October 7, 2000 - Australia

Black rain reported on West Coast 

There have been reports of black rain falling across South Australia's west coast at the weekend. 

Residents from Smoky Bay to Laura Bay have confirmed the black rain, which deposited ash on vehicles and boats.

The Bureau of Meteorology's weather observer in Ceduna, Mark Bedson, says the black rain came down during thunderstorms across Eyre Peninsula early Saturday.

He says it was a very strange experience.
"I went and had a cup of coffee and poured the water in the cup and thought hang on and poured it out, I am not going to drink it."

"So I have emptied the water tank and washed my roof, we are not quite sure what it is."

10/9/2000
ABS News Online

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'Hole-punch' clouds over Melbourne

Photos courtesy of National Weather Service, Melbourne. Photographers: Matt Bragaw, Peter Blottman. (See story below)

Ice crystals and the influence of the jet stream helped produce this dramatic scene on Thursday, Nov. 9 over the National Weather Service office in Melbourne. Meteorologists call this formation "hole-punch" clouds.

Ice crystals, jet stream winds combine for rare display

By David Larimer
FLORIDA TODAY weather columnist

A unusual cloud formation appeared in skies over the Space Coast on Thursday caused by ice crystals and enhanced by the jet stream.

There is no scientific term for the cloud display you see above. The National Weather Service calls the formation "hole-punch" clouds because of the oval-shaped opening.

The image was captured by meteorologists Matt Bragaw and Peter Blottman at the weather service office in Melbourne on Thursday morning.

The display is rare but has occurred in Melbourne skies in years past. In 1993, the weather service's Dennis Decker photographed a similar display. His dramatic photo was published in a national weather magazine.

Randy Lascody, a senior meteorologist at the weather service office, explained the conditions that led to the striking formation:

"The atmosphere on Thursday was very dry from about 5000 to 28,000 feet. There was a rather extensive deck of cirrocumulus (mixture of 'super cooled' water droplets and ice crystals) invading the sky associated with strong westerly jet stream winds.

"However, the 'hole-punch' features were aligned north/south. This suggests that there was some sort of 'wave' in the atmosphere that was causing rising/sinking air couplets.

"This would cause ice crystals in the descending portion of the wave to fall into the super cooled (liquid) cloud layer. When this occurs, the ice crystals grow (at the expense of the liquid droplets). Therefore, a hole opened in the deck of cirrocumulus.

"This process is similar to the principle used in cloud seeding to make cloud particles larger and produce precipitation. In this case, the precipitation aloft (meteorological term is 'virga') descended into the dry air below 28,000 feet and evaporated (actually, the proper term for this process is 'sublimated').

"The virga is evident in a few of the pictures descending from the center of the hole in the clouds. This resulted in a cone-shaped cloud high in the atmosphere that I'm sure a few people thought was a funnel cloud."

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February 15, 2001 - 11:50 PM 
The sky is falling, and it stinks 
STEVE NEWBORN
of The Tampa Tribune

It's brown, it's dropping from the sky, and it's not easy on the nose. 
Where it comes from, nobody knows. 

Where it goes is over everything. 

Cimarron Drive in south Lakeland is being bedeviled by a plague of brown spots that cover cars, driveways and picnic tables. 

Bewildered neighbors point to a variety of possible causes: high- flying birds, higher-flying airplanes, pollen or even something to do with those nearby high-voltage power lines. 

All Demetra Kaltsos knows is she can't go outside anymore without being bombarded with foul- smelling mustard-brown stuff. 

``I don't see any birds or planes. I don't get where it's coming from,'' she said. ``It doesn't wash out good. It's ruining my clothes and everything.'' 

It dries to little spots or elongated lines. You wash your car, neighbors said, and you need to wash it again two days later. 

``I can't even go into my back yard because this stuff is falling from the sky everywhere and it's disgusting,'' Kaltsos said. ``I don't know if it's going to be hazardous to my kids.'' 

Health officials are equally mystified. 

Gene Jeffers, an environment engineering administrator for the Polk County Health Department, checked out the area this week. He said samples were taken to a laboratory Thursday by workers with the state Department of Environmental Protection. 

Results could take several days. 

Jeffers had his own conjectures on where it came from. It could be coming from nearby orange groves, he said. Maybe from airborne particles of muck burning in wildfires near Mulberry. 

