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The freezing conditions will end for Texas soon, but they’re set to move into the Northeast this weekend.

A woman waits for paramedics in the back of a Lyft Ride vehicle on February 01, 2023 in Austin, Texas. A winter storm is sweeping across portions of Texas, causing massive power outages and disruptions of highways and roads.

Central Texas has been frozen since earlier this week after an Arctic front rolled into the Southern U.S. Parts of central, west, and north Texas and nearby states Arkansas and Tennessee were under ice storm warnings, per the National Weather Service Prediction Center. The freezing temperatures and sleet should end by this weekend.

“The prolonged and damaging ice storm that has impacted a large region from Texas to Tennessee is forecast to finally come to an end today as a final surge of moisture slides eastward,” the NWS said. “Highs will return into the 40s and 50s by Friday, likely eliminating any icy concerns.”

“FINALLY beginning to see some clearing on radar. Road conditions will slowly improve as we climb into the mid 30s today. Slick spots will persist overnight but widespread improvement is expected tomorrow. Allow for extra travel time today. It’s still slushy!” the Fort Worth National Weather Service account tweeted Thursday.

More than 405,000 customers out of 13 million are without power, according to Poweroutage.us.

Several days of icy conditions had canceled over 2,000 flights across several states as of Wednesday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal reported. Driving was dangerous throughout Texas this week. The storm has been blamed for 10 traffic accident deaths across three states, the Associated Press reported. The sleet and freezing rain also created ice layers on trees, causing the branches to snap off.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Australia Ties Record for Hottest Southern Hemisphere Day

January 14, 2022

Australia Ties Record for Hottest Southern Hemisphere Day

It topped 123 degrees Fahrenheit in Western Australia, tying the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the southern hemisphere

A map showing the misery index in Australia on Thursday.

Gif: Earth Wind Map

It is really, really, really hot in Australia right now.

On Thursday, Onslow, a coastal town in Western Australia north of Perth, recorded a high temperature of 123.3 degrees Fahrenheit (50.7 degrees Celsius). That sweltering heat ties the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, which was set in 1960 in the South Australia outback.

While Onslow was the hottest spot on the continent on Thursday, it wasn’t alone in suffering through the heat. The nearby towns of Roebourne and Mardie both recorded temperatures of 122.9 degrees Fahrenheit (50.5 degrees Celsius), both of which are records as well. Before this week, Australia has only crossed the 122-degree-Fahrenheit (50-degree-Celsius) mark three times in its history. Now, it’s happened at three locations in one day—and even more intense heat is on the way.

Luke Huntington, a meteorologist at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, told local outlet WA Today that the dry spring the area has had could be contributing to the record-setting temperatures—and that this trend could continue.

“The Pilbara region has had persistent hot temperatures over the last few months. and there has been no rainfall to really take away the hot air that has built up,” he said. “Over the next few months. there is a high chance that temperatures on a day-to-day basis will be above average, at least until the wet season rains hit properly.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Scientists Are Terrified

November 2, 2021

The Scientists Are Terrified

A survey of the world’s top climate researchers shows a stark finding: Most expect catastrophic levels of heating and damage soon—very soon.

woman looks at wildfires tearing through a forest in the region of Chefchaouen in northern Morocco on August 15, 2021. Smoke and flames rise in the background as she clasps her hands behind her head. — Photo: Fadel Senna/AFP (Getty Images)

A new Nature survey shows a majority of the world’s leading climate scientists expect “catastrophic” impacts in their lifetimes driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions. Brilliant researchers, they’re just like you and me—but with more data, which actually makes the new survey even more unnerving.

The feature from Nature, published on Monday, involved querying Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change researchers. These are the same folks who put out a major report earlier this year warning that this is essentially the most consequential decade in human history, one that will play a major role in deciding just how severe global warming will be for generations to come. In other words, they’re deep in it.

Nature heard back from 92 of the 233 living IPCC authors. The results show that six in 10 of the respondents expect the planet to warm at least 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius), a level that’s well beyond the Paris Agreement target of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). And it’s double the 1.5-degree-Celsius (2.7-degree-Fahrenheit) target that policymakers and researchers (including the IPCC) have identified as a relatively safe level of heating that would allow small islands to remain above sea level and protect millions from food insecurity and violence. Just 20% of the researchers, meanwhile, expect the world to meet the Paris Agreement 2-degree-Celsius target, and a paltry 4% think 1.5 degrees Celsius is in play.

