One of the favourite things I like to do is going to the beach, hit the water and float on my back. As I am floating I look up at the clouds. It is a very tranquil experience as my ears are submerged, so all I hear is the quiet hum of the water. And looking at the clouds puts my mind at rest. The cloud formations are quite spectacular. It is a great way to spend time.
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Massive size of the Pacific Ocean.
Sydney Harbour without any water.
Above and below.
Even cats like the ocean.
Twelve Apostles Stacks off south coast of Australia.
As us Manitobans withstand this stubborn winter that just will not go away we can further feel cheated when looking back to historical weather. Back in 1980 it was 34 celsius. Absolute beach weather.
April 21st can be like this:
Or like this:
Miami is a community in southern Manitoba, Canada which was formed in 1885. It supports a K-12 school and has a curling rink and a skating rink. It lies 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg in the Rural Municipality of Thompson. Miami also has a well trained fire department. Members of the department are trained to a minimum Level I fire fighting certification with the Office of the Fire Commissioner. The Miami Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service has about 24 active members. The town also has a well trained and well equipped EMS Unit that works in conjunction with the surrounding hospitals.
In 2005, the town was the victim of a mass street sign theft. All of the towns signs, a total of 44, were stolen just before Christmas Day; total replacement cost was about $7,000 CAD. It just so happened that same night a house fire was reported and no street signs were available for directions.
Most of the streets in the community are named after prominent past residents or pioneers.
Miami was used in a controversial prank contest by Winnipeg radio station Classic Rock 97.5 FM (CJKR) morning man Scruff Connors in 1995. The radio station ran a contest for an all expenses paid trip to Miami to watch the Super Bowl, but did not mention that they were referring to Miami, Manitoba and not the one in Florida. Local media reported that some participants had considered lawsuits over the prank. Because of the negative backlash of the prank, CJKR terminated Connors’ contract within days of the incident. Miami, Manitoba is also the hometown of Mickey Rooney’s mother, according to an interview with him in 1998 by Michael Enwright.
This year Miami has experienced a record amount of snowfall. The town was almost buried twice by unrelenting snow flurries. These images are from April 20th, 2013. In a regular year the lawns in Miami would turning green and children would be playing in the streets. But this year the stubborn cold weather has left the town buried beneath mounds of dirty, sticky and non-melting snow.
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Free Press
Springtime: the time for flowers, newborn animals … and snow. Nearly half of the United States is currently covered in snow, including most of Canada, as can be seen in this image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That’s the largest extent of snow cover at this point in the season in at least 10 years, according to NOAA. Much of the snow came from a massive spring blizzard that dropped snow throughout the Midwest and East Coast, breaking records in many cities.
The town of Lincoln, Ill., broke its daily snow total of 4 inches (10 centimeters), which was set in 1947, with 10.8 inches (27 cm) of snow on Sunday (March 24), according to AccuWeather. The weather system also dropped 2.9 inches (7.4 cm) of snow in Columbus, Ohio, breaking the old record of 1.8 inches (4.6 cm) set in 1965.
Image from March 26, 2013
Photographer Martin Rietze travels around the world in pursuit of Earth’s greatest fiery spectacle – volcanoes. Recently, he went to Japan to photograph the Sakurajima Volcano in southern Kyushu as it spewed smoke, fire, and lava. During the shoot he captured some incredible lightening storms that are known to accompany volcanic eruptions. How lightning forms in general is still debated among scientists, and volcanic lightning is even less well understood. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas. Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust.
When Rietze travelled to Sakurajima to capture these images in February 2013, the volcano had been venting smoke and ash for 14 hours, before a 30 second eruption occurred, spewing lava bombs and lightning. Rietze was around four kilometers away from Sakurajima when he captured these images, using a full-frame DSLR with a focal length of 90-200mm.
“If fitted with a proper gas mask, helmet and protective clothing, you can stand a few dozen feet away from boiling lava lakes”, he say. But he cautioned: “When you get this close the camera equipment ages instantly. Sulphuric gasses and acids can destroy the electronics and lens coatings very quickly.”
Rietze has been photographing volcanoes for ten years, publishing his work on an online gallery Alien Landscapes on Planet Earth. He has loved watching volcanoes ever since he saw Mount Etna erupt in Sicily as a young boy, and has no plans to give up his risky career.
Rua Goncalo de Carvalho is a street located in Porto Alegre, the capital and largest city in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Flanked by trees on either side, the street became internationally known after a campaign for its preservation spread on the Internet leading it to be dubbed “the most beautiful street in the world”.
Over a span of 500 meters the sidewalks are lined with more than one hundred Rosewood trees, going up to the seventh floor of the buildings in some cases. According to some elderly residents, the trees were planted in the 1930s by employees of German origin who worked in a brewery in the neighborhood.
In 2005, the construction of a mall nearby brought the risk of changes to this beautiful street, prompting residents to mobilize. The campaign was successful, and on June 5, 2006 the then mayor José Fogaça signed a decree making the street Gonçalo de Carvalho “historical, cultural and environmental development of the city.”
Photographs of the street circulated among environmental groups, and the “tunnel of trees” become increasingly popular. In 2008, a Portuguese biologist saw the pictures and wrote in his blog that it was the most beautiful street in the world. The nickname caught and the street has thus been called by several publications ever since.
| City | Hours |
|---|---|
| Calgary, Alberta | 2405 |
| Winnipeg, Manitoba | 2372 |
| Regina, Saskatchewan | 2338 |
| Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | 2329 |
| Edmonton, Alberta | 2299 |
| Victoria, British Columbia | 2193 |
| Hamilton, Ontario | 2088 |
| Ottawa, Ontario | 2061 |
| Barrie, Ontario | 2055 |
| Toronto, Ontario | 2038 |
| City | Days |
|---|---|
| Calgary, Alberta | 333 |
| Edmonton, Alberta | 321 |
| Regina, Saskatchewan | 321 |
| Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | 320 |
| Winnipeg, Manitoba | 318 |
| Victoria, British Columbia | 317 |
| Windsor, Ontario | 307 |
| Kelowna, British Columbia | 306 |
| Montréal, Quebec | 304 |
| Barrie, Ontario | 303 |
| Ottawa, Ontario | 303 |
| Toronto, Ontario | 303 |
| City | % sunshine |
|---|---|
| Calgary, Alberta | 53 |
| Winnipeg, Manitoba | 51 |
| Regina, Saskatchewan | 50 |
| Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | 50 |
| Edmonton, Alberta | 49 |
| Victoria, British Columbia | 46 |
| Hamilton, Ontario | 45 |
| Ottawa, Ontario | 45 |
| Montréal, Quebec | 44 |
| Toronto, Ontario | 44 |
Vancouver is Canada’s third most rainy city, with over 161 rainy days per year. As measured at Vancouver airport in Richmond, Vancouver receives 1154.7 mm of rain per year. By comparison, the amount of rainfall in London, England is nearly half that of Vancouver. In North Vancouver, about 20 km away from the Vancouver airport, the amount of rain received doubles to 2477 mm per year as measured at the base of Grouse Mountain.
