Odd Occurrences

Weird Animal Behavior

Freak Waves, Unusual High Tides

2007 -

ODD -
9/13/07 -
GIANT SPIDERWEB FOLLOW-UP - A variety of spider species built on one another's work to create a sprawling communal web that blanketed hundreds of yards of trees and shrubs at a North Texas park, according to entomologists who studied the UNUSUAL formation. Heavy rains early this summer created prime feeding conditions for the spiders, which worked collectively to spin a web that nearly covered a pond ripe with mosquitoes and other insects. "Normally they are cannibalistic and their webs are separated." (photo)

8/31/07 -
Giant spider web - Entomologists are debating the origins of a massive spider web, which runs more than 180 metres and covers several trees and shrubs, found in Texas. The web has been formed in the park over the past several weeks. Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near Willis Point, find the web both amazing and somewhat creepy. "It's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs." Experts are debating whether the web is the work of social cobweb spiders working together, or a mass dispersal where the arachnids spin webs to move away from one another. (photo)

8/3/07 -
BRITIAN - RARE clouds in the shape of jellyfish have caused a sensation after being spotted in British skies for THE FIRST TIME IN A DECADE. The UNUSUAL clouds known as Altocumulus Castellanus have a unique shape complete with tentacles. Weather-watchers were stunned when they developed in skies above Lutterworth, Leicestershire, and bobbed along the horizon at around 17,000 ft above ground. Their presence indicates stormy weather may soon close in. The rare clouds' unique "jellyfish" shape forms when a rush of moist air comes from the Gulf Stream and gets trapped between layers of dry air. It is thought these probably developed as a result of recent tropical storms in the Atlantic. The top of the cloud rises into a jellyfish shape and long tentacles known as "trailing virga" form from rain drops that have evaporated. (amazing photo)

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO - July 25, 2007 - Fishermen and small craft operators have been warned to avoid sailing offshore at Point Radix, Ortoire as emergency agencies investigate reports of an active underwater volcano. Authorities issued safety warnings for ships and other vessels to exercise caution off the Point Radix coastline. However, they say it is too early to say what is the nature of the activity out at sea. The suspected volcanic activity was discovered some five miles off Point Radix on Monday. An exploratory expedition to the area was only able to get within 500 feet of the activity. “We were unable to get closer to the activity because of the strong currents associated with the system which started to swirl the boat as we got closer.” At one time, the activity appeared to be pulling the boat toward it. Yesterday, Point Radix residents expressed fear about the phenomenon which could be seen by binoculars as a white foamy circular line in an ocean of blue. The activity had been evident for some time but appeared to intensify over the past few days forcing fishermen to stop going out at sea. “I just pray that what happen in Montserrat don’t happen here." One resident doubted the activity was a volcano and suggested it may be a strong ocean current. “If it were a volcano, it wouldn’t have a long trail behind.” Another villager stated the activity was not a volcano but an “oil vein.” The Head of the Seismic unit noted the activity could not be termed as being volcanic and could not be compared to the Montserrat volcano.

6/2/07 -
INDIA - A lava-like substance was found after a minor fire broke out in barren land at Chhegaon Makhan village, officials said Saturday. "The fire was about three feet high and emerged near Indra Colony last night. About one-and-a-half kg of the lava-like substance was found accumulated at one spot. The substance created holes in a radius of roughly 5 m. The incident terrified people. The area is in Pandhana tehsil where plate tectonic incidents have taken place earlier." The Madhya Pradesh Council of Science and Technology former Director-General said that the substance ought to be analysed as Pandhana is in the Narmada Fault zone. "Scientists' opinions are being sought."

5/27/07 -
INDIA - Smoke and flame were found emanating from a 40-feet long and two feet wide crater, caused by lightning which struck on Friday afternoon at Talaikuda village on the outskirts of Udhagamandalam. Nearly 300 eucalyptus trees were burnt, following the lightning which hit the area, and the big crater was formed. The smoke, which was found last evening, continued emanating heavily on Saturday and a flame was visible deep below eight feet. People who went near it felt a burning sensation in their eyes, plus headache and nausea. Experts from Geological Survey of India, who visited the area, have informed their higher-ups in Chennai about the development. Some of them opined that the gas could be methane. However, they ruled out the possibility of an earthquake or a volcanic eruption from inside the crater. But the people in the area are living in fear.

INDIA - About six-kilometre area of Talakundha forest in Tamil Nadu has been gutted in a fire, which is suspected to have broken out from a small volcano. The fire and smoke from a crater in the forest continue to spread. Hot black coal-like material, possibly magma, can be seen inside it. "We received information that a large amount of smoke was emerging from the forest. Initially, I thought it might be a forest fire. But when fire services went there, they saw a huge fire and smoke coming from the forest, and due to the heat, trees were falling down. We still cannot make out what has caused this. If the same situation continues, a major fire accident may take place," said a fireman. "This seems to be very dangerous and also the gas coming out from the earth is causing nausea to people in the vicinity". The forestland seems to have collapsed by about five-six feet because of the volcano-type situation. Geologists said methane gas could be coming out of the craters, which causes dizziness and nausea. Locals said they have been seeing the fire in the forest for the past one month. Some village elders even said that their ancestors had talked about similar fire some 100 years ago in the vicinity. The only active volcano in India is located in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. There has been no official confirmation so far as to whether there is a volcano or not.

5/18/07 -
TEXAS - Central Texans witnessed a RARE weather effect - Wednesday afternoon people were wondering about something kind of interesting in the sky. A large ring encircled the sun for a little while as some clouds passed overhead. It was an optical phenomenon caused by the sun shining through thin clouds at a very high altitude. Frozen water droplets acted as prism, creating a halo effect. (photo)

ODD -
4/20/07 -
The rodents on Gough Island off South Africa in the South Atlantic have evolved to become predators, growing to three times their normal size. Infra-red footage shows a "superbreed" of giant flesh-eating house mice chewing into an albatross chick and may be a stark warning of what awaits pest-infested Macquarie Island. “The evidence that normal house mice on Gough Island have evolved to become predators gives us very serious concern the same thing is happening on Macquarie Island.” More than 100,000 grazing rabbits and plagues of rats and mice are threatening endangered species on Macquarie Island, 1500km southeast of Tasmania. Rabbits are devastating the island's indigenous fauna, causing landslips to crash into penguin rookeries and destroying albatross breeding sites. Exploding rat and mice numbers are also causing huge concern.

3/28/07 -
Scientists have revealed details of the world's only known case of "semi-identical" twins. The twins are identical on their mother's side, but share only half their genes on their father's side. They are the result of two sperm cells fertilising a single egg, which then divided to form two embryos - and each sperm contributed genes to each child. Each stage is unlikely, and scientists believe the twins are probably unique. Normally, twins either develop from the same egg which later splits to form identical twins - who share all their genetic material, or from two separate eggs which are fertilised by two separate sperm. This creates non-identical (fraternal) twins - who share on average 50% of their genetic material. Sometimes, two sperm can fertilise a single egg, but this is only thought to happen in about 1% of human conceptions. Most embryos created this way do not survive. Genetic tests show both are "chimeras", and have some male cells (which have an X and Y chromosome) and some female cells (which have two X chromosomes). One child was discovered to be a hermaphrodite, while the other child is anatomically male. The twins are now toddlers, and doctors say they are progressing well. "The number of these cases is very small, but before they were reported, most people would have said THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN. Whether these things are academic curiosities, or whether we've overlooked something significant is hard to say."

3/22/07 -
UTAH - Mystery foam discovered floating down Green River - What's causing foul-smelling foam on the Green River in Utah? Government agencies are trying to solve the mystery. Is it illegal pollution or just one of nature's tricks? Most agencies started scrambling on the 18th and 20th, even though the foam was reported more than a week before. There's a good chance the foam, which ran more than 50 miles down the Green River, is a natural phenomenon triggered by the UNUSUAL weather; but there are puzzling, UNUSUAL aspects. The chunks of foam were the size of dining room tables, three feet thick. They covered at least two miles of river. Foam is not unusual on the Green River. It usually comes in late May as snowmelt raises the river and churns organic material. "We see that quite often. It's a little early in the year for that to be happening. But then again, we do have quite UNUSUALLY WARM weather." A gigantic blob of foam was spotted about 35 miles down river. A Bureau of Land Management ranger said it completely covered the river, bank to bank, as far as the eye could see. The BLM observer also reported the foam had a powerful hydrocarbon-like smell and caused a stinging sensation on the skin. A River Guide says he's never heard of anything like it in three decades of river running. To him it adds up to a chemical spill from the booming oil and gas industry. (photos)

NEW ZEALAND - Terrified children ran for their lives as roofing iron and other debris rained around them when a 'tornado' hit a hall next to Pembroke School, near Stratford, yesterday. The tornado missed the children as it passed the school but then slammed into adjacent Pembroke Hall, tearing off roofing iron. The children scattered as the debris flew high into the air then fell down on to the school's parking area, the road, adjacent paddocks, and parts of the school property. Conditions were almost dead-calm when the tornado hit. "It was just a nice day and the kids were outside, playing. Then, suddenly, there was a strange noise that sounded a bit like a truck braking, followed by an explosion. I saw all this debris fly maybe 30 metres into the air, and I immediately thought something really bad had happened out on the road." "It was the strangest thing. There was no indication anywhere else that a twister had been through - normally they leave some sort of trail. But it's like this one just popped in, damaged the hall, and disappeared again." (photo)

2/20/07 -
FOUR-LEGGED DUCK - A RARE mutation has left an eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on. He is doing well on a duck farm in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London. "It was absolutely bizarre. I was thinking 'he's got too many legs' and I kept counting 'one, two, three, four.' He's eating and surviving so far, and he is running about with those extra legs acting like stabilizers." The mutation is rare, but cases have been recorded across the world. One duckling named Jake was born in Queensland, Australia, in 2002 with four legs but died soon after.

2/18/07 -
COLORADO - Winds gusting to 100 mph slashed through foothills canyons in Colorado and across the high plains of Wyoming on Friday, prompting travel warnings and cracking windshields on airplanes at Denver International Airport. SkyWest Airlines reported 14 cracked windshields on nine aircraft, while Frontier Airlines reported cracked windshields on four planes. Most planes cracked while either landing or taking off between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Friday as gusts of up to 50 mph were hitting the airport. The windshield on another plane cracked while it was airborne. "Only the outermost layer was affected." They're investigating why the windshields cracked with the winds. Two of Frontier's Airbus planes were in the air when their windshields cracked, while two cracked while at the gate. Frontier said it was unclear whether the high winds were to blame. "It's not exactly unusual weather for Denver. We don't know what it is... It's kind of a mystery at this point." Windshields cracked on several different makes and models of airplanes from several different airlines. None of the pilots reported flying debris. "Everybody is fairly baffled by it." High wind advisories were issued for hundreds of miles of highways.

DUST -
2/15 -
AUSTRALIA - Wild easterly winds battered areas over the last three days but Griffith is still waiting for a taste of the rain which lashed the coast. While the surrounding areas of Darlington Point and Coleambally received rain, and so too did coastal areas, Griffith was swamped in a massive dust haze. CSIRO's senior technical officer said the weather was “bizarre” but is expected to settle down in coming days. “It was strange because normally when we get weather from the east we get rain or severe thunderstorms. It is VERY UNUSUAL to get dust storms from the east.” The area was covered in a thick dust haze for around two hours on Sunday while other areas were being lashed with heavy rain.