``It seems to me to be organic in nature,'' he said. 

Jeffers lives about a mile away and has never had the problem. But the closer one goes to Cimarron Drive, the more spots appear. Some were spotted at a fire station a few blocks away. 

Another resident of Cimarron Drive said her car has been covered by the brown drops the past six months. 

``You can take your car down to have it cleaned, and by tomorrow it will look like this again,'' Gina Smith said. 

Smith had her own guess - maybe it's stuff taken by the winds from phosphate plants to the south. 

``It's one of those things that's falling out of the sky,'' Smith said. ``No one knows how, or why.'' 

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February, 17, 2001

School Remains Closed After Powder 'Fell From Sky'
By Auslan Cramb - Scotland Correspondent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Children at a primary school in the Highlands will have a second day off school on Monday while tests are carried out on a white powder which they claim fell on their playground from a low-flying aircraft. 

Samples of the crystalline material were taken from the children's shoes and clothing to be tested in police laboratories, but it has not yet been identified. 

The pupils at Lairg primary school, Sutherland, told their teachers that the material dropped in a bag during their lunch break on Thursday. They later complained of itching, but have been checked by doctors who found nothing wrong with them. 

The school was closed yesterday while investigations were made, and will remain closed on Monday. Police cordoned off the playground and the immediate area surrounding it, but have been unable to find the bag which the children reported. The pupils were unable to say whether the material was dropped by helicopter, or a military or civilian plane. 

Chemical spraying by a light aircraft is thought to be the most likely explanation, although a police spokesman in Inverness said they had not ruled out the possibility that the children were the victims of a hoax. The area is regularly used by the RAF for low-flying exercises, but there were no military aircraft in the vicinity at the time.
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Hole Punch Cloud #2

Sonya from Rohnert Park, California (S3CHURCH@aol.com) sends us:
I was at my daughters school function today and took this picture of a cloud formation behind us. I took meteorology in college and have never seen anything like this before. I was going to e-mail it to my professor to see if he could explain it to me.

My husband seems to think that an object moved very quickly through the clouds and created a shockwave. You can see a contrail to the formation, the cone at the bottom follows the trajectory then disappears. There were other contrails in the area. At the time I didn't think anything of it. Seems like I should have taken more pictures! Meteor? Satellite? UFO?

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Madison Township, New Jersey

September 3, 1958

A 70-pound cake of ice hurtled through the roof, crashed through the attic, burst through the kitchen ceiling and landed on the kitchen table.

Piece of the flying ice splintered two chairs in the kitchen, one which was occupied only seconds before the roof caved in.

Authorities were at a loss to explain just where the ice came from.  Furthermore, the Newark Weather Bureau and the Rutgers University Meteorological Department agreed that atmospheric conditions could not have formed the ice.

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Husks of Corn Rain From Sky

Wichita resident Paul Corn was amazed to see enormous husks drifting down into his backyard near 13th and Woodlawn.

By Suzanne Perez Tobias And Sara Shepherd
The Wichita Eagle

For residents in some east Wichita neighborhoods Friday afternoon, the weather was particularly strange:

Partly cloudy, with a chance of corn husks.

People in homes near 13th and Woodlawn reported seeing what looked like extraordinarily large, dried corn husks spiraling down from the sky about 6 p.m.

Paul Corn (yes, that's his real name) was playing host to a family reunion in his back yard in the 1000 block of Vincent Lane on Friday afternoon. He said the family stopped swimming when they noticed something strange spiraling down from the sky.

They waited for it to land to see what it was, but the frond came to rest just over the fence in a neighbor's yard.

Then there were more. And more. Each one, about 30 inches long and 3 inches wide.

"They just kept coming down," he said. "There had to be, I don't know, a thousand of these things."

The family was curious enough to jump out of the pool and into the car, driving a short distance around the neighborhood to find more, which they did.

There is no telling how many of the leaves fell, but several were seen lying along Armour Street, between Central Avenue and 13th Street.

Officials with Weather Data Inc., a local forecasting service, said they had received no reports of the corn-husk shower. But meteorologist Jeff House seemed intrigued.

"Corn husks falling from the sky. Hmmm," he said. "That is odd."

Could they have been stirred up by a tornado in some Iowa cornfield? Blown hundreds of miles through thick summer air, only to billow down on back yards and driveways in east Wichita?

