A storm that hit Southcentral Alaska on Saturday night led to flooding in Girdwood, a landslide on the Sterling Highway and left thousands of homes without power throughout the region on Sunday morning. More than a foot of rain fell in Girdwood by Sunday.

The rhododendron in my garden is now starting to bloom in late October. I researched this and it seems that it's not unheard of and may be related to higher temperatures in the daytime and colder temperatures at night.

The largest wave was a 60-foot 4-inch beast that hit Astoria, Oregon on Sunday. It was a record for the station, which is part of Scripps’ Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP).

Scotland’s only working nuclear power plant at Torness shut down in an emergency procedure this week when jellyfish clogged the sea water-cooling intake pipes at the plant. To protect marine life and avert nuclear disasters, scientists are investigating the use of drones to provide estimates of jellyfish locations, amounts, and density.

Vetle Berntsen and the others on the trawler understood little when the black fish ended up on board. No wonder – the fish actually live in deep water around the equator. It turned out to be Diretmichthys parini, also known as ducat fish, one of three documented in Norway.

Volunteers from the Friends of Bowker Creek Society say uncovering caddisfly larvae in the gravel beds of the stream show the water quality has improved to a level sufficient to sustain salmon and cutthroat trout.

“The ice was so thick flowing down the river. It was forming so fast. It was freezing so fast. Just amazing. I’d never seen anything like that," one of the hunters, Rex Nick, said.

Strong winds whipped across Ketchikan Thursday evening and Friday morning, and a strong morning gust snapped power lines and severed Ketchikan’s connection to the Swan Lake hydropower reservoir.

One resident of Bunn, North Carolina, says she counted 58 buzzards — probably turkey vultures — in her yard, on her roof and on a fence. Town officials seem unable to get the birds to leave.

An unusual bird was sighted in the Yukon Flats village of Chalkyitsik recently. The raptor, uncommon to the state, has also been spotted in a few other Alaska locations. Bird biologist Jim Johnson says there’s broader evidence that the nomadic turkey vulture is expanding north.

"The sea level rise and wind is making this happen because it is really vulnerable. We are always really amazed every time we go out there with the change, and pieces of earth the size of a house falling over."

Two distinct species of orcas feed and socialize in the waters of Puget Sound: fish-eating endangered southern resident killer whales and transient, or Bigg’s, killer whales, which feed on marine mammals and are more common. They seldom mix.

One of the most destructive and rapidly spreading invasive species on the continent has been found for the first time in a Canadian national park.

We saw over 100 on a 1/2 mile stretch of beach. I am wondering if the chiton die-off is related to the stormy conditions or something else?

October is off to a warm start for parts of Nunavut. Justin Shelley, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, says an upper ridge of high pressure is drawing up warmer than normal air into the territory.

The oil likely will continue to encroach on Orange County beaches for the next few days, officials said.

It would be an obscure sighting of the species. The closest beluga population, which lives at least 1,400 miles away in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, is endangered and covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

"We had never before observed a species of the order Diptera, aside from the mosquitos present every year. Around the middle of September this year, however, there was a large influx of houseflies into our home."

Hundreds of guillemots go astray in the Oslo fjord every autumn. Many are now starving in the food-poor fjord.

Thawing permafrost and erosion is resulting in the loss of infrastructure in Newtok. These images show impacts on utility poles, and the shoreline.