Wednesday, December 16, 2015, 11:23 AM – A “larger than normal” dust storm billowed through the Australian outback town of Boulia Tuesday, creating an otherworldly spectacle.
Local photographers jumped at the opportunity to capture the Martian-like moment, where visibility was reportedly limited to just a few metres.
A major dust storm swept over the Queensland town of Boulia on Tuesday. Photo: Kerry Hutchins/Instagram
Photographers have captured incredible images of a major dust storm which hit central west Queensland on Tuesday.
The outback town of Boulia, located about 500 kilometres west of Longreach, bore the brunt of the storm which blanketed everything in its path in red dust.
Ann Britton was on her cattle station when she saw the storm approaching.
“The winds were very strong and the dust blew for a few hours. If you were driving through it you had to stop,” she said.
Ms Britton, a local photographer, said visibility was down to a few metres.
A series of small earthquakes over the weekend in the area between Mt. Rose and Incline Village is nothing out of the norm, a seismologist for the University of Nevada, Reno said Monday.
More than a dozen small tremors registering between 1.0 and 1.9 on the Richter scale were recorded on Sunday, most taking place about 6 miles north of Incline Village. The quakes were so small, and at a depth that they likely weren’t felt.
“I wouldn’t consider this unusual,” said Diane Depolo, a seismologist with the UNR Seismological Lab. “These are pretty small, and depth-wise, they’re what we’d consider normal depth for that area.”
The quakes were about 8 to 12 kilometers deep. Depolo said it would normally take a quake of 2.5 to 3 to be felt at that depth.
Depolo said this cluster of quakes is different from those that affected the Verdi-Mogul area in past years because the Verdi-Mogul quakes were much shallower.
A 1.1 quake was registered in the Mt. Rose area on Monday morning.
BOGOTA (AFP) – Colombia on Sunday issued a warning for areas crossed by rivers that pass through the Nevado del Ruiz volcano area, amid heavy rains and concern that an eruption could be in the works.
Authorities issued a ‘red alert’ for rivers near the volcano in Caldas and Tolima departments ‘due to the change in the eruption threat and to heavy rains in the area,’ the national weather and environmental institute (IDEAM) said.
The volcano has been rumbling at a greater rate in recent days; its alert level was boosted on March 31.
On Saturday, the volcano’s activity was still unstable and it was emitting more gases, the National Geological Service said.
Quito, Apr 9 (Prensa Latina) A new increase in the seismic activity of Tungurahua Volcano, in Ecuador, began early Monday with a constant sign of high energy tremor linked with ash emissions.
According to the report of the Geophysics Institute of the National Polytechnic School, the increase of the seismic activity in this crater started with a column of smoke that reached 3 kilometers high along with low intensity roaring and sounds.
The first explosions caused minor thunders or crashes due to the rolling of blocks through the side walls of the volcano.
Shortly after, the falling of black and fine ashes on populations in the south-southwest regions, such as Palitahua, Capil, and Toctes, was reported.
According to the last report, the area surrounding the volcano remains highly cloudy, and with seismic activity.
It’s been so warm in the United States this year, especially in March, that national records weren’t just broken, they were deep-fried.
Temperatures in the lower 48 states were 8.6 degrees above normal for March and 6 degrees higher than average for the first three months of the year, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That far exceeds the old records.
The magnitude of how unusual the year has been in the U.S. has alarmed some meteorologists who have warned about global warming. One climate scientist said it’s the weather equivalent of a baseball player on steroids, with old records obliterated.
“Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good,” said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist who specializes in extreme weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “It’s a guilty pleasure. You’re out enjoying this nice March weather, but you know it’s not a good thing.”
-Heavy storm and rainfall in Australia damaged roofs of several houses.
-Power outage in several areas of Ryde, Lindfield, Killara, St Ives, Frenchs Forest and Turramurra.
-Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Sydney, the Hunter region, the Mid North Coast, North West Slopes and Plains districts.
-Evacuation order issued to several houses across Harford county.
-100 firefighters controlled the fire which spread to more than 50 acres.