"That's a good thought," House said. "But no chance. Not today."

Our region -- in fact, the whole country -- was tornado-free on Friday. It wasn't even particularly windy, House said. Just really hot.

So maybe August turned that Iowa corn into popcorn, and the remnant husks exploded into the atmosphere?

"Doubtful," House said. "Whatever it was, it was probably caused by man."

Some residents speculated that the leaves fell from a plane. Air traffic authorities could not be reached for comment Friday night.

One more theory: University of Nebraska fans were behind it. Gearing up for another Cornhusker football season, they decided to blanket their southern rivals in a giant -- and ingenious, we might add -- Cornhusker Practical Joke.

Bill Harper is a member of the Wichita-based Kansas Cornhusker Club. "We may live in the heart of Kansas," says the group's Web site. "But our hearts belong to the HUSKERS!!"

Harper denied having anything to do with Friday's incident.

"Oh, not that I know of. I don't think any of us are behind it," Harper said. He noted, however, that the group's annual picnic is scheduled for 5 p.m. today, at the Sedgwick County Extension building at 21st Street and Ridge Road.

Mike Nieman, a witness to the mysterious corn episode, was visiting Wichita from Los Angeles. He said it seemed fitting for such a strange thing to happen in Kansas.

"It's just a magical place," he joked. "It's the land of Oz."

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A report came in to Shadow Research, Inc., that at 7:10pm - 7:20pm EST October 16, 2001.  Green flashes where lighting up the sky over Sarnia, Ontario in Canada.  Several flashes where observed, but no source was sighted or sound heard.  The witness was driving

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05/04/02
By JACOB OGLES
MONTVERDE

A black goo leaking from the ground is no reason for alarm, officials said. The black, tarry substance began leaking from the ground about a week-and-a-half ago near the Florida Turnpike overpass on County Road 561, according to Deputy County Manager Gregg Welstead. The leak began after construction of a turning lane by a subdivision currently under construction broke the ground and allowed the goo to pour forth from the earth. County Manager Bill Neron said the incident has already been reported to all of the proper authorities, including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Public Works director Jim Stivender said the substance poses no health or environmental risks to the area. “It’s kind of spooky, but it’s not toxic and it’s not a danger to the environment,” he said. An area of 10 to 15 square feet became covered in tar, according to Stivender, and officials suspect there is a large amount of the goo still under the ground. “We suspect it’s like an iceberg, with more of it where we can’t see than where we can,” he said. Officials have not yet identified what the material is, but are forming a variety of hypotheses as to how it arrived in the earth. Stivender said it may have been that a dumptruck or tanker ran off the road and released the substance, but that an incident was never reported and the ooze was never discovered until now. Such an accident could have occurred as much as 20 to 30 years ago, he said. Welstead said the ooze does have some liquidity, and moves about two inches every five minutes. He determined the rough figure when he stuck a stick in the material himself amidst an investigation by the county Hazardous Materials unit. According to Stivender, all of the material will be removed, and an order is currently in the works for full soil reclamation of the affected area. The tar is located on 561 around the area commonly known as Horseshoe Curve.

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January 22, 2003


By MARTIN MERZER
Miami Herald

If you felt the earth move at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday, you weren't alone.

People from Kendall to Coral Springs called weather forecasters to report several jolts of what felt like an earthquake. Whatever it was, it wasn't that. Earthquakes are extremely rare in South Florida, which sits far from major seismic faults.

''There was no earthquake activity for your area,'' said John Minsch, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. ``We would have seen it register here, and it didn't.''

More likely, he and others said, it was a sonic boom that was magnified by Tuesday's cold weather, which created an unusual condition called a temperature inversion. An inversion occurs when temperatures increase with altitude rather than decrease, and it can act as a lid that helps propel acoustic phenomena long distances.

''It will probably end up as one of those unsolved mysteries,'' said Jim Lushine of the National Weather Service.

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Richard Meryhew
Star Tribune

Published Jan. 9, 2003 LAKE09


BRAINERD, MINN. -- Taking advantage of balmy weather, the divers, the scientists and the curious gathered on North Long Lake on Wednesday hoping to find clues to the cause of the mysterious melt in the lake's west bay.

But when the day was done and the work was finished, everybody went home knowing little more than when they started.