ODD -
2/15 -
CANARY ISLANDS - Toxic gas is suspected of killing at least six people who died while exploring man-made tunnels in Spain's Canary Islands. A group of about 30 scientists and adventurers were roughly 1.5 kilometres underground on Saturday when they apparently were overcome by the gases. Six people were pulled from the tunnel dead, and six others were taken to hospital by helicopter. Rescue efforts were made difficult because of the gases and cramped conditions underground. Officials said they believed members of the group fell unconscious when they were deprived of oxygen, but they didn't identify what kind of gases may have been involved. Among the group were scientists from the Canary Island Astrophysics Institute and members of the Tenerife Friends of Nature Association. The tunnels were built to prospect for water in the community of Los Silos on Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. [Coincidently, there was the 6.0 quake that occurred on Tuesday in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain & Portugal. I wonder if there could be any connection - could a pending nearby quake have had an effect on the release of the gases?]

ODD -
2/12/07 -
A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the U.S., threatening honey production, the livelihood of beekeepers and possibly crops that need bees for pollination. Researchers are scrambling to find the cause of the ailment, called Colony Collapse Disorder. Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some affected commercial beekeepers who often keep thousands of colonies have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees. The country's bee population had already been shocked in recent years by a tiny, parasitic bug called the varroa mite, which has destroyed more than half of some beekeepers' hives and devastated most wild honeybee populations. An analysis of dissected bees has turned up an alarmingly high number of foreign fungi, bacteria and other organisms and weakened immune systems. Researchers are also looking into the effect pesticides might be having on bees. In the meantime, beekeepers are wondering if bee deaths over the last couple of years that had been blamed on mites or poor management might actually have resulted from the mystery ailment.

2/7 -
RUSSIA - The foul-smelling yellow snow that fell in western Siberia last week was caused by a cyclone bringing dust from Turkmenistan, local officials said Tuesday. "According to data from the Russian meteorological services on January 28 and 29 a cyclone began to form in the southeast Caspian Sea above the territory of Turkmenistan, which moved across Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Russian Volga and Ural regions."
2/2 -
RUSSIA'S Emergency Ministry will fly a portable laboratory to the Omsk region in southern Siberia today to analyse oily yellow and orange snow which has covered an area which is home to 27,000 people. The snow covered a 1500 sq km area with 7280 homes. Omsk is a heavily industrial city with a number of oil and gas refineries.

1/30/07 -
OREGON - It was more than the average visitor bargained for on the Oregon coast this weekend, as the warm weather brought out an exciting RARELY witnessed natural event and extraordinary waves that belied the calm, sunny conditions and would’ve made surfers from Hawaii jealous. Wild, even enormous waves wowed beachgoers all weekend, on top of the blue skies. But especially on Sunday, huge “half pipes” rolled over much of the Oregon coast surfline, along with spectacular white caps caused by east winds. In Yachats, they made a fiery show, with huge waves rolling over onto themselves, looking like the monsters they get in Hawaii, and then steady east winds would knock the tops off them and create enormous white caps. “Something interesting was going on here. You get these white caps when winds from the opposite direction hit them as they’re rolling in. Yet these waves were enormous, while the wind conditions were really quite calm to almost nothing on most of the central coast. Last I heard, there were big storm systems held offshore by warm temperatures here. So it’s likely some storm out there was sending huge waves our way, while a small measure of east winds would tussle the waves into these fantastic displays of spray.”
On the central coast on Sunday, the famed “green flash” at sunset made its rare appearance and amazed those who witnessed it. This RARE oddity occurs when atmospheric conditions are just right, and observers see a small, greenish blob hover at the top of the sun just before it drops below the horizon. It usually lasts for two to ten seconds, and is most often seen as a shimmering, indistinct shape that is green. (photo)

1/25 -
A British zoo on Wednesday announced the virgin birth of five Komodo dragons, giving scientists new hope for the captive breeding of the endangered species. In an evolutionary twist, the newborns' eight-year-old mother, Flora, shocked staff at the Chester Zoo in northern England when she became pregnant without ever having a male partner or even being exposed to the opposite sex. Other reptile species reproduce asexually in a process known as parthenogenesis. But Flora's virginal conception, and that of another Komodo dragon in April at the London Zoo, are the first documented in a Komodo dragon. DNA paternity tests confirmed the lack of male input, although the brood are not exact clones of Flora. The evolutionary breakthrough could have far-reaching consequences for endangered species. Scientists are unsure whether female Komodo dragons have always had the ability to reproduce asexually or if this is a new evolutionary development. The reptiles, renowned for their intelligence, have no natural predators — making them on par with sharks and lions at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom.

CHINA - hundreds of chickens have been found dead in east China – and a court has ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of a four-year-old boy who in turn had been scared by a barking dog. The bizarre sequence of events began when the boy arrived at a village home in the eastern province of Jiangsu in the summer with his father who was delivering bottles of gas. A villager was quoted as saying the little boy bent over the henhouse window, screaming for a long time, after being scared by the dog. 443 chickens trampled each other to death in fear. The boy's father was ordered to pay 1800 yuan ($290) in compensation to the owner of the chickens.

1/14 -
COLORADO - Chaos reigned at the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport again Friday when either low visibility and low barometric pressure grounded at least 33 of 42 commercial flights. It was the second day in a row - and the third time in three weeks - that low barometric pressure has canceled flights, even though the threshold at which planes could fly had been lowered the day before. The situation left many passengers baffled and irritated, especially when the skies seemed clear enough to take off. The barometric pressure issue is particular to the type of aircraft that now flies into Aspen, and the airport's altitude. The Bombardier CRJ-700 cannot fly into or out of Aspen when the barometric pressure dips below 29.63, a reading that is EXTREMELY UNUSUAL for the area. As of Thursday, the threshold had been lowered from 29.73 to 29.63, but the barometer kept dropping Friday afternoon and was at about 29.60 when airline officials decided to cancel most of the remaining flights. Flying in and out of Aspen this winter has "been a complete disaster," said the general manager of the company that operates Aspen Mountain Lodge.

1/12 -
AUSTRALIA - Seal pups have been stranded on Esperance beaches in the latest in a series of bizarre natural events to plague the region. Residents who found two dozen seal pups washed up on the south coast beaches after last week’s freak storm say they HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH A MASS STRANDING. Gales and 5m swells washed the eight-week-old seal pups on to coastline near Esperance and east of Hopetoun. “You will get the occasional individual seal pup but to have such large numbers come ashore. I’ve been here 20-odd years and this is the first I’ve ever heard of something like this.” Wildlife authorities are still baffled by the mysterious deaths of an estimated 4000 birds. Six birds had been sent to Perth for autopsies with results so far pointing to either a chemical or naturally occurring toxin as the possible cause of the deaths. If birds had been infected through a water source, floodwaters had most likely diluted the area, making attempts to find the cause increasingly difficult. Esperance has been declared a natural disaster area, with the damage bill from last week’s “ONCE-IN-A-GENERATION” storm expected to reach tens of millions of dollars.

