Come to think of it the globe and weather and quakes lately, its been bad all the way around. America/Samoa, Indonesia. Pretty scary stuff.
Strange I checked CNN and Yahoo news and they had nothing on this, at least yet. I sure hope this thing doesnt bash them over there, but it sure looks HUGE!
I'm a little bit curious as to what effect the Palm Trilogy (http://www.thepalm.ae/) has had and is having on the seismology of the Ocean Floor.
(http://www.gizmag.com/pictures/lrg_img//9172_15040854449_10.jpg)
The building of these huge man made islands is definitely affecting the oceans, drilling into the Ocean floor and moving literally tons of Seabed around.
I'm not real sure the proximity of Dubai in relation to the current tsunamis and quakes, but it's all one World, one Globe, so I bet it's connected somehow.
Officials at Dubai Waterfront, the company managing the project, say vibro-compacting of the island's reclaimed materials is now underway and is expected to last 18 months. The method puts the placed material under enormous pressure and prepares the soil to levels which allow building work to start.
Eight metres of water has 11-12 tonnes of weight, which compresses the ocean floor
True, its really difficult for me to see them as unrelated also, esp since they all happened so close together. From an egroup im on as well, they showed a bunch of littler quakes happening in cali. Granted, they happen all the time, but it did seem like they were having more quake activity than normal. She appears to be shaking things up quite a bit. Im hoping she calms down.
Part of the problem there is that seismologists are in disagreement as to the dynamics of it all. How do faultlines affect each other? There are differing schools of thought.
But I think it should have been enough of an eye-opener per the 2004 Sumatra quake/tsunami, that the earth wobbled the tiniest bit ... and that there were reports of sensations felt all over the world.
Officials at Dubai Waterfront, the company managing the project, say vibro-compacting of the island's reclaimed materials is now underway and is expected to last 18 months. The method puts the placed material under enormous pressure and prepares the soil to levels which allow building work to start.
Eight metres of water has 11-12 tonnes of weight, which compresses the ocean floor.
This digging into the ocean floor to make islands seems like a really bad idea. We dig into Her enough with drilling for oil and the like. Already we're probably pushing the buck on this. I wonder how folks can get contracts to be able to do this. I mean, how can you 'own' a piece of the ocean floor, for example? Am I missing something? Makes you wonder.
They are rich, rich, rich. The owner of the project is the Prince of Dubai. :-\
But I agree, it is a very bad idea.
The Natives say that "Indians make little holes" and they are right to do so with respect and giving back when they take.
Also in a book I am reading about alchemy and plants and herbs, it is suggested that whenever one makes a hole to remove something from the Earth, one is to replace- refill the hole with an offering to appease the spirits.
You know what's kind of exciting, though? I think about Emily Dickinson in the 19th century, isolated in her little house, observing her world... She never got to see these satellite pictures. Or pictures of the galaxy, for that matter.
Now the question is .. will this expanded awareness make us better global citizens? (But that's more in the realm of "We're Stuffed", probably.)
Typhoon Melor eventually fizzled into a tropical depression and moved eastward into California for a day, as a bad storm which laid 3+ inches of rain. Good news for drought-ridden California, but I've never observed that eastward jaunt before.
Another Western Pacific Typhoon is forming for the very wet and soaked Phillipines. The 22nd WP storm of the season.
Also, I've never seen before so many Eastern Pacific tropical storms in one season. Baja has taken the brunt a few times, and here is the current spinner:
Darn I cant see it.
I watch the stars closely ... not individually, but as a whole. After this earthquake when I looked up at night as I always do, the sky looked foreign. Something was amiss. The Big Dipper, my 'landmark' had moved over in the Western sky. Also in the Southeastern sky appeared a small cluster of stars I'd never seen before.
Did the Earth really shift?
Mother Earth is Pissed ...
Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis
(CNN) -- The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted Earth's axis and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.
The change is negligible, but permanent: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.
A large quake shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.
Mother Earth is Pissed ...
I feel quite unsteady, like I must put my foot forward very carefully.
Interesting website, V ... I checked out Las Vegas and this morning we had 1.4 mag just North of Las Vegas. I know we have many fault lines here. Over the past twenty or so years, I've felt a couple here.
Did you check out the California map? ... lots of little tremors there. Alaska and Puerto Rico too, just in the last week. Wow! :o
Magnitude-7.2 quake strikes Baja California
Christopher Weber, Associated Press Writer – 12 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – Damage reports from the U.S.-Mexico border region are growing after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake in Baja California that was felt from Tijuana and Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Phoenix.
The quake struck south of Mexicali, Mexico, at 3:40 p.m. Sunday, but damage also was being reported north of the border.
Calexico Fire Chief Peter Mercado tells KABC-TV in Los Angeles that there is substantial damage in the older section of the southeastern California city. Mercado says there is structural damage and broken windows, leaking gas lines and damage to the water system. But he says no injuries have been reported.
Across the border, a parking structure at the Mexicali city hall has collapsed. Mexicali is a bustling commerce center where trucks carrying goods cross into California.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A powerful earthquake in Baja California rocked the U.S.-Mexico border region Sunday, collapsing a parking structure south of the border and causing power outages in both countries as it sent out seismic waves felt from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Arizona.
The 7.2-magnitude quake struck at 3:40 p.m. about 19 miles southeast of Mexicali, a bustling commerce center on the Mexican side of the border where trucks carrying goods cross into California. More than 900,000 people live in the greater Mexicali area.
It was the largest earthquake in the region in nearly 18 years and was followed by aftershocks or distant "triggered" earthquakes on both sides of the border, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones.
A multistory parking structure collapsed at the Mexicali city hall but no one was injured, said Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo.
Other early reports indicated only minor damage, but communication in the region more than 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles is often slow.
"I grabbed my children and said, 'Let's go outside, hurry, hurry!'" said Elizabeth Alvarez, 54, who said the quake hit as she was getting ready to leave her house with her children in an eastern Tijuana neighborhood, across the border from San Diego.
Hundreds of people fled Tijuana's beach fearing a tsunami, said Capt. Juan Manuel Hernandez, chief of aquatic rescue at the Tijuana fire department. Tsunami experts quickly reported that no tsunami was expected along the West Coast, and Hernandez said the beach filled back up with people within an hour.
Tijuana Fire Chief Rafael Carillo said firefighters were rescuing people trapped in an elevator at the Ticuan Hotel in downtown Tijuana, but mostly were responding to reports of fallen cables and minor damage to buildings.
The Crowne Plaza hotel in Mexicali had minor damage — burst pipes and broken windows — but no on was hurt, said receptionist Juan Carlos Fernandez.
"There was a little bit of panic," Fernandez said. "Wait, it's trembling again."
Guests fled their rooms at the Hotel Playa Club in San Felipe, on the Gulf of California, but there was no damage, said receptionist Araceli Marquez.
Seismologists said there have been many earthquakes in the region including many in the magnitude-3.0 range before Sunday's big shock.
"The last time we had an earthquake this large in either Baja or California was in 1992 with the Landers Earthquake, which was 7.3," Jones said.
The USGS reported three strong aftershocks within the hour, including a magnitude-5.1 jolt in the Imperial County desert east of San Diego. Magnitude-4.5 and magnitude-4.3 aftershocks were also reported. Another occurred off Malibu.
The 7.2-magnitude quake was felt as far north as Santa Barbara, USGS seismologist Susan Potter said. It was one of the strongest to hit California in recent history. Only one has been stronger — a 7.3 quake that hit Landers, Calif., and left three dead in 1992 — and there were at least two other 7.2-magnitude quakes in the last 20 years.
Seismologists also said a number of small quakes were triggered in a geothermal area in Northern California.
More than 5,000 Southern California Edison customers were affected, mostly with about 30 seconds of flickering lights. Several hundred had longer outages.
In Arizona, 3,369 customers in the Yuma area had a "relatively momentary outage" from the quake, Arizona Public Service Company spokesman Don Wool said.
Only about 70 people were still without service in the rural Gadsden and Summerton areas. But Wool said he expected electricity to be restored there in about two hours.
Clint Norred, a spokesman for the Yuma, Ariz., Police Department, said the quake was very strong there but he'd heard no reports of injuries or major damage.
In the Phoenix area, Jacqueline Land said her king-sized bed in her second-floor apartment felt like a boat gently swaying on the ocean.
"I thought to myself, 'That can't be an earthquake. I'm in Arizona,'" the Northern California native said.
___
Associated Press Writers Mariana Jimenez in Tijuana, Mexico, Andrew Dalton and John Antczak in Los Angeles, John S. Marshall in San Francisco, and Matt Reed and Katie Oyan in Phoenix contributed to this report.
I saw on the news that it rocked Palm Springs ... Della probably felt it.
Why Mexico earthquake, stronger than Haiti's, did much less damage
By Peter Spotts, Staff writer / April 5, 2010
The magnitude 7.2 Mexico earthquake centered in northern Baja California inflicted widespread damage in the border towns of Calexico, Calif., and Mexicali, Mexico, Easter Sunday afternoon local time.
But the initial damage reports – and two known fatalities at this writing – paled before those that emerged from Haiti in February during a modestly weaker quake.
Seismologists credit two broad factors for the difference: better quake-resistant building standards north and south of the border, and the characteristics of Sunday's temblor.
"California building codes are very rigorous," developed and refined after years of experience with earthquakes and experiments in the lab, where buildings up to seven stories tall can be placed on huge shaking tables and given a simulated geophysical once-over, observes Debi Kilb, a seismologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.
But, she adds, neither town was "smack dab on top of the fault," as was the case in Port-au-Prince.
The quake that struck the region, which was felt in Los Angeles and as far away as Phoenix and Las Vegas, released roughly twice the energy of Haiti's 7.0 quake.
The region has a history of strong quakes.
The suspected fault in Sunday's quake, the Laguna Salada Fault, is part of an array of roughly north-south faults associated with the boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates. That orientation appears to have directed much of the energy released during Sunday's quake away from the Calexico-Mexicali area northeast of the fault.
The two vast patches of Earth's crust are grinding against each other along their boundary. The most infamous of the faults along this boundary is California's San Andreas Fault, which runs nearly the entire length of the state.
The plates both are moving generally northwest, but the Pacific Plate is moving faster. This gives it a relative speed advantage of nearly 2 inches a year over its continental counterpart in the region where Sunday's quake took place, according to the US Geological Survey.
Northern Baja California is no stranger to strong earthquakes. A different segment of the same fault ruptured in a major quake in 1892. Other faults in the area triggered magnitude 7-class quakes in 1915 and 1936. In 1940, the Imperial Fault, just north of the border, shook the Imperial Valley with a magnitude 6.9 quake.
At first blush, the depth at which Haiti's and Baja California's big ones took place might seem to account for some of the difference. In Haiti, the rupture along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault occurred some 8 miles below the surface, compared with a 6.2-mile depth for Baja's quake.
But Dr. Kilb notes that with earthquakes as strong as these two were, any difference in depth makes doesn't much affect the shaking that people experience at the surface.
Perhaps more telling, she suggests, are the distances from the two epicenters. Port-au-Prince was 15 miles from the epicenter of February's quake and was in the region of strongest shaking. Mexicali, with a population roughly half that of prequake Port-au-Prince, lies some 38 miles from the epicenter of Sunday's quake.
For seismologists, the task now is to monitor aftershocks and determine the extent to which this quake has altered stress patterns on other faults in the region, including the southern San Andreas Fault and the San Jacinto Fault Zone to its west. For all the attention the San Andreas receives, southern California's San Jacinto Fault Zone is the most active in southern California, according to USGS researchers Douglas Morton and Jonathan Matti.
Why Mexico earthquake, stronger than Haiti's, did much less damage (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0405/Why-Mexico-earthquake-stronger-than-Haiti-s-did-much-less-damage?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:%20feeds/usa%20(Christian%20Science%20Monitor%20|%20USA))
I was wondering if y'all felt it too!
Millions in Calif., Ariz., Mexico feel 7.2 quake[/url]
Quake in western China kills 400, buries more
By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 5 mins ago
BEIJING – A series of strong earthquakes struck a mountainous Tibetan area of western China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and injuring more than 10,000 as houses made of mud and wood collapsed, officials said. Many more people were trapped, and the toll was expected to rise.
The largest quake was recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey as magnitude 6.9. In the aftermath, panicked people, many bleeding from their wounds, flooded the streets of a Qinghai province township where most of the homes had been flattened. Students were reportedly buried inside several damaged schools.
Paramilitary police used shovels to dig through the rubble in the town, footage on state television showed. Officials said excavators were not available. Crews worked to repair the damaged road to the nearest airport and clear the way for equipment and rescue teams. Hospitals were overwhelmed, many lacking even the most basic supplies, and doctors were in short supply.
By nightfall, the airport was operating with emergency power and receiving relief flights carrying medical workers and supplies, state media reported.
Downed phone lines, strong winds and frequent aftershocks hindered rescue efforts, said Wu Yong, commander of the local army garrison, who said the death toll "may rise further as lots of houses collapsed."
With many people forced outside, the provincial government said it was rushing 5,000 tents and 100,000 coats and blankets to the mountainous region, with an altitude of around 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) where night time temperatures plunge below freezing.
Workers were racing to release water from a reservoir in the disaster area where a crack had formed after the quake to prevent a flood, according to the China Earthquake Administration.
The Wednesday quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. local time (2349 GMT, 7:49 p.m. EDT), was centered on Yushu county, in the southern part of Qinghai, near Tibet, with a population of about 100,000, mostly herders and farmers.
