This important NASA site is located in the Australian Capitol Territory (ACT). You can read more about my visit to the site here.
Here are some pictures from the most recent snow fall we had in El Paso, Texas. The first picture is of North Franklin Mountain, the high peak in the Franklins Mountains with a maximum altitude of 7,192 feet:
This next snow covered mountain is South Franklin Mountain with an altitude of 6,791 feet:
This picture is looking towards Ranger Peak and the Wyler Aerial Tramway:
It has been quite a winter with snow falling on El Paso a total of six times from October 2009 through February 2010. It has been an extremely cold winter in El Paso this year and I wonder if this will be the last snow fall of the year becaue I am ready for spring time, which if the nice weather today is any indication should be right around the corner.
You can read more about this memorial located in Canberra, Australia here.
Here is a heck of a fish tale for everyone:
THE fishing has improved in the inland community of Mutchilba – this resident grabbed a 30kg barra from a drain with his bare hands.
The Cairns Post reports baker Tony Bambino was driving home on Saturday when he spotted a 30kg barramundi swimming in the Sunwater irrigation channel.
“It was about 4pm in the arvo and I saw something shiny in the water,” he said.
“Once I realised what it was, I grabbed it by the mouth with my hands.
“It took about 10-15 minutes to catch it and the hardest part was pulling it out of the channel and into the back of my ute.”
Mr Bambino said the “massive” barra must have swum into the area before the fish trap was built at Walkamin. [Cairns Post]
When I lived in Australia I really liked eating barramundi, which is a fish that Australians just have a passion fishing for.
As I have always said many of these global warming loons are mad, but not even I thought they would get this crazy:
A seven-month-old baby girl survived three days alone with a bullet in her chest beside the bodies of her parents and toddler brother.
Argentines Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their children before killing themselves after making an apparent suicide pact over fears about global warming.
Their son Francisco, two, died instantly after being hit in the back.
But their unnamed daughter cheated death after the bullet from her dad’s handgun missed her vital organs.
Paramedics rushed her to hospital covered in blood when police alerted by worried neighbours discovered the massacre three days later.
The youngster is recovering in hospital in the town of Goya in the northern Argentine province of Corrientes, where doctors say she is out of danger.
Her parents said they feared the effects of global warming in a suicide note discovered by police. [Daily Mail]
This case is tragic and hopefully this little girl will have a full recovery.
I can’t say I have ever seen or even heard of flight being canceled for this:
HUNDREDS of passengers were ordered off a plane bound for London from Ottawa moments before it was due to take off after a huge rat was discovered on board.
The Boeing 767 was waiting to taxi down the runway when a passenger spotted the rodent in an overhead locker, The Sun reports.
The captain of Air Canada flight AC888 immediately ordered all 205 passengers off the plane so a pest control team could try to catch the rat.
But despite an intensive search, the rodent could not be found. The flight was cancelled, with passengers spending the night at a hotel near Ottawa’s Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. [NewsCore]
And here I was thinking that this kind of thing only went on in Montana: 
THE owner of a goat allegedly raped is demanding the two accused make traditional wedding arrangements.
State media also said the two young men accused of having sex with a goat in central Mozambique faced criminal charges.
The young men, whose names and ages were not released, were caught in the act by police and arrested outside the rural town of Mbucuta in central Mozambique, the website of the state broadcaster said.
“One of the young men was naked and holding the goat’s head, and the other was having sex with the animal,” witness Mario Creva told Radio Mozambique.
District prosecutor Leonides Mapasse said the two would face trial for simple larceny.
The goat’s owner may also file a civil suit against them, he said.
The owner was demanding the young men pay him damages and initiate a traditional wedding ceremony by paying “lobolo,” a dowry, a family member told Radio Mozambique. [NewsCore]
Something fishy going on here in this Northern Territory town:
WHILE the Top End and Central Australia have been battered by torrential rains, a Territory town has had fish falling from the sky.
The freak phenomena happened not once, but twice, on Thursday and Friday afternoon about 6pm at Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine.
NEWSBREAKER Christine Balmer, who took these photos of the fish on the ground and in a bucket, had to pinch herself when she was told “hundreds and hundreds” of small white fish had fallen from the sky.
“It rained fish in Lajamanu on Thursday and Friday night,” she said, “They fell from the sky everywhere.
“Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere.
“These fish were alive when they hit the ground.”
Mrs Balmer, the aged care co-ordinator at the Lajamanu Aged Care Centre, said her family interstate thought she had lost the plot when she told them about the event.
“I haven’t lost my marbles,” she said, reassuring herself. “Thank god it didn’t rain crocodiles.” [NT News]
Read the rest at the link, but goofy and weird stuff like this always seems to happen in the Northern Territory. Apparently locals are speculating that a tornado may have blown the fish from lakes hundreds of kilometers away from the town. I wonder if someone flying overhead with an airplane wasn’t just playing a massive prank on the town?
Apparently Australians are not taking the recent tsunami warnings to seriously:
BEACHGOERS have ignored official warnings of a tsunami hitting Australia’s east coast after a devastating underwater earthquake struck Chile.
The 8.8 magnitude quake struck near Chile’s central coast at about 5.43pm (AEDT), toppling buildings and killing at least 147 people.
The ocean quake has triggered tsunami warnings as far off as Australia, with the possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding hitting coastal areas.
In French Polynesia, huge waves have struck the Gambier archipelago, the high commissioner’s office in Papeete said, as the tsunami races across the Pacific.
The Marquesas islands, northeast of Polynesia, were hit by a series of two-metre waves that damaged some boats but no one was hurt, officials said.
A four-metre wave hit Hiva Oa in the Marquesas, officials said.
Back in Australia, swimmers and surfers at Bondi Beach have treated this morning like any other even though effects of the tsunami are due to hit the NSW coast from 8.45am (AEDT) today.Live cameras at Bondi show lifesavers have since ushered people out of the water.
The State Emergency Service (SES) has issued official warnings for people to stay away from the state’s coastal areas.
“Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami, as there is the possibility of dangerous, localised flooding of the immediate foreshore,” the SES warning states. [News.com.au]
For everyone living in Hawaii a tsunami may be coming your way:
A tsunami threatened the Pacific Rim on Saturday, with an 8.8-magnitude earthquake off Chile sending potentially deadly waves across the ocean at the speed of a jetliner.
Sirens blared in Hawaii to alert residents to the impending waves, with authorities asking people living near the water to evacuate. On several South Pacific islands hit by a tsunami last fall, police began evacuations of the coast.
The first waves in Hawaii are expected to hit shortly after 11 a.m. Saturday (4 p.m. EST; 2100 GMT) and measure roughly 8 feet (2.5 meters) at Hilo. Most Pacific Rim nations however did not order evacuations, but advised people in low-lying areas to be on the lookout.
Unlike other tsunamis in recent years, emergency officials along the Pacific have hours to prepare and possibly evacuate residents.
“We’ve got a lot of things going for us,” said Charles McCreery, the director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which issues warnings to almost every country around the Pacific Rim and to most of the Pacific island states. “We have a reasonable lead time.
“We should be able to alert everyone in harm’s way to move out of the evacuation zones,” he said.
In Hawaii, boats and people near the coast were being evacuated. Hilo International Airport, located along the coast, was closed. In Honolulu, residents lined up at supermarkets to stock up on water, canned food and batteries. Cars lined up 15 long at several gas stations. [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link but it is good to see that residents in Hawaii have plenty of time to react to this possible tsunami.
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