Earlier this morning the Villarrica volcano erupted in Chile, forcing thousands of residents and tourists to flee from the city of Pucón. Images of the eruption show a towering lava fountain glowing against the dark backdrop of the pre-dawn sky. One image, distributed by the Associated Press shows something even stranger: lightning, arcing through the cloud of ash.
Winter on the East Coast of the United States has been brutal, and it isn't over yet. Freezing temperatures are predicted to break even more frigid records over the next two days. Boston has been buried in stupid amounts of snow, and Washington DC ground to a halt under the devastating impact of four inches of snow.
Boston's having a rough go with snow. In the past 30 days, six feet of flakes have buried Beantown. There's so much snow on the ground, in fact, that the city and surrounding regions are considering dumping it into the ocean to make room on the roads.
The tornadoes that struck the eastern United States on April 27, 2020 were historic in their ferocity. Back in 2012, the Washington Post reported that 208 twisters claimed a total of 316 lives and left an estimated $11 billion in damages. Twenty-one states were hit with tornadoes from April 25 through 28, including Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and, of course, Alabama, the state that bore the brunt of the storm.
So there are a couple of—let's say, health outcomes—that are popularly associated with unusual snowfall. One is heart attacks: It's commonly believed that shoveling snow can over-strain the heart. The other is pregnancy: Couples stuck indoors, it's thought, may find themselves in a certain mood.