"There really is no answer as of yet," said Dick Beeson, chairman of the Thirty Lakes Watershed District, which oversees about 70 lakes in Crow Wing County and which is helping to fund a study to determine why the ice is opening.

"The bottom line to me is it looked pretty typical," said Todd Matthies, one of three divers who photographed the lake bottom Wednesday and injected dye into the water to check for springs or currents. "Nothing stood out. There were no spaceships down there."

Local residents have dubbed the 2,100-by-400-foot opening, which first appeared last February, as the "black hole," in part because more than a dozen snowmobilers or drivers of all-terrain vehicles unknowingly steered their machines into the water at that spot last winter. One man drowned last March.

To prevent further tragedy and figure out why the ice is melting, the Watershed District began studying the problem 10 months ago.

But the ice broke up before they could determine the cause.

When the hole reappeared this winter, they continued the study, taking aerial photographs, checking with experts and reviewing geological records for tremors or earthquakes that might have caused a crack in the lake floor.

"We've had a lot of advice" from as far away as Europe and Canada, Beeson said. "We've gotten a lot of suggestions. But they just don't fit what we're seeing."

Divers spent about four hours Wednesday in the lake, but saw no sign of a spring or thermal current.

Complicating the dive and restricting the divers was a thin layer of ice that developed in recent days.

Nevertheless, Alan Cibuzar, a chemist and CEO of A.W. Research Laboratories in Brainerd, which is working on the project, said "things worked pretty well.

"It would have been nice if it had been open like it was a couple weeks ago. But we got what we wanted done done."

Cibuzar said he plans to review the findings and the data in the next few days and "visit with peers to see what they are thinking."

Beeson said test results might be available later this week.

A touch of class

Although Wednesday's dive provided no immediate answers, it did generate plenty of interest among local residents, a few dozen of whom ventured onto the ice to inspect or photograph the work.

In anticipation of a crowd, Michelle Anderson, administrative assistant for the Watershed District, delivered a giant thermos of coffee and a large box of donuts.

"It's a touch of class," said Ray Wilson, treasurer of the watershed district. "She thinks of everything."

Said Beeson's wife, Lorraine, "If you can't go out snowmobiling you might as well make a party out of it."

Mike Finé, who has lived on the lake for years and is marketing director for Babe Winkelman Productions Inc., stopped by out of curiosity and to document the work for Winkelman, a professional fisherman who has a TV show.

Finé said he has fished the lake for "many, many years" and was confdent that the cause of the melt wasn't a spring. He discussed several possible causes, but said he thinks a geological shift in the Earth that has created friction along the lake bottom, thereby warming the water, is most likely responsible.

Finé said a colleague told him that in years past, snowmobilers talked of a "squishy spot" on the lake where divers worked Wednesday. He said he thinks that spot finally warmed to the point where it frequently melts the ice.

"It's just really bizarre," said Gisela Love, who lives on the north side of the lake and who stopped Wednesday to watch the divers.

Love said she thinks an undetected spring is responsible. Dave and Karen Betland, who live on the south side of the lake, think the same.

"But you hear all sorts of rumors," Dave Betland said, referring to more humorous speculation about a possible meteor, lake creatures or aliens.

Regardless of the cause, Betland said the black hole has prompted most of the west bay's fishermen to put their fishhouses close to shore this year.

"I think a lot of people are afraid to come out here," he said. "They don't trust it."

-- Richard Meryhew is at richm@startribune.com.
 

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From the Coast to Coast Website (Artbell)

This photo (see full image below) was taken from my backyard between 10:00AM and 10:15AM 3/4/2003 with a Kodak Digital Camera. The circles appear to be in the direction of Nashville TN which is about 32 miles south west of my home in Gallatin, TN.

I sent them to a local televison station meteorologist. He said he had 2 theories. He said it could have been what the weather people call a thermal inversion, Which means warm air rising in a circular motion much like a tornado only in reverse.

He also said the AMS (American Meteorological Society) mentioned in the AMS report, there are experiments with rain prevention being used by the U S Air Force that have been known to cause this. He featured it on last night's weather report on the local Fox News channel.

--Wayne Carter

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A house in Huia has now been hit by the mystery brown muck appearing on roofs around the country.

Plumber Murray Norris returned home from work on Friday night to find what appeared to be faeces splattered on the west wall and roof of his home.