------------------------------------------
2006 -

UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
12/20 -
SCOTLAND - Buckets of rain, floods, landslides, tornadoes, hail, lightning - it's like the end of the world has arrived. Scotland has not had a dry day now for more than 40 days. It was the WETTEST NOVEMBER ON RECORD - and this month continued with even more rain. We are only halfway through December and already the west of Scotland has had more than its average rainfall for the entire month. But the whole of 2006 has been a bizarre year for weather. July was the hottest month ever recorded and it was the warmest September. Autumn was also the warmest for that season on record. The whole of this year was the warmest on record - amazing when January to April was actually colder than normal. But the skies have been behaving in stranger ways than usual. In January an EXTREMELY RARE and beautiful "blue flash" was photographed near Glenrothes, Fife. A beam of intense blue light appeared for just a few seconds from the setting sun when extremely warm and cold air bent the rays. The coast of Aberdeenshire was rocked by a mystery huge bang on the sixth, shaking windows. There were no aircraft or blasts and the cause of the noise left experts baffled. In February a mysterious foul gas-like pong spread across Edinburgh and led to some schools, businesses and homes being evacuated. The source of the unearthly stink was unknown. In April spring flowers made their latest appearance for 40 years in some places. In May arctic winds saw some parts experience one of the coldest nights on record. In June a strange dark band appeared across a sunny sky near Glasgow on the sixth. A RARE "lunar standstill" was seen at the prehistoric stones of Callanish on Lewis. This event only happens every 18 years, when the Moon rises and sets at the most extreme stretch across the horizon. In July record-breaking heat brought unusually large numbers of whales and dolphins, including some rare species, off the eastern coast of Scotland. In August on the 23rd an UNUSUAL rainbow was seen in Midlothian, with white streamers seeming to hang from it. In September a fireball was seen shooting over woodlands at 10pm on the 6th outside Fort William. In October leaves refused to change colour and fall off trees in what was the warmest autumn on record. In November UNUSUALLY WARM seas around Scotland brought masses of phytoplankton, which gave other creatures a bonanza feed. Torrential rainfall broke records for the month. In December temperatures have been so warm that grass is still growing, ski slopes are bare and a farm on the Moray Firth is still growing raspberries. A waterspout was seen last week off Shetlands, a RARE event so far north and late in the year.
CHINA - people are already starting to feel the effects of a changing climate. Chinese coastlines experienced some of the WORST TYPHOONS AND FLOODS ON RECORD this summer, while the western provinces suffered severe drought. Between January and September, natural disasters forced the evacuation and relocation of 13.2 million people and killed more than 2,300, causing direct economic losses of US$24 billion. Extreme weather now hampers China’s economic growth by between 3 to 6 percent of GDP, or US$70–130 billion, per year. In the region of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain outside Lijiang, Yunnan province, many locals lament the changes of recent decades. “When I was a little girl I used to wear extremely thick sweaters in winter. My arms and legs could hardly bend in them. Now, at the coldest time of year, I’m just wearing a thin windbreaker, and it’s enough. In the past, Snow Mountain would be completely white year-round, and all of the lakes in the area would freeze over. Now there’s hardly any snow on it, even in the middle of winter, and we can fish in the lakes year-round. It snowed once two years ago but hasn’t snowed since.” These changes have occurred rapidly, and cannot be ignored. “In the last 20 years, we have seen 200-years-worth of changes in climate,” noting that the winter season is several months shorter, the snow cover on Snow Mountain has declined 60 percent, and animals and plants seen as children are now gone or extremely rare. “They say that Yunnan is the land of ‘four seasons of spring,’ but in the last three years we’ve really seen what happens when we lose our seasons. Compared to when I first moved here 20 years ago, it is much warmer all year round now. Especially these past three years, the sun feels hotter and it has hardly rained at all.” Loss of glacial water is one of the most pressing concerns posed by climate change in China, where 23 percent of the population depends on glacial water. It is estimated that China will lose two-thirds of its glaciers by 2050, putting at least 300 million people at risk.
ODD-
12/18 -
Sun-deprived people might consider moving to the northern Italian village of Viganella, basking in sunlight as of today thanks to a giant mirror. The village's 185 residents are plunged in chilly darkness during winter months as surrounding mountains cut off direct sunlight. The answer: A towering 8m by 5m mirror installed on the flank of one bluff and computer-driven to follow the sun's path and cast its rays back on Viganella. "It wasn't easy, we had to find the proper material, learn about the technology and especially find the money" for the nearly €100,000 ($167,000) operation which has spawned envy from Swiss and other Italian mountain villages.
ODD - MORE MYSTERY TREMORS -
12/8 -
NEW JERSEY - Some people felt the ground shaking Thursday afternoon in South Jersey along the shore. Police took calls and emails from people in Mays Landing, Egg Harbor Township, Marmora, Somers Point, and Ocean City. All of them reported rumblings, tremors, and loud noises around 12:30 pm, then again at 1:15 pm. Most of the obvious potential causes don't check out. The only major road construction in the area is along the Route 52 causeway, and that's pretty far away for all those people to feel it. The Earthquake Center in Delaware reports absolutely no activity in the region. And the Department of Defense and New Jersey military investigated. Both say no local aircraft caused a sonic boom. But there is the possibility that an aircraft just passing through from a different area could have caused a loud rumbling feeling.
MISSISSIPPI - Many Jackson County residents felt the earth shake and rumble for several seconds Wednesday morning, creating a myriad of suspicions as to what had happened, but officials believe sonic booms from jets may have been the cause. About 10 a.m. two loud noises that shook houses, windows and the ground were reported throughout the county. Deputies were dispatched but no explosions were reported at any local industries, which prompted officials to then call local airports in Pascagoula, Gulfport and Mobile, as well as Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi and the National Weather Service. Local police departments, including Mobile, and other agencies received numerous calls from citizens about the noise. "It was pretty widespread." Last year, a sonic boom from jets from Pensacola Naval Air Station conducting high-altitude exercises over the Gulf of Mexico caused a similar quake that was felt in the county. That is what could have happened Wednesday. "That's the only thing we can attribute this one to. We can't find anything on the map." "There was a shake. It felt like an earthquake and then it make a deep bass-like rumbling sound." "We talked to a lot of people and they told us, 'We felt it, we heard it, but we don't know what it was." No official NAS Pensacola representative was available at press time to confirm whether exercises were taking place in the area.
( See 12/5 for Australia's mystery tremors, See 11/5 for North Carolina's, 9/22 New Zealand's, 8/13 Virgina's, 4/30 & 4/28 & 4/24 & 4/5 Washington's & California's, 3/24 British Columbia's, 3/17 & 3/15 Oregon's, 2/26 Maine's. In 2005 12/23 North Carolina, 11/23 & 10/29 Israel, 10/19 Indiana, earlier Florida )
12/5 -
MYSTERY TREMORS -
AUSTRALIA - Authorities are investigating the cause of a large tremor felt across a 70-kilometre stretch of the New South Wales mid-north coast. Emergency call centres were inundated with calls from residents who reported a tremor that shook windows and doors in Taree and surrounding areas. But the Government seismology body, Geo Science Australia, says it was not an earthquake, and the weather bureau says no unusual weather was recorded in the region.
AUSTRALIA - residents along the NSW mid-north coast began contacting police about 9.30pm (AEDT) and reported their homes shook in a tremor yesterday. "It was felt around Forster, Nabiac and then up as far as Taree, Wingham." A spokeswoman said F/A-18 Hornets, fighter jets, from two squadrons were on low-altitude flying missions Monday night. "We can confirm that there were Hornet F/A-18 aircraft flying over that area." But the spokeswoman would not say whether that was what residents felt and heard when they reported a suspected earthquake. Military aircraft from the Williamtown base fly most nights along the NSW mid-north coast and as far west as Coonabarabran and Mudgee. Weather could amplify the noise.
ODD -
11/28 -
WISCONSIN - WHITE BUFFALO KILLED BY LIGHTNING - Lightning on Sunday night struck and killed two buffalo cows and three buffalo calves, including a white buffalo on a farm south of Janesville. The white calf's mother was walking around and grunting, so the owner followed her up the hill where he found the five dead buffalo with burn marks laying near a tree. He thinks it was one lightning strike that hit all five and the nearby tree. The farm became a destination for thousands of visitors after Miracle, a female white buffalo, was born there on Aug. 20, 1994. White buffalo are EXTREMELY RARE and are said to fulfill a Native American legend foretelling peace. Miracle died in 2004 and is now stuffed in the gift shop. A male white buffalo was born on the farm Aug. 25 this year. "How many times in a lifetime does lighting strike?" the owner had said after the second birth. Earlier this year, lightning struck a couple of his Scottish Highlander cows, but it had never happened to any of his buffalo. He said they figured they'd better "call it in and get it on the news wire" so people wanting to visit the white buffalo wouldn't be surprised. "I suppose it's going to be a great loss to a lot of people. It's just coincidence, I guess, that lightning struck twice," he said. "He (Miracle's Second Chance) was born in a storm and died in a storm."
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
11/24 -
INDONESIA - As Jakarta continues to bake through the long dry season, residents try to cope with the heat while waiting for the respite of the rainy season which has been late to start. "The authorities need to find out what is going on with the weather, whether it is caused by global warming or not. It's useless for the authorities to cover it up just because they may not be prepared to study the matter. This is important so they know what to do, and so the public can be prepared for what lies ahead. The impact of this long dry season must be worse for farmers who have seen their crops fail, and for people without access to clean water." "The weather has been REALLY UNUSUAL. Everyone is getting sore throats this dry season. It is probably some new contagious disease. My whole family was sick this week. And several friends at my taxi pool have had sore throats. In the past, the rainy season started in November and it would rain every day in December and January. This year, if we don't take extra care we will get sick."
ODD -
11/21 -
NEPAL - While landslides triggered by torrential rainfall claimed lives and wreaked havoc in various parts of the country this past monsoon, locals of Rupakot VDC in the district were hardly thinking that landslides would terrify them in winter when there is no rain. But they are completely baffled nowadays after the area has been witnessing landslides and dhule pairo (dry soil erosion), even when there is no rainfall. The landslides, which began around a month ago, have already displaced 90 families. The dry slides show no signs of abating even after a month. Interestingly, the settlements are not below or near the landslip site, but lie far above a hill where clouds of dust particles rise everyday in the area after the slides begin. "The lands nearby have also sustained wide cracks while some houses are also on the verge of collapse." The locals also revealed that the dry slide is proportional to the sunshine.
ODD -
11/9 -
AUSTRALIA - A cow has gone for a four-hour swim in the surf in a bizarre bovine spectacle before drowning off Queensland's coast. The two-year-old Brahman-cross escaped from a nearby paddock on Sunday and travelled 2km to where it was spotted by beachgoers paddling 300m out to sea. The owner said when police phoned him to report his missing cow had been sighted swimming in the ocean it was the strangest thing he had ever heard. A crowd of more than 100 were drawn to the beach as word spread about the body surfing cow, which swam for three hours, coming to shore twice before returning to the waves. The owner and a friend eventually took a tinnie out to try to rescue the cow which was paddling in water around 7m deep but could not bring her to land. She eventually drowned from swallowing water. A University of Queensland school of animal studies lecturer said it was the first time in 20 years he had heard of such strange behaviour. Cows are good swimmers and often wade out into dams. But to swim in the ocean for that long was BIZARRE. "It is UNUSUAL, I've never seen anything like that."
11/5 -
MYSTERY BOOMS BACK IN NORTH CAROLINA -
Unexplained Booms - Residents of Lake Renaissance Circle say they felt a series of jolts Thursday morning, November 2. They say it felt like an explosion followed by tiny booms. Some residents speculate the booms were caused by military planes flying overhead. Another possibility is the so-called "Seneca Guns," the mysterious sounds that seem to come from the ocean.
Possibly related to this story from Virginia? - Tremors from what was believed to be a minor earthquake Thursday in Southwest Virginia were more likely the result of a collapse at an abandoned mine. The event registered magnitude 4.3 and took place about eight miles north-northwest of Raven and about 10 miles northwest of Richlands in Tazewell County. It occurred at 12:53 p.m. Even a minor earthquake of that magnitude would typically trigger "a thousand calls" and normally would be felt as far away as Washington D.C. When the National Earthquake Information Center had only a couple of calls trickle in, seismologists took a closer look. They concluded it was far more likely to have been a mining event, which can sometimes be confused with a temblor. Experts say it may have been a blast, but more likely a ceiling collapse in one of the region's many mines. The state had no reports of the collapse of a working mine nor any reports of unusual mining activity in the area, however.