Lightly populated by Chinese standards, the region is remote, making the rescue operation logistically difficult. Relief flights, for example, need to carry in spare jet fuel to augment the limited supplies stored at Yushu's airport, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
The USGS recorded six temblors in less than three hours, all but one registering 5.0 or higher. The China Earthquake Networks Center measured the largest quake's magnitude at 7.1. Qinghai averages more than five earthquakes a year of at least magnitude 5.0, Xinhua said. They normally do not cause much damage.
Residents fled as the ground shook, toppling houses made of mud and wood, as well as temples, gas stations, electric poles and the top of a Buddhist pagoda in a park, witnesses and state media said. The quake also triggered landslides, Xinhua said.
"Nearly all the houses made of mud and wood collapsed. There was so much dust in the air, we couldn't see anything," said Ren Yu, general manager of Yushu Hotel in Jiegu, the county's main town. "There was a lot of panic. People were crying on the streets. Some of our staff, who were reunited with their parents, were also in tears."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100414/ap_on_re_as/as_china_earthquake
Cyclone kills 89 people in eastern India
By MANIK BANERJEE, Associated Press Writer – 58 mins ago
CALCUTTA, India – A cyclone packing winds of more than 100 mph (160 kph) demolished ten of thousands of mud huts in northeastern India, killing at least 89 villagers, officials said Wednesday.
The cyclone struck close to midnight on Tuesday in northeastern parts of West Bengal and Bihar states, uprooting trees and snapping telephone and electricity lines, West Bengal Civil Defense Minister Srikumar Mukherjee said. Hundreds of people were injured and many thousands left homeless.
Devesh Chandra Thakur, Bihar state's Minister for Disaster Management, said there was no cyclone warning from the weather department, so villagers were unprepared.
Television footage showed uprooted trees lying across shanties and sheets of corrugated metal ripped from the roofs of homes. Small children sat outside their damaged huts as parents tried to salvage their belongings from inside.
Namita Biswas, 51, a housewife in West Bengal, told The Associated Press by phone she and her husband were sleeping in their hut when it was crushed by a tree that broke from the impact of the cyclone. Her husband was killed.
The cyclone demolished nearly 50,000 mud huts in West Bengal and thousands more in Bihar, officials said.
The worst-hit villages in West Bengal state were Hematabad, Raiganj and Kiran Dighi, where police and rescue teams have recovered 39 bodies, Ramanuj Chakraborty, a senior local official told The Associated Press.
Another 50 people were killed in the northeastern Bihar districts of Araria, Kishenganj and Purnea, according to government officials.
By Wednesday evening, authorities had begun rushing medical teams and food supplies to the cyclone-hit area, Ramanuj Chakraborty, a West Bengal official said. Temporary shelters were also being set up for those who had lost their homes, he said.
A prison wall collapsed in Bihar's Araria district, forcing authorities to shift more than 600 inmates to another prison, officials said.
In neighboring Bangladesh, tropical storms lashed dozens of villages in the northern part of the country Wednesday killing at least five people and injuring dozens, news channel Desh TV reported. The storms in Rangpur and neighboring Lalmonirhat district also demolished about 500 mostly mud-and-straw huts, the report said.
Government officials were not immediately available for comment, but the weather office in the capital Dhaka said the storms were not related to the cyclone that struck eastern India. Such storms are common in the tropical delta nation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100414/ap_on_re_as/as_india_cyclone
Iceland evacuates hundreds as volcano erupts again
By GUDJON HELGASON and JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writers – 47 mins ago
REYKJAVIK, Iceland – A volcano under a glacier in Iceland erupted Wednesday for the second time in less than a month, melting ice, spewing smoke and steam, closing a major road and forcing hundreds of people to flee rising floodwaters.
Authorities evacuated 800 residents from around the Eyjafjallajokull glacier as rivers rose by up to 10 feet (3 meters).
Emergency officials and scientists said the eruption under the ice cap was 10 to 20 times more powerful than one last month, and carried a much greater risk of widespread flooding.
"This is a very much more violent eruption, because it's interacting with ice and water," said Andy Russell, an expert in glacial flooding at the University of Newcastle in northern England. "It becomes much more explosive, instead of a nice lava flow oozing out of the ground."
Rognvaldur Olafsson, a chief inspector for the Icelandic Civil Protection Agency, said no lives or properties were in immediate danger. Scientists said there was no sign of increased activity at the much larger Katla volcano nearby.
Iceland's Meteorological Office said a plume of steam rose at least five miles (eight kilometers) into the air. Scientists aboard a Coast Guard plane that flew over the volcano said the new fissure appeared to be up to 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) long.
There were no immediate signs of large clouds of volcanic ash, which could disrupt air travel between Europe and North America. Some domestic flights were canceled, but Iceland's international airport remained open.
The volcano, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Reykjavik, erupted March 20 after almost 200 years of silence.
The original eruption petered out earlier this week. But Gunnar Gudmundsson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, said there were a series of tremors overnight, and rivers in the area began rising Wednesday morning — strong evidence of a new eruption under the glacier.
Last month's eruption struck near the glacier in an area that had no ice. Gudmundsson said the new eruption appeared to be about eight or nine kilometers (five to six miles) west of the original fissure.
"Most probably this eruption is taking place at the summit ... under the ice," he said.
Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, said magma was melting a hole in the 650-foot (200 meter) thick ice covering the volcano's crater, sending floodwater coursing down the glacier into lowland areas.
Residents were evacuated to a Red Cross center in the nearby community of Hvolsvollur, the Civil Protection Agency said.
Iceland's main coastal ring road was closed near the volcano, and workers smashed a hole in the highway in a bid to give the rushing water a clear route to the coast and prevent a major bridge from being swept away.
Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge. Volcanic eruptions are often triggered by seismic activity when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
The last time there was an eruption near the 100-square-mile (160 square-kilometer) Eyjafjallajokull glacier was in 1821.
A bigger worry is Katla, which in the past has erupted in tandem with Eyjafjallajokull.
Katla is located under the vast Myrdalsjokull ice cap. An eruption could cause widespread flooding and disrupt air traffic between Europe and North America.
The last major eruption took place in 1918, and vulcanologists say a new blast is overdue.
"So far there have been no signs of the reawakening of the Katla volcano, but a lot of things can still happen, so we are monitoring it quite closely," Einarsson said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100414/ap_on_re_eu/eu_iceland_volcano
Iceland's volcanic ash halts flights across Europe
LONDON – An ash cloud from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across a wide swath of Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 2001 terror attacks as authorities stopped all flights over Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries.
Thousands of flights were canceled, stranding tens of thousands of passengers, and officials said it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again.
An aviation expert said it was the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had affected some of the most congested airspace in the world, while a scientist in Iceland said the ejection of volcanic ash — and therefore disruptions in air travel — could continue for days or even weeks.
"At the present time it is impossible to say when we will resume flying," said Henrik Peter Joergensen, the spokesman for Copenhagen's airport in Denmark, where some 25,000 passengers were affected.
The ash plume, which rose to between 20,000 feet and 36,000 feet (6,000 meters and 11,000 meters), lies above the Atlantic Ocean close to the flight paths for most routes from the U.S. east coast to Europe.
With the cloud drifting south and east across Britain, the country's air traffic service banned all non-emergency flights until at least 7 a.m. (0600GMT, 2 a.m. EDT) Friday. Irish authorities closed their air space for at least eight hours, and aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Belgium took similar precautions.
The move shut down London's five major airports including Heathrow, a major trans-Atlantic hub that handles over 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day. Airport shutdowns and flight cancellations spread eastward across Europe — to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland — and the effects reverberated worldwide.
French officials shut down all flights to Paris and 23 other airports.
Airlines in the United States canceling some flights to Europe and delayed others. In Washington, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was working with airlines to try to reroute some flights around the massive ash cloud.
Flights from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to Heathrow and other top European hubs were also put on hold.
The highly abrasive, microscopic particles that make up volcanic ash pose a threat to aircraft because they can affect visibility and get sucked into airplane engines, causing them to shut down. The ash can also block pitot tubes, which supply vital instruments such as air speed indicators, or latch onto engine blades, forming a glassy substance that may cause engines to surge or stall.
Ash will also damage all forward-facing surfaces on an aircraft, such as the cockpit windshields, the wings' leading edges, the landing lights and air filters for the passenger cabin.
It was not the first time air traffic has been halted by a volcano, but such widespread disruption has not been seen the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
"There hasn't been a bigger one," said William Voss, president of the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation, who praised aviation authorities and Eurocontrol, the European air traffic control organization, for closing down airspaces. "This has prevented airliners wandering about, with their engines flaming out along the way."
Gideon Ewers, spokesman for the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations said it was a unique event.
"Normally, these volcanic eruptions affect air travel in areas of thin traffic such as the Aleutian islands in Alaska, or in Indonesia and the Philippines," he told The Associated Press.
In Iceland, hundreds of people have fled rising floodwaters since the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) glacier erupted Wednesday for the second time in less than a month.
As water gushed down the mountainside, rivers rose up to 10 feet (3 meters) by Wednesday night, slicing the island nation's main road in half. The eruption was at least 10 times as powerful as the one last month, scientists said.
The volcano still spewed ash and steam Thursday, but the flooding had subsided, leaving new channels carved through the Icelandic landscape. Some ash was falling on uninhabited areas, but most was being blown by westerly winds toward northern Europe, including Britain, about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) away.
"It is likely that the production of ash will continue at a comparable level for some days or weeks. But where it disrupts travel, that depends on the weather," said Einar Kjartansson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office. "It depends how the wind carries the ash."
At Heathrow, passengers milled around, looking at closed check-in desks and gazing up at departure boards listing rows of cancellations.
"It's so ridiculous it is almost amusing," said Cambridge University researcher Rachel Baker, 23, who had planned to meet her American boyfriend in Boston but got no farther than Heathrow.
"I just wish I was on a beach in Mexico," said Ann Cochrane, 58, of Toronto, a passenger stranded in Glasgow.
The National Air Traffic Service said Britain had not halted all flights in its space in living memory, although most flights were grounded after Sept. 11. Heathrow was also closed by fog for two days in 1952.
The ash cloud did not disrupt operations at Iceland's Keflavik airport or caused problems in the capital of Reykjavik, but has affected the southeastern part of the island, said meteorologist Thorsteinn Jonsson. In one area, visibility was reduced to 150 meters (yards) Thursday, he said, and farmers were told to keep livestock indoors to protect them from eating the abrasive ash.
Eurostar train services to France and Belgium and cross-Channel ferries were packed as travelers sought ways out of Britain. P&O ferries said it had booked a passenger on its Dover-Calais route who was trying to get to Beijing — he hoped to fly from Paris instead of London.
The U.S. Geological Survey says about 100 aircraft have run into volcanic ash from 1983 to 2000. In some cases engines shut down briefly after sucking in volcanic debris, but there have been no fatal incidents.
Kjartansson said until the 1980s, airlines were less cautious about flying through volcanic clouds.
"There were some close calls and now they are being more careful," he said.
In 1989, a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 flew into an ash cloud from Alaska's Redoubt volcano and lost all power, dropping from 25,000 feet to 12,000 feet (7,500 meters to 3,600) before the crew could get the engines restarted. The plane landed safely.
In another incident in the 1980s, a British Airways 747 flew into a dust cloud and the grit sandblasted the windscreen. The pilot had to stand and look out a side window to land safely.
Last month's eruption at the same volcano occurred in an area where there was no glacial ice — lessening the overall risk. Wednesday's eruption, however, occurred beneath a glacial cap. If the eruption continues, and there is a supply of cold water, the lava will chill quickly and fragment into glass.
If the volcano keeps erupting, there's no end to the flight disruptions it could cause.
"When there is lava erupting close to very cold water, the lava chills quickly and turns essentially into small glass particles that get carried into the eruption plume," said Colin Macpherson, a geologist with the University of Durham. "The risk to flights depends on a combination of factors — namely whether the volcano keeps behaving the way it has and the weather patterns."
Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge, and has a history of devastating eruptions.
The worst was the 1783 eruption of the Laki volcano, which spewed a toxic cloud over Europe with devastating consequences. At least 9,000 people, a quarter of the population of Iceland, died, many from the famine caused by the eruption, and many more emigrated. The cloud may have killed more than 20,000 people in eastern England and an estimated 16,000 in France.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100415/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_iceland_volcano
Iceland volcano activity increases
LONDON – A geologist says activity has increased at an erupting Icelandic volcano, causing an ash plume to rise some 8.5 kilometers (5.3 miles) into the air.
Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson of the University of Iceland says winds have cleared visibility for scientists and Saturday will be the first day they can fly above the volcano to assess the activity.
Once scientists determine how much ice has melted, it will be easier to say how long the eruption could last.
An ash plume that has disrupted travel across Europe has been caused by hot magma being cooled quickly by the melting ice cap.
Gudmundsson says as long as there is enough ice, more plumes could form — causing even more travel disruption.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
LONDON (AP) — Officials further extended no-fly restrictions over Europe Saturday as a vast, invisible plume of grit continued to billow out of an Icelandic volcano and drift across the continent.
The flight ban seemed likely to disrupt world leaders' plans to attend Sunday's state funeral for Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria in the southern city of Krakow.
South Korean Prime Minister Chung Un-chan was the first to announce he was canceling his trip to Poland. An 11-member delegation led by Chung had planned to leave on Saturday, said Shin Bu-seop, an official of the prime minister's office.
So far, President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are still on the list of attendees. Kaczynski's family insisted Friday they wanted the funeral to go forward as planned but there was no denying the ash cloud was moving south and east.