Even more upsetting, 88% of the researchers expect climate change to unleash catastrophic impacts in their lifetimes. Of course, you could argue that’s already happening. Research has shown climate change is playing a role in making heat waves, wildfires, and cyclones worse…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hurricane Ida Shuts Down More Than 90% of Oil and Gas Production in the Gulf of Mexico

September 1, 2021

Hurricane Ida Shuts Down More Than 90% of Oil and Gas Production in the Gulf of Mexico

Experts say the oil refineries that have been shut down account for 9% of the country’s total.

A gas pump with gas selling for $1.04 a gallon is shown on May 07, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland.

As if reversing the course of the Mississippi River, forcing hospitals to hunker down with patients that couldn’t be moved, and nearly shutting off the power and internet in New Orleans wasn’t enough, Hurricane Ida has also disrupted oil and gas production.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Sunday said that 95.6% of current oil production and 93.7% of the gas production in the Gulf of Mexico had been shut down in response to Hurricane Ida, which made landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm in Louisiana. Offshore Gulf operators had to evacuate personnel due to Ida and as of Sunday had moved workers off 288 production platforms, or 51.4% of manned platforms in the area, and 11 rigs, or 100% structures in the area.

In addition, the BSEE reported that 10 dynamically positioned rigs—which are not moored to the seafloor and can change locations in a relatively short period of time—had moved out of the storm’s projected path. They represent 66.7% of the total dynamically positioned rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

A hurricane making landfall in this area is the one of the worst things that could happen to the oil industry, experts told CNN, and could impact the pipelines that ferry fuel to the East Coast. Andy Lipow, president of the Houston-based consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates, told the outlet that six refineries in New Orleans are currently shut down. These refineries—which include PBF, Phillips, Shell, Marathon, and two Valero refineries—produce 1.7 million barrels per day, or 9% of the country’s total.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Surveillance State: An Inexorable March Toward Totalitarianism

November 11, 2017

The Surveillance State: An Inexorable March Toward Totalitarianism

mass-surveillance2

Gizmodo released an article entitled “US Homeland Security Wants Facial Recognition to Identify People in Moving Cars,” on 11/2/17 by Matt Novak. The Surveillance State has slowed down its rate of growth since the President took office, however, it has not halted that growth. Instead, it lies festering below the veneer of daily events, inexorably growing its tentacles and extending their reach. Akin to an infestation of weeds, the roots are deep within the fabric of our communications networks: telephones, CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) cameras, the Internet…all are thoroughly permeated.

Here is an excerpt from that article:

The proposed program would allow Homeland Security to maintain a database of everyone who leaves and enters the US that would now include photos taken by spying robot-cameras at every border crossing. Not only does DHS want this new facial recognition program to work without anyone having to exit their vehicle, the agency wants it to work even if the travelers are wearing things like sunglasses and hats. DHS also wants it to work without cars having to stop.

Seems they really want our information for their database. There is something more. One of the readers on the article’s website who uses the handle “Artiofab” posted this comment that is important, as he lives on the Texas border with Mexico:

“11/02/17 12:31pm Hi everybody I live near the US-MX border so I’m happy to give informed opinions on this topic, since I know that a lot of the audience at Gizmodo dot com apparently lives closer to the US-CA border.

Near the US-MX border along major US highways there are these interior checkpoints. If you’re traveling “into” the US (e.g., if you’re in New Mexico and you’re driving north) you stop your car, a USBP agent asks if you’re all US citizens, you say yes, they let you keep going.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

From the Very Creation of the Internet, U.S. Spy Agencies Fought to Block Encryption

May 25, 2015

From the Very Creation of the Internet, U.S. Spy Agencies Fought to Block Encryption

American spy agencies have intentionally weakened digital security for many decades. This breaks the functionality of our computers and of the Internet. It reduces functionality and reduces security by – for example – creating backdoors that malicious hackers can get through.

The spy agencies have treated patriotic Americans who want to use encryption to protect their privacy as extremists … or even terrorists.

As Gizmodo’s Matt Novak points out, this attack started at the very birth of the internet:

In the 1970s, civilian researchers at places like IBM, Stanford and MIT were developing encryption to ensure that digital data sent between businesses, academics and private citizens couldn’t be intercepted and understood by a third party. This concerned folks inthe U.S. intelligence community who didn’t want to get locked out of potentially eavesdropping on anyone, regardless of their preferred communications method. Despite their most valiant efforts, agencies like the NSA ultimately lost out to commercial interests. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

***

When the NSA got wind of the research developments at IBM, Stanford and MIT in the 1970s they scrambled to block publication of their early studies. When that didn’t work, the NSA sought to work with the civilian research community to develop the encryption. As Stowsky writes, “the agency struck a deal with IBM to develop a data encryption standard (DES) for commercial applications in return for full pre-publication review and right to regulate the length, and therefore the strength of the crypto algorithm.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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Experts say the oil refineries that have been shut down account for 9% of the country’s total.

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