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
10/26 -
ARIZONA - Valley had longer, wetter, and earlier monsoon - Phoenix reported a 75-day monsoon and considerably higher levels of rainfall across the state for 2006 in comparison to the average 55-day monsoon with limited rainfall. In the city of Tucson, about 100 miles southwest of Safford, rainfall during monsoon exceeded 10 inches. This level of rainfall hasn’t occurred since 1983. Last year, the monsoon started on July 18. This year, however, monsoon began almost a month earlier, on June 28 in Safford. Phoenix reported a stretch in the monsoon to Sept. 30. A large monsoon storm in August blew out newly installed calverts in Noon Creek because of massive amounts of water from rainfall. In the month of July, the mountain received more than 7.5 inches of rain at Columbine and was followed by more than 6 inches of rain in August. From the end of June to mid-September, the rainfall was reportedly at 16.65 inches on the mountain. Rainfall and other UNUSUAL WEATHER is still occurring well into October. In the east part of the Gila Valley, the month of September hit a RECORD WITH LOW TEMPERATURES. “We had a very cool September with an average mean of 70 degrees with the low temperatures, and that broke a record from data recorded since 1948.” September is usually ten degrees warmer than this year’s average high of 84 degrees.
ITALY - The high quality of this year's grape production was in a way a surprise, given the UNUSUAL WEATHER PATTERN which at times seemed as if the seasons had changed places". "We had summer heat in the spring and almost autumn weather in August."
UNUSUAL WEATHER EVENTS -
10/12 -
ALASKA - Production at America's largest oil field will remain down for several days. That word Wednesday from BP. The oil company says operators are scrambling to clean hardened mud off high voltage electrical insulators that shorted and brought down the field's electrical system. A BP spokesman says a "HIGHLY UNUSUAL weather event" - three days of dust storms followed by rain at Prudhoe Bay - coated insulators with a mud that could not be cleaned off before electrical shorts brought down the power distribution system. The recent windy weather at Prudhoe Bay, where the lack of snow cover allowed dirt and debris to be whipped around, had slowed work at the oil field even before the power outage. Indeed, such storms have affected the power system at Prudhoe every three to four years but nothing on this recent scale. Strong winds were also blamed for a private-plane crash in Southwest Alaska, but all seven passengers survived.
MICHIGAN - a cold front moving into the area will bring rain and possibly several inches of snow tonight into Friday morning for inland portions of Charlevoix, Emmet and Cheboygan counties. “This is a PRETTY UNUSUAL weather set up. It is something we typically see more in November and December.” The cold front, currently over Minnesota, will come into the area this afternoon. This weather pattern will stay in the area through this weekend into next week, when temperatures will moderate. Normal highs during the month of October for Northern Michigan are in the upper 50s. However, starting this afternoon the temperature for the area will drop to the 30s in the evenings and 40s during the day. Those low temperatures will stick around through the weekend. “It's a good 15 degrees plus below average.” "It is way too early though, way too early [for several inches of snow]. If it was first part of November that is par for the course, but not the middle of October. Give me a break.”
NEW ZEALAND - UNUSUAL weather - This year's winter has been called ONE OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE. And now spring does not seem to be shaping up much better after recent gales and heavy rain in the north and snow down south on Tuesday.
BOOM ASSOCIATED WITH QUAKE IN NEW ZEALAND -
9/22 -
NEW ZEALAND - A loud bang accompanying an earthquake centred off Takou Bay on Sunday had some coastal residents checking the sky for a meteor. The 8:34am earthquake 20km east of Kaeo and 20km north of Kerikeri was centred at a depth of 5km and had a magnitude of 3.5 on the Richter scale. Some heard what sounded like a big explosion which shook a stone home at Te Ngaire, rattled windows and moved a picture on a wall. "At first I thought something had landed on the roof. Some people rushed out of their houses thinking it was something from space like they've been getting in the South Island." Along the road at Te Ngaire, "there was an awful boom and everything vibrated". It had sounded like a door slamming loudly or a gas cylinder exploding. "We thought maybe it was thunder, but it was too abrupt for that - more like a sonic boom." At Matauri Bay, a woman said the bang had sounded "like a quarry blast". The bang was also heard at Kerikeri, where among the suggestions for its cause was: "We thought it might be a P lab blowing up." Another "rattle" was heard much later on Sunday at both Matauri Bay and Te Ngaire, where a Mrs. Sale pointed out a unique anniversary. She said it was 25 years to the day that "a smoky thing" appeared in her home during a major storm. Scientists had investigated and attributed the phenomena to plasma or ionised gas formed by lightning.
NEW MYSTERY BOOMS -
8/13 -
VIRGINIA - Buildings shook and windows rattled with a series of loud booms heard up and down the northern beaches of the Outer Banks shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday, August 8. "The only thing we can attribute it to is offshore jets. We called the Air Force, the Navy and the Coast Guard and they couldn't run it down." There was a flurry of calls from the public wanting to know what caused the concussive sounds that felt like an explosion could have gone off somewhere nearby. A military operating area - commonly called an MOA - is located about 25 miles offshore. Jets from the Air Force and Navy conduct practice bombing runs at the range, but none of those aircraft could have been a source. "I promise you, it was nothing we had. If it was a jet, it had to be out over the ocean over the MOA. There was nothing from Nags Head beach west that we were doing that would do anything like that." Pilots are not allowed to break the sound barrier over populated areas. "This is the first time it's happened in I don't know how long." There were no reports of any damage related to the incident.
ODD -
7/31 -
OHIO - Scientists say it's a mirage, but others swear that when the weather is right, Clevelanders can see across Lake Erie and spot Canadian trees and buildings 50 miles away. Eyewitness accounts have long been part of the city's history. Mirages can occur during an atmospheric inversion, in which a layer of cold air blankets the lake, topped by layers of increasingly warm air. When this happens, it can cause the light that filters through these layers from across the lake to bend, forming a lens that can create the illusion of distant objects. Such a mirage is rare, but not unheard-of. A reporter in Ontario has seen the other way, he's seen Cleveland from across Lake Erie twice. "All of a sudden, there was Cleveland, just off the Canadian shore, as if it were just across a river...When it shows up, it looks like you can touch it."
EXTREME WEATHER SEASON -
7/20 -
HAWAII - Heavy winter rains that caused severe flooding in many areas are becoming a distant memory during what is shaping up to be a very dry summer. Rainfall totals show above-normal readings through the end of June, but most of the moisture arrived in the first part of the year. The National Weather Service characterized the recent weather as "a year of extremes." "In December, it was very, very dry, then it got very, very wet, and now it looks like we're headed for dry conditions again." "It's kind of cruel; it's either too much water or not enough." Although summer months are typically drier, "it's kind of UNUSUAL that we haven't had any rain whatsoever in a couple of months. It doesn't even keep the dust down." Kaua'i has seen three consecutive months of below-normal rainfall after the excessive rains of February and March that triggered fatal flooding in Kilauea. Even Mount Wai'ale'ale, considered one of the wettest places on the planet, collected less than half its normal precipitation for June.
ODD -
7/18 -
A puzzling, ominously named phenomenon, 'sudden wetland dieback', is transforming salt marshes in the New England region of the U.S. into barren mudflats, scientists say, and their best efforts have failed to figure out why. "It appears to us we have a new phenomenon we've never seen before." Across New England, researchers are poring over aerial photographs and slogging into mucky marshes on the lookout for ailing marshes, in hope of understanding its cause. Over the past five years, there have been reports of marshes that look as if they have been mowed . There are 17 suspected dieback marshes on Cape Cod, and a few other possible sites are on the North and South Shore. Dead patches are also visible on about two-thirds of Connecticut's shoreline. At least one report is from Rhode Island. Research so far has been a frustrating exercise in what scientists call forensic ecology: reconstructing what happened to portions of dead marsh and preparing for the ecological repercussions. "This great of an expanse of denuded salt marsh is not natural." The affected tidal marshes are one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. They are the basis of the food chain for many commercial fish species. They buffer the coast from storms. "People who have had long careers working in salt marshes, 40-odd years, think it's a VERY BIZARRE, UNPRECEDENTED phenomenon."
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
7/14 -
PENNSYLVANIA - in mid-April they were worried about an impending groundwater drought in Pennsylvania. At the end of June, floods caused millions of dollars worth of damage in the eastern part of the state. "We went from a drought situation to floods in the span of a week. We never saw that coming." April and May brought below-average amounts of precipitation across the state, worsening the drought, before the deluges of June washed in. State officials had declared a drought watch in April after an unusually warm, nearly snowless winter was followed by one of the driest months of March on record. But June changed everything, and state officials lifted the drought watch for the whole state on the last day of the month after a storm wobbled up the East Coast and stalled over eastern Pennsylvania. "It was never called a tropical system, but it looked almost like a hurricane as it spun up the coast - it was a really interesting system. It brought a lot of tropical moisture with it." What made the storm that came at the end of June UNUSUAL is that it arrived in early summer, and not in the fall. It is uncommon to get that much tropical moisture this early in the summer." "It just continues the trend of what is happening worldwide that we have been having more extreme weather. It is just getting harder and harder to predict what is going to happen long-term when you go from drought to floods in just days. It was once very unusual here to get a storm that dumps 10 or 12 inches of rain. I am personally convinced - the scientific evidence is irrefutable - that global warming is happening and that it is behind a lot of the extreme weather events that we have been seeing over the last 10 years or so. Now whether human activities are causing or worsening the phenomenon, I can't say. But I am sure about this - even though weather models are improving, these extreme weather systems are throwing everything out of whack. I have gotten less and less confident about long-term weather predictions."
ODD -
7/4 -
Online gambling on hurricanes is becoming quite popular. The gambling operators who offer these types of bets claim that the historical data on hurricanes make for great odds due to unpredictable weather predictions. For example, wagerers can bet on a range of hurricane formats - from the total number of hurricanes that occur, to wagering on the odds of category strength status, to how many storms will hit Florida residents or certain areas along the coastline.
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
6/23 -
NEPAL - "Nepalese village folks still repeat the saying that the appearance of a single star during monsoon months (due to dispersal of clouds) will cause loss of tens thousands of muris of food grains. It is already paddy plantation season now and we have not only starry nights but also full fledged sunny days. What is happening? Recent years are marked by puzzling weather phenomenon. Rains are falling in unexpected volume in unexpected time. And when they are badly needed, they are absent. Winter precipitation is vital in the Nepalese agriculture system, which lacks irrigation facilities. After the retreat of monsoon, we have witnessed no rains for several months. Farmers who grow winter crops, especially vegetables, were most affected. Rivers and streams dried to the unexpected levels and winter appeared to be warmer. Vegetable output went down. The rain-silence was broken around April but the spell came in such a fashion as if the monsoon had set in. In the past, late April-early June were known to be dry but recent years have proved otherwise. This year, they were rainy with the downpour catching people by surprise throughout. There were swollen rivulets, flooded streets and damaged crops. The spell continued not only for days but weeks and months...There are prolonged droughts that are usually broken by the spells of excessive rains. It seems that rains are getting more violent. They are also getting more irregular and isolated. Rains are accompanied by more occurrence of thunder and lightning with lightning deaths going up considerably higher in recent years. In sum, weather patterns are visibly changing and taking more catastrophic form. Landslides, flash floods, longer droughts and extreme form of rainfall have become the common type of disasters that cause loss of life and property every year. Unusual things are happening not only in Nepal but also globally....A relevant question is - What might be behind all these inhospitable and unexpected phenomenon that we have been witnessing of late? The happenings indicate that climate change is taking place. Global temperature is said to be hovering at the highest level in the history of human civilization.
