"Igloos in South Africa, Frogs Dying from the Cold in Australia, + Arctic Air to Sweep Europe"

 Source:

https://electroverse.net/igloos-in-south-africa-frogs-dying-from-the-cold-in-australia-arctic-air-to-sweep-europe/

... "South Africa has been in the grips of a severe cold spell of late, and recently saw 19 all-time low temperature records broken.

And making the most of the rare winter freeze, many South Africans went in search of snow.

Social media was soon awash with photos and videos of snowball fights and snowmen.

SA resident’s Wilroux Ackermann and his sister Lenchen-Marié took things one step further though.

The pair, while walking in the Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve, encountered so much snow that they decided to construct an igloo atop the Perdekop hiking trail, located in the Western Cape.

Speaking to Snow Report SA, the sibling’s used a tin lunchbox to make the blocks:

“It was snowing all over, so we decided to head to the Mont Rochelle Nature reserve,” said Wilroux.

Snow Report SA wrote on their Facebook page:
   “Using a lunch tin to make the blocks, the whole trip took them about 10 hours, including building the igloo, which they couldn’t quite complete because they didn’t want to come back down the hiking trail in the dark.”

Record cold and snow has swept South Africa in recent days.

The Eastern Cape was hit hardest, where blizzard-like conditions were reported.

And as a result, the passes of Penhoek on the N6, Lootsberg on the N9, and Wapadsberg on the R61 were all closed.

In other news, Johannesburg’s historic chills have seen a sharp increase in demand for electric blankets, with retailers reportedly out of stock and unlikely to be able resupply.

Last week, Johannesburg suffered -7C — the city’s coldest low in decades, and one that busted the previous record of -6.3C registered on July 19, 1995 (solar minimum of cycle 23).

“We are sold out of electric blankets,” said marketing director of Mr Price Home.

“There may be one or two here and there in remote locations, but technically speaking, we have sold all the stock brought into the business for Winter 21.”

Frogs Dying from the Cold in Australia

A large number of sick and dead frogs are being reported across eastern Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

“We previously had a very healthy population of green tree frogs, and a couple of months ago I noticed a frog that had turned brown.

I then noticed more of them and have found numerous dead frogs around our property,” wrote one local in an email to news.com.au.

It’s rare to see a dead frog.

The creatures are usually secretive in nature and, when they die, they decompose rapidly.

This amphibian mass mortality event is highly unusual, and has taken local ecologists by surprise.

The deaths remain something of a mystery; however, the record cold that swept southeastern Australia in recent weeks is the leading culprit — the timing fits, and so do the symptoms.

With the first cold snap of each year comes a few localized frog deaths, but this year’s die-off has been off the scale and has occurred over a greater range than previously encountered; coincidentally though, so has the cold:

Globally, frogs have been battling a potentially deadly fungus often called ‘amphibian chytrid fungus’ for decades.

This fungus attacks the skin, which frogs use to breathe, drink, and control electrolytes important for the heart to function — the disease is responsible for causing population declines in more than 500 amphibian species around the world, and 50 extinctions.

But if frogs have had this fungus affecting them for decades, why is Australia seeing so many dead frogs now?

Well, disease is the outcome of a battle between a pathogen (in this case a fungus), a host (in this case the frog) and the environment, explains the news.com.au article — the fungus doesn’t do well in warm, dry conditions, but thrives in the cold.

The frogs have the upper hand in the summer, but come the harshness of winter the tables turn.

Basically, the lower the temperature the more the animals suffer — the more the frog’s immune system slows, the easier it is for the fungus to take hold.

Wine Prices on the Rise

Wine prices are set to skyrocket this autumn as stocks run short following poor harvests across BOTH hemispheres.

The growing troubles in Europe have been well-documented, with record spring frosts ravaging key French and Italian growing regions; however, problems have been just as rife in the Southern Hemisphere, too.

New Zealand’s sauvignon blanc yield is down 30% on last year due to poor flowering, meaning there will “continue to be limited supply and high pricing,” according to Ciatti, the world’s largest broker of bulk wine.

A similar pattern is seen across New Zealand’s pinot noir and pinot gris, too

In Chile, 2020 whites are sold out completely, and some wineries already report a host of 2021 vintages have already run dry

— this is in part due to buyers seeking new sources of sauvignon blanc in light of New Zealand’s shortfall, but the empty shelves can also be tied to the historic freezes sweeping South America.

For wine buyers, a global shortage of shipping containers continues to cause havoc, too.

An acute shortage of space is driving transport prices to record highs, and for many simply finding a carrier is a challenge.

This is posing a serious problem for global trade in general, and one that is expected to worsen as 2021 rolls on.

We should all expect skyrocketing prices across the board moving forward, and shortages, including food.

Prepare.

Arctic Air to Sweep Europe

Despite fleeting bursts of summer warmth in recent weeks, it has been a historically cold 2021 across Europe.

And beginning this weekend, the continent is forecast another round of descending Arctic air — one set to bring mid-summer chills to a host of nations, from the UK and Portugal in the west, to Poland, the Ukraine, and transcontinental Russia in the east:

In fact, vast pockets of Asia –most notably Russia’s Siberia— will see temperature anomalies some 20C below the average:

Such departures from the norm threaten frosts and even rare summer snow–and in the very same regions the mainstream media were having a heat-induced tizzy about in 2020.

Remember the small Russian town of Verkhoyansk reaching 38+C last summer?

Never reported by the MSM is the fact that this region of the planet regularly experiences drastic swings in temperature — the mercury often lingers below -50C in winter and then above 30C in summer.

Verkhoyansk has actually long held the record for having the greatest temperature range on Earth.

However, the town resides within the Arctic circle, and so MSM headlines such as “The Arctic Is On Fire, and We Should all Be Terrified” successfully prey on the ‘climate fears’ of a criminally ill-informed public.

And where is the media this summer, during Siberia’s recent freeze?

Well, they’re ‘heat-chasing’ in the Pacific Northwest; busy obfuscating away and ignoring the overall picture of a cooling Earth:

Moreover, where were the likes of CNN and the BBC during Russia’s historically frigid winter just gone?

Back in December, 2020 an immense mass of Polar cold gripped 80+ percent of the 17.1 million km² transcontinental nation, cold that then only expanded and intensified as the winter season progressed.

Siberia wound-up suffering one its coldest starts to the year on record.

Temperatures across the vast Asian area held more than 20C below the seasonal average as Arctic air rode anomalously-far south on the back of a weak and wavy meridional jet stream flow — lows of -50C (-58F) and even -60C (-76F) swept the region for long periods–readings among the lowest-ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere.

Asia’s prolonged winter chills led to both food and energy prices soaring to record highs.

The cold also resulted in thousands of reindeer starving to death on Russia’s Yamal Peninsular — a tragedy caused by the animals’ forage being locked under unusually thick ice this year

(and where were the MSM when a scientific expedition to the area called for “new urgent ideas to rescue herding in the region due to an increase in periodic glaciation”?)."