Storms
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Igloo

SOTT Focus: Freak Arctic Weather Precursor to the Coming Ice Age?

As regular readers of SOTT are aware, we collect weather reports from around the world which often point to weird weather occurring in locations experiencing unseasonable weather. This week there has been an especially weird spike in reports of sudden cold and snow affecting many areas of North America and Europe! We think this dramatically illustrates the alarming speed with which the weather can change from stable, warm and dry conditions to turbulent, cold and wet conditions. Global news networks are churning out endless reports on the UK election, the financial shockwaves hitting Europe and the Times Square hysteria over some fireworks left in a car. What is not being reported prominently are the unprecedented freak weather events happening around across the northern hemisphere: hail, sleet and snow slamming southern California, deluges devastating the central cities of Nashville in the US and Hunan in China, the Korean Peninsula shivering with a record-low spring chill and reports of snow in Mexico and France.

Are these just unseasonal conditions, an immediate knock-on effect from the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland perhaps? Or are we on the brink of entering an ice age as SOTT has been predicting for a number of years? Was the sudden flip this week - "as though a switch had been thrown" - a taster of the Ice Age to come? Is this 'mini Winter rebound' pointing out how suddenly glacial rebound can develop? When will we approach the tipping point as more volcanoes erupt and magma comes up from the ocean floor? Laura Knight-Jadczyk explains the mechanism that can precipitate sudden climate change towards an Ice Age:

That's the hard science. There's going to be the day. It's already happening. The magnetic field is degenerating. That means magma is going to start welling up under the oceans. It's already happening because it's heating the oceans up.

When the oceans start heating up, that means more evaporation. When that happens at the same time that the planet is being clouded by volcanic eruptions, which is cooling the atmosphere, you have precipitation that comes down as snow.

The geological record shows that the onset of every ice-age was so sudden as to be unbelievable. In other words, next winter could be the winter when a lot of undersea volcanoes begin to erupt and dump magma into the oceans. A lot of evaporation takes place.

If it happens in the winter time that means that snow can fall in amounts that are beyond your wildest imagining. It's happened! It's geologically a fact. It's happened repeatedly. Can you imagine 9 stories of snow in a single day?

Cloud Lightning

South Carolina, US: Melvin Roberts Survives Being Struck By Lightning For Sixth Time

Melvin Roberts of South Carolina has been struck by lightning an unbelievable six times.

He believes that his record with lightning is connected to his record with marriage: "I've married five time and I've been hit by lightning five times. But [his sixth wife] says this is the sixth time and I'm not leaving my wife, so I'm going to have to do something different."


Cloud Lightning

New Zealand - Tornado hits Kapiti Coast

A tornado has hit just north of Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast, North of Wellington.

Trees have fallen across roads and onto houses, power lines are down and a car has been blown off the road.

A person had to be rescued from their house amidst the storm this afternoon, after a tree fell on it.

Emergency services rushed the person to hospital with moderate injury levels.

Cloud Lightning

Canada: Tornadoes Hit Southern Alberta

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© QMI Agency / Darren MakowichukA massive thunderstorm that dropped a tornado near Sundre, Alta., hovers just west of Olds causing strong winds that knocked over numerous trees before heading north towards Red Deer on Thursday July 7, 2011
Edmonton- Several tornadoes swept through southern Alberta Thursday, causing significant damage from Sundre to Red Deer.

A tornado warning was in effect for the area from just after 5 p.m. until around 9:15 p.m. when the main storm began to dissipate over Red Deer.

It was still a tornado as it moved towards Red Deer, but it dissipated quickly over the area," said Stuart McKay with Alberta Environment. "There were several fairly thin tornadoes, but we have received reports of damage, including significant wind and hail damage across the area.

Bizarro Earth

Italy: Eighty Evacuated as Landslides Hit Picturesque Lake Como

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© stillthelovely.com
Como - Firemen evacuated 80 residents late Thursday after after a series of landslides hit Italy's picturesque northern Lake Como, where movie star George Clooney has a holiday villa. The cause of the landslides was not immediately clear.