ODD -
6/20 -
IDAHO - Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, a RARE RAINBOW was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border . The arc isn't a rainbow in the traditional sense — it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground. When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors. This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour. (photo)
ODD -
6/16 -
Arctic sea level has been falling by a little over 2mm a year - a movement that sets the region against the global trend of rising waters. It is well known that the world's oceans do not share a uniform height; but even so, the scientists are somewhat puzzled by their results. Global sea level is expected to keep on climbing as the Earth's climate warms. To find the Arctic out of step, even temporarily, emphasises the great need for more research in the region. The recent trend could be linked to changes in the temperature and salinity (saltiness) of Arctic waters. Russian tide gauges have also hinted at a sea-level fall during the 1990s. This seems to fit with the phases of the so-called Arctic Oscillation, a seesaw pattern of change in atmospheric pressure over the polar region and mid latitudes. Recent years have seen a dramatic pull-back in the extent of summer ice and the models do not fully account for the changes that are being observed.
6/2 -
AUSTRALIA - A massive ocean vortex discovered off the West Australian coast is acting as a "death trap" by sucking in huge amounts of fish larvae and could affect the surrounding climate. The vortex – 200km in diameter and 1000m deep – is spinning at speeds up to 5kph just off the Rottnest Canyon. The vortex, shaped like a giant child's spinning top, was created by current movement down the coast and is one of the largest ever found off of WA. Visible from space, the vortex is acting as a "death trap" by sucking in fish larvae from closer to the shore. "It's actually acting as a predator, it's actually taking the fish larvae which need to stick around their natural habitat on the coast, and dragging them off to sea." The climate above the vortex was noticeably different. "It feels like you're in the tropics. It's warm, soft, moist air, with flying fish, it's a very different environment." It could also potentially affect climate further afield. "The vortex is moving a large volume of a very warm current out back into cooler waters, so essentially it's taking that heat and moving it away from the coast. So essentially that really changes the heat budget of our regional ocean and it's the ocean that determines climate." The vortex was unlikely to pose a danger to people sailing or diving in the area but the change was definitely noticeable. "We were in a 70-metre boat and you could immediately feel the shift in the ship's tract, so you can certainly tell that there's something UNUSUAL going on out there."
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NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS -
5/30 -
A Nasa satellite mission will be launched this year to study the highest and most mysterious clouds on Earth. Noctilucent, or "night-shining", clouds appear as thin bands in twilight skies, some 80km (50miles) above the surface. Recent records suggest they have become brighter, more frequent and are being seen at lower latitudes than usual. The changes in frequency and brightness have been observed over the past 20 years. Normally confined closer to the poles, they have been seen as low as 50 degree North. Scientists cannot say for sure but they suspect human activity may be altering the conditions in the mesosphere that drive the clouds' formation. Although the extra carbon dioxide (CO2) put into the atmosphere by human activities has warmed the air near the Earth's surface, it is thought to have had the opposite effect in the middle and upper atmosphere by radiating heat more efficiently into space.
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
5/26 -
INDIA - Due to unseasonal rains during the last five days, water has logged in several low-lying slum areas in Bhopal. The thatched roofs of many slums have been hit by gales and they have become roofless. The household items of a number of slum dwellers have been damaged as water entered their shanties. The residents of these slum areas are also feeling hardships in moving about due to the water and mud. Though the rainy season is yet to begin, monsoon-like showers in the state capital rendered ineffective the 'Nautapa' - a period of extreme summer heat. Bhopal recorded a high of 34.9 deg C, four notches below normal. Day temperature ranged between 32-38 C in other stations while the 'Nautapa' days usually witness the mercury shooting past 43 C. The town Jabalpur was the coolest at 32 C, ten marks below normal. This has been termed by weather experts and astrologers as a clear sign of a weak monsoon this year. According to them, extreme heat during 'Nau Tapa' is the harbinger of a good monsoon and when 'Nau Tapa' is disturbed or rains are witnessed during this period, the chances of normal monsoon thin out that year.
5/23 -
UNITED KINGDOM - This may be the summer of drought - but instead of rain over the next few months people in Yarmouth have been told to brace themselves for a downpour of frogs. That is the unusual conclusion of a senior weather forecaster who has labelled the resort as the most likely spot for a downpour of BFOs - bizarre falling objects. The town was showered in two-inch sprats in August 2000, while other BFO outbreaks recorded around the country in previous centuries include larger fish, tomatoes and even coal. Recent changeable weather conditions such as storms, droughts and sudden downpours have vastly increased the chances of objects falling from the sky, according to British Weather Services, who says they can be caused by heat and air pressure coupled with atmospheric instability. “People may be surprised to hear this happens but while it might be UNUSUAL it really does...You need converging air, warm land mass, instances of lightning and thunderstorms and chances of tornadoes - and Yarmouth has that all more than anywhere else in Europe. With this week being as UNUSUAL as it's going to be all summer in terms of changing weather patterns, it's a great recipe for things being sucked up and then deposited.”
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
5/12 -
INDIANA - Within the Paducah National Weather Service coverage area, there have been 402 severe weather events so far this year. This is nearly the total number of storm reports in all of 2003, a year which had seen the most severe weather in the last ten years. The clash of cold air from the north with warm, moist and unstable air from the south is a typical severe weather set-up. Add a strong jet stream wind above the surface and the recipe for storms is nearly complete. One of the reasons this year has been so active is that the jet stream has taken several dips over the eastern half of the country, leading to the development of strong low pressure systems. While this is not unusual during spring, this pattern has been with us on and off for months.
5/10 -
INDIA - Few people realise that unless there are miraculous heavy unseasonal rains in the next few weeks north India is going to face a summer of acute discontent. The water situation is reportedly bad even in north Pakistan and is likely to worsen during the next few months till the monsoons break in late June. With water scarcity, power generation, too, will be badly affected. This gloomy situation may continue even longer because the meteorological department has just declared that the 2006 monsoons are likely to be deficient as well. The level of water in the Ganges at Garhmukteshwar was the LOWEST SEEN DURING THE PAST 20 YEARS. With the virtual failure of winter rains, the situation in other northern rivers like the Yamuna and Sutlej is likely to be just as bad. If this is the situation in mid-April, the next three months till the monsoons set in are likely to become even more critical. Sea level temperatures have increased by 3.7 degrees Celsius during the past 20 years - this rate of change is equivalent to half an ice age in less than a 100 years.
5/9 -
UFO sightings are caused by freak weather, says a British report. A secret government study into sightings of alien spacecraft has concluded that they are not extra-terrestrial visitors. The four-year Ministry of Defence study found that UFO sightings are the result of rare atmospheric conditions. It blames the most vexing sightings on airborne "plasmas" which form during "more than one set of weather and electrically charged conditions", or during meteor showers.
WEATHER MODIFICATION -
5/8 -
KANSAS - For more than 30 years, a single-minded and dedicated group of individuals has concentrated their efforts from April through September on controlling the weather in western Kansas. A new study indicates that work, done under the auspices of the Western Kansas Weather Modification Program, has made inroads in suppressing hailstorms, an ever-present threat for farmers and their crops. The study by the Kansas Water Office, which partially funds the weather modification program, shows a decline in crop hail insurance claims in western Kansas counties that participate in the cloud-seeding program. The program determines if pilots seed for rain enhancement or hail suppression. More seeding agent, silver iodide, is dispersed at a faster rate for hail suppression. Though weather modification has coaxed only minimal increased rainfall, hail suppression efforts were more successful. "You don't necessarily get fewer hailstorms. You get smaller hail, generally coming down as tiny hail. If you have smaller hail, there is less damage." Taxpayers in participating counties foot the bill for weather modification activities. Though some rain has fallen this year, the weather pattern already is unfavorable for weather modification, officials say. The last seven years have been so dry that it's difficult to determine if weather modification actually works. "If there are no clouds, it's bad. They still need to have clouds, and we aren't getting many of them anymore."
ODD -
5/8 -
CHINA - Thousands of tourists and local residents witnessed a mirage of high clarity lasting for four hours off the shore of Penglai City in east China's Shandong Province on Sunday, May 7th. Mists rising on the shore created an image of a city, with modern high-rise buildings, broad city streets and bustling cars as well as crowds of people all clearly visible. The city of Penglai had been soaked by two days of rain before the rare weather phenomenon occurred. Experts said that many mirages have been recorded in Penglai, on the tip of Shandong Peninsula, throughout history, which made it known as a dwelling place of the gods. They explained that a mirage is formed when moisture in the air becomes warmer than the temperature of sea water, which refracts rays of sunlight to create reflections of the landscape in the sky. (photos! note that the year is mistakenly listed as 2005)
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
5/7 -
NEPAL - Already experiencing melting glaciers and a receding snowline, the Everest region of Nepal has seen some UNUSUAL weather patterns these past few months. A snow-free winter, followed by unexpected snow storms in the second week of March - when spring had already begun - has left Sherpas baffled. Another unexpected storm in April, which lasted three days, surprised the locals further still. The following morning, on 21 April, debris from a major ice collapse killed three Sherpa climbers and injured more than a dozen others in the Khumbu Ice Fall area. "We don't remember getting such snowfall during spring in the past." "Last winter was not at all like winter, and now the same is the case with spring. This is something we've never seen before. We think this is quite ominous."
WEATHER WEIRDNESS -
5/5 -
OZONE HOLE - Chinese scientists have warned a 2.5-million-square-kilometre ozone hole may be forming over the Tibetan plateau. While it does not yet qualify as a regular ozone hole, like the ones over the two poles, the area has seen a dramatic drop in ozone density in recent years. The decrease in ozone over the plateau was caused by atmospheric air movements rather than the global greenhouse effect. "When low-ozone air currents in the lower layer enter the upper air layer, the overall ozone density is reduced." Without the ozone layer, plant and human DNA can be damaged, causing destruction of crops and initiating skin cancer. Recent assessments that had suggested that ozone erosion had now permanently stabilised, failed to take into account the potential for volcanic eruptions, solar storms and other natural phenomena to distort the picture.
U.S. Atlantic Coast - A large and nearly stationary high-pressure system centered to the north over eastern Canada provided very clear, sunny and dry weather during the last days of April. At the same time a large low pressure or storm system near Bermuda began RETROGRADING to the west and northwest and its associated rain area backed westward and northwest toward New England. Local coastal areas from Cape Cod to Maine were getting over one inch of very welcome rainfall from this rather UNUSUAL weather pattern of a rain area backing toward them from the east and southeast. Normally their weather comes from the west but in this case it was coming from the east. The rain that began late on May 1 brought over an inch of precipitation in about 12 hours. In many places this was the greatest one-day rainfall for one day or within a 24-hour period since January. The long dry spell, which began in February and continued through most of April has sent the year’s rainfall deficit down to more than six inches below normal.
