Sunday, Oct 13th
Last update06:45:33 AM GMT
Environmental Glance
A heatwave that impacted the US west coast over the past week is now moving east into the midwest and south-east, as millions of Americans have been under a heat alert at some point in the past week.
“Numerous near record-tying/breaking high temperatures are possible over the central High Plains and Southeast Sunday, and along much of the East Coast by Monday,” reported the National Weather Service.
Roughly 28,000 residents have been forced to evacuate as the Thompson fire quickly swept across more than 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) near the city of Oroville, about an hour outside Sacramento, California’s capital.
Photojournalists captured intense scenes on Tuesday night as the blaze tore through homes and vehicles in the rural enclave in Butte county. Officials confirmed that at least four structures have been destroyed.
More than 1,400 fire personnel from across the state have deployed to battle the blaze, which was at 0% containment Wednesday morning. Four firefighters suffered minor injuries, officials said, as dangerously high temperatures continue to threaten their health and safety.
Trump administration officials barred experts from warning legislators that they were about to write a major environmental loophole into law, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers alleged in newly revealed internal communications.
The loophole, arising from a clause in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), enabled many companies to avoid disclosing releases of toxic “forever chemicals” to the EPA.
Internal EPA correspondence obtained by The Hill shows that career staff members attempted to make Congress aware of the issue, but they believe their efforts were rebuffed by political appointees.
Thousands of homes and businesses were without power Tuesday as severe weather roared through several states, causing at least one death and spawning possible tornadoes.
Parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia and Georgia were under tornado watches into Tuesday night, while Wisconsin was experiencing a spring snowstorm.
Storms in Northeastern Oklahoma unleashed three suspected tornadoes and dumped heavy rain that was blamed for the death of a 46-year-old homeless woman in Tulsa who was sheltering inside a drainage pipe.
The woman's boyfriend told authorities the two had gone to sleep at the entrance of the drainage pipe and were awakened by floodwaters, Tulsa Fire Department spokesperson Andy Little said. Up to 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) of rain fell in Tulsa in about an hour, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Darby said.
Canada's 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with 6,551 fires scorching nearly 71,000 square miles of land from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center. It wasn't just remarkable for its destruction, however, but also for the fact that it never really seemed to end.
It's the middle of the winter, and there are still 149 active wildfires burning across Canada, including 92 in British Columbia, 56 in the western province of Alberta, and one in New Brunswick, according to the CIFFC, which classifies two of the blazes as out of control.
"Zombie fires," also called overwintering fires, burn slowly below the surface during the cold months. Experts say zombie fires have become more common as climate change warms the atmosphere, and they are currently smoldering at an alarming rate in both British Columbia and Alberta.
A 4.1-magnitude earthquake shook central Oklahoma early Saturday morning following a slightly stronger earthquake the night before and amid a series of smaller quakes.
The earthquake occurred just after 5:30 a.m. local time about 19 miles north of Oklahoma City, near the Northeast Edmond Gas and Oil Field. The quake, which had a depth of about 4.1 miles, was part of a series of several earthquakes clustered together Friday and Saturday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
On Saturday morning, the Oklahoma Geological Survey said in a statement that there have been reports of strong shaking in the immediate area and across Oklahoma City.
State seismologist Jake Walter told USA TODAY the area has recorded about 18 earthquakes in a 12-hour span. Connecting the dots, Walter added, the quakes follow a fault identified by researchers.
It's a moment scientists have warned about for months: Earth has just ended its warmest year since people began keeping records, and scientists say it may have been the warmest in 125,000 years.
Even though the December data isn't yet official, the results were already "locked in" by mid-December, Gavin Schmidt, a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told USA TODAY.
Given the six consecutive months of extremely warm temperatures, it was virtually impossible for December to be cold enough to alter the final results.
"We are already beyond the point that any normal process would be able to keep 2023 from being the hottest year," Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth, said in mid-December.
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