By Steve Neuman
Tropical Cyclones
Hurricane Charley suddenly intensified to a category-4 storm
just before unleashing a path of devastation over parts of
southwest and central Florida.
By Steve Neuman
Tropical Cyclones
Hurricane Charley suddenly intensified to a category-4 storm just before unleashing a path of devastation over parts of southwest and central Florida. At least 22 people died due to the hurricane, which also caused more than $7 billion in property damage and razed a large swath of the state’s key citrus industry. Charley earlier knocked out water and power for several days to the Cuban capital of Havana.
• The southern Leeward Islands were buffeted by Tropical Storm Earl before it lost force over the Caribbean. Hurricane Danielle was a threat to shipping in the mid-Atlantic.
• Late reports from China said Typhoon Rananim was the strongest such storm to strike the mainland in nearly 50 years. It killed a total of 164 people and caused $2.1 billion in damage when it roared ashore in Zhejiang province on Aug. 12.
• High winds and mudslides caused by Typhoon Megi killed nine people in southern Japan. Flash floods from the storm later killed eight people in South Korea.
Hit by a Meteorite
Britain’s Evening Standard reported that a Suffolk woman was probably struck by a meteorite fragment as she was out hanging her wash on the line. Pauline Aguss of Lowestoft said she felt a searing pain and noticed a cut on her arm at the time, but didn’t notice a walnut-sized rock near where she was until the following day.
Norfolk Astronomical Society chairman Mark Lawrick-Thompson believes the odd-shaped stone containing a few small crystals is probably a meteorite. The society estimates that the odds of being hit by one are about one in a billion.
Huge Mutant Ant Colony
Australian scientists announced the discovery of a huge Argentine ant colony that stretches for more than 60 miles beneath the city of Melbourne. Monash University researcher Elissa Suhr said the pests’ natural aggression toward each other had kept them at bay after they first arrived in 1949, but mutation has since allowed them to live in one huge colony instead of a network of much smaller, warring ones.
“In Argentina, their native homeland, ant colonies span tens of meters (yards), are genetically diverse and highly aggressive towards one another,” Suhr said. She added Argentine ants are ranked among the world’s 100 worst natural invaders, and they threaten the local biodiversity of southeast Australia.
Summerless Canada
A summer of dreary weather across southern Canada has farmers worried about the prospect of this season’s harvest. Lingering cool and overcast conditions have played havoc with crops, especially in Ontario, where everything from corn to berries is way behind schedule.
Stubborn low-pressure systems from the prairies and the absence of the traditional Bermuda high over the eastern part of the continent are to blame for the cool summer, according to Environment Canada.
Earthquakes
A magnitude 5.8 tremor rumbling through southwestern Mexico caused a brief panic in Oaxaca.
Earth movements were also felt in southwest Colombia, the Chile-Bolivia border region, northern Algeria, western Pakistan, Java, the eastern Philippines, northeastern Japan and parts of southern Wyoming.
African Virus Threat
Wildlife experts in Austria warned that a mosquito-borne virus from Africa has been ravaging the country’s blackbird population for the past three years and threatens to spread to other birds in central Europe.
The newly arrived Usutu virus was first observed in South African mosquitoes in 1959 and had not been found outside subtropical Africa before 2001. It has since spread from an initial pocket in Vienna to as far away as Slovakia and Hungary. Nuthatches, owls, swallows, sparrows, thrushes and titmice are also being killed, but blackbirds account for 95 percent of the bird deaths. A panel has been established to study the risks of the virus being passed to humans or other species.
Zambian Rat Invasion
Millions of wild rats have invaded Namwala district in Zambia’s Southern Province since late July, causing serious damage to harvested maize and villagers’ property. The official Zambia News Agency reported that officials fear the rodents could also bring an outbreak of disease.
Chilufya Kazenene, deputy minister of Southern Province, said the rats are biting humans in their sleep, adding that they have chewed away blankets, linen and anything they found in their way. Their ravenous assaults have come at both day and night, targeting crops in the fields, harvested staples and household goods. The rats have been breeding in tall grass along the plains and in the bush, making them difficult to combat with traditional methods, Kazenene said.
