There is little snow in Vestmannaeyjar, but plenty of rain. Because of this, migrating birds are often seen in spring and leave during autumn. All of Iceland's seabirds can be found in Vestmannaeyjar: the guillemot, gannet, kittiwake, Iceland gull, and puffin. The puffin is the Vestmannaeyjar emblem, and can be seen all around the island.
There are about 150 plant species on the island, along with 80 types of insects. The waters around the island have some of the North Atlantic's richest fishing grounds. The two main commercially used fish in Iceland, the cod and haddock, are found in great amounts near the island. Other types of fish near the islands include flatfish, herring, capelin, lobsters and ocean perch. Seals, small types of whales and other marine species are also present in large numbers around the islands.
The islands receive a lot of rain considering its latitude. Vestmannaeyjar has a tundra climate (closely bordering the subpolar oceanic climate) under the Köppen climate classification. There is a lot of wind on the islands. The highest wind speed recorded in Iceland (61 metres per second;140 mph) was recorded at the southern point of the Heimaey island. However, the island enjoys the highest annual temperature in Iceland.
List of comuni of the Province of Ascoli Piceno
The following is a list of the 33 "comuni" of the Province of Ascoli Piceno, Marche, in Italy.
2015–16 Golden State Warriors season
The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors season was the 70th season for the team as well as the National Basketball Association, and its 54th in San Francisco, California. They entered the season as defending champions and made history as the first 73 win 9 loss team, only behind the Michael Jordan-led 72-10 Bulls.
In the playoffs, they defeated the dysfunctional Houston Rockets (41 wins 41 losses), who they played last year in the WCF'S in 5 games, the Portland Trail Blazers (44 wins 38 losses), also in 5 games, and the Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook lead Oklahoma City Thunder (55 wins 27 losses) in 7 games. The Warriors however trailed the Thunder 3-1, looking like they were going to be eliminated but however, the Warriors won game 5 120-111, game 6 108-101, and in game 7 96-88. The Warriors became the 10th team to win the series when down 3-1, after last year's Houston Rockets. They would meet the Cleveland Cavaliers again in the NBA Finals. The Warriors were up 3-1 in the series following a game 4 97-108 victory at Quicken Loans Arena. However, they lost game 5 at home 97-112, game 6 101-115, and a game 7 champion decider 89-93. They would become the 11th team to lose while up 3-1 and the first to do it in the NBA Finals. They also became the first playoff team to overcome a 3-1 deficit and blow a 3-1 lead in the same playoff year.
<nowiki>*</nowiki> – Recorded statistics when playing for Golden State
San Mateo–Hayward Bridge
The San Mateo–Hayward Bridge (commonly called the San Mateo Bridge) is a bridge crossing the U.S. state of California's San Francisco Bay. It provides a link of the San Francisco Peninsula with the East Bay. The bridge's west end is in Foster City, a suburb on the eastern edge of San Mateo. The east end of the bridge is in Hayward. It is the longest bridge in California and the 25th longest in the world. The bridge is owned by the state of California, and is maintained by Caltrans, the state highway agency. Further oversight is provided by the Bay Area Toll Authority.
The bridge is part of State Route 92, whose western terminus is at the town of Half Moon Bay on the Pacific coast. It links Interstate 880 in the East Bay with U.S. Route 101 on the Peninsula. It is roughly parallel to and lies between the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Dumbarton Bridge, and is sometimes used by commuters to avoid traffic delays due to emergencies on those bridges.
The San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge Company issued in bonds to raise a portion of the estimated budget required to build the first bridge. First-year operating revenues were anticipated to be , but the original bridge lost money in its first year of operation.
The original bridge, known as the San Francisco Bay toll bridge, opened on 1929-03-02 after approximately a year of construction. It was a privately owned venture and was then the longest bridge in the world. The original bridge was mostly a two-lane causeway trestle with five truss spans in the center incorporating a vertical lift over the main shipping channel. Clearance when the lift was down to allow road traffic over the bridge was , and clearance when the lift was up to allow marine traffic to pass the bridge was .
Although the initial press was favorable, daily traffic fell from the opening months and never exceeded 2,000 cars per day until 1947. The State of California purchased the bridge on 1951-09-12 for . By 1955, traffic exceeded 9,000 cars per day, and in 1957, traffic was stopped an average of six times per day to allow ship traffic to pass the bridge. The bridge originally had pole lights along the entire stretch, which were later abandoned except over the vertical lift span. Traffic on the bridge increased from 3,000 cars per day in 1929 to 56,000 cars per day in 1968. Before the new bridge was complete, California put the original truss spans up for sale in 1965, with the buyer obligated to remove all five truss spans after completion of the 1967 bridge.
With increased road and marine traffic, a bill was introduced in 1961 by State Senator Richard J. Dolwig to fund a new fixed high-level bridge to replace the 1929 lift-bridge. The modern span, which began construction on 1961-07-17, opened for traffic in 1967 at a cost of . The originally designed upgrade would retain the existing lift span (along with the attendant delays due to passing ship traffic), adding a second deck to the truss spans and widening the existing trestles to four lanes, but the California Toll Bridge Authority added to the project budget in September 1961 to replace the existing lift span with a fixed high-level double-deck span, which would have been similar in appearance to the nearby 1956 Richmond–San Rafael Bridge.
By that time, prior phases of the project had already been awarded to relocate the toll plaza from San Mateo to Hayward on new fill and bids were taken for the new eastern trestle, with trestle construction awarded to Peter Kiewit Sons'. The finished single-deck design was not finalized until January 1962, with work initially estimated to complete in 1965.
The new span won two prizes in 1968: an ASCE Award for Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement and an American Institute of Steel Construction long-span prize bridge award.
William Stephen Allen was retained as an architectural consultant, although the bridge was designed by the Bay Toll Crossings Division (under Chief Engineer Norman C. Raab) of the California Department of Public Works. Chuck Seim, one of the design engineers working for Bay Toll Crossings, would later credit Allan Temko's criticism of Raab's economical truss design for the Richmond–San Rafael crossing for generating sufficient public pressure to drive the single-deck design. Temko's article quoted T.Y. Lin as being against a repeat of the Richmond–San Rafael design, but Lin ultimately gave Temko the credit for the design. Raab retired and his successor, E.R. "Mike" Foley, was willing to incorporate aesthetic considerations, resulting in the final design. The western highrise span features an all-steel superstructure, with an orthotropic deck over two parallel box girders, following the construction of several smaller test bridges using the same orthotropic deck technology. It was the first large-scale use of an orthotropic deck, which reduces weight, and thus seismic loading, although the bridge is expected to receive moderate to major damage following an earthquake.