"If there's anyone who knows what shit looks like it is me - and that's what it looked like," Mr. Norris said.

Some patches of the mess were almost 3m wide but it did not smell.

The suspicious substance has appeared on homes in Takapu Valley near Wellington, Te Awamutu in the Waikato, and Blenheim.

The Civil Aviation Authority ruled out aircraft toilets as the cause. Tests of the muck found in Takapu revealed no chemicals used in such toilets.

The Department of Conservation is expected to investigate the incident at the home of Mr Norris.

There are plenty of weird and wonderful theories about the source of the muck: some people believe the splatters are from a large bird. "If it's a bird then it's either a really big one or it has a serious problem," Mr Norris said.

Meanwhile, he is grateful that the weekend rain gave his home a good clean.

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January 22, 2004

The chunk of ice which smashed through an elderly Auckland couple's roof has been taken away in a chilly-bin for tests to discover its origin.

The Civil Aviation Authority believes it may have fallen from a plane. Its investigators visited Jan and Bruce Robertson yesterday and retrieved the remains of the ice, which they had stored in their freezer.

It was about the size of a rugby ball when it punched holes in their Meadowbank home's concrete tile roof and plasterboard ceiling and smashed a light fitting yesterday, but had shrunk to less than half of that yesterday after being shown around.

The projectile plummeted from the sky at an estimated 450kmh just before 5pm on Wednesday, coming to rest on the kitchen bench only meters from the couple. Mrs. Robertson, aged 80, was cleaning a bedroom and her 83-year-old husband was outside weeding.

Civil Aviation investigator Alan Moselen said last night the ice would be tested to see whether it came from a plane or rain.

It could have come from one of four planes that were heading for Auckland International Airport from overseas, he said.

"To confirm that they were over that spot I need radar data from the Airways Corporation. That's then reasonable to go to that airline and say there may be a leak."

It would not have come from a small plane and he discounted domestic flights as they usually approached from the south.

Small pieces of ice fell off planes - it could form in wheel wells after a rainy take-off and from water and toilet systems - but big pieces were rare, Mr. Moselen said.

Climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger has said the Meadow bank ice was unlikely to have been a natural hailstone because of its size and the lack of others.

Air New Zealand said that none of its planes was in the area at the time.

Mrs. Robertson said the couple's insurers had been "very good" about the damage. "It's been taken care of." A firefighter had replaced the broken roof tiles with spare ones and the couple would have them checked later to ensure they were properly sealed.

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Dennis_Loney

March 1, 2004

In January 2000, Spain came under attack from an unknown assailant. Giant chunks of ice dropped from cloudless skies and crushed car hoods, punched through rooftops and windshields, and slammed into the shoulder of an elderly woman. In a 10-day period, 15 basketball-sized ice balls weighing up to 8 pounds pelted southern Spain.

At first, Spanish authorities deemed the mysterious mass the work of passing aircraft—likely frozen excrement from the lavatory or perhaps condensed ice sliding off the wing—and sent the offending ball to the laboratory to be examined. But then the ice balls kept falling, and new theories emerged: Perhaps it was something extraterrestrial like stray ice from a passing comet, or perhaps a byproduct of some strange new meteorological condition? Was it a hoax? Is it a hoax?

Jesus Martinez-Frias, a senior scientist at the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid, raced all over Spain collecting the chunks of ice preserved by witnesses and brought them back to the lab for analysis. Martinez-Frias and his team found that the ice balls did not contain human excrement or the trademark blue disinfectant used in airplane toilets. They also discovered that the ice balls did not fall from an airplane’s fuselage because the sites did not correspond with known flight paths.

They also found there was nothing extraterrestrial about them. Martinez-Frias and his co-workers discovered that the ice had the chemical signature of this world’s hailstones.

Of course, after the story broke, a couple of merry pranksters made fraudulent ice balls—one out of salt, the other taken from a restaurant freezer—which were easily identifiable as imposters not only because of their chemical signature, but also because they lacked the trademark onionskin layering of hailstones.

Most hailstones are the size of peas and weigh a fraction of an ounce; sometimes they reach the size of baseballs. The largest hailstone on record in the United States weighed in at 27 ounces—nowhere close to the 6 to 8 pound monsters that dropped on Spain. The really big hailstones usually accompany ferocious thunderstorms that produce tornados.

