Source: The Extinction Protocol - 1/19/13

No dramatic effects? “Many doomsday theorists have tried to take this natural geological occurrence and suggest it could lead to Earth’s destruction. But would there be any dramatic effects? The answer, from the geologic and fossil records we have from hundreds of past magnetic polarity reversals, seems to be ‘no.’” -NASA website

Source: The Extinction Protocol - 1/19/13

Source: The Extinction Protocol - 1/19/13

January 19, 2013 – SYDNEY - Sydney endured its hottest ever day on Friday, with records smashed across the city and thousands of people suffering from the heat. The mercury topped 45.8 at Sydney’s Observatory Hill at 2.55pm, breaking the previous record set in 1939 by half a degree. The city’s highest temperature was a scorching 46.5 degrees (115.7°F), recorded in Penrith at 2.15pm, while Camden, Richmond and Sydney Airport all reached 46.4 degrees. More than 220 people had been treated for heat exposure or fainting by late afternoon, the Ambulance Service of NSW said.

The heatwave also stranded thousands of commuters, with dozens of trains delayed as steel wires buckled and a hose used to run a key signaling system melted. On the central coast, the heat caused an overhead wire to buckle onto a train at about 1.30pm, trapping about 250 passengers for half an hour. The monorail ground to a halt, spitting sparks that started a soon-extinguished grass fire next to Darling Harbour.

The Wall Street Journal - 1/18/13, By Made Sentana and Ben Otto

JAKARTA, Indonesia—More rain was forecast for the Indonesian capital this weekend, as the death toll climbed from severe flooding that is expected to cost businesses tens of millions of dollars, underscoring infrastructural shortcomings testing the limits of the city's economic boom.

Drownings, landslides and flood-related electrocutions have killed at least 11 people, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency said Friday. Nearly 20,000 people have been forced from their homes by flooding across the greater Jakarta metropolitan area since heavy rains began Sunday, agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Huffington Post - 1/18/13

Rainfall during the past two weeks, showing the rains that fell from Texas through the Lower Mississippi River Valley, but lack of precipitation across the Plains. Click to enlarge the image. (Credit: NOAA.)

The national drought footprint shrank slightly this week, as heavy rains fell across the South, Southeast, Midwest and parts of the Mid-Atlantic states, and major snowfall blanketed parts of the Rocky Mountains and Northern Cascades, bringing relief to those regions. However, the hardest-hit drought region — the Great Plains — continued to experience drier-than-average conditions, with the drought continuing to hold on.