The residents were removed by boat after roads were blocked by no less than seven landslides. The biggest occurred in the Brienno area of the lake, where passengers inside a bus and a car escaped unharmed after a landslide hit their vehicles causing them to veer off the road.

An ancient Roman bridge and an abandoned house were reduced to rubble by the landslides and another dwelling and several vehicles were reported to have been damaged.

Authorities closed a local highway in both directions after the landslides, causing tailbacks over 10 kilometres long.

Cloud Lightning

US Colorado Monsoon Floods Denver-area

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© CBS DenverDoug Clark took this photo of a car that either plunged into or was swept into a swollen viaduct on July 7 after heavy rain
Denver - A fast moving storm has dumped heavy rain in the Denver area, causing minor street flooding and trapping some people in their cars in high water.

Denver fire officials tell KUSA-TV that some people were rescued from submerged cars in north Denver Thursday afternoon. Tornado sirens went off, but it wasn't clear if a funnel cloud was spotted. The National Weather Service said up to 2 inches fell in less than an hour in the northeast Denver area.

South of Denver, lightning knocked out power for about an hour to 240 utility customers in Colorado Springs. The Gazette reports lightning also ignited a small fire at a house in Fountain in El Paso County.

There were no immediate reports of injuries. Heavy rains were also reported in southern Colorado.

Cloud Lightning

US Baltimore: Heavy rains Cause Hazardous Conditions

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© CBS13 WJZ
A series of heavy storms that formed over the Mason Dixon line Thursday night caused numerous hazards and power outages, mainly in Baltimore city and county.

A roof was blown off a Dundalk apartment building; a driver had to be rescued from an SUV, and non-working traffic signals and downed trees and wires were reported during the storms, Baltimore County police said.

The roof was torn from an apartment building in the 3100 block of Four Seasons Court just before 7 p.m., while another roof was ripped from a house in the 900 block of Catawba Court in Halethorpe in the southwestern part of the county, police said. In the 1900 block of Halethorpe Avenue, fire crews had to rescue a driver from an SUV around 8:30 p.m., police said.

Cloud Lightning

Australia: Commuters Face Day of Chaos as Wind Blasts State

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© Rachel MurdoloPassengers injured ... a tree causes huge damage to a train at Medlow Bath, in the Blue Mountains, last night. Three people needed to be treated at the scene.
Sydneysiders are preparing for more extreme weather after 33,000 people were left without power and three people were injured when two trains were hit by falling trees last night.

Gales of up to 140km/h brought down trees, power lines and traffic lights, caused commuter chaos and delayed domestic arrivals at Sydney Airport.

At Medlow Bath in the Blue Mountains, paramedics were called to treat three people when a train reportedly carrying 20 passengers had its front carriage crushed by a falling tree.

Cloud Lightning

Global warming? Chile's Atacama Desert hit with record snowfall

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One of the driest places on the planet has just experienced its heaviest snowfall in almost two decades.

As the BBC is reporting, the Atacama desert region in Chile was virtually buried with an estimated 31.5 inches of snow after a cold front brought subzero temperatures to much of South America, including Argentina and Uruguay.

Officials from Chile's Directorate of Meteorology said the area had not seen this amount of snow in close to 20 years. Local media reports said authorities rescued a total of 36 people who had been caught in the storm, the Associated Press reports.

Cloud Lightning

Storm shuts down nuclear reactor in central Russia

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© Viktor ChernovRadiation levels around the NPP remain unchanged and the work of the fourth reactor will resume after the repairs on two damaged power lines have been done.
A powerful thunderstorm forced the shutdown of one of the reactors at the Balakovskaya nuclear power plant (NPP) in central Russia, the plant's press service said on Friday.

"A thunderstorm on the border of the Saratov and the Samara regions in the late evening of July 7 damaged two power supply lines serving the fourth reactor at the Balakovskaya nuclear power plant, causing an automatic safety shutdown," the plant's press service said in a statement.