Hailstones are formed by winds known as updrafts that blow upward in thunderstorms. The droplets of supercooled water—water that is at a temperature below freezing, but not yet ice—are carried upward where they hit ice crystals, freezing them instantly and causing the ice ball to grow. Hailstones cycle between the updraft to the top of the cloud, the descent along the outer edge of the cloud, and back up again. The hailstones grow with each revolution until they become too heavy for the updraft to lift anymore, and they fall out the bottom of the cloud.

Which is why, what scientists are now calling megacryometeors are so puzzling. If megacryometeors really are big hailstones, the updrafts would have to be extremely strong. And you would expect that they would be accompanied by the storm of the century, but instead they have fallen from cloudless skies.

Since the deluge of megacryometeors that rained on Spain in January 2000, the Martinez-Frias team has studied and followed this phenomenon; and they have found that this phenomenon isn’t unique to Spain. Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United States have reported a megacryometeor event. In all, there have been more than 50 confirmations, and the researchers believe that is only a small fraction of the actual number. The ice balls are getting larger too: 25 and 35 pounders are frequently reported. Recently, Brazil reported a 440-pound behemoth.

So what’s the deal—really big hail or something else?

Global warming might be to blame: The researchers found a meteorological anomaly on the days preceding the megacryometeorological events; ozone levels were unusually low over southeastern Spain, which allowed more solar radiation to reach the troposphere, thereby cooling the lower stratosphere.

Another meteorological team found that the lower stratosphere was unusually moist during the 10 days the ice balls fell. They speculated that the nuclei of the ice ball could have been lingering jet contrails that then descended through a nearly saturated atmosphere.

There have been detractors. Some meteorologists and hail experts have denounced the theories posed by Martinez-Frias, stating that formation of hail without thick highly-visible clouds is an impossibility.

However, in the summer of 2002, Martinez-Frias and fellow researchers proposed a novel mechanism for generating what one would constitute as hail on a clear day.

Perhaps megacryometeors is the work of a master prankster; perhaps it’s the byproduct of global warming. I’m sure we’ll soon find out. After all, the sky is rising—say scientists in California.

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 March 28, 2004. 8:09am (AEST)

The first cyclone ever recorded in the south Atlantic Ocean is heading towards the coast of Brazil.

Meteorologists have been taken aback by the unusual storm formation.

Never before has a cyclone been recorded in the South Atlantic since the 1960s, when satellites were employed to monitor the weather.

Meteorologists from the National Hurricane Centre in Miami have been stunned and described it as "breaking all the rules".

The Americans are trying to help the Brazilian authorities who have never seen anything like it.

The local media have called the cyclone "Catarina".

Cyclones are common thousands of kilometres north in the Caribbean, but not off the coast of southern Brazil.

The grade one cyclone is moving slowly westward and it could hit the coast in the next 12 hours.

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By Karen Nelson and Mary Louise Mason
Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald
July 16, 2004

OCEAN SPRINGS - Something fishy happened during the hailstorm that pounded the city Tuesday evening.

Gulf Islands National Seashore Ranger Melissa Perez and volunteer Adam Wilson were pelted briefly with small, very cold fish while on the park's pier.

It was around 6 p.m. Tuesday when the storm had eased briefly. The two ran out to try and locate minnow traps that had been left on the pier.

The traps were gone, but while Perez and Wilson were looking, something began falling into the water near them causing splashes. Then two icy cold fish hit the deck of the pier and one hit Perez's hat.

"I was pretty upset that I had lost those traps, when fish fell from the sky," Perez said.

"We went for cover. One was incredibly cold and one of them actually was icy," she said. Fellow workers told her it was a rare phenomenon.

"But sure enough, it happened here," she said.

Perez didn't know how many fell into the water; the event took her by surprise. But it all happened in an area that had roughly a 20-foot diameter.

The fish that hit the deck were small, about 3 inches long, and she said that she didn't immediately recognize the species.

"The weather was so bad that we threw them off and ran for cover," she said.

Todd Adams, assistant coordinator of educational programs at J.S. Scott Marine Education Center, has a degree in physical geography and a master's in geo-science.

He ventured two possibilities: The storm could have pulled the small fish into the thundercloud where they were coated with ice until they got heavy enough to fall from the cloud or the storm could have sucked them off a fishing boat and dropped them at the park.

