of each other.
A magnitude 4.5 quake was recorded in Hawke's Bay at 11.47pm on Saturday night, centred 10 kilometres west of Porangahau. It was at a depth of 47km.
More than 500 people, mostly living in the North Island, registered with the GeoNet website that they felt the quake, but most said it had a light intensity.
The stunning time-lapse footage of the aurora lights is the product of the Cupola - an observatory module with seven illuminators that open up a 360-degree view - which has allowed for the recording of incredible footage from between September 7 and 12.
The remnants of the former Tropical Storm "Henri" have been passing across France on September 16, bringing strong rainfall, winds and thunderstorm on its way.

One of the first pictures of tornado damage in the Sonnac town, France, September 16, 2015.
Severe weather event uprooted trees and severely devastated homes across the area, French Observatory of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms reported. No causalities have been reported so far.

Police received four complaints about the mysterious loud noise in Oliver this morning.
One resident who called the Chronicle said he heard a loud "boom" sound at around 3 am. "It sounded like something blowing up," he said. "It set off a car alarm," he added. But it didn't feel or sound like an earthquake, he said.
Oliver RCMP Sgt. Blaine Gervais said police received four complaints about the noise. One complainant said the "house shook."
Gervais said there was no sighting of anything indicating a possible source. A patrol was made but the origin was not located.
"I am pleased you are calling it a big boom and not an explosion like other media is suggesting. I have to tell them an explosion would suggest there is evidence something exploded which we do not have."
Video from the scene showed thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the mountain.
"The ashes and smoke have reached two kilometres into the air... it has been showing renewed activity over the past two months, blanketing nearby villages with ash," teleSUR English reports.
Colima, also known as Fire Volcano, is located in the country's west, about 125km from Guadalajara in Jalisco.
It is the country's most active volcano and has erupted more frequently since 1994, according to Volcano Discovery.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from nearby towns in July amid fears of a major eruption.
Airline Aeromexico has not advised of any delays.

This April 13, 2004 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a large Pacific bull walrus on ice in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska. On Friday the agency said it's investigating the deaths of 25 Pacific walrus found on an isolated northwest Alaska beach.
A person connected to an Air Force radar station in the remote area spotted the animals and notified the agency this week. The walrus included 12 pups, and some were missing their heads and tusks.
The cause of death has not been determined, said Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Andrea Medeiros, and investigators do not want to speculate.
"We can't come to any conclusions based on a report," she said Friday. "You have to go out and investigate."
Only Alaska Natives who live in the state may hunt walrus for subsistence or for the creation of handicrafts or clothing.
Although the whale's corpse was no longer resting on the shore Friday morning, it was still floating near the beach, says Justin Viezbicke, the stranding coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA biologists have taken small skin samples of the dead whale and hope to conduct a necropsy, but so far, it has proven to be a challenge to find a place to conduct the procedure.
"We don't know what happened. It came up last night and we are now trying to figure out why it died," Viezbicke says. The whale's carcass was reported about 9pm on Thursday.













Comment: Aurorae occur when charged solar particles reach local magnetic field lines, where they enter the planetary atmosphere and excite its atoms and molecules. As they deactivate, the particles produce light emission.
The Aurora Borealis, the so called 'Northern lights' have been observed recently heading 'south', providing a spectacle even in parts of England. While the Aurora Australis, or the 'Southern lights' have been seen further north in New Zealand than usual. Researchers have also recently identified increased electrical activity moving towards equatorial regions.
With the increasing comet/volcanic dust loading of the atmosphere (an indicator of this dust loading is the intensification of noctilucent clouds we are witnessing) which is accentuating electric charge build-up, we can expect to observe more awesome light shows and other phenomena.
The winning Electric Universe model, and much more related information, are explained in the book Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.