For centuries, New Zealand's Maoris have used intimate observation of nature to harvest eels and predict the weather. That legacy is endangered by the changing climate. According to traditional Maori beliefs, the environment is rife with clues that hint at larger phenomena. Everything is interconnected in the Maori view of the world, from the cries of birds to the shapes and colors of clouds. But today, New Zealand is no longer the same land. National icons like the kiwi bird have declined in population, pollution levels have increased and residents report subtler changes: Wind blows much more strongly from the southwest than it used to, some plants bloom at earlier times of the year and the weather is increasingly unpredictable. Some of the trees are not as bright and covered in flowers as they would normally be. The native brown parrots are rarely seen in the North Island's forests anymore. Eels begin their migration cycles at increasingly idiosyncratic times, making it difficult for locals to catch them. An iwi on New Zealand's eastern coast is known for its crab-catching abilities, but the main harbor where they fish has become choked with the sudden spread of mangroves, possibly because of warmer temperatures. And in some areas the cabbage tree, which Maori tribes sometimes use to forecast a dry summer, is flowering much later in the season than normal. The rainfall has gotten heavier and more localized. The food now ripens at different times, the water is warmer, and the seasons seem to blur. In parts of New Zealand, people joke about living in a climate that can produce all four seasons in a day. "These days you don't know when a drought is going to come and when a heavy cold, whether it's going to be a cold winter or a warmer winter."
Climate scientists have documented a pronounced slowdown in the Pacific Ocean atmospheric system that drives the trade winds, a prediction of global warming theory that appears to be coming true. A study suggests that the movement of moisture and heat across the tropical Pacific has tapered off by 3.5 percent since the mid-1800s, when such records begin, and appears likely to ease by another 10 percent this century. That could have wide repercussions for weather and sea life throughout the Pacific region, although it's hard for anyone to be certain at this early stage what effect the slowing of the winds would have. Possibilities include more El Nińo-like conditions, stronger hurricanes and less upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water from the deep Pacific. Weather generally may become more variable - and harder to predict. The Walker circulation works like a seesaw in which warm, moist air rises in the western Pacific, becomes drier at high elevation and displaces eastward, where heavy air sinks and returns westward. The phenomenon thus generates west-to-east air currents high up, and east-to-west trade winds near the ocean surface - a great climatic wheel centered on the equator. As for the impacts on land, it's anybody's guess. One possibility may be generally wilder weather -- bigger storms, drier droughts and stronger hurricanes feeding off the warmer, wetter tropical Pacific. Any change in the Pacific's air-flow pattern may be compensated by a change in some other part of the system yet to be pinpointed. "The Earth seems to have a way of balancing things."
Planet Jupiter is experiencing its own climate change and global warming. The global change cycle began in 1939 when the last of three white oval-shaped storms formed south of the 300 year-old Great Red Spot. As the storms started to merge between 1998 and 2000, the mixing of heat began to slow down at that latitude and has continued slowing ever since. The movement of heat from the equator to Jupiter's south pole is expected to stop at 34 degrees southern latitude, where Red Spot Jr. is forming. This will create a big wall and stop the mixing of heat and airflow, the thinking goes. As a result, areas around the equator become warmer, while the poles can start to cool down. Little is known about how storms form on the giant planet. They are often described as behaving similar to hurricanes on Earth.
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
5/3 -
CALIFORNIA - Unusual weather patterns around the globe spawned the wet weather in Redding last month. The Shasta dam collected 15.48 inches during the first two weeks last month. That's the WETTEST APRIL TOTAL SINCE STATE WATER OFFICIALS BEGAN KEEPING RAINFALL RECORDS at the dam in 1948. Explosive thunderstorms over Indonesia and northern Australia energized the jet stream across the Pacific. This jet carved a deep low pressure area off the West Coast during the first two weeks of April, feeding one storm after another into Northern California. A mammoth high pressure dome over the Aleutian Islands and another over the eastern seaboard locked the low in place over the West Coast, for reasons that aren't entirely clear. But the mid-Atlantic states enjoyed one of its driest, mildest Aprils in recent memory while blizzards buried the Northern California mountains and fattened foothills' creeks. This stormy pattern abruptly shifted after midmonth, perhaps in response to a migration of tropical convection back toward the Indian Ocean. The Aleutian high shrank and wandered east toward Asia while the eastern seaboard high expanded all the way to the West Coast. The jet stream, which had roared through Northern California, jumped into Canada after April 17.
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4/30 -
RED RAIN - Scientists in Britain say they have confirmed that DNA, the genetic blueprint for life, does exist in the mysterious red rain which fell over the Kerala region of India, in 2001. The blood-coloured rain caused a storm of controversy among the world’s scientists. Many theories have been put forward to explain the strange phenomenon, but the latest results, from studies carried out at Cardiff University in Britain, seem to confirm that the red colour does come from living cells, although where they came remains a mystery. The strange cells fell as red rain for six weeks, following reports of an explosion in the sky. Indian scientists who first analysed the rain expected to see grains of dust or sand, perhaps blown from the Sahara by freak winds. Instead, they found themselves looking at complex cell-like structures, that have many of the characteristics of living organisms. They were even more surprised to find the cells could be made to come to life and reproduce, under laboratory conditions. “If there was an explosion of a small piece of a comet over Kerala, and an explosion was in fact heard just minutes before the first rainfall, those particles would have drifted along a belt of latitude, but when you look at a map of the world, the latitudes west of Kerala run into the Indian Ocean and then into the Sahara. So if it fell all over that area it wouldn’t have been noticed, and in the Sahara there is not much rainfall, so the particles could have drifted a long way away and not be noticed.” Intensive investigation under high-powered microscopes confirmed the cell-like structures are biological and that they do contain DNA, the blue print of all life forms on Earth. What’s not yet known is whether it is terrestrial life or alien DNA, but investigators believe they will know soon. The Cardiff team is now comparing DNA from the red rain with that of all known terrestrial species. "It’s a long and painstaking study, but if no known DNA from Earth matches, the only remaining possibility would be that it is an alien life form from outer space."
MYSTERY BOOMS-
4/30 -
WASHINGTON - A series of explosions that rocked most of the Port Angeles area remains a mystery. Police dispatchers received calls from all around the area the night of the 27th about 11:30pm reporting the series of "booms". But police have been unable to uncover what may have caused the noises. Callers reported a series of five explosions that shook their houses. One caller reported her glass sliding door shattered. No earthquake activity was reported that night in the Port Angeles area.
CALIFORNIA - the source of a mysterious disturbance that rattled San Diego County on the morning of April 4, shaking windows, doors and bookcases from the coast to the mountains was a sound wave that started over the ocean roughly 120 miles off the San Diego coast and petered out over the Imperial County desert. That spot is in the general vicinity of Warning Area 291, a huge swath of ocean used for military training exercises. Researchers have charted dozens of similar, if less dramatic, incidents that seem to have originated in the same general area of the ocean. They aren't sure what caused any of them, whether the April 4 disturbance was natural or made by humans. “But it was certainly a big disturbance in the atmosphere.” There was no Navy or Marine Corps flight activity in Warning Area 291 on that day that would have caused a sonic boom or a countywide tremor. The area covers 1 million square miles and is off-limits to civilian planes and ships. “We don't know at this time where this earthquakelike sensation came from.” The disturbance was the result of a low-frequency wave that traveled through the air at the speed of sound as it moved from the ocean to the desert. It was picked up by more than two dozen seismometers in San Diego and eastern Riverside counties. The wave was felt on San Nicolas Island, northwest of San Clemente Island, at 8:40 a.m. It hit Solana Beach at 8:46 a.m., the western edge of the Cleveland National Forest at 8:47 and the eastern side of the Salton Sea at 8:53 a.m. From there, it appears to have dissipated. The wave moved at 320 meters per second, roughly the speed that sound travels through the air. Its velocity was too slow to be that of an earthquake. The only explanation is that the wave was traveling through the atmosphere, not through the ground. At each location, the wave could be felt for roughly 10 seconds. Several months before the April 4 incident, a team had begun studying other nonquake disturbances that were registering on San Diego County seismometers, including 76 that apparently originated in that same general area of the ocean in 2003. They figured that some of those disturbances surely must have come from offshore military exercises. The researchers haven't been able to determine whether the April 4 wave was more powerful than the earlier ones or whether it simply felt that way because of atmospheric conditions. “I'm told that a sonic boom would not cover that distance at all." Authorities have said a meteor probably wasn't the cause because it would have been noticed by the scientific community. The American Meteor Society reported no fireball sightings over Southern California on that day.
MYSTERY BOOM LOCATION PINPOINTED -
4/28 -
CALIFORNIA - Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography believe they have located the mysterious boom heard and felt in San Diego earlier this month. On the morning of April 4, a loud boom rattled windows and doors in many parts of the county. A team of Scripps scientists said the boom was the result of a sound wave that originated over the ocean about 120 miles west of San Diego. The spot is near an area used by the Navy for military training exercises. The Scripps scientists said that they didn't know if the sonic boom was caused by human activity or a natural phenomena like a meteor exploding in the atmosphere. Military officials said that there was no Navy or Marine Corps fight activity in the training area on April 4. [ SITE NOTE - So we still don't know WHAT caused the boom, only where it seems to have originated from.]
4/26 -
CALIFORNIA - After two days of recovery attempts, workers reached the body of a man who was killed when a huge hole opened beneath his house. Authorities identified the victim as a 32-year-old schoolteacher, whose wife is pregnant. He was relaxing in his living room about 9:30 p.m. Friday when he heard creaking noises, sprang up and began to move across the room just as the floor opened beneath him. He fell into a sink hole that opened and was trapped by rubble that landed on top of him. One of his dogs is believed to have perished with him. Workers trying to extricate his body were forced to retreat because the ground remained unstable through the weekend. It expanded beyond some of the load-bearing walls of the home, leading the recovery team to consider demolishing it. A second sinkhole opened up about 50 feet away from the house. A mine collapse is one likely cause of the strange episode. This area in the Sierra Nevada foothills was heavily mined for gold in the late 1800s. No maps exist of these mines, and there has apparently been no concerted effort to seal old mine shafts in the area. "There may be absolutely no surface evidence that it's there, and it could be five feet below the surface."
The 10-by-10-foot sinkhole continued growing deeper and wider for days. By Sunday night, the pit bottomed out at 20 feet deep, with a diameter that had more than doubled to 30 feet. "If you want to speculate, this house (in Placer County) probably had a void that's been opening up under the slab, and maybe this latest bout of rainy weather could have been the straw that broke the camel's back."
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
4/25 -
MAINE - last winter's mild weather and lack of snowfall were a break from the norm. Mother Nature seems to have skipped mud season this year too. The Bangor area received approximately 37 inches of snow between November 2005 and April 2006, 25 inches less than normal and less than half the amount received during the previous winter. Temperatures were also above average. Although April's precipitation figures are close to average, the total rainfall this spring is below average. For Maine's wild creatures, these seasonal abnormalities can be a blessing for some, a source of stress for others and even a death knell for an unlucky few. Salmon are sensitive to unusual weather patterns. This winter Atlantic salmon did not have bone-chilling temperatures creating ice blocks that extend to the riverbed, limiting water flow and starving them of oxygen. But lower river levels this spring could trap the endangered fish inland, thwarting their biological urge to head toward saltier waters. Northern Maine's white-tailed deer population enjoyed manageable snow depths, which make it easier to find food, navigate the woods and escape prey. But lack of snow cover in early spring could cause a boom in the population of ticks that prey on moose, leading to increased moose mortality. One group that stands to suffer the most from dry conditions is amphibians.
MYSTERIOUS BOOMS CONTINUE TO BE HEARD -
4/24 -
