• Extreme weather events fatal for walnut trees

    Drier summers and extreme weather events considered possible as the climate changes would be especially troublesome – possibly fatal – for walnut trees, according to research at Purdue University. Researchers now suspect and predict that climate change is going to

  • Brutally cold air mass forming up north of Northern America

    The cold air will continue to expand toward the south and east Sunday night and Monday bringing some of the lowest temperatures so far from New Mexico and West Texas to the Great Lakes. The storm that brought snow to the Front Range of the Rockies and a section of the

  • Large solar prominence off northwest limb today

    A magnetic filament rapidly erupted on the sun today. Between 10:30 and 11:30 UTC, observers in Europe watched tendrils of hot plasma rocket away from the sun’s NW limb. Debris from the explosion is not expected to hit Earth according to SpaceWeather. Solar

  • 5.3 magnitude earthquake hit Cook Strait, New Zealand

    A 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit New Zealand 30 km (18 miles) east of Picton and 40km (24.8 miles) southwest of the capital city of Wellington (41.552°S, 174.617°E) at 7:19 p.m. local time Saturday (at 06:19:07 UTC) with epicenter at depth of 59.1 km (36.7

  • No hope for Phobos-Grunt spacecraft – Reentry in mid-January

    The European Space Agency announced on Dec. 2 that it will stop trying to contact the stranded Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which has been stuck in the wrong orbit for almost a month now. So it looks like it will fall to Earth. Russia’s Phobos-Grunt probe launched

  • Massive sinkhole opens up in Sayre, Oklahoma

    A massive sinkhole appears overnight at Beckham County near Sayre, Oklahoma. KFOR reports that the sinkhole is about 40 feet deep and 40 feet wide. Sinkholes are not so uncommon in western Oklahoma. Geologists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey say several things could

  • Santa Ana winds damage

    Santa Ana winds whipped through Southern California Wednesday night with peak wind gusts of up to 167 mph (270 km per hour). Wind gusts stronger than 140 mph – which would be equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane – have been measured on the Sierra Crest mountain ridge,

  • Highest pressure in decades over the Northwest?

    UW’s Neal Johnson ran the numbers and found that the sea level pressure at Seattle-Tacoma Airport today was the highest since record keeping began there in 1948.  Last night at midnight Sea-Tac hit 1043.4 hPa, smashing the old record of 1043.0 hPa.According to

  • Severe depletion of Texas groundwater

    The record-breaking drought in Texas that has fueled wildfires, decimated crops, and forced the sale of cattle herds has also reduced levels of groundwater to the lowest levels observed in more than 63 years. Groundwater is moisture trapped in pores in the soil and in

  • Herbicide atrazine spurs reproductive dysfunction in many animals

    Atrazine is the second-most widely used herbicide in the U.S. More than 75 million pounds of it are applied to corn and other crops, and it is the most commonly detected pesticide contaminant of groundwater, surface water and rain in the U.S. The new review is compiled