"Obviously there was hail," Adams said. "And a water spout will pull up and throw all types of things."

Adams, like other motorists Tuesday in Ocean Springs, experienced the storm along U.S. 90. He said the wind was blowing in one direction and then another, in a vortex action.

Debbie Anglin, another Ocean Springs resident, said she waited out what she thought was the worst of the storm at a church downtown. She left and encountered hail on Government Street near the high school at around 6 p.m., about the time the fish were falling a couple of miles east.

She said motorists were pulling over at Oak Park Elementary and at a service station on Halstead Road, where there was protection.

"I went creeping along," she said. "The hail that hit me was bigger than marbles, bouncing off the hood and hitting the windshield."

She said it sounded like rocks hitting her car.

Police Chief Kerry Belk said his department on Wednesday assessed and repaired damaged to its phone system, which was struck by lightning during the storm and went out for several minutes on Tuesday.

An awning from The 19th Hole driving range on U.S. 90 blew off and hit a mobile home in an RV park next door, he said, and there was flash flooding in several neighborhoods, including Woodhaven.

"It was a very bad storm and a very dangerous storm," Belk said. "We're thankful that there wasn't more damage throughout the city."

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Day turned to night across Shenyang when a freak cloud formation 8,000 metres deep blanketed the northeastern city.

For over half-an-hour noon was as black as midnight. Cars, buses and lorries went someway to breaking up the darkness.

Tremendous lightening flashes accompanied the phenomena, reports the website www.sina.com.cn.

Convergence of two cloud fronts formed the 8,000-metre-thick connective cloud cluster.

With sky and sun effectively blocked out, visibility was reduced to near zero, according to an expert from the provincial capital's meteorological bureau.

The marvellous spectacle was also reported in many other areas of Liaoning Province and lasted for half an hour in some places, he said.

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March 5, 2005

by Nigel Baudains

The Bailiwick of Guernsey has its own constitution, making it almost a self-governing member of the British Commonwealth. On occasions Guernsey's legislation has to be approved by the Queen in Council before it can be enacted locally.



A PENSIONER had the shock of his life when ball lightning shot through his front window.

Roy Falla, 80, was watching TV at his home in Lowlands Road, St Sampson’s, when the phenomenon struck, causing the set to fail.
Amateur meteorologist Paul Domaille has investigated more than 50 reports of ball lightning from Thursday last week – seen at the same time as a Flybe aircraft was struck twice in mid-air.
So-called lightning balls penetrated at least four homes in the north of the island. It can enter and exit properties without leaving a mark. Mr Falla was about to go to bed when the loudest clap of thunder he had ever heard went off.
A split second later, a lightning ball entered his lounge through the window and closed curtains and the television broke.
‘I was absolutely petrified,’ he said.
‘It made a hissing noise and I would say it went dead centre into the back of the TV.’
Mr Falla examined that the set, which he expected to be warm, but could find nothing obviously wrong. As he opened the curtains to look outside, he heard an aircraft, which he believes was the Flybe Dash 8 that had been forced to abort its flight to Exeter.
‘I pulled the curtains back to see, but the glass was fine.
‘The thing that amazed was that the ball came through the window without causing any damage. The thing I don’t know is where it really went.’
The ball was a yellow/white colour and about the size of a football.
Mr Falla said he went to bed ‘shaking like a leaf’. He was so worried that he had imagined the whole thing that he did not tell his daughter of his experience for a week.
‘I thought that no one would believe me and I certainly hope I don’t see another one. Just what can a thing like that do?’
Others also heard the clap of thunder.
‘My neighbour told me she’d been having a bath and she’d never got out so quick.’
Mr Domaille, 49, is a member of Torro – the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation. Last Friday, he overheard a conversation in a shop suggesting that a person from St Martin’s had seen ball lightning, which is unusual.
He asked the Guernsey Press to help him find that person. The following day after a story was published, he received more than 50 calls from people who had seen the phenomenon and was on the phone for about five hours.
One or possibly two balls were seen around Jerbourg Point and another above the Crown Pier. Mr Domaille posted his findings on the Torro forum and amateur meteorologists from as far afield as Russia and Australia have shown an interest.


Published 5/3/2005

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March 4, 2005

By Ewen McNamee

A MYSTERIOUS substance is blackening the life of a West Lothian family.

