“Mother Nature Hates You”

A once-in-a-lifetime drought in the western part of the US is turning up dead bodies – but that’s the least of people’s worries.

Sitting on the Arizona-Nevada border near Las Vegas, Lake Mead – formed by the creation of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River – is the largest reservoir in the United States and provides water to 25 million people across three states and Mexico. Here, the stunning scale of a drought in the American west has been laid plain for all to see.

The water level is now so low that bodies of murder victims from decades back, once hidden by its depths, have surfaced.

Some of the first images have emerged from Tonga’s volcano and tsunami-hit islands, after a New Zealand defence force surveillance flight returned from the cut-off country, as three deaths from the disaster have been confirmed in Tonga.

BRASILIA, Jan 8 (Reuters) – At least five people died and nine were seriously injured when a wall of rock collapsed on top of motor boats below a waterfall in southeastern Brazil on Saturday, the local fire department said.

A tower of rocks suddenly broke away from the canyon wall and came crashing down on several leisure boats, sending out a huge wave over the lake at Capitolio, in Minas Gerais state.

#Capitólio, Minas Gerais: a stone wall collapsed and fell on 3 boats. Initial information speaks of 1 dead and 15 wounded pic.twitter.com/TtyWnWU8xO

— Bellum et Pax 🇧🇷 (@BellumPaxBR) January 8, 2022

It occurred “due to heavy rains, which caused the loosening of a wall of stones in Lago de Furnas, in Capitolio,” Romeu Zema, governor of Minas, said https://t.co/v4C34a6o4e pic.twitter.com/GG54WmpTEh

— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) January 8, 2022

I stumbled across this. Worth a look.

Firefighters on Thursday night were trying their best to preserve homes in the line of a fast-moving wildfire, which has shocked the state at a time when the ground should usually be thick with December snow.

The Marshall Fire, just south of Boulder, was sparked by extreme winds gusting over 100mph, which knocked down power lines and sparked a fire.

Officials on Thursday night confirmed that at least 580 homes had been lost – making the Marshall Fire the most devastating destruction of property in state history.

Microbes in oceans and soils across the globe are evolving to eat plastic, according to a study.

The research scanned more than 200m genes found in DNA samples taken from the environment and found 30,000 different enzymes that could degrade 10 different types of plastic.

The study is the first large-scale global assessment of the plastic-degrading potential of bacteria and found that one in four of the organisms analysed carried a suitable enzyme. The researchers found that the number and type of enzymes they discovered matched the amount and type of plastic pollution in different locations.

I know there’s a joke in here somewhere.

Emergency crews in western Canada continued searching on Friday for victims of flash floods and mudslides which tore through the region this week, as survivors described harrowing escapes from the disaster.

British Columbia declared its third state of emergency in a year on Wednesday after a month’s worth of rain fell in two days, swamping towns and cities, blocking major highways and leaving much of the province under water.

So far, officials have confirmed just one fatality, in a landslide near the village of Pemberton. But gripping testimony from a journalist who survived that incident suggests that figure is likely to rise.

A deadly storm described by officials as a once-in-a-century weather event has severed road and rail links around Vancouver, Canada.

Two motorways connecting the West Coast city were closed after being damaged by severe flooding.

Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes due to the massive storm, which struck on Monday.

A woman was killed in a highway landslide, and rescuers say at least two other people are missing.

VANCOUVER – The intense storm bombarding British Columbia has forced officials to evacuate the entire City of Merritt, where floodwaters have “inundated” bridges and left the local sewage treatment plant inoperable.

Some homes were evacuated overnight as unrelenting rain drenched much of the province, causing flooding, mudslides, rockslides and widespread highway closures between the Lower Mainland and Southern Interior.

This footage out of Merritt is heartbreaking.

The entire City of #Merritt is now under an evacuation order due to surging floodwaters from the Coldwater River.

The city’s mayor is urging residents to stay calm.@EmconServicesBC #BCFlood #BCStorm pic.twitter.com/k6R25Z61P2

— Alanna Kelly (@AlannaKellyNews) November 15, 2021

Get ready. An epic solar storm may be heading our way, one so big it could knock out power grids, damage satellites, cause internet blackouts, and essentially take down our modern life as we know it. It’s known as a 1-in-100 years solar storm.

Solar storms are an explosion of energized particles hurled from the Sun known as flares or coronal mass ejections (CME). Small scale storms occur regularly but every century or so there is an extreme eruption.

The sun launched a massive solar flare yesterday that’s headed in Earth’s direction — the strongest storm seen in the current weather cycle.

The volley of radiation may trigger the northern lights if it collides with our atmosphere, and could cause major issues for power grids, experts suggest.

The aurora borealis may be observed tomorrow night as far south as Tennessee and the Carolinas (near the horizon), with high auroral activity in a band from Portland OR to New York City. This is thanks to the strongest Earth-directed coronal mass ejection so far this solar cycle. pic.twitter.com/96ZwrhPAas

— John Morales (@JohnMoralesNBC6) October 29, 2021

This is our co-blogger Sarcasticat’s homestead in the Appalachians. Last night a storm passed through and this is the damage done.

He has to wait till Monday to speak to the insurance people. So far no roof leakage he says.

One of the most destructive and rapidly spreading invasive species on the continent has been found for the first time in a Canadian national park.

Wild pigs, which tear up landscapes and eat everything from roots to bird eggs to deer, are regularly present in Elk Island National Park east of Edmonton, says Parks Canada.