CALIFORNIA - At various spots throughout San Diego County, people reported a rumbling sound or a booming noise shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 4, and so far no one has come forward with an explanation. Whatever it was, it caused a woman's bed to shake in Lakeside. It created waves in a backyard pool in Carmel Valley. It set off car alarms in Kearny Mesa and rattled windows from Mission Beach to Poway to Vista. “My garage door is double steel and it weighs about 500 lbs. It was rattling back and forth like a leaf in the wind for about 3 or 4 seconds.” Scientists insist it wasn't an earthquake. The Federal Aviation Administration has no record of any planes producing a sonic boom by breaking the sound barrier. Camp Pendleton officials say no activities on the Marine base could have created such a disturbance. There were no large explosions in San Diego County that day, and no meteor fireballs were reported in the sky that morning. What was it, then? Maybe it was the same thing that caused a strange disturbance in Mississippi on April 7, when the locals heard a loud boom that rattled windows all over Jackson County, throwing emergency workers “into a tizzy.” Authorities in that state still don't have a clue as to the cause. Nor, to this day, can anyone explain what was behind similar episodes in Maine two months ago, or Alabama three months ago, or North Carolina four months ago. In each of those cases – as well as in other incidents around the nation over the years – residents reported hearing windows rattle and feeling floors shake even though no earthquake was detected. [Mobile, Alabama on Jan. 19, 2006: Wilmington, N.C., on Dec. 20, 2005; Winston-Salem, N.C., on March 5, 2005; Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 1, 2003; and Pensacola, Fla., on Jan. 13, 2003. ]
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
4/23 -
ALABAMA - there's a lot more hail hitting Huntsville roofs than usual for this time of year. A change in the jetstream has meant a decrease in Alabama's spring winds. That has combined with high temperatures and humidity to create weather that's more like summer than spring. "We're not seeing typical April weather. We're seeing typical June or July weather." With less wind, storms have been able to build vertically, like they might in August, and conditions have been great for hail. Usually, winds across Alabama in the spring are strong enough and temperatures cool enough to produce damaging storms and tornadoes, but not often the icy shrapnel of the past week or two.
4/19 -
CHINA - The Chinese government plans to seed clouds over Beijing to prompt a cleansing rainfall after the capital was hit by the worst dust storm in five years which dropped an estimated 300,000 tons of dust and sand. A thick layer of yellowish sand covered buildings, cars and open spaces after the storm hit overnight on Sunday. Health officials warned parents to keep their children indoors and hospitals treated more people for breathing difficulties at the height of the dust storm. This week's dust storm extended across the East China Sea as far as South Korea and Japan. The weather system was expected to last through today in some parts of China.
4/17 -
AUSTRALIA - Gas from rotting fruit and vegetables has put 16 people in hospital in Sydney. Authorities at first believed there was a mains gas leak on the premises. As the victims were taken to hospital suffering headaches and nausea, firefighters spent hours trying to locate the source of the leak. "They started thinking about decontamination for the people in hospital, who were complaining of a lingering stench on their clothes and body." It finally became apparent that it was the fruit and vegetables that were the cause. "It seems to be a part of the fermentation process had gone wrong." "It was the carbon monoxide making them sick."
4/12 -
Ice falling from the sky might seem unusual, but some Spanish and American scientists say it is becoming a frequent occurrence throughout the world. Like the estimated 200-plus-pound chunk that fell Saturday on Bushrod Park in California, clear ice from the sky has been reported around the world. Big and small ice-falls have happened in China, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Scotland, Hungary, England, India and more than half of the United States — often in summer and some recorded before aircraft were invented, scientists say. And in each case, no one knows why. "None of us have been able to come up with a process to determine how it is happening. We're really baffled as to what is going on here." The Oakland ice cube was clear and free of debris, ruling out any chance it came from an airplane bathroom, the experts said. But its large size makes it hard to believe the ice is a product of nature. According to one study, every time such an incident occurs, it is precipitated by an unusual atmosphere in which higher altitudes are turbulent and cold. The cold helps create the ice. The turbulence helps keep it together in the sky. A leading hail expert said the "meteorological explanations just don't make sense to me" for creating giant ice balls way up in the dry stratosphere. "I don't like to claim that anything is absolutely impossible, but this comes awfully close." In the late 1990s, when a huge, 400-pound chunk crashed through the roof of a Mercedes-Benz factory in Southern Brazil, U.S. defense scientists analyzed it for signs of cosmic origin. The water's isotopic signature indicated the ice ball was terrestrial, with the water coming from temperate latitudes. Beyond that, tests were inconclusive. Oakland was wet and so was the air high up, but tropospheric conditions overhead Saturday were "nothing extraordinary."
The Oakland, California, solid block of ice that fell from the sky, crashed and left a 3-foot hole in the grass. The ice fell at Bushrod Park in Oakland when a homeowner was waiting to show apartments to prospective renters Saturday. No one was injured, police said. “It was totally amazing. ... I saw this flash, like a streak. Then I saw this explosion, like a big boom. I came over and it (the field) was all covered with ice." The ice was pure water, so “it didn’t come from a toilet on a plane or anything like that.” The National Weather Service said storms haven’t been violent enough to hatch a gigantic hailstone.
THE MYSTERIOUS BOOMS ARE BACK -
4/5 -
This time they're in California - San Diegans are wondering what's behind a series of mysterious booms heard across the county Tuesday morning. The booms were heard at around 8:45 a.m. and rattled residents, causing a flood of calls to sheriff's dispatchers. No measurable seismic activity was recorded in San Diego County Tuesday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Local military officials had no reports of a sonic boom happening. Marines at Camp Pendleton conducted mortar training Tuesday morning, but officials say they were unaware if the noise was a result.
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MYSTERIOUS BOOM -
3/24 -
CANADA - British Columbia - Possibly a meteorite - A loud explosion in Burnaby late Wednesday night, March 22, has authorities scratching their heads. About 11:05 the blast rattled windows and awakened neighbours near the Chaffey Burke Elementary School on Abbey Avenue. Police responded with officers and a dog but came up empty handed. All they could find was a small hole in the ground. No damage has been reported and there were no injuries.
ODD -
3/17 -
MYSTERY BOOMS STILL A MYSTERY -
OREGON - The Portland Air National Guard says they do not believe F-15 fighters are to blame for loud booms heard throughout the area on Saturday. The Air National Guard checked Portland's flight track and determined jets were conducting training flights over the Northwest when a series of strange rumbling noises hit. However, the two jets that broke the sound barrier were over the ocean and pointing west. That sonic boom would not have traveled more than 20 miles. "If it was us, we'll confess and make sure we look at procedures and make sure it doesn't happen again." Many people on the base heard the noise as well, but say it was much different than a sonic boom. The Air National Guard will now check Seattle's flight track to see if any other jets may have been flying at the time.
ODD -
3/15 -
RUSSIA is red again - after a FREAK fall of colored snow. Northern regions of Russia's Maritime territory have been blanketed by a creamy reddish snow caused by a combination of weather patterns. Authorities have been broadcasting non-stop weather bulletins to explain the phenomena is due to natural causes after panicked locals bombarded police and emergency services. Meteorologists have explained sand storms from neighbouring Mongolia are to blame. A cyclone passed over Mongolia on its way to Russia causing sand particles to be driven up into the air causing the colour of the snow to change. The red snow comes just weeks after yellow snow, caused by pollution from an oil and gas factory, fell on Russia's Far East island of Sakhalin. ( yellow snow photo ). [SITE NOTE - So far there has been red snow and yellow snow in Russia, yellow snow in South Korea, a rust sandstorm and a saffron-yellow sandstorm in China, chocolate brown snow in Arizona.]
MORE MYSTERY BOOMS -
OREGON - People from the coast all the way to the mountains heard mysterious rumbles Saturday night, so what on earth were they? No, it was not an earthquake from Mount St. Helens and it was not thunder and lightning. It seems everyone had their idea what the noises were and nearly everyone had a different opinion about how long it lasted. A meteor was the best guess from the National Weather Service, but that is unconfirmed. The 911 dispatch center told KATU News they heard it was military jets causing sonic booms. Monday morning, KATU contacted McChord Air Force Base to find out if they were conducting some kind of exercise over the metro area. They were still waiting to hear back from them.
UPDATE - The source of those mysterious rumblings over the weekend that caught the attention of so many continues to be a mystery. The focus is on F-15s at the Portland Air Base, which KATU News was originally told were on the ground, but later learned were not. It turns out a group of F-15s were launched from the Portland International Airport Saturday night as part of three days of intensive training. Within an hour of their departure, people started hearing things and feeling some rumblings. That is when the 911 calls began. Even the commander of the F-15 squadron heard the strange noise from his home in Lake Oswego. The logical explanation seemed to be that the fighter jets set off a sonic boom, but the Air National Guard says it does not make sense that so many people, from Longview to the Oregon coast, would hear the same sonic booms at the same time. A much smaller range of 10 to 20 miles is more likely. With so many wondering what happened, the Air National Guard is continuing its investigation. That leaves others to speculate about meteors and to do comparisons with a similar unexplained phenomenon in FLORIDA last year and in MAINE just last month. Others speculate it is a secret government plane, code-named Aurora, which supposedly flies out of Area 51 in Nevada. For years, unusually intense sonic booms rocked LOS ANGELES, with many believing it was Aurora passing by at four times the speed of sound. The Air National Guard says they plan to interview the pilots individually on Wednesday, which may lead to some kind of answer. Each time an F-15 pilot causes a sonic boom over populated areas, they are required to write a log of the event. [SITE NOTE - If you are wondering why I put news of these mystery booms on the page, it is because mystery booms deep in the plate boundary were reported in Indonesia in the months before the December 2004 quake and tsunami. The booms may not be related to quakes, but just in case they are, it seems prudent to keep note of where they are occurring.]
ODD -
3/14 -
CHINA - A sandstorm dimmed the sky and turned the air the colour of rust in northwest China, reducing visibility to less than 50 metres. In Artux, capital of the Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture, the deputy head of a monitoring station called it the WORST AND STRANGEST SANDSTORM TO HIT THE CITY IN 13 YEARS. "It is like going into a flour mill. It is hard to breathe when standing outside as the air is so smoky." Particle counts in the city's air were as much as 222 times higher than normal on Sunday. Sandstorms have become a regular spring phenomenon in parts of China as desert areas expand under pressure of overgrazing and drought. This storm was blamed on a strong cold front that began affecting the region on Saturday, causing gale-force winds. ( photo )
In the city of Kashi, a yellow sandstorm swept in early Sunday morning and later turned the sky saffron yellow.
SOUTH KOREANS have been treated to a RARE WEATHER PHENOMENON when yellow snow fell in the capital and elsewhere across the country. But the snow - containing dust or sand from the desert regions of northern China, could pose a health hazard, the country's meteorological office warns. "It's tough to say whether it's yellow sand mixed in snow or if it's snow mixed in yellow sand." A high concentration of the dust particles prompted the weather bureau to issue a yellow dust warning for the second time in three days. South Korea frequently gets sand or dust storms, but a yellow snow storm is VERY RARE. "I have never seen yellow snow falling before," a meteorological official said. The agency says the yellow snow is a health hazard and officials have warned the pollutants in the flurries included heavy minerals.
The Korea Metrological Administration issued a rare health warning against the yellow snow storm in Seoul and nearby provinces. A yellow dust warning was issued in other regions. The Korean peninsula has been hit by yellow dust blowing in from northern China every spring but a yellow snow storm is rare.
HAWAII - A FREAK GUST of wind sent 13 utility poles crashing onto Farrington Highway Sunday, trapping motorists under live power lines but causing no serious injuries. 20 vehicles were damaged. A pole flattened the roof of a Chevy Astro van down to the window sills, but the three people inside escaped with only a scrape to the shoulder of the driver. The huge wooden poles splintered in two about 1 p.m., some crushing cars, and fell across all four lanes of the highway in what many said looked like a hurricane scene — or a disaster movie. Radar spotted 45 mph trade winds coming from the east between 12:30 and 1 p.m., about one mile in altitude. "When a 45 mph wind dips down from aloft, it can accelerate to higher speeds. It is FREAKISH, out of the norm." "It is a RARE AND UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCE. Poles are designed to withstand 80 mph winds, which is near hurricane-type conditions. It's hard to say what factors caused the poles to fall. It is under investigation." "It's a miracle that no one got killed." (photos)
YO-YO WEATHER -
3/14 -