On Saturday, British officials extended their closure of airspace until at least 7 p.m. (1800 GMT; 2 p.m. EDT), and reintroduced the ban over Scotland and northern England. The Belgian, French and Swiss governments extended their ban until the same time.
Italian aviation authorities were closing airspace in northern Italy on Saturday until midday (1000 GMT; 6 a.m. EDT), with airports in Milan and Venice to close.
Germany shut down all of its international airports, including Munich and Frankfurt, Europe's third-busiest terminal, until at least 2 p.m. (1200 GMT; 8 a.m. EDT). National carrier Lufthansa said it was canceling all flights through 8 p.m. (1800GMT; 2 p.m. EDT) Saturday.
Serbia also closed a small strip of its airspace in the north of the country and said it could close more later.
Australia's Qantas canceled all flights to Europe on Saturday, and passengers were being offered refunds or seats on the next available flight. The airline said it was not known when flights would resume. Cathay Pacific was already canceling some Europe-bound flights leaving Hong Kong on Sunday.
Fears that microscopic particles of highly abrasive ash could endanger passengers by causing aircraft engines to fail have shut down air space at one time or another over much of Europe in recent days.
"I've been flying for 40 years but I've never seen anything like this in Europe," said Swedish pilot Axel Alegren, after landing his flight from Kabul, Afghanistan, at Munich Airport; he had been due to land at Frankfurt but was diverted.
"What we're experiencing is very, very unique. Basically Europe is turning into a no-fly zone right now, like the U.S. after 9/11," Alegren said. "It's going to be chaos in the next few days but it will also be something that nobody will ever forget in aviation."
The air traffic agency Eurocontrol said about 16,000 of Europe's usual 28,000 daily flights were canceled — twice as many as were canceled a day earlier.
U.S. airlines canceled 280 of the more than 330 trans-Atlantic flights of a normal day, and about 60 flights between Asia and Europe were canceled.
The International Air Transport Association says the volcano is costing the industry at least $200 million a day.
Southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) volcano began erupting for the second time in a month on Wednesday, sending ash several miles (kilometers) into the air. Winds pushed the plume south and east across Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and into the heart of Europe.
Gray ash settled in drifts near the glacier, swirling in the air and turning day into night. Authorities told people in the area with respiratory problems to stay indoors, and advised everyone to wear masks and protective goggles outside.
In major European cities, travel chaos reigned. Extra trains were put on in Amsterdam and lines to buy train tickets were so long that the rail company handed out free coffee.
Train operator Eurostar said it was carrying almost 50,000 passengers between London, Paris and Brussels. Thalys, a high-speed venture of the French, Belgian and German rail companies, was allowing passengers to buy tickets even if trains were fully booked.
Ferry operators in Britain received a flurry of bookings from people desperate to cross the English Channel to France, while London taxi company Addison Lee said it had received requests for journeys to cities as far away as Paris, Milan, Amsterdam and Zurich.
The disruptions hit tourists, business travelers and dignitaries alike.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to go to Portugal rather than Berlin as she flew home from a U.S. visit. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg managed to get a flight to Madrid from New York but was still not sure when or how he would get back home.
The military also had to adjust. Five German soldiers wounded in Afghanistan were diverted to Turkey instead of Germany, while U.S. medical evacuations for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are being flown directly from the warfronts to Washington rather than to a care facility in Germany. The U.S. military has also stopped using temporarily closed air bases in the U.K. and Germany.
Aviation experts said it was among the worst disruptions Europe has ever seen.
In Iceland, torrents of water carried away chunks of ice the size of small houses on Thursday as hot gases melted the glacier over the volcano. Sections of the country's main ring road were wiped out by the flash floods.
More floods from melting waters are expected as long as the volcano keeps erupting — and in 1821, the same volcano managed to erupt for more than a year.
Small amounts of ash settled in northern Scotland and Norway, but officials said it posed little threat to health.
Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge and has a history of devastating eruptions. One of the worst was the 1783 eruption of the Laki volcano, which spewed a toxic cloud over Europe, killing tens of thousands.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100417/ap_on_re_eu/eu_iceland_volcano
After Quake, Ethnic Tibetans Distrust China’s Help
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: April 17, 2010, NYTimes
JIEGU, China — The Buddhist monks stood atop the jagged remains of a vocational school, struggling to move concrete slabs with pickax shovels and bare hands. Suddenly a cry went out: An arm, clearly lifeless, was poking through the debris.
But before the monks could finish their task, a group of Chinese soldiers who had been relaxing on the school grounds sprang to action. They put on their army caps, waved the monks away, and with a video camera for their unit rolling, quickly extricated the body of a young girl.
The monks stifled their rage and stood below, mumbling a Tibetan prayer for the dead.
“You won’t see the cameras while we are working,” said one of the monks, Ga Tsai, who with 200 others, had driven from their lamasery in Sichuan Province as soon as they heard about the quake.
“We want to save lives. They see this tragedy as an opportunity to make propaganda.”
Since a deadly earthquake nearly flattened this predominantly Tibetan city early Wednesday, killing at least 1,400 people, China’s leadership has treated the quake as a dual emergency — a humanitarian crisis almost three miles above sea level in remote Qinghai Province, and a fresh test of the Communist Party’s ability to keep a lid on dissent among restive Tibetans.
President Hu Jintao cut short a state visit to Brazil to fly home and supervise relief efforts, while Prime Minister Wen Jiabao postponed his own planned visit to Indonesia and came to the quake site promising that China’s Han majority would do whatever it could to aid the Tibetans.
The official state media prominently featured stories of grateful Tibetans receiving food and tents, and search and rescue specialists toiling to reach survivors even as they cope with altitude sickness.
The relief effort has indeed been impressive. With thousands of soldiers and truckloads of food clogging Jiegu’s streets on Saturday, earth-moving equipment started clearing away toppled buildings from the downtown. More than 600 of the seriously injured have been taken to hospitals in the provincial capital 500 miles away. In recent days, blue tents bearing the Civil Affairs Ministry logo have popped up across the city.
But despite outward signs of government largess and ethnic unity, the earthquake has exposed stubborn tensions between Beijing and Tibetans, many of whom have long struggled to maintain their autonomy and cultural identity amid a Han-dominated country. Widespread Tibetan rioting against Han rule severely disrupted Beijing’s planning to host the Summer Olympics in 2008, and China has kept Tibet and predominantly ethnically Tibetan regions of China under tight police and military control since then.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader who has not set foot in China since 1959, has issued a formal request to visit the disaster zone. It will most surely be denied.
Since the quake hit early Wednesday morning, thousands of monks have come to the city, some making a two-day drive from distant corners of a largely Tibetan region that spreads across three adjoining provinces.
It was the burgundy-robed monks who were among the first to pull people from collapsed buildings. On Saturday at dusk, long after the rescue experts had called it quits, they could be still be seen working the rubble.
“They are everything to us,” said Oh Zhu Tsai Jia, 57, opening the truck of his car so a group of young monks could pray over the body of his wife.
On Saturday morning, the monks ferried 1,400 bodies from the city’s main monastery to a dusty rise overlooking the city.
There, in two long trenches filled with salvaged wood, they dumped the dead and set cremation pyres ablaze.
As the fires burned for much of the day, hundreds of mourners sat mutely on a hillside next to the monks, who chanted aloud or quietly counted prayer beads of red coral and turquoise.
The police and Han officials were conspicuously absent.
The monastery’s leaders said no one from the local government had included their dead in the official tally although they were careful not to voice any criticism. Many of the younger monks, however, were not as reticent.
At the No. 3 Primary School, the monks said they had pulled 50 students from collapsed classrooms but when an official came by to ask how many had died, the police offered half that number. “I think they’re afraid to let the world know how bad this earthquake is,” said Gen Ga Ja Ba, a 23-year-old monk.
One of the most persistent complaints, however, was that many of the official rescue efforts have focused on the city’s larger structures and ignored the mud-brick homes that, with few exceptions, collapsed by the hundreds. Others spoke of skirmishes with the police over bodies, although such accounts could not be verified.
The other more incendiary criticism heard wherever monks gathered was that soldiers had prevented them from helping in rescue efforts during the first few days after the earthquake.
Tsairen, a monk from a monastery in Nangqian County in Sichuan, spoke about how he and scores of other monks tussled with soldiers at a collapsed hotel that first night. “We asked why they wouldn’t let us help, and they just ignored us,” said Tsairen, who like some Tibetans, uses only one name.
Later, he and more than 100 others headed to the vocational school, where the voices of trapped girls could still be heard in the rubble of a collapsed dormitory.
They said the soldiers blocked them from the pile and later, the chief of their monastery, Ga Tsai, scuffled with a man they described as the county chief.
“He grabbed me by my robe and dragged me out to the street,” Ga Tsai said.
In the evening after the soldiers had left the scene, they went to work, eventually pulling out more than a dozen bodies.
Even if exaggerated, such stories can only work against the government’s efforts to win over Tibetans.
In recent days, the government has vowed to rebuild Jiegu, which is also known by its Chinese name Yushu, promising to spare no expense. But while many Tibetans expressed gratitude for the relief efforts and the official outpouring of concern, others were less appreciative.
As an excavator and a bulldozer sifted through the remains of the vocational school dormitory on Saturday, Gong Jin Ba Ji, a 16-year-old student, stood watching.
A day earlier, she said, the machinery inadvertently tore apart the body of a classmate. She was still waiting for them to recover the body of her older sister.
“I wish they would work more carefully,” she said numbly. “Maybe they don’t care so much because we are only Tibetans.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/world/asia/18quake.html?pagewanted=1
Iceland Photos:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html
The Icelandic economy still had its AAA credit rating but the three A's were henceforth followed by the letters RRRGGGHHH. Suddenly, everyone realised Iceland mainly consisted of ice — a fact, you may think, the Icelanders had disclosed when they named it Iceland.
Ahh... now we're getting at it.
Tornadoes in Thunder Bay? That's weird there, n'est-ce pas? :o
Lori is your house the one with trees around it? And a man just walked by?
Yeah, I have trees in the back. Lots of men in my neighbourhood, walking by.Actually I was looking on Google Street.
They have really GOT to replace that automated/computerized voice --- it lends an eeriness in an already eerie circumstance.
Add: Ok, it's official. We're now in the Warning area. I guess I knew that as soon as I saw the darkness. The reporting sucks!
Thousands trapped by Pakistan floods; 900 dead (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100801/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_floods)
Riaz Khan, Associated Press Writer – 42 mins ago
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Rescue workers struggled Sunday to save more than 27,000 people still trapped by massive flooding in Pakistan's northwest that has killed over 900 people and destroyed thousands of homes, officials said.
The effort has been aided by a slackening of the monsoon rains that have caused the worst flooding in decades in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province. But as flood waters have started to recede, authorities have begun to understand the full scale of the disaster.
"Aerial monitoring is being conducted, and it has shown that whole villages have washed away, animals have drowned and grain storages have washed away," said Latifur Rehman, spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority. "The destruction is massive and devastating."
The death toll from the flooding has risen to 903 people, said Mujahid Khan, the head of rescue services for the Edhi Foundation, a private charity. The worst hit areas have been the districts of Swat and Shangla, where more than 400 people have died, he said.
The disaster comes as the residents of Swat are still trying to recover from a major battle between the army and the Taliban last spring that caused widespread destruction and drove some 2 million people from their homes. About a million of those people are still displaced.
Authorities have deployed 43 military helicopters and over 100 boats to try to rescue some 27,300 people still trapped by the floods, said Rehman, the disaster management spokesman. At least 115 people are still reported missing in Swat and Shangla, he said.
As rivers swelled in the northwest, people sought ever-shrinking high ground or grasped for trees and fences to avoid getting swept away. Buildings simply crumbled into the raging river in Kalam, a town in the northern part of the Swat Valley, local TV showed.
"All efforts are being used to rescue people stuck in inaccessible areas and all possible help is being provided to affected people," said Rehman.
But some residents stepped up their criticism of the government's response on Sunday.
"The flood has devastated us all, and I don't know where my family has gone," said Hakimullah Khan, a resident of Charsadda town who complained the government has not helped him search for his missing wife and three children.
"Water is all around and there is no help in sight," said Khan.
The military has deployed 30,000 army troops who had evacuated 19,000 trapped people by Saturday night, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.
But the scale of the disaster has strained the resources of a government already grappling with a faltering economy and a brutal war against the Taliban.
Even people like Sehar Ali Shah who were rescued by the government complained that authorities didn't provide shelter that would allow them to stay until the flood waters receded.
"My son drowned, but I don't see the government taking care of us," said Shah after returning to his half-submerged house in the city of Nowshera. "The government has not managed an alternate place to shift us."
Authorities have recovered more than 400 bodies from Swat and Shangla, but the collection effort has been hampered by mud and debris from destroyed houses, said Khan, the Edhi Foundation representative.
The floods have caused an acute shortage of fruits and vegetables in the northwest because many of the hardest hit areas were the key centers of production, said Khan.
The threat of disease loomed as well as some evacuees arrived in camps with fever, diarrhea and skin problems.
"There is now a real danger of the spread of waterborne diseases like diarrhea, asthma, skin allergies and perhaps cholera in these areas," said Shaharyar Bangash, the head of operations in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa for World Vision, a major international humanitarian group.
A variety of nations and aid organizations have begun to mobilize a response to the flood disaster.
The U.S. delivered thousands of food packages, four rescue boats and two water filtration units to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said Rehman, the group's spokesman.
