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Amazing Lightning Stories Recently

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Weather.com - Jon Erdman

Hourly rate of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes associated with twin thunderstorm clusters on the morning of May 10, 2013.

 

Recently, while severe thunderstorms have produced hail, high winds, a few tornadoes, and local flash flooding, one could argue the most compelling stories over the last week or so have been due to lightning.  Let's recount these factoids:

1) Incredible lightning rates

The map above is a screengrab of radar and lightning strikes from Friday morning, May 10, 2013.  You'll notice two main clusters of thunderstorms, one from western Alabama to Louisiana and a second in central Texas.

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American Attitudes Chill on Global Warming

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Weather.com - Eric Zerkel, 5/10/13

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After months of plummeting temperatures, winter storms, and climatic anomalies, it's easy to say Americans are fed up with 2012/2013's brutal winter. But according to a new study released by Yale University, that mindset may extend well beyond the realm of thick winter coats and into attitudes about global warming.

Researchers found that the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is happening dropped seven percentage points since Fall 2012, to 63%. The study concludes that this attitude shift is due in large part to personal experience relating to winter 2012/2013.

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Locust Swarms Could Spell Disaster in Madagascar

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Weather.com - Jess Baker, 5/10/13

According to studies, there are currently a hundred locust swarms similar to this one in this region totaling around 500 billion locusts, eating around 100,000 metric tons of vegetation per day. (Image: BILAL TARABEY/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Brood II Cicadas that are poised to invade the eastern U.S. have nothing on the plague of locusts that are threatening the food supply for more than 13 million people.

Madagascar needs more than $22 million by June to put an end to the severe locust plague that is devouring crops - and the food supply - for more than 60-percent of the nation, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (F.A.O).

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Creepy Ghost Town Comes Up for Air

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Weather.com - 5/10/13, Paul Byrne/AP

In this May 6, 2013 photo, a young tourist stands on stairs protruding from the rubble of homes in Epecuen, which once was submerged in water in Argentina. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

 

EPECUEN, Argentina -- A strange ghost town that spent a quarter century under water is coming up for air again in the Argentine farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires.

Epecuen was once a bustling little lakeside resort, where 1,500 people served 20,000 tourists a season. During Argentina's golden age, the same trains that carried grain to the outside world brought visitors from the capital to relax in Epecuen's saltwater baths and spas.

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Cold Weather May Be Cause of Sea Turtle Sickness

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Weather.com - 5/09/13, AP

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Marine science officials say a high number of turtle turtles found stranded on beaches from north Florida to Georgia may be caused by an unusually long period of winter weather.

A spokeswoman for the Volusia County's Marine Science Center says they've cared for more sick sea turtles during the past month as they did during all of last year.

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Rainfall Deficits in Feet!

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Weather.com - Jon Erdman, 5/09/13

Contrast in water levels at Falcon Reservoir near Zapata, Texas in 2012 (top) and early 2013 (bottom). (Photo credit: iWitnessWeather/Mel Wishman)

 

If you're alarmed by the size of our national debt, there's another massive deficit that may boggle your mind.

In meteorology, we often discuss precipitation deficits and surpluses in terms of inches.

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'Ring of Fire' Eclipse Wows Australia (IMAGES)

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Weather.com - 5/09/13, Weather.com and AP

The moon crossed in front of the sun during a partial solar eclipse in Sydney, Friday, May 10, 2013. At remote outposts across Australia, scientists and spectators gathered to watch as the eclipse castes its approximately 120-mile-wide shadow at dawn over Western Australia, before moving east through the Northern Territory and the top of Queensland state.(AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

 

People waking up in the Australian Outback Friday morning, along with other parts of the Pacific, were among the lucky few to witness a "ring of fire" solar eclipse, as the moon slipped between the Earth and the sun, covering everything but a blazing ring of light around the edges.

The eclipse lasted between three and six minutes, depending on its location, and blacked out around 95 percent of the sun at its peak.

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Researchers: We May Have Found Brazilian 'Atlantis'

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Weather.com - 5/08/13

Brazilian Geology Service

A hunk of rock that lies deep under the Atlantic Ocean has scientists wondering if they've found the "Brazilian Atlantis."

 

The Brazilian Geology Service (CPRM), working with scientists from Japan, believe they found evidence of a continent that vanished when South America and Africa drifted apart 100 million years ago, The Telegraph reports.

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Enchroaching Sea Already a Threat in Caribbean

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Weather.com - David McFadden/AP, 6/08/13

AP Photo/David McFadden

Tourists walk on the white sand of the Grand Anse Beach, Grenada. The people along this vulnerable stretch of eastern Grenada have been watching the sea eat away at their shoreline in recent decades, a result of destructive practices such as sand mining and a ferocious storm surge made worse by climate change, according to researchers with the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy, who have helped locals map the extent of coastal erosion.

 

TELESCOPE, Grenada — The old coastal road in this fishing village at the eastern edge of Grenada sits under a couple of feet of murky saltwater, which regularly surges past a hastily-erected breakwater of truck tires and bundles of driftwood intended to hold back the Atlantic Ocean.

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