OREGON - A week of BIZARRE WEATHER EXTREMES ended with a stunning weekend on the Oregon coast. After a few days of high winds, extremely heavy surf, and a rotating mix of snow, hail, rain, lightning and moments of sunshine, the coastal region finally settled down to a pleasant weekend that was largely cloudless and devoid of wind. Temperatures were a bit on the chilly side, lingering in the 50’s and upper 40’s. Friday saw the tail end of some of the mixed bag of weather that dumped ODD conditions on the coast, including the occasional spot of snow. Thursday’s snowstorms left a few inches on the coast range summits, and by Friday evening the passes were a bit icy in some spots.
UNUSUAL WEATHER SEASON -
3/12 -
CONNECTICUTT - It's been a funny winter - mild, with major snowfalls that promptly melted and temperatures that seemed confused about the actual season. January was among the 10 mildest on record since the state began keeping weather records in 1905. With January's temperatures averaging 33 degrees - a substantial 7.4 degrees above normal - they then encountered an early February that felt more like March before turning consistently chilly. "We had a RECORD SNOWFALL on Feb. 12, then three days later, it was 57 degrees! We've had warmer winters, and winters with more snow, but we've never had a winter with such fluctuations." Those fluctuations have been in terms of both temperature and snow. Snowfall as of last week was about 29 inches above normal. The charts show 69 inches for Hartford, compared with 39.3 inches on average. The casualties of this winter-that-was-and-wasn't might be insects - the good and the bad. The fluctuating temperatures would have forced at least some insects in and out of the process of hibernation before true spring, a process that can depress insect numbers. One of the great New England storms of all time - the Blizzard of 1888 - occurred in March. "If we can have April in January, we can have January in April."
INDIA - It has been raining so much in several parts, including in the city, that even seasoned weather observers are stumped at the 'strange phenomenon'. This time of March is not used to receiving rains, at least not at the levels that the nation is witness to. Chennai has been receiving intermittent showers all through the week. Down South, in places like Tuticorin, Kanyakumari and nearby places, it has been belting down hard. Elsewhere across the Vindhyas, up North, summer usually simmers by this time. But places like Punjab, Delhi have been receiving heavy showers. Rains that have cooled northern India are also likely to move east towards Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal. The spell of freak weather that has brought relief from the heat is said to be a result of upper air cyclonic circulation systems, which interacted with the existing pre-monsoon circulation pattern.
Many parts of the state are reeling under the heavy downpour OF A SCALE NEVER WITNESSED IN THE MONTH OF MARCH IN 70 YEARS. “On March 7, 1936, Bhopal received a rainfall of 35.1 mm. But by Friday morning this year, the city had received a rainfall of 44.7 cm.”
3/8 -
MASSACHUSETTS - On the side of the road near Route 106 in Plympton was a pumpkin. Growing. In March. "I know it sounds bizarre, but it is so real." The ideal growing season for pumpkins begins when weather is consistently in the 70s - far from the up-and-down temperatures the Commonwealth has seen this winter.
WEATHER AT SEA - the Southern Ocean - "I have experienced some very strange weather today as we were sailing along. Every couple of hours we had extremely poor visibility where you could see no more than a couple of boat lengths and everything was really wet. Then in just a couple of hours we would pass through it and be in clear skies with visibility all the way to the far off horizon. A very strange sensation and for safety I kept the radar on as I cannot shake the visions of icebergs that I have etched on my mind from the end of last week. Also as we approached the frontal system of the low, the sea temperature dropped from 10.3 to 8.2. This was not what I was expecting and can only put it down to large chucks of ice chilling it down." The ice littering the path was the result of an iceberg 15-20kms in length breaking off from Antarctica, which had been floating north into the Indian Ocean for some months, breaking up into a group of icebergs spread over a 100km area. "I don't recall reports of so much ice in any of our 50 crossings of the Southern Ocean.”
3/6 -
FLORIDA - For the past month, boat wakes have lasted for hours in the foamier-than-usual Banana River Lagoon. Puffs of the brown and white stuff washed up along the lagoon banks and canals in Cape Canaveral. Scientists haven't come up with a definitive answer on the foam's cause, but the prevailing theory is an algae die-off, despite tests last week that found a normal concentration of algae species typically seen in the lagoon. So far, water tests ruled out detergents and several toxic algae species. No red tide toxin or the toxin that contaminates lagoon puffer fish have turned up, either. Test results from new samples sent this week to the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St Petersburg are expected early next week. The reason for all the foam may have more to do with warmer than usual conditions this winter that allowed more algae to grow and die faster than usual. Temperature data from the Banana River suggests warmer than usual water for most of the winter, followed by a blunt cold snap late in the winter that may have caused the excess algae to die off all at once. "Typically, these things would die off in smaller scales. We're hoping that we've seen the worst of it, and we should see it disperse." The foam is too widespread to be an environmental spill. "Maybe it's related to some of the plants and animals growing now that we haven't seen before, or haven't seen as many as before." The natural breakdown of rotting plants and animals releases products that can lather up water. Although not an immediate threat, the foam hints at an underlying chronic algae problem. "I'm not so concerned about the foam as I am with these larger populations and organic matter, which can result in low dissolved oxygen." "It is a freak thing. I've been coming down here in 10 years, I've never seen anything like this."
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MORE MYSTERY BOOMS -
2/26 -
MAINE - People in Somerset County are seeking answers after feeling earthquake-like tremors this week. The Somerset County Communications Center got calls Thursday morning from at least a dozen residents who reported tremors in a 15-mile radius in Anson, Madison, Skowhegan and Norridgewock. But state officials said there weren't any earthquakes that were documented by the New England Seismic Network. People in Solon last week reported hearing an unexplained loud explosion that shook homes. "I'd like them to re-look at what they may have. This is the second occurrence in less than a week of such magnitude." Thursday's event sounded and felt like a Dumpster had fallen off a truck or a truck had hit the town office building, but that nothing could be found when employees went outside to see what happened. More than a mile away, another person felt the shaking in his office. But he, too, couldn't find the cause. "It felt like somebody with a delivery type of vehicle had backed into our building." Six miles away in Anson, the boom and shaking were so strong that an off-duty dispatcher called the county's dispatch center. He thought maybe his chimney collapsed or his furnace exploded, but he couldn't determine the cause either.
Reports continued to pour in Friday from residents who said they experienced what appeared to be earthquake tremors at about 10 a.m. Thursday morning. "The number and validity of reports received Thursday and Friday - in addition to similar reports last Friday in Solon - indicate Thursday's event was significant and not just a sonic boom."
2/21 -
TAIWAN - Weather factors have impacted the strawberry crop in the Hsinchu area this year, resulting in the fruit growing to sizes rarely seen. Many strawberry farms in the area have produced not only huge fruit, but fruit that has grown in forms not typical of strawberries. A farmer in the township of Kuanhsi began cultivating strawberry plants a while back that yielded fruit that was the size of one's fist. In recent days, people have come to notice that the plants grown in Kuanhsi, Chiunglin and other areas are producing fruit that has grown in strange forms. The weird-looking fruit is rarely seen anyplace else. Farmers said that only the second crop of the season exhibited the strange looking fruit. The fruit likely grew into strange forms due to the passage of weather frontal systems through the area, with seasonable winds impacting the fruit in its growth stage. The harvest of this year's strawberry crops has been delayed somewhat in comparison with the past. The blooming of the plants in the first and second crops was drawn out considerably longer this year than in the past. As a result, the strawberries likely had the opportunity to extract more nutrients from the soil and be exposed to fertilizer for a longer period. The relatively long period between the two crops is something that occurs only once every number of years.
FOG -
2/15 -
INDIA - A 'FREAK' blanket of fog enveloped the capital again Tuesday morning even as scorching weather conditions, that have brought the 'heat of summer' in Delhi earlier than the usual period in March, persisted. A similar blanket of fog had enveloped the capital on Friday morning. The mercury continued its upward rise, a trend witnessed since the beginning of February - while the minimum temperature shot up to 14.5 degrees Celsius, five degrees above normal, the maximum temperature rose to 30.9 degrees Celsius, eight degree above normal - continuing Delhi's ''fast movement'' towards summer. In fact, there is expected to be no let-up from the scorching heat in the next few days. With the scorching weather coming ''too soon'', weathermen say it is THE WARMEST FEBRUARY IN THE LAST MANY YEARS. Such hot weather is QUITE UNUSUAL at this time of the year.
2/13 -
AUSTRALIA - An UNUSUAL COMBINATION of light rain, humidity and dust was responsible for a loss of power to around 18,000 Sydney homes. EnergyAustralia blamed a combination of early morning dew and dust for causing insulators on high-voltage lines at Menai and Berowra to short out at about 9:45pm (AEDT) yesterday. The blackouts occurred when fail-safe mechanisms kicked in after electricity jumped over an insulator. "It's all about an unusual occurrence of light rain, humidity and dust combining to cause the electricity to arc over, jump over, an insulator."
2/12 -
FOG - INDIA, NEW DELHI - Just when summer seemed to have announced its arrival loud and clear, the fog was back with a bang, bringing the city to a halt. Visibility dropped to zero at the airport even though temperatures remained higher than normal. Fog started engulfing the city at about 4:30 am when visibility dropped to 250 metres. After 7:30 am it dropped down to zero before becoming normal by about 10 am. The temperature, meanwhile, continued to remain unbearable at 27.2 degrees Celsius (four degrees above normal) while the minimum temperature was recorded at 11.8 degrees Celsius (two degrees above normal). The formation, according to Met officials, was 'sudden'. "The formation of fog was 50 per cent below normal this January and in February, all signs were indicating the onset of summer. What happened was the mixing of cold air coming in from Pakistan and Afghanistan with the warm and moist air coming in from the southwest."
2/10 -ANOTHER REPORT OF A STRANGE SMELL -
SCOTLAND - Hundreds of people feared a huge gas blast on the 8th after a strange stink swept Edinburgh. Scotland Gas Networks took scores of calls from worried residents in the coastal district of Granton. Emergency services and radio stations also received reports from Leith, the city centre and the west end. But as police, gas, health and ports bosses launched an investigation, mystery still surrounds the source of the smell. A Scotland Gas Networks spokeswoman said they had taken hundreds of calls. "The problem is not coming from the supply network." "Inquiries with companies in the city and Firth of Forth area have also failed to establish a source for the smell." A weather expert said: "If the smell is being detected over a fairly large area of Edinburgh, I would think it came from quite a distance, possibly miles away."
2/8 -
TEXAS - Gusty winds on Sunday were blamed for a bizarre accident that killed the son of a TV weatherman who was parasailing behind a tractor. The wind proved so strong it picked the tractor up off the ground. That caused the rope holding the son to break, and he went free-flying into the air. Initially,he hit the ground but the wind picked up his parasail again, and he was thrown over a fence and into a tree about 500 feet away. According to the National Weather Service, the average wind speed Sunday was 14 mph, with gusts of up to 37 mph.
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ALASKA - A tsunami warning was mistakenly sent to TV and radio stations across Alaska on Monday. At the time, technicians were working on a computer and showing a new intern how warnings are issued. "He says no one sent anything. You couldn't set it off without going through three of four steps. It might have been glitch in the machine. We're still trying to figure out why it went out."
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BELGIUM - LOW WIND - Alarming figures indicated on Thursday that more than 10,000 Belgians die prematurely each year due to fine particles in the air. The high level of pollution is being caused primarily by the current UNUSUAL WEATHER SITUATION, which is characterised by temperature inversions and low wind speeds. The weather pattern has led to a reduced dilution of air pollution at various locations across the country. This has resulted in high concentrations of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, benzene and fine particles. And although it is only the start of February, the acceptable level of fine particles in the air has already been breached 20 times this year. That is alarming because on average, there are just 35 breaches recorded each year. An academic said that up to 30 people would probably die on Thursday as a direct result of the current poor air quality.
2/2 -A BIT OF EVERYTHING -
WESTERN WASHINGTON - Every single weather element that can possibly happen around there - wind, rain, flooding, lowland snow, mountain snow, thunderstorms, hail, and (maybe) funnel clouds - did happen over a span of about 12 hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Strong winds of 25-35 mph, were gusting to 50-60 mph