"This is much needed stuff in the flood-affected areas and we need more of it from the international community," said Rehman.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad has also announced it will provide 12 prefabricated steel bridges to temporarily replace some of the spans damaged by the water.
But some residents wondered how they would ever recover from such a disaster.
"I won't be able to cover my losses for 10 years," said Shair Dad, a timber shop owner in Nowshera who lost most of his wood in the floodwaters.
...but we have known that for years (or aeons, or even...always?), haven't we...?
California heat wave gives downtown Los Angeles an all-time record high temperature
By John Antczak (CP) – 3 hours ago
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — California's blistering fall heat wave sent temperatures to an all-time record high of 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) in downtown Los Angeles, and many sought refuge at the beach or in the shade.
Downtown hit 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) Monday for a few minutes at about 12:15 p.m. local time, breaking the old all-time record of 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) set on June 26, 1990, said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. Temperature records for downtown date to 1877.
The historic mark was part of an onslaught of temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in many cities ranging from Anaheim, home of Disneyland, to San Luis Obispo on the usually balmy Central Coast. Many records were set or tied.
Firefighters carried heavy hoses up hills to battle a small but persistent brush fire west of Los Angeles in Thousand Oaks while other workers in less strenuous jobs also struggled through the day.
The giant Los Angeles Unified School District cancelled all outdoor activities, including sports competitions and practices.
Thousands of heat-related power outages were reported.
More than 30,000 Southern California Edison customers were without power at 8 p.m. Monday, spokeswoman Mashi Nyssen said. Some of the cities affected include Santa Monica, Compton, Whittier and West Hollywood in Los Angeles County and Santa Ana, Fullerton and Huntington Beach in Orange County.
About 5,400 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers were without electricity at 6:30 p.m., DWP spokeswoman Gale Harris said. The utility Monday recorded its highest-ever demand for electricity, with a peak demand of 6,177 megawatts by 3:45 p.m. That broke the previous record of 6,165 megawatts on July 24, 2006, Harris said.
Some people were able to seek relief at the beaches — though not in the hundreds of thousands who turned out over the weekend as the heat wave built.
The city of Los Angeles urged people to use Parks and Recreation facilities, senior centres and libraries as cooling centres.
Umbrellas were the necessary accessory for many women venturing along sizzling sidewalks.
The heat didn't keep tourists from snapping pictures of the Walk of Fame stars on the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk, but Don Macfarlane, 59, of Melbourne, Australia, said he would rather have been at the beach.
"I expected this part of the world to be fairly warm, but not quite this warm," he said.
It felt like an oven to Dilia Rosada, 24, a lawyer from the Dominican Republic who was in Los Angeles to meet her fiance's family.
"We thought it was going to be normal hot, but this is hotter than our country," she said.
The National Weather Service said the siege of dry heat was being caused by a ridge of high pressure over the West that was keeping the Pacific Ocean's normal moist and cool influence at bay.
Firefighters were on alert for wildfires, but there was little wind amid the onslaught of dry heat.
Red Flag warnings for fire danger were posted in some areas, but mostly due to the withering effect on vegetation alone rather than the dangerous combination of low humidity and offshore winds. Air movement remained breezy at best rather than forming the gusty Santa Ana winds linked to destructive wildfires.
The early fall blast of intense heat follows an unusually cool summer that often found beaches covered in overcast and whipped by chilly winds.
The 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) registered in downtown Los Angeles would not be all that remarkable in the populous inland valleys and deserts of Southern California — the highest temperature recorded in Los Angeles County was 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48 Celsius) in the San Fernando Valley community of Woodland Hills on July 22, 2006 — but downtown's highs are typically well below those areas.
The National Weather Service said the siege of dry heat was being caused by a ridge of high pressure over the West that was keeping the Pacific Ocean's normal moist and cool influence at bay.
Conditions were expected to remain hot Tuesday but not as extreme. Forecasters said the ridge would drift east and allow some cooling through the end of the week, with moist air flowing from the southeast creating the possibility of showers and thunderstorms Wednesday through Friday.
___
Associated Press writers Raquel Maria Dillon, Jacob Adelman and Robert Jablon contributed to this report.
Any of you weather witches want to do a rain dance? A cooling spell? Heh.
Super typhoon lashes Philippines, knocks out power
Bullit Marquez, Associated Press Writer – 24 mins ago
CAUAYAN, Philippines – The strongest cyclone in years to buffet the Philippines knocked out communications and power as residents took shelter Monday, while flooding in Vietnam swept away a bus and 20 of its passengers, including a boy taken from his mother's grasp by the raging waters.
Super Typhoon Megi, crossing the northern Philippines, was expected to add to the already heavy rains that have fallen on much of Asia. In China, authorities evacuated 140,000 people from a coastal province ahead of the typhoon.
Megi could later hit Vietnam, where flooding has caused 30 deaths in recent days, in addition to those missing and feared dead after a bus was snatched off a road by surging currents Monday.
Megi packed sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour and gusts of 162 mph (260 kph) as it made landfall midday Monday at Palanan Bay in Isabela province, felling trees and utility poles and cutting off power, phone and Internet services in many areas. It appeared to be weakening while crossing the mountains of the Philippines' main northern island of Luzon.
With more than 3,600 Filipinos riding out the typhoon in sturdy school buildings, town halls, churches and relatives' homes, roads in and out of coastal Isabela province, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Manila, were deserted and blocked by collapsed trees and power lines.
One man who had just rescued his water buffalo slipped and fell into a river and probably drowned, said Bonifacio Cuarteros, an official with the Cagayan provincial disaster agency.
As it crashed ashore, the typhoon whipped up huge waves. There was zero visibility and radio reports said the wind was so powerful that people could not take more than a step at a time. Ships and fishing vessels were told to stay in ports, and several domestic and international flights were canceled.
Thousands of military reserve officers and volunteers were on standby, along with helicopters, including six Chinooks that were committed by U.S. troops holding war exercises with Filipino soldiers near Manila, said Benito Ramos, a top disaster-response official.
"This is like preparing for war," Ramos, a retired army general, told The Associated Press. "We know the past lessons, and we're aiming for zero casualties."
In July, an angry President Benigno Aquino III fired the head of the weather bureau for failing to predict that a typhoon would hit Manila. That storm killed more than 100 people in Manila and outlying provinces.
This time, authorities sounded the alarm early and ordered evacuations and the positioning of emergency relief and food supplies days before the typhoon hit. The capital was expected to avoid any direct hit, though schools were closed.
Megi was the most powerful typhoon to hit the Philippines in four years, government forecasters say. A 2006 howler with 155-mph (250-kph) winds set off mudslides that buried entire villages, killing about 1,000 people.
In central Vietnam, officials said 20 people on a bus were swept away Monday by strong currents from a river flooded by recent rains unrelated to Megi, while another 18 survived by swimming or clinging to trees or power poles.
One survivor treaded water for 3 1/2 hours as the current pushed her downstream and she was forced to let go of her 15-year-old son due to exhaustion. The boy is among the missing.
Officials said 30 other people died in central Vietnam from flooding over the weekend, and five remain missing.
Megi could add to the misery.
"People are exhausted," Vietnamese disaster official Nguyen Ngoc Giai said by telephone from Quang Binh province. "Many people have not even returned to their flooded homes from previous flooding, while many others who returned home several days ago were forced to be evacuated again."
China's National Meteorological Center said Megi was expected to enter the South China Sea on Tuesday, threatening southeastern coastal provinces. The center issued its second-highest alert for potential "wild winds and huge waves," warning vessels to take shelter and urging authorities to brace for emergencies.
Floods triggered by heavy rains forced nearly 140,000 people to evacuate from homes in the southern island province of Hainan, where heavy rains left thousands homeless over the weekend, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.
Thailand also reported flooding that submerged thousands of homes and vehicles and halted train service. No casualties were reported, and nearly 100 elephants were evacuated from a popular tourist attraction north of the capital.
Indonesia tsunami deaths increase after Sumatra quake
BBC
More than 100 people have been killed and many are missing after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Scores of houses were destroyed by waves after the 7.7 magnitude quake, which struck 20km (13 miles) under the ocean floor near the Mentawai islands.
Ten villages on the islands were swept away by the tsunami, a disaster official told the AFP news agency.
(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49661000/gif/_49661010_indonesia_padang_464map.gif)
Damage and rough weather are delaying efforts to reach the affected area.
Hendri Dori Satoko, a lawmaker in the Mentawai islands, told Metro TV: "Our latest data from crisis centre showed that 108 people have been killed and 502 are still missing."
He said some of the missing could have fled to higher ground and were afraid to return to their homes.
Health ministry officials said 113 bodies had been recovered in the area so far, the Associated Press news agency reported.
The search and rescue operation is being seriously hampered by bad weather, officials have told the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta.
Heavy rain is preventing helicopters from accessing the area and boats cannot reach the islands either because the dock on the island of South Pagai has been destroyed.
Poor communications have also made it hard for officials to gain accurate information, our correspondent adds.
The disaster comes as thousands of people are being evacuated from the area around the Mt Merapi volcano in central Java, after it began erupting.
But seismologists say there is very little chance that the two events are connected.
Body bags
The quake hit late on Monday off the west coast of Sumatra. There is no tsunami warning system in place around the Mentawai islands, but the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert of a local tsunami.
It later said a "significant tsunami" had been generated. The alert has now been cancelled as no further waves are expected although the area is still experiencing strong aftershocks.
Eyewitnesses say a huge wave was created by the quake, which seriously damaged villages or even washed them away entirely.
The islands of South Pagai and North Pagai were reported to be particularly badly affected.
Waves reached 3m (10ft) high and the water swept inland as far as 600m on South Pagai island, said Mudjiharto - the head of Indonesia's health ministry crisis centre, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.
He said 200 body bags were being sent to the region in case they were needed.
"Ten villages have been swept away by the tsunami," National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Agolo Suparto told AFP.
Most buildings in the South Pagai coastal village of Betu Monga were destroyed, Hardimansyah, an official with the regional branch of the Department of Fisheries, told the Reuters news agency by phone.
"Of the 200 people living in that village, only 40 have been found - 160 are still missing, mostly women and children," he said.
"We have people reporting to the security post here that they could not hold on to their children, that they were swept away. A lot of people are crying."
Heri Suprapto, the head of Kepuhargo village in the Mentawai islands, told the BBC's Indonesia service that 372 "very weak" people from three villages had been evacuated.
"Transportation has also been prepared for villagers who are in good health whenever evacuation needs to be done. Preparations are also under way to evacuate individuals by using motorbike and small cars."
Indonesia's vice-president and health minister are preparing to travel to the affected region on Wednesday.
'Wall of white water'
Rescue workers are preparing to evacuate victims from quake-hit areas Australian officials say they have had no contact with group on board a boat from Australia which had been in the area at the time of the quake.
The AAP news agency said nine Australians and a Japanese man had been on board the Southern Cross, which was on chartered surfing trip.
The area is popular surfing destination, accessible only by boat.
SurfAid, a charity which supports villages in the Mentawai islands, said the boat's skipper was experienced and knew the area well.
"He knew to contact in if he could. So that's why we're extra concerned," said the charity's founder, Dave Jenkins.
Meanwhile, another group of Australians described how their boat was destroyed by a wall of water.
Captain Rick Hallet told Australian media that his boat was anchored off the shore when the waves came.
"We felt a bit of a shake underneath the boat... then within several minutes, we heard an almighty roar," he said.
"I immediately thought of a tsunami and looked out to sea and that's when we saw the wall of white water coming at us," he said.
The wave brought another boat crashing into them and sparked a fire, forcing them to jump into the sea.
Some of those on board were swept up to 200m inland by the wave, he said.
The vast Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the world's most active areas for earthquakes and volcanoes.
More than 1,000 people were killed by an earthquake off Sumatra in September 2009.
In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Aceh triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed a quarter of a million people in 13 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
Indonesia volcano Merapi erupts, thousands evacuated
BBC
Indonesia's most volatile volcano is erupting, spewing plumes of hot ash and hurling rocks into the air.
Officials say Mount Merapi, in central Java, began erupting just before dusk on Tuesday.
Scientists warn the pressure building up beneath its lava dome could lead to one of the most powerful blasts in years.
Thousands of residents living on the volcano's slopes have been evacuated.
However, a further 13,000 people need to be evacuated from within a 10-mile (16km) radius of the volcano, officials say.
Burn injuries
Television footage showed thousands of people fleeing the area, some covered in the volcano's white ash which rained from the sky.
Many thousands of people have yet to be evacuated It is thought that 5,000 people live on or near the volcano.
The head of one village near the volcano said that many residents were stranded. He said rain loaded with volcanic ash had reduced visibility to just 5m (16ft).
"We are evacuating to the village square, around 14km from Mount Merapi slope. Some of the villagers are still stranded but we received text messages from them, saying that they are OK," Heri Suprapto told the BBC.
A doctor at a nearby hospital said at least six people had been badly burnt by the hot air rushing from the volcano, Reuters reports. One eyewitness said he saw people with bad burns being taken away on stretchers, the agency reports.
There were also reports that a three-month-old baby had died from breathing difficulties after inhaling volcanic material.
On Monday, officials monitoring the volcano raised the alert for Mount Merapi to the highest possible level.
Since then, more than 600 volcanic earthquakes have been recorded around the mountain.
"We heard three explosions around 1800 (1100 GMT) spewing volcanic material as high as 1.5km (one mile) and sending heat clouds down the slopes," government volcanologist Surono, who goes by one name, told AFP.
He warned that pressure was building up behind a lava dome near the crater.