-People were allowed to return their homes after three hours.
-More than 500 people evacuated from Turner Falls area after flooding caused by heavy rainfall.
-Evacuated people are taking shelter in Murray County Expo Center.
-Many flood affected people are from Texas.
-Power outage reported in several places.
-The National Weather Service hadn’t issued any weather watches or warnings in this area.
-Turner Falls is currently closed and expected to reopen when water levels are safe.
-No fatalities or injuries reported.
-In March, Norman and Oklahoma City were affected by Flash floods
Update
-About 600 people are living in evacuation centers.
-The American Red Cross is supporting the shelter in the evacuation center.
-Following officials, more storms are expected in Oklahoma this week.
-National Meteorological Center (NMC) of China has issued a BLUE ALERT for different areas of Northern China.
-Strong winds and sandstorms are forecast over the next 24 hours in parts of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Ningxia Hui autonomous region and the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi.
-Last week Gansu province of China was hit by the biggest sandstorm in 2012
-Schools in Western Division will resume classes from Tomorrow.
-Flood victims are currently living in 60 different evacuation centers. Click for detail report on Fiji floods
-More than 900 people affected by flood last week are suffering from influenza and skin rashes.
-About 7,000 people were affected by flood which caused due to torrential rainfall.
-Following Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), rainfall last week was a normal phenomenon during the transition period from the rainy to dry season
Radioactive cooling fluid leaked at a French nuclear reactor Thursday following two small fires, but the spillage was safely collected in special tanks, officials said.
A reactor at the power plant in Penly on the English Channel near the port of Dieppe shut down automatically after two small fires broke out Thursday, the plant’s operator EDF said.
Firefighters easily extinguished the blazes but a cooling pump was damaged, in turn causing a joint to leak radioactive water into collection tanks located inside the reactor building, EDF said.
The reactor continued to be cooled properly and teams were working to lower the water pressure, the company said.
EDF said the installation was secure, no one was injured, and there were “no consequences for the environment”…..
California nuclear plant shut indefinitely amid hunt to find cause of problems
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) — A large Southern California nuclear plant is out of commission indefinitely, and will remain so until there is an understanding of what caused problems at two of its generators and an effective plan to address the issues, the nation’s top nuclear regulator said Friday.
Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, refused to give a timetable as to when the San Onofre nuclear plant could resume operation. He said only that his agency had “set some firm conditions” as to when that could happen.
“We won’t make a decision (to approve the facility’s restart) unless we’re satisfied that public health and safety will be protected,” Jaczko told reporters. “They have to demonstrate to us that they understand the causes, and … that they have a plan to address them.”
The power plant has been shut down since this winter, when a small amount of radioactive gas escaped from a steam generator during a water leak. At the time, federal regulators said there was no threat to public health, though they could not identify how much gas leaked or exactly why it had happened.
North Sea Gas Leak: Experts Assess Climate Impact of Ongoing Accident
Elizabeth Grossman, InsideClimate News:
“The French energy company Total estimates that its North Sea Elgin field gas well is leaking about 200,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day … If the gas continues escaping at that rate, and all of it reaches the atmosphere, it would approximate the annual global warming impact of 35,000 Americans. The gas is mostly methane, which is considered the second largest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide.”
Polar bears have symptoms of mystery disease: U.S. agency
(Reuters) – Symptoms of a mysterious disease that has killed scores of seals off Alaska and infected walruses are now showing up in polar bears, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on Friday.
Nine polar bears from the Beaufort Sea region near Barrow were found with patchy hair loss and oozing sores on their skin, similar to conditions found in diseased seals and walruses, the agency said in a statement.
Unlike the sickened seals and walruses, the affected polar bears seem otherwise healthy, said Tony DeGange, chief of the biology office for the USGS’s Alaska Science Center. There had been no deaths among polar bears, he said.
The nine affected bears were among the 33 that biologists have captured and sampled while doing routine studies on the Arctic coastline, DeGange said.
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A major dust storm swept over the Queensland town of Boulia on Tuesday. Photo: Kerry Hutchins/Instagram
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