Ann Alexander from Blackfaulds Crescent in Whitburn is at her wits’ end, after a black soot-like dust continually covers the inside of her house.

Numerous tests have so far failed to uncover the cause of the strange substance, thought to be carbon, which marks walls and discolours carpets, furniture and clothes, forcing Ann to constantly clean and redecorate.

The case is made even more puzzling as the Alexanders’ home is the only one affected out of 40 in the estate, which was built only two years ago, and none of the nearby shops, industrial units or schools have similar problems.

Ann Alexander, who lives in the house with her two daughters, explained: “No one knows what is causing it at all.

“We’ve had everyone out here taking a look at it and no one can tell me what the problem is.”

She added: “We even had experts out from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh doing all sorts of tests.

“They thought it might be an underground fire causing it, but the tests came up negative.”

She added: “I’m also worried about the health of me and my family.

“Who knows what affect this is having in our bodies - we’ve all had headaches and nosebleeds but I don’t know if it’s related.

“We’ve been to the doctor, who says there is nothing wrong with us, but they won’t do invasive treatments such as blood tests.”

Possible causes such as burning from within the house has also been ruled out, as Miss Alexander is only a light smoker, who only occasionally burns candles.

West Lothian Council confirmed they are looking into the problem, after environmental health officers were called out to investigate.

A council spokesman explained: “We have visited the house and taken samples and we have asked for an analyst’s report.

“So far the source of the problem has not been identified.

“Investigations are continuing and we will be contacting the complainant to keep her advised of the situation.”

The property is rented from the Livingston-based Almond Housing Association, who have been carrying out their own investigation into the problem.

Ann Alexander added: “I appreciate what Almond have done so far, and I know this is not their fault.

“But it’s not my fault either, so why should I pay for it?

“I’m now being told to claim for the damage on my house insurance, but they won’t pay out on something like this.

“The builders must have known there was a problem before they left.”

George Webster, chief executive of Almond Housing Association, said: “We have been investigating the complaints of soot in the house, and although there has been staining in a number of areas, the cause of this is unclear.

“As far as we know, no other properties in the area are affected nor has any defect in this particular building been discovered.

“Tests carried out by Environmental Health and independent experts have so far proved inconclusive.

“We have already redecorated some areas of the property as a goodwill gesture, but until the source of this soot is discovered it is difficult to offer any explanation or indeed to prevent a recurrence.”

He added: “Our advice is for a claim to be made on the household contents insurance.

“We are continuing to monitor the situation and hopefully ascertain the source of the problem and take appropriate action.”


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Source: IANS.


Hyderabad, April 29: Giant waves have been lashing some parts of Andhra Pradesh coast leading to panic, but experts have assured people that there is no threat of another tsunami.

Six to seven ft tall waves struck Uppada beach, about 20 km from the port town of Kakinada in East Godavari district, Thursday. People living in other coastal villages in Prakasam district also experienced the unusually high tidal waves.

No loss of life or property was reported.

Though the sea was calm at Kakinada port, the authorities stopped cargo operation as a precautionary measure. Fishing boats in the port channel were also stopped.

The unusual phenomenon revived memories of the killer tsunami of Dec 26 and fishermen and others living near the coast ran to safety.

Experts said the waves were not warning signs of another tsunami, which killed 280,000 people all over the world, more than 10,000 in India and 105 in Andhra Pradesh.

"Ever since the Dec 26 quake, which triggered the tsunami, changes have been occurring in the ocean. The cause of this turbulence may be landslides and movement of rocks in continental shelves," explained J.V.M. Naidu, director of the Visakhapatnam Cyclone Warning Centre.

He added that while there was no need for panic, people along the coast should take precautions.

The colour of the waves, said eyewitnesses, was normal unlike the tsunami waves. The unusual tidal waves were first experienced Wednesday night at Uppada and seen again on Thursday morning and evening at various coastal points.

"I have never seen such high tidal waves," said Bopanna, a fisherman in Uppada. He and dozens of others stopped fishing and moved to higher places.

East Godavari district collector K.S. Jawahar Reddy said the administration had taken all precautions.

Senior officials were deputed to places where the high tidal waves were seen to take up evacuation and relief, if necessary.

District administrations in Prakasam and Nellore districts were also on alert, ready to evacuate if the need arises.

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