"We hope it will release slowly," he said. "Otherwise, we're looking at a potentially huge eruption, bigger than anything we've seen in years."
He said this eruption was more powerful than the volcano's last blast, in 2006, which killed two people.
In 1930 another powerful eruption wiped out 13 villages, killing more than 1,000 people.
Sacred site
Thousands of people living near the volcano have been ordered to move to safer ground, but many are still refusing to leave.
Some are refusing to heed the warnings because they do not want to leave their livestock and properties behind.
Ponco Sumarto, 65, who arrived at a makeshift camp with her two grandchildren, said her children had stayed behind to look after their crops.
"I just have to follow orders to take shelter here for safety, even though I'd rather like to stay at home," the Associated Press news agency quoted her as saying.
BBC Indonesia correspondent Karishma Vaswani says that for many Javanese, Mt Merapi is a sacred site.
Officials say some of the villagers are waiting for the local "gatekeeper" of the volcano to tell them that the increased activity at Mt Merapi is dangerous.
Described as a medicine man, he is believed by many villagers to have a spiritual connection to the volcano.
He has reportedly said he will not leave yet, but is urging villagers to make their way to government shelters, our correspondent says.
27 October 2010 Last updated at 09:43 ET
BBC News
'No alert' in Indonesian tsunami
Whole villages were wiped out by the tsunami A crucial link in Indonesia's tsunami warning system was not working during Monday's tsunami because it had been vandalised, says an Indonesian official.
Hundreds of people were killed and many are missing as a result of the tsunami, which was generated by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra.
The earthquake unleashed a 3m-high (10ft) wave that crashed into the remote Mentawai islands, levelling a number of villages.
Survivors have said no warning was given.
Ridwan Jamaluddin, of the Indonesian Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, told the BBC's Indonesian service that two buoys off the Mentawai islands were vandalised and so out of service.
"We don't say they are broken down but they were vandalised and the equipment is very expensive. It cost us five billion rupiah each (£353,000; $560,000).
Another official, from the Indonesian Climatology Agency told the BBC's Indonesian service that both tide gauges and buoys are used to detect a tsunami, but the buoys are more important to generating an early warning.
"To predict a tsunami, we need the data from the buoy and the tide gauge, which is located near the beach. The buoy is more important because it is on the sea, so it will record the wave much quicker that the tide gauge," said the official, named Fauzi.
Difficulties
Residents of the Mentawai islands have told the BBC they heard no tsunami warning.
"There was not any siren to warn people in Sikakap [a small town on North Pagai island]," said Ferdinand Salamanang.
"Yes there was a quake and tsunami detection system in our port, but they are broken down. We did not hear any warning this time."
Almost exactly two years ago Indonesia launched its new tsunami early warning centre, designed to give people in coastal areas enough time to escape any waves before they reach land.
1) Recorder on seabed measures pressure and sends data to buoy.
2) Buoy also detects changes in sea level and motion. Tide gauges, usually sited on land, detect tidal changes.
3) Information is transmitted via satellite to ground stations which assess risk of tsunami.
The project was launched after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, which hit the country in 2004.
A quarter of a million people on the ocean shores died, more than half of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra and close to the earthquake's epicentre.
The system was meant to be completed in 2010 but it is still a work in progress, says Tiziana Bonapace, a disaster risk specialist with the UN.
"Earthquake and sea-level monitoring systems are in place, but what has proven more difficult is how to get warnings out to remote areas in time," she told the BBC.
"This remains the weakest link in the system, and unfortunately the tsunami hit one of the farthest outlying islands. Further exacerbating the situation is that buoys do malfunction, and many countries have been experiencing difficulties in this regard."
'Too late'
A more difficult challenge, she said, was instilling at the community level an awareness of the potential for disasters and how to prepare for them.
Even if the system had been fully functioning, the earthquake struck so close to the islands that an alert may not have given residents enough time to escape.
"Pagai island is very close to the epicentre, so the waves reached Pagai island in just five or 10 minutes," Ridwan Jamaluddin said.
"Even if the buoy is on, it is still too late to warn the people."
That view is echoed by Andrew Judge of SurfAid International, a humanitarian agency that has worked in the area for 10 years.
"The distance from the epicentre was very short... there's no time to act" on an alert, he told the BBC.
The Mentawai islands are very remote and communications are very difficult, he said. "Those people wouldn't have been reached by an alert."
Queensland is bracing for a second cyclone mid week after Anthony crossed the coast near Bowen yesterday evening, bringing wind gusts to around 125 km/h and torrential rain.
The cyclone cut power to homes and caused flooding through the Pioneer river catchment after over 300mm of rain fell west of Mackay in under 24 hours. The system quickly weakened into a tropical depression after making landfall but will still spread heavy rain to western Queensland during the next 24 hours.
Unfortunately for weather worn Queenslanders a second stronger cyclone will track west across the Coral Sea and hit the Queensland coast mid week. At this stage the most likely timing for a crossing is early Thursday anywhere from Cooktown to about Rockhampton. Yasi is likely to develop into at least a category 3 system with wind gusts above 200 km/h. The system is also large with gales spreading hundreds of kilometres from the eye. The magnitude of the system will bring heavy rain to most of the state which should cause widespread flooding through tropical regions.
After making landfall Yasi will continue moving westwards with the remnants spreading heavy rain over central Australia during the weekend.
Tom Saunders
Meteorologist
The Weather Channel.au
Chesapeake Region Leads East Coast In Sea-Level Rise
Sabri Ben-Achour
February 24, 2011 - Communities across the globe are beginning to come to grips with climate change and sea-level rise. One of the places where the water is rising especially quickly is right here in the Chesapeake Bay region.
The Chesapeake Bay has areas which are experiencing among the highest rates of sea-level rise on the East Coast. This is because the ground in many areas is sinking.
Towns are starting to see the effects and they're bracing for it. But there's more than just climate change behind the rising tide.
The beach in Ocean City is a major tourist draw, it stretches hundreds of feet from the board walk, with giant dunes studded with grasses a little farther south.
This beach would probably not be here right now if it weren't for the fact that tons of sand are brought in every few years to replenish it, especially after major storms.
"Beach replenishment serves as storm protection for the town of Ocean City. It's the equivalent of the levees in New Orleans for us," says Terry McGean, the Ocean City beach engineer. "They dredge sand from a couple miles offshore, and we pump that material onto the beach and basically bring the beach back."
Storms and erosion aren't new, but there's something else going on here, that's making every storm a little more serious: Tidal gauges here have measured an increase in sea level. It's gone up seven inches over 30 years -- that's 5.5 millimeters per year, and almost two feet per century.
Dr. John Boon, a professor emeritus with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, says the sea level is rising throughout this region, and some parts have it particularly bad.
"We have relative sea-level rise rates that are the highest on the U.S. East Coast," he says.
You may wonder why or how sea level rise might be any different here versus anywhere else.
"The ocean circulation moves water masses to different parts of the globe, and gravity changes as ice masses at the polar regions melt, there's differential heating in the oceans," Boon says.
But in our region there's an extra factor: The ground is sinking. It's called "subsidence," and Boon says it's been going on for a while now.
"Ninety-thousand years ago, we had a very large ice mass to the north of us, an ice sheet of almost a mile thick. This placed a great load over the earth's surface up there, and in adjustment to that we had what is called a glacial forebulge," he says.
It's somewhat like stepping into a mud puddle.
"You notice around your foot where it sinks in there's a little bit of a bulge that arises...The land is the same way," Boon says.
So when the glaciers melted, the weight to the north lifted and our area started sinking back down like a seesaw. As if that wasn't enough, towns in the southern Bay are paying the price for an asteroid that hit 35 million years ago.
"That crater has created some regions in the southern Bay that seem to have higher subsidence rates than elsewhere," Boon says.
And then, on top of all of that, we have sea-level rise caused by global warming -- something that many scientists expect will accelerate here.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts sea level could rise in our region by as much as three feet over the next century. But the combination of all the different factors means the water is already rising everywhere in this region, and certain areas are seeing it more than others.
"People have noticed it with their piers and certainly...with storms over the last decade," says John Carlocke, a city planner for Hampton Roads, Va.
In Hampton roads, the rate of sea-level rise is currently about 1.5 feet over a century, if things stay the same -- let alone what's predicted with climate change.
"If we see a one-meter rise in sea level...considerable areas will flood...and you add a storm on top of that, and it's pretty ugly," he says.
Carlocke says they are starting to plan for it. Detailed studies are underway to figure out how to address flooding in certain neighborhoods, either with better drainage or pumping or barriers.
Back in Ocean City, engineer Terry McGean says building codes have been tightened to keep new construction and redevelopment higher up or further in from the water. But flooding has already become a problem around the bay separating Ocean City from the mainland.
"That's a tough one for us because, you know, the houses are where the houses are," he says.
If water levels keep rising the way scientists expect them to, at some point those houses won't be anywhere at all.
http://wamu.org/news/11/02/24/chesapeake_region_leads_east_coast_in_sea_level_rise.php
(http://www.sealevelreport.com/images/map.gif)
Rising Sea Level and More Severe Storms Threaten Eastern Seaboard
EPA Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Mid-Atlantic Coast Released Friday, Jan. 16
[San Francisco] A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report released Friday finds that mid-Atlantic coastal states will experience a dramatic increase in storm surge flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change.
According to the 784-page report, few, if any, states are adequately prepared for this inevitable climate change-related impact and some shorelines already have been lost.
The report, “Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region,” finds that rising sea level will likely contribute to more frequent flooding of roads, railroads and airports, and could have major consequences for transportation and commerce. In addition, seawalls and drainage systems were designed without taking sea level rise into account, which could lead to disastrous results.
Highlights from the report include the following verbatim excerpts:
“Many coastal areas in the United States will experience an increased frequency and magnitude of storm-surge flooding and coastal erosion due to storms over the next century, in response to sea-level rise.” (p. 537)
“In the mid-Atlantic, between approximately 900,000 and 3,400,000 people (between 3 and 10 percent of the total population in the mid-Atlantic coastal region) live on parcels of land or city blocks with at least some land less than one meter above the monthly highest tides.” (p. 331)
“Rising sea level, combined with the possibility of an increase in the number of hurricanes and other severe weather related incidents, could cause increased inundation and more frequent flooding of roads, railroads, and airports, and could have major consequences for port facilities and coastal shipping.” (p. 357)
“Seawalls, bulkheads, dikes, sewers and drainage systems are designed based on the waves, water levels and rainfall experienced in the past. If conditions exceed what the designers expect disaster can result _ especially when sea level rises above the level of the land surface.” (p. 314)
“Rising sea level can elevate the water table (ground water) to the point where septic systems no longer function properly.” (p. 520)
“Some low-lying railroads, tunnels, ports, runways, and roads are already vulnerable to flooding and a rising sea level will only exacerbate the situation by causing more frequent and more serious disruption of transportation services.” (p. 354)
“Sea-level rise may also exacerbate pollution through inundation of upland sources of contamination such as landfills, industrial storage areas, or agricultural waste retention ponds.” (p. 240)
“’Ghost forests’ of standing dead trees killed by saltwater intrusion are becoming increasingly common in southern New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana and North Carolina.” (p. 60)
“Rising sea level is causing saltwater intrusion into estuaries and threatening freshwater resources in some parts of the mid-Atlantic region.” (p. 60)
“With a substantial acceleration of sea-level rise, traditional coastal engineering may not be economically or environmentally sustainable in some areas.” (p. 28)
“Short-term thinking often prevails. The costs of planning for hazards like sea-level rise are apparent today, while the benefits may not occur during the tenure of current elected officials.” (p. 495)
The EPA released the final document at 10 AM EST on Friday, Jan. 16. It is available at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/sap4-1.html)
The report, “Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region,” prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and released under the seal of the White House, is one in a series of analyses of global warming by federal agencies conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, which coordinates the climate change research activities of U.S. government agencies.
The report assesses impacts of sea level rise on the infrastructure and ecosystems in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia and North Carolina.
http://www.sealevelreport.com/
Oh boy, that's a sign of the future ... if we have one
Is there any discussion of Climate Change in amongst all this mayhem?
Or of a Carbon Tax?
Is there any discussion of Climate Change in amongst all this mayhem?
Or of a Carbon Tax?
Carbon cuts by developed countries cancelled out by imported goods
Kyoto protocol means carbon footprints are calculated for the countries producing goods, not those consuming them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/25/carbon-cuts-developed-countries-cancelled
Cuts in carbon emissions by developed countries since 1990 have been cancelled out many times over by increases in imported goods from developing countries such as China, according to the most comprehensive global figures ever compiled.
Previous studies have shown the significance of "outsourced" emissions for specific countries, but the latest research, published on Monday, provides the first global view of how international trade altered national carbon footprints during the period of the Kyoto protocol.
Under the protocol, emissions released during production of goods are assigned to the country where production takes place, rather than where goods are consumed.
Campaigners say this allows rich countries unfairly to claim they are reducing or stabilising their emissions when they may be simply sending them offshore – relying increasingly on goods imported from emerging economies that do not have binding emissions targets under Kyoto.
According to standard data, developed countries can claim to have reduced their collective emissions by almost 2% between 1990 and 2008. But once the carbon cost of imports have been added to each country, and exports subtracted – the true change has been an increase of 7%. If Russia and Ukraine – which cut their CO2 emissions rapidly in the 1990s due to economic collapse – are excluded, the rise is 12%.
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "The 7% increase in emissions of developed countries since 1990 is a deviation from what the IPCC fourth assessment report had assessed as the most cost-effective trajectory for limiting emissions … if [that rate] is to continue then not only would we encounter more serious impacts of climate change over time, but mitigation actions undertaken later to reduce emissions would prove far more costly."
