“Mother Nature Hates You”

No internet, no phone: Canada wildfires expose fragility of rural infrastructure

Shortly before sunset on Friday, residents of Canada’s Yukon territory discovered their connection to the outside world had vanished. Internet access had gone. Mobile phones showed no signal. Landlines had failed.

Chaos quickly set in. Electronic payments couldn’t be processed. In Whitehorse, the capital, most ATMs couldn’t function and the few that did were quickly drained of cash from panicked residents. City officials warned that the ability to call police, ambulance or fire services was non-existent.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

NOAA says tonight’s ‘cannibal’ solar storm could be worst in 165 YEARS and cause GPS and power outages

Earth could witness the worst solar storm in 165 years as five streams of plasma released from the sun this week are set to make crash into our atmosphere tonight.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed Friday that the worst-case scenario would be what happened during the 1859 Carrington event, which set telegraph stations on fire and cutting communications worldwide.

In our modern-day society a geomagnetic storm – a major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere- of that magnitude would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts and damage to critical infrastructure.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Little Evidence of Increasing Wildfires, Droughts, Hurricanes: Fraser Report

A new report from the Fraser Institute has cast doubt on claims that extreme weather events are becoming more common, arguing such assertions by governments and media outlets are not “iron-clad.”

“Many types of extreme weather show no signs of increasing and in some cases are decreasing … Claims about extreme weather should not be used as the basis for committing to long-term regulatory regimes that will hurt current Canadian standards of living, and leave future generations worse off,” reads the April 18 report, “Extreme Weather and Climate Change.”

The report warns that based on assertions that have not been proven to be true, governments have been enacting “ever more restrictive regulations” on Canadian consumers of energy products, which have imposed costs on Canada’s economy and its citizens’ standards of living.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Anticipation and Anxiety Build Ahead of the Total Solar Eclipse

Back in the old days Mom & Dad thought burning your retinas out was character building.

Millions of people will tilt their heads skyward on Monday, marveling at a total solar eclipse. The moon will cross the sun and block its light for a few fleeting moments, a communal celestial experience that will not again be so accessible to people in the United States, Canada or Mexico for decades.

The total solar eclipse’s path — the expanse where the moon fully obscures the sun — stretches from Mexico’s Pacific Coast to the fringes of Atlantic Canada, passing through dozens of major cities where authorities are preparing for an influx of visitors eager to experience what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Carmageddon! Lake Tahoe is hit by sixteen car pile-up

A dramatic 16 car pile-up hit the road to a popular Lake Tahoe resort because eager skiers rushed to the mountain for its fresh snow.

Drivers in South Lake Tahoe witnessed a terrifying series of car crashes on the icy roads on Wednesday afternoon.

Cars plummeted down a slippery hill and rammed into a growing cluster of crashed vehicles piling up at the bottom.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Japan issues tsunami warnings for west coast after 7.6-magnitude earthquake

A powerful earthquake has struck central Japan’s western coastline, prompting tsunami alerts and warnings for people to evacuate.

The quake, which hit at 4.10pm local time (0710 GMT) and is estimated to have been magnitude 7.6, knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and disrupted flights and rail services. In Wajima city on the Noto peninsula, close to the epicentre, at least six people are reported to have been inside houses that collapsed.

Waves of up to 3 metres (10ft) were reported along stretches of the Sea of Japan coast. The Japanese public broadcaster NHK said waves could reach as high as 5 metres.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

‘£3m’ wind turbine ripped apart in Storm Gerrit

This is the astonishing moment Storm Gerrit tore apart a wind turbine as 85mph gales barreled through parts of Britain.

Shocking footage showed the energy generator in Ayrshire, Scotland, wracking up speed before the blades suddenly come loose and are flung across a seemingly deserted field in opposite directions.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

NYC streets turn into raging rivers during epic downpour flooding roads and subways

Wild scenes of flooding unfolded throughout New York City Friday morning as an intense rainstorm barreled through the tri-state area, turning local roads into rivers during the morning rush hour and stranding motorists.

Videos showed cars plowing through knee-deep water in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, with a whirlpool seen swirling in the middle of the waterlogged road.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Recent Developments Concerning the Death Toll From the Maui Wildfires

Does anyone remember the Maui wildfires? It remains one of the worst wildfires in American history. It’s the one where Joe Biden did not comment about the rising death toll because he was too busy enjoying the beach. The man took two vacations before his little visit to the island two weeks after the blaze killed nearly 100 people and caused at least $6 billion in damages. The fires broke out on August 8, destroying entire communities; Joe arrived two weeks later.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Libya: 10,000 missing after unprecedented floods, says Red Cross

Ten thousand people are missing after unprecedented flooding in Libya, the Red Cross said on Tuesday, as the extent of the damage to Derna, the port city where two dams burst over the weekend, became more clear.

Tamer Ramadan, the Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, gave the figure at a UN briefing in Geneva, describing the death toll as “huge”.

The health minister in the administration that controls the east of Libya said more than 3,000 people had been confirmed dead. “The number of missing people is in the thousands, and the number of dead is expected to reach 10,000,” Othman Abdel Jalil told Al-Massar TV channel.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You", Libya

How earthquakes happen — and why Morocco was hit harder

Morocco is hardly the first place that comes to mind when people think of earthquakes, but they are actually quite common. Compared with the colossal quakes that shake Turkey, Indonesia, Japan, China and other very seismically active parts of the planet, however, those that affect Morocco are not especially large.

Probably the most infamous is the 1960 Agadir earthquake, which took up to 15,000 lives in the south of the country. More recently another quake in 2004, with an epicentre on the north coast, killed more than 600 people.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"

Powerful quake in Morocco kills more than 800 people and damages historic buildings in Marrakech

MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 800 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. The toll was expected to rise as rescuers struggled to reach the remote areas hit hardest.

People woken by the quake ran into the streets in terror and disbelief. State television showed people clustered in the streets of Marrakech late at night, afraid to go back inside buildings that might still be unstable.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You", Morocco

BC expected to sink into Pacific or somethin …

‘Sleeping giant’ drought threatens more disasters after record Canada wildfires

A season of record-breaking wildfires in British Columbia is nearly over, but officials in the Canadian province have warned that a persistent drought in the Canadian province is a “sleeping giant” which could usher in a fresh set of natural disasters, including devastating floods in the coming months.

Bowinn Ma, British Columbia’s emergency management minister said this week the unprecedented drought has the full attention of senior government officials as the region enters the “home stretch” of the province’s unprecedented wildfire season. Hundreds of blazes tore across the province this summer, leaving crews exhausted and broken, and scorching an estimated 2.2m hectares of land.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mother Nature Hates You"