Much of the increase in emissions in the developed world is due to the US, which promised a 7% cut under Kyoto but then did not to ratify the protocol. Emissions within its borders increased by 17% between 1990 and 2008 – and by 25% when imports and exports are factored in.
In the same period, UK emissions fell by 28 million tonnes, but when imports and exports are taken into account, the domestic footprint has risen by more than 100 million tonnes. Europe achieved a 6% cut in CO2 emissions, but when outsourcing is considered that is reduced to 1%.
Glen Peters, of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, who was lead researcher on the paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: "Our study shows for the first time that emissions from increased production of internationally traded products have more than offset the emissions reductions achieved under the Kyoto Protocol … this suggests that the current focus on territorial emissions in a subset of countries may be ineffective at reducing global emissions without some mechanisms to monitor and report emissions from the production of imported goods and services."
The study shows a very different picture for countries that export more carbon-intensive goods than they import. China, whose growth has been driven by export-based industries, is usually described as the world's largest emitter of CO2, but its footprint drops by almost a fifth when its imports and exports are taken into account, putting it firmly behind the US. China alone accounts for a massive 75% of the developed world's offshored emissions, according to the paper.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at LSE's Grantham Institute, said: "It's important to recognise that the countries which have ratified the Kyoto Protocol are roughly on track to hit their targets by the standards it sets out. But, as these figures show, there is a flaw in the accounting, because the rich countries are not held accountable for effectively exporting emissions to the developing world."
Environmental campaigners have long argued that global carbon accounting should be based on consumption rather than production of goods and services. One barrier to implementing such a system is the huge challenge of accurately monitoring the flow of emissions embodied in traded goods. Another barrier is that some policy-makers argue that consumer nations cannot or should not take full responsibility for their imports, both because they have no jurisdiction in foreign territories and because, even if they did, both producer and consumer nations benefit from trade, and therefore responsibility should be shared.
The reason I ask, is because I wonder how bad things have to get before people will begin to demand action.
It appears they will have to get very bad indeed - much worse than the current turmoil.
Even rescuers hobbled by worst twisters since 1932
AP/The Tuscaloosa News, Dusty Compton
By JAY REEVES and GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writers – 2 hrs 54 mins ago
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Southerners found their emergency safety net shredded Friday as they tried to emerge from the nation's deadliest tornado disaster since the Great Depression.
Emergency buildings are wiped out. Bodies are stored in refrigerated trucks. Authorities are begging for such basics as flashlights. In one neighborhood, the storms even left firefighters to work without a truck.
The death toll from Wednesday's storms reached 329 across seven states, including 238 in Alabama, making it the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak since March 1932, when another Alabama storm killed 332 people. Tornadoes that swept across the South and Midwest in April 1974 left 315 people dead.
Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured Wednesday — 990 in Tuscaloosa alone — and as many as 1 million Alabama homes and businesses remained without power.
The scale of the disaster astonished President Barack Obama when he arrived in the state Friday.
"I've never seen devastation like this," he said, standing in bright sunshine amid the wreckage in Tuscaloosa, where at least 45 people were killed and entire neighborhoods were flattened.
Mayor Walt Maddox called it "a humanitarian crisis" for his city of more than 83,000.
Maddox said up to 446 people were unaccounted for in the city, though he added that many of those reports probably were from people who have since found their loved ones but have not notified authorities. Cadaver-detecting dogs were deployed in the city Friday but they had not found any remains, Maddox said.
During the mayor's news conference, a man asked him for help getting into his home, and broke down as he told his story.
"You have the right to cry," Maddox told him. "And I can tell you the people of Tuscaloosa are crying with you."
At least one tornado — a 205 mph monster that left at least 13 people dead in Smithville, Miss. — ranked in the National Weather Service's most devastating category, EF-5. Meteorologist Jim LaDue said he expects "many more" of Wednesday's tornadoes to receive that same rating, with winds topping 200 mph.
Tornadoes struck with unexpected speed in several states, and the difference between life and death was hard to fathom. Four people died in Bledsoe County, Tenn., but a family survived being tossed across a road in their modular home, which was destroyed, Mayor Bobby Collier said.
By Friday, residents whose homes were blown to pieces were seeing their losses worsen — not by nature, but by man. In Tuscaloosa and other cities, looters have been picking through the wreckage to steal what little the victims have left.
"The first night they took my jewelry, my watch, my guns," Shirley Long said Friday. "They were out here again last night doing it again."
Overwhelmed Tuscaloosa police imposed a curfew and got help from National Guard troops to try to stop the scavenging.
Along their flattened paths, the twisters blew down police and fire stations and other emergency buildings along with homes, businesses, churches and power infrastructure. The number of buildings lost, damage estimates and number of people left homeless remained unclear two days later, in part because the storm also ravaged communications systems.
Tuscaloosa's emergency management center was destroyed, so officials used space in one of the city's most prominent buildings — the University of Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium — as a substitute before moving operations to the Alabama Fire College. Less than two weeks ago, the stadium hosted more than 90,000 fans for the football team's spring intrasquad Red-White Game.
A fire station was destroyed in nearby Alberta City, one of the city's worst-hit neighborhoods. The firefighters survived, but damage to their equipment forced them to begin rescue operations without a fire truck, city Fire Chief Alan Martin said.
Martin said the department is running normally and has since deployed a backup vehicle to serve the neighborhood. "In reality, it's just an extension of what we do every day," he said.
Also wiped out was a Salvation Army building, costing Tuscaloosa much-needed shelter space. And that's just part of the problem in providing emergency aid, said Sister Carol Ann Gray of the local Catholic Social Services office.
"It has been extremely difficult to coordinate because so many people have been affected — some of the very same people you'd look to for assistance," Gray said.
Emergency services were stretched particularly thin about 90 miles to the north in the demolished town of Hackleburg, Ala., where officials were keeping the dead in a refrigerated truck amid a body bag shortage. At least 27 people were killed there and the search for missing people continued, with FBI agents fanning out to local hospitals to help.
Damage in Hackleburg was catastrophic, said Stanley Webb, chief agent in the county's drug task force.
"When we talk about these homes, they are not damaged. They are gone," he said.
Gail Enlow was in town looking for her aunt, Eunice Cooper, who is in her 70s. She wiped away tears as she pointed to the twisted mess that's left of the housing project where Cooper lived.
"Nobody's seen her," she said, trying to hold back the sobs. "She can just barely get around and she would need help."
But in Hackleburg as in Tuscaloosa, emergency workers had more to do than aid suffering victims. People have looted a demolished Wrangler jeans distribution center, and authorities locked up drugs from a destroyed pharmacy in a bank.
Fire Chief Steve Hood said he desperately wanted flashlights for the town's 1,500 residents because he doesn't want them using candles that could ignite their homes.
In Cullman, a town about 50 miles north of Birmingham, workers have been putting in long hours to clean up debris and exhausted police officers face the same problems as the people they are sworn to protect. Emergency responders have waiting in hourslong lines with other drivers to get gas at stations without power.
False rumors, meanwhile, were sweeping the town. People were pushing debris from their yards into streets because they heard they were supposed to and filling up their bathtubs with water because they heard the city would cut off the supply.
Kathy McDonald glanced around her damaged town and quietly wept. Her family's furniture store, which sold tables and couches for decades, was torn apart.
"I just can't understand this. Are people coming to help us?" she said. "We feel all alone."
Alabama emergency management officials said Friday that the state had 238 confirmed deaths. There were 34 deaths in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia, two in Louisiana and one in Kentucky.
Friday night, Obama declared Mississippi to be a disaster area, qualifying six counties in that state for federal funding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has responded to all affected areas and has officials on the ground in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee, Director Craig Fugate said. State and local authorities remain in charge of response and recovery efforts, Fugate said.
In the Birmingham suburb of Pleasant Grove, where 10 people died, building contractors used heavy equipment Friday to help clear debris from impassable streets.
Volunteers arrived from as far as Mobile — some 250 miles away — to deliver food, water and fuel and help with search and rescue. The National Guard closed the town to outsiders, trying to keep out gawkers and looters.
Police Chief Robert Knight said perhaps a quarter of the town of 10,000 is wiped out.
"We're having a hard time recovering," he said. But he vowed that residents will rebuild.
"We'll do it. We'll do it," he said. "We just will. People out here are resilient. It's a good city."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110430/ap_on_re_us/us_severe_weather
___
I read it quick - am I right there was no mention in there of why this is happening?
Miss. River spillway opens, towns await floodwater
By MARY FOSTER and MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press – 2 hrs 37 mins ago
MORGANZA, La. – Over the next few days, water spewing through a Mississippi River floodgate will crawl through the swamps of Louisiana's Cajun country, chasing people and animals to higher ground while leaving much of the land under 10 to 20 feet of brown muck.
The floodgate was opened Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, shooting out like a waterfall, spraying 6 feet into the air. Fish jumped or were hurled through the white froth and what was dry land soon turned into a raging channel.
The water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin, and from there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000.
In the nearby community of Stephensville, rows of sandbags were piled up outside nearly every home.
Merleen Acosta, 58, waited in line for three hours to get her sandbags filled by prisoners, then returned later in the day for more bags.
Floodwaters inundated Acosta's home when the Morganza spillway was opened in 1973, driving her out for several months. The thought of losing her home again was so stressful she was getting sick.
"I was throwing up at work," she said.
The opening of the spillway diverted water from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi. Shifting the water away from the cities eased the strain on levees and blunts the potential for flooding in New Orleans that could have been much worse than Hurricane Katrina.
C.E. Bourg stopped by a hardware store in the shadow of the Morgan City floodwalls to buy grease for his lawnmower and paint — items on his "honey-do list." Floodwaters came close to overtopping in 1973, but since then, they have been raised to 24 feet and aren't in danger of being overtaken.
Bourg, an attorney, said he represented a worker who was injured on the 70s-era floodwall project and learned a lot about how they were built.
"I got a copy of the plans," he said. "This one's built right, unlike the ones in New Orleans."
The Morganza spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built after the great flood of 1927, which killed hundreds and left many more without homes. When the Morganza opened, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River, a sign of just how historic the current flooding has been.
Earlier this month, the corps intentionally blew holes into a levee in Missouri to employ a similar cities-first strategy, and it also opened a spillway northwest of New Orleans about a week ago.
Snowmelt and heavy rain swelled the Mississippi, and the river has peaked at levels not seen in 70 years.
In Krotz Springs, La., one of the towns in the Atchafalaya River basin bracing for floodwaters, phones at the local police department rang nonstop as residents sought information on road closings and evacuation routes.
Like so many other residents downstream of the Morganza, Monita Reed, 56, recalled the last time it was opened in 1973.
"We could sit in our yard and hear the water," she said as workers constructed a makeshift levee of sandbags and soil-filled mesh boxes in hopes of protecting the 240 homes in her subdivision.
About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be affected by the oncoming water, and some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside — an area known for fish camps and a drawling French dialect — have already fled. Reed's family packed her furniture, clothing and pictures in a rental truck and a relative's trailer.
"I'm just going to move and store my stuff. I'm going to stay here until they tell us to leave," she said. "Hopefully, we won't see much water and then I can move back in. "
It took about 15 minutes for the one 28-foot gate to be raised in the middle of the spillway. The corps planned to open one or two more gates Sunday in a painstaking process that gives residents and animals a chance to stay dry.
Michael Grubb, whose home is located just outside the Morgan City floodwalls, hired a contractor this week to raise his house from 2 feet to 8 feet off the ground. It took a crew of 20 workers roughly 17 hours to jack up the house onto wooden blocks.
"I wanted to save this house desperately," said Grubb, 54. "This has tapped us out. This is our life savings here, but it's worth every penny."
Three feet of water flooded Grubb's home the last time the Morganza spillway was opened.
Water from the swollen Atchafalaya River already was creeping into his backyard, but Grubb was confident his home will stay dry. He has a generator and a boat he plans to use for grocery runs. The water from the spillway was expected to reach Morgan City around Tuesday.
"This is our home. How could we leave our home?" he said.
The crest of the Mississippi was still more than a week away from the Morganza spillway, and when it arrives, officials expect it to linger. The bulge has broken river-level records that had held since the 1920s in some places. As the water rolled down the river, the corps took drastic steps to protect lives.
The corps blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.
The Morganza flooding is more controlled, however, and residents are warned by the corps each year in written letters, reminding them of the possibility of opening the spillway.
At the site of the spillway, water splashed over the gates on one side before a vertical crane hoisted the 10-ton, steel panel. Typically, the spillway is dry on both sides.
This is the second spillway to be opened in Louisiana. The corps used cranes to remove some of the Bonnet Carre's wooden barriers, sending water into the massive Lake Ponchatrain and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.
By Sunday, all 350 bays at the 7,000-foot Bonnet Carre structure were to be open. The Morganza, a 4,000-foot long structure built in 1954, was expecting to only open up about a quarter of its 125 gates.
The spillways could be opened for weeks, or perhaps less time, if the river flow starts to subside.
In Vicksburg, Miss., where five neighborhoods were under water, a steady stream of onlookers posed for pictures on a river bluff overlooking a bridge that connects Louisiana and Mississippi. Some people posed for pictures next to a Civil War cannon while others carried Confederate battle flags being given away by a war re-enactor.
Larry and Paulla Dalrymple spent part of the day with a video camera, filming the river roll past a casino and swirl around the giant bridge pilings.
"Wow. It's really running,'" Paulla said. "It's amazing what the water can do — what it's doing to people's lives."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110515/ap_on_re_us/us_mississippi_river_flooding
*Note to self: never move to the Gulf of Mexico states or anywhere near the Mississippi River.
(http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/582132main_20110825_IreneTRMM3D2_full.jpg)
I have to tell you, that while watching Irene weather clip recently, I was struck by how much the image of the cyclone resembled a rose.
I've recentley noticed several indications of a increased Solar activity, above normal standard. This might be just one in the series.
Jahn, do you ever get the Northern Lights?
(I don't, alas.)
What's a dawg?
I couldnt see any from where I am.. I stayed up until 3 am this morning.. I believe that the city lights would absorb any pretties.
Soon.. Ill be living without streetlights again. :)
I couldnt see any from where I am.. I stayed up until 3 am this morning.. I believe that the city lights would absorb any pretties.
Soon.. Ill be living without streetlights again. :)
I hope you are not complaining. In the Euro zone the prices are approaching 10$ per gallon.
It's about $6 per gal here, for premium ul
Hopefully it will put a dent in the Republican Convention.
Hopefully it will put a dent in the Republican Convention.
What is a fish-storm?
Let's hope so, as I wouldn't want to cause any human distress ... but there may be a sting in it tail. ;)
But I do hear there is much more talk about Climate Change in the US these days.
Not something I'd like to see coming my way.
I foresee a season with many more storms with origins in the Tropics, rather than the Subtropics that dominated 2012. This means that storms will be capable of tapping into larger amounts of ocean heat content, that have sat untouched by any Major Hurricane for years now. This means more Hurricanes, on top of more Major Hurricanes. The instability stands at average levels, which will be capable of allowing a couple of seriously dangerous storms this year. The other atmospheric conditions present will also allow an Above Average amount of storms to get going in the Atlantic. Though Warm waters sit out near the Cape Verde Islands, the tropical waves that emerge into the Eastern Atlantic off of Africa, will prefer to escape the Saharan Dust and possible Positive NAO that may bring stronger Trade Winds if the NAO were to flip throughout the season. These conditions in the Eastern Atlantic would result in more storms forming from these same tropical waves just farther west. This chain reaction of factors would then mean places like the Caribbean Islands, Central America, and the US would be in the Threat Zone.
Have you prepared the storm/tornado shelter Michael suggested?
Why don't you have a storm shelter? :) Digged in the ground like a cellar?
Violent tornado devastates Moore, Oklahoma
A massive and violent tornado at least a mile wide smashed through Moore, Oklahoma near 3 pm CDT Monday, causing catastrophic damage along a 20-mile long path. The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma has rated the tornado at least an EF-4 (166 - 200 mph winds), and detailed damage surveys may upgrade this rating to the top-end EF-5 level in the coming days. Damage was extreme and covered a huge area, and many buildings swept away down to their foundations. The tornado was on the ground for 40 minutes, from 2:56 - 3:56 pm CDT, and a tornado warning for the storm was issued at 2:40 pm CDT, sixteen minutes before it touched down. The debris ball from the tornado, as seen on Doppler radar, expanded to over two miles in diameter, and debris was carried over 100 miles from Moore. The National Weather Service office in Tulsa, Oklahoma reported at 4:13 pm CDT that they were "seeing reports of light tornado debris falling in the Tulsa metro area again this evening, likely from the Moore area." Tulsa is 100 miles east-northeast of Moore.
(http://icons.wxug.com/hurricane/2013/moore_wide_destruction.jpg)
Figure 1. The news helicopter from kfor.com caught this image of the shocking near-total destruction of a huge area of Moore, Oklahoma, on May 20, 2013.
Moore tornado likely to be one of the five most damaging tornadoes in history
Moore has the unenviable distinction of having previously experienced the 4th costliest tornado in world history, the notorious May 3, 1999 Bridgecreek-Moore EF-5 tornado. There have been only six billion-dollar (2011 dollars) tornadoes in history:
1) Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011, $2.8 billion
2) Topeka, Kansas, June 8, 1966, $1.7 billion
3) Lubbock, Texas, May 11, 19780, $1.5 billion
4) Bridge Creek-Moore, Oklahoma, May 3, 1999, $1.4 billion
5) Xenia, Ohio, April 3, 1974, $1.1 billion
6) Omaha, Nebraska, May 6, 1975, $1 billion
The May 3, 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore tornado killed 36 people and injured 583. It damaged or destroyed 8132 homes, 1041 apartments, 260 businesses, 11 public buildings and seven churches. According to rough estimates of the size of the damaged area made by helicopters operated by news9.com and kfor.com, the damage footprint from the May 20, 2013 tornado is easily twice as large. I expect that after the damage tally from the May 20 tornado is added up, Moore will hold two of the top five spots on the list of most damaging tornadoes in history, and the May 20 tornado may approach the Joplin tornado as the costliest twister of all-time.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2412
The count so far, at 2am EST, is 51, which they expect to rise to 91 before the night is over. (40 bodies are in the midst of being processed by the medical examiner.)
Devastation for those unlucky to be in its path. I expect no one is saying anything about these things getting bigger.
Global Warming is Spurring Sea Ice Expansion at the South Pole
Climate change's polar opposite effects.
By Alisa Opar
Published: 06/12/2013
Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing quickly, but the opposite is happening in Antarctica, where the reaches of frozen water have actually been growing. Counterintuitive as it may seem, global warming is driving very different changes at each pole, cooling the south while heating the north. Two recent studies in Nature Geosciencesought to tease out which mechanisms are spurring the cooling and sea ice expansion. Richard Bintanja and colleagues at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute report that deep warm water is melting ice shelves that extend from the continent; cold water from the melted ice, in turn, insulates the surface water, keeping it cooler. Yet a group led by Paul Holland of the British Antarctic Survey says that another mechanism is at work: Fierce winds blasting the South Pole are pushing the ice farther north. While the answer isn’t yet clear, the groups agree that cooler waters will mean more sea-level rise, since less moisture will evaporate. Understanding what’s driving the cooling will strengthen sea-level forecasts. Says Bintanja, “Identifying climate mechanisms helps to make these climate models more accurate.”
This story originally ran in the July-August 2013 issue as "Antarctica on the Rocks."
There is a complexity about Antarctica. There seem to be contradictory reports, but from what I've read, it's not contradictory to the scientists studying it. I'm always curious with new studies, as the overall situation is confusing for a layman like myself. But it is important to not draw too much from a small selection of research.
It seems to happen sooner than expected?
I pity this rickshaw driver, taking folks to a shelter in the outskirts of the storm..
(http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/newsstory/2013/650x366_10121836_ap728014339270.jpg)
Super typhoon makes landfall in the Philippines
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY 6:13 p.m. EST November 7, 2013
It is one of the most intense storms in world history.
Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall early Friday morning in Guiuan, a small city in Samar province in the eastern Philippines.
Thousands of people evacuated villages in the central Philippines on Thursday as one of the strongest typhoons in world history took aim the region, which was devastated by an earthquake last month.
Haiyan had intensified and accelerated as it moved closer to the country with sustained winds of 195 mph and ferocious gusts of 235 mph, according to the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
No Atlantic or eastern Pacific hurricane has ever been stronger than Haiyan (typhoons are the same type of storms as hurricanes).
About 10 million people live on the central Philippine islands and are most at risk from a direct strike from Haiyan.
The latest forecast track shows Haiyan passing very near Tacloban, a city of a quarter million people, and Cebu, a city of nearly 1 million people, reports meteorologist Eric Holthaus of Quartz magazine.
The storm was not expected to directly hit Manila farther north. The lowest alert in a four-level typhoon-warning system was issued in the flood-prone capital area, meaning it could experience winds of up to 37 mph and rain.
President Benigno Aquino III warned people to leave high-risk areas, including 100 coastal communities where forecasters said the storm surge could reach up to 23 feet. He urged seafarers to stay in port.
"No typhoon can bring Filipinos to their knees if we'll be united," he said in a televised address.
Haiyan is the fourth typhoon to hit the Philippines in 2013, a nation that typically gets hit by more typhoons than any country on Earth, usually about six or seven each year.
Haiyan is the Chinese word for petrel, a type of bird that lives over the open sea and returns to land only for breeding. The storm is known as Super Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines.
Governors and mayors supervised the evacuation of landslide- and flood-prone communities in several provinces where the typhoon is expected to pass, said Eduardo del Rosario, head of the government's main disaster-response agency. School classes and plane flights were canceled in many areas.
Aquino ordered officials to aim for zero casualties.
Edgardo Chatto, governor of Bohol island province in the central Philippines, where an earthquake in October killed more than 200 people, said soldiers, police and rescue units were helping displaced residents, including thousands staying in small tents, move to shelters. Bohol is not forecast to receive a direct hit but is expected to be battered by strong winds and rain, government forecaster Jori Loiz said.
"My worst fear is that the eye of this typhoon will hit us. I hope we will be spared," Chatto told the Associated Press by telephone.
After roaring across the Philippines, Haiyan is expected to move into the South China Sea and eventually hit Vietnam and Laos over the weekend, still as a typhoon.
Jeff Masters
Super Typhoon Haiyan has made landfall. According to PAGASA, Haiyan came ashore at 4:40 am local time (20:40 UTC) November 7, 2013 near Guiuan, on the Philippine island of Samar. Fourty minutes before landfall, Guiuan reported sustained 10-minute average winds of 96 mph, with a pressure of 977 mb. Contact has since been lost with the city. Three hours before landfall, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) assessed Haiyan’s sustained winds at 195 mph, gusting to 235 mph, making it the 4th strongest tropical cyclone in world history. Satellite loops show that Haiyan weakened only slightly, if at all, in the two hours after JTWC’s advisory, so the super typhoon likely made landfall with winds near 195 mph. The next JTWC intensity estimate, for 00Z UTC November 8, about three hours after landfall, put the top winds at 185 mph. Averaging together these estimates gives a strength of 190 mph an hour after landfall. Thus, Haiyan had winds of 190 - 195 mph at landfall, making it the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in world history. The previous record was held by the Atlantic's Hurricane Camille of 1969, which made landfall in Mississippi with 190 mph winds.
Officially, here are the strongest tropical cyclones in world history:
Super Typhoon Nancy (1961), 215 mph winds, 882 mb. Made landfall as a Cat 2 in Japan, killing 191 people.
Super Typhoon Violet (1961), 205 mph winds, 886 mb pressure. Made landfall in Japan as a tropical storm, killing 2 people.
Super Typhoon Ida (1958), 200 mph winds, 877 mb pressure. Made landfall as a Cat 1 in Japan, killing 1269 people.
Super Typhoon Haiyan (2013), 195 mph winds, 895 mb pressure. Made landfall in the Philippines at peak strength.
Super Typhoon Kit (1966), 195 mph winds, 880 mb. Did not make landfall.
Super Typhoon Sally (1964), 195 mph winds, 895 mb. Made landfall as a Cat 4 in the Philippines.
However, it is now recognized (Black 1992) that the maximum sustained winds estimated for typhoons during the 1940s to 1960s were too strong. The strongest reliably measured tropical cyclones were all 5 mph weaker than Haiyan, with 190 mph winds—the Western Pacific's Super Typhoon Tip of 1979, the Atlantic's Hurricane Camille of 1969, and the Atlantic's Hurricane Allen of 1980. All three of these storms had a hurricane hunter aircraft inside of them to measure their top winds. Haiyan's winds were estimated using only satellite images, making its intensity estimate of lower confidence. We don't have any measurements of Haiyan's central pressure, but it may be close to the all-time record of 870 mb set by Super Typhoon Tip. The Japan Meteorological Agency estimated Haiyan's central pressure at 895 mb at 18 UTC (1 pm EST) November 7, 2013. This would make Haiyan the 12th strongest tropical cyclone on record globally, as far as lowest pressure goes.
Extreme damage likely in the Philippines
Wind damage in Guiuan (population 47,000) must have been catastrophic, perhaps the greatest wind damage any city on Earth has endured from a tropical cyclone in the past century. A massive storm surge must have also caused great destruction along a 20-mile swath to the north of where the eye hit, where Project NOAH was predicting a 17’ (5.3 meter) storm tide. Wind damage will also be extreme in Tacloban, population 221,000, the capital of the province of Leyte. Much of Tacloban is at elevations less than ten feet, and the most recent storm surge forecast made by the Philippines' Project NOAH calls for a storm tide (the combined height of the surge plus the tide) of 12’ (3.6 meters) in Tacloban. The northern (strong) part of Haiyan’s eyewall is now battering the southern part of the city. Haiyan’s winds, rains, and storm surge will cause widespread devastation throughout the Central Philippines during the day, though the storm’s fast forward speed of 25 mph will cut down on the total rainfall amounts, compared to typical typhoons that affect the Philippines. Hopefully, this will substantially recede the death toll due to flash flooding, which is usually the biggest killer in Philippine typhoons. Once Haiyan exits into the South China Sea, it will steadily decay, due to colder waters and higher wind shear. However, it will still be a formidable Category 1 or 2 typhoon when it hits Vietnam and Laos, and I expect that the 12+ inches of rain that the storm will dump on those nations will make it a top-five most expensive natural disaster in their history. Early on Thursday, Haiyan hit the island of Kayangel, 24 kilometres north of Palau's capital, Koror. Damage was heavy, with many homes damaged or destroyed, but there were no injuries among the island’s 69 inhabitants.
Typhoon Haiyan Death Toll Tops 10,000, According To Official Estimates
Reuters | Posted: 11/10/2013 7:16 am EST | Updated: 11/10/2013 11:50 am EST
By Manuel Mogato
TACLOBAN, Philippines, Nov 10 (Reuters) - One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away coastal villages and devastating one of the main cities in the region.
Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of structures in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria, before weakening and heading west for Vietnam.
As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food or searched for lost loved ones.
"People are walking like zombies looking for food," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. "It's like a movie."
Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, levelling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.
The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,200 killed by a storm whose sustained winds reached 195 miles per hour (313 km per hour) with gusts of up to 235 mph (378 kph).
"We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died," Soria told Reuters. "The devastation is so big."
About 300 people died in neighbouring Samar province, where Haiyan first hit land on Friday as a category 5 typhoon, with 2,000 missing, said an official of the provincial disaster agency.
Nearly 480,000 people were displaced and 4.5 million "affected" by the typhoon in 36 provinces, the national disaster agency said, as relief agencies called for food, water, medicines and tarpaulins for the homeless.
International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.
The U.S. embassy said it would provide $100,000 for health, water and sanitation support. Australia said it would provide an initial 15.5 million pesos ($358,900) in relief supplies.
The World Food Programme said it was airlifting 40 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, enough to feed 120,000 people for a day, as well as emergency supplies and communications equipment.
Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes in Leyte's capital, Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 about 580 km (360 miles) southeast of Manila which bore the brunt, with hundreds of bodies piled on the sides of roads and pinned under wrecked houses.
The city lies in a cove where the seawater narrows, making it susceptible to storm surges.
The city and nearby villages as far as one kilometre (just over half a mile) from shore were flooded, leaving floating bodies and roads choked with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes.
Many Internet users urged prayers and called for aid for survivors in the largely Roman Catholic nation on social media sites such as Twitter.
AQUINO CONSIDERS MARTIAL LAW
"From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometre inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami," said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who had been in Tacloban since before the typhoon struck the city.
"I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific."
Looters rampaged through several stores in Tacloban, witnesses said, taking whatever they could find as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water were hampered by severed roads and communications. A TV station said ATM machines were broken open.
Mobs attacked trucks loaded with food, tents and water on Tanauan bridge in Leyte, said Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon. "These are mobsters operating out of there."
President Benigno Aquino said the government had deployed 300 soldiers and police to restore order and that he was considering introducing martial law or a state of emergency in Tacloban to ensure security.
"Tonight, a column of armoured vehicles will be arriving in Tacloban to show the government's resolve and to stop this looting," he said.
Aquino has shown exasperation at conflicting reports on damage and deaths and one TV network quoted him as telling the head of the disaster agency that he was running out of patience.
"How can you beat that typhoon?" said defence chief Voltaire Gazmin, when asked whether the government had been ill-prepared.
"It's the strongest on Earth. We've done everything we can, we had lots of preparation. It's a lesson for us."
The U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said aerial surveys showed "significant damage to coastal areas with heavy ships thrown to the shore, many houses destroyed and vast tracts of agricultural land decimated".
The destruction extends well beyond Tacloban. Officials had yet to make contact with Guiuan, a town of 40,000 that was first hit by the typhoon. Baco, a city of 35,000 people in Oriental Mindoro province, was 80 percent under water, the U.N. said.
There were reports of damage across much of the Visayas, a region of eight major islands, including Leyte, Cebu and Samar.
Many tourists were stranded. "Seawater reached the second floor of the hotel," said Nancy Chang, who was on a business trip from China in Tacloban City and walked three hours through mud and debris for a military-led evacuation at the airport.
"It's like the end of the world."
Six people were killed and dozens wounded during heavy winds and storms in central Vietnam as Haiyan approached the coast, state media reported, even though it had weakened substantially since hitting the Philippines.
Vietnam authorities have moved 883,000 people in 11 central provinces to safe zones, according to the government's website.
Tacloban city airport was all but destroyed as seawaters swept through the city, shattering the glass of the airport tower, levelling the terminal and overturning nearby vehicles.
A Reuters reporter saw five bodies inside a chapel near the airport, placed on pews. Airport manager Efren Nagrama, 47, said water levels rose up to four metres (13 feet).
"It was like a tsunami. We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, seawater and wind swept through the airport," he said. "Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard all throughout until the water subsided." ($1 = 43.1900 Philippine pesos) (Additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco and Karen Lema; Editing by Jason Szep and Nick Macfie)
The weather here has been very unusual and very very cold.. with flux in 50 degrees some days which is causing huge ice issues.
Record-breaking cold possible across two-thirds of U.S.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/05/us/winter-weather/
(CNN) -- This is the definition of rare air.
The National Weather Service warned Sunday that much of the United States will see this week the coldest temperatures in almost 20 years as an arctic cold front descends on 140 million people
"A piece of a polar vortex, the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere ... is coming," CNN Meteorologist Alexandra Steele said.
It's 35 degrees and pouring rain here right now, our furnace keeps going out because the ice is growing so quickly on the roof.. we arnt in the clear yet.. lol glad to see its moving on and hope it lessens before reaching land elsewhere.
I heard on the radio many years ago now, that environment scientists had shifted from examining the overall reality of global warming, to studying it's impact on localised areas. It seems this work has been going on ever since, such that now there is a large body of research applied to specific areas within each country.
It's not a pretty picture. I am glad I'm not going to live to see the worst of it.
In Norfolk, evidence of climate change is in the streets at high tide
By Lori Montgomery, Published: May 31
The Washington Post
NORFOLK — At high tide on the small inlet next to Norfolk’s most prestigious art museum, the water lapped at the very top of the concrete sea wall that has held it back for 100 years. It seeped up through storm drains, puddled on the promenade and spread, half a foot deep, across the street, where a sign read, “Road Closed.”
The sun was shining, but all around the inlet people were bracing for more serious flooding. The Chrysler Museum of Art had just completed a $24 million renovation that emptied the basement, now accessible only by ladder, and lifted the heating and air-conditioning systems to the top floor. A local accounting firm stood behind a homemade barricade of stanchions and detachable flaps rigged to keep the water out. And the congregation of the Unitarian Church of Norfolk was looking to evacuate.
“We don’t like being the poster child for climate change,” said the Rev. Jennifer Slade, who added that the building, with its carved-wood sanctuary and soaring flood-insurance rates, would soon be on the market for the first time in four decades. “I don’t know many churches that have to put the tide chart on their Web site” so people know whether they can get to church.
On May 6, the Obama administration released the third National Climate Assessment, and President Obama proclaimed climate change no longer a theory; its effects, he said, are already here. This came as no surprise in Norfolk, where normal tides have risen 11 / 2 feet over the past century and the sea is rising faster than anywhere else on the East Coast.
The more urgent question is what to do about it — and how to pay for it. For that, the White House has offered few answers.
Focused for much of his presidency on a politically contentious campaign to slow global warming by reducing carbon emissions, Obama has turned only recently to the matter of preparing the nation for effects that scientists say already are inevitable. Last year, the Government Accountability Office added climate change to its “high-risk” list, declaring that the lack of planning poses “significant financial risks” to the federal government, which funds flood and crop insurance, pays for disaster relief and owns hundreds of facilities exposed to rising seas.
Obama has ordered every agency to start planning for climate change, but administration officials acknowledge that the process is in its infancy. Meanwhile, there is no new money to help hard-hit places such as Norfolk, where residents are clamoring for relief.
Norfolk exists because of the sea. Ships have been built in its harbors since the Revolutionary War. It is home to the largest naval base on the globe. Bounded by the Chesapeake Bay and two rivers, sliced by coastal creeks, Norfolk has always been vulnerable to flooding. But over the past decade, people began noticing alarming trends.
Hurricanes and nor’easters became more frequent and more damaging. Even ordinary rainstorms swamped intersections, washed away parked cars and marooned the region’s major medical center. Before 1980, the inlet near the Chrysler Museum, known as the Hague, had never flooded for more than 100 hours in a year. By 2009, it was routinely flooded for 200 and even 300 hours a year.
The city hired a Dutch consulting firm to develop an action plan, finalized in 2012, that called for new flood gates, higher roads and a retooled storm water system. Implementing the plan would cost more than $1 billion — the size of the city’s entire annual budget — and protect Norfolk from about a foot of additional water.
As the city was contemplating that enormous price tag, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) last year delivered more bad news: If current trends hold, VIMS scientists said, by the end of this century, the sea in Norfolk would rise by 51 / 2 feet or more.
“Clearly, we’ve got more work to do,” said Ron Williams Jr., Norfolk’s assistant city manager for planning.
Options for dealing with the water are limited, and expensive. The city could protect itself with more barriers. Williams lamented, for instance, that a new $318 million light-rail system — paid for primarily with federal funds -- was built at sea level. With a little foresight, he said, the tracks could have been elevated to create a bulwark against the tides.
As it stands, the new rail system could itself be swept away, the money wasted. “Nowhere do we have resiliency built in,” he said.
A second option calls for people to abandon the most vulnerable parts of town, to “retreat somewhat from the sea,” as Mayor Paul D. Fraim put it in a 2011 interview, when he became the first sitting politician in the nation to raise the prospect.
For now, Williams said, retreat is not on the table “on a large scale,” though “you may look at localized hot spots.” The Dutch consultants, Fugro Atlantic, recommended buying out properties in Spartan Village, a bowl-shaped neighborhood that flooded during a rainstorm in 2009.
That leaves the third option: adaptation. Raising buildings, roads and other critical infrastructure. Last fall, the city council required all new structures to be built three feet above flood level, one of the strictest standards in the state.
“People right now are having trouble getting their arms around what needs to be done. And no one can fathom what it’s going to cost,” said City Councilwoman Theresa Whibley, who represents many pricey waterfront neighborhoods, including the Hague, where the plan calls for floodgates to block the surging tide.
“When we’re talking about floodgates and building bulkheads, then you’re talking about the big bucks that even the feds don’t have. And then you’re competing with New York, Miami — even Hampton.” Whibley paused. “I don’t sound very optimistic, do I?”
The problem is particularly urgent in Norfolk and the rest of Tidewater Virginia — which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ranked second only to New Orleans in terms of population threatened by sea-level rise — due to a fateful convergence of lousy luck. First, the seas are generally rising as the planet warms. Second, the Gulf Stream is circulating more slowly, causing more water to slosh toward the North Atlantic coast. In 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey declared a 600-mile stretch of coastline, from North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras to Boston, a “sea-level rise hotspot,” with rates increasing at three to four times the global average.
Third, the land around Norfolk is sinking, a phenomenon called “subsidence,” due in part to continuing adjustments in the earth’s crust to the melting of glaciers from the last ice age. Plus, the city is slowly sinking into the crater of a meteor that slammed into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago.
Put it all together, as VIMS scientists did when they were asked by the General Assembly to study recurrent flooding in tidewater Virginia, and models suggest tides ranging from 11 / 2 feet to 71 / 2 feet higher by 2100.
Five and a half feet represents “business as usual,” a vision of the future without “significant efforts by the world’s nations to curb greenhouse gases,” the report said. “Recent trends in Virginia sea levels suggest we are on [this] curve.”
Larry Atkinson, an oceanographer who is co-director of the Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative at Old Dominion University, said when the mayor was asked about the report, he waved away the question. “He says, ‘I can’t think about five feet. What do you want me to do, move the whole city?’ ”
It’s not just Norfolk, Atkinson said. Much of the Eastern Shore would be underwater; Baltimore and Washington would be in trouble, too. “At five feet,” he said, “the Mall’s flooded.”
Driving around town, Atkinson and his colleague Michelle Covi recently pointed out dozens of places where water regularly fills the streets, keeping people from work. “By 2040, this will be flooded every high tide,” Atkinson said as he drove north on Hampton Boulevard. “That means the main road to the Navy base will be impassable two to three hours a day.”
Atkinson pulled in to O’Sullivan’s Wharf, a bar with a back deck overlooking Knitting Mill Creek. Over hush puppies and beer, he and Covi fretted about Superfund sites along the Elizabeth River. The toxic muck has been capped, but they wondered: Is the Environmental Protection Agency looking into what might happen when the water rises?
“Even landfills could be a problem,” Covi said. “I’d think they would float. Just pop up and float away.”
At a nearby table, Atkinson spotted Deborah Miller, a retired graphic designer at Old Dominion, and her husband, Gary Chiaverotti, a retired Navy captain. The couple is among Norfolk’s earliest adapters. In 2008, after filing flood-damage claims that cost the federal government more than $100,000, they agreed to let the Federal Emergency Management Agency add about four feet to the foundation of their small house on Haven Creek.
“We didn’t have to take anything out. The man said, ‘Nothing will move,’ and it didn’t,” Miller said. “My china and crystal all stayed in the china cabinet.”
FEMA paid 95 percent of the $140,000 bill. The house no longer floods, Miller said, a huge relief. But water still swamps the property, and the couple has filed additional claims for damage to the garage.
The city keeps a list of nearly 250 people who are either awaiting FEMA help or hoping to qualify for the program. But money is tight and elevation is no cure-all.
Not far from Miller’s house, FEMA raised three small homes on an inlet off the Lafayette River. The city spent $1 million more to raise the roadbed and restore a small wetland. After all that effort, Skip Stiles, executive director of Wetlands Watch, has before and after photos showing that the road still floods, though a little less aggressively.
“Would it have made more sense to buy these people out?” Stiles said, adding that the city doesn’t have the money to do that, either. “It’s hard to figure out how you get out of this.”
At City Hall, the answer is more federal help. Williams, the assistant city manager, said he has met with officials at the White House, seeking a formal process to assess risks in various parts of the country and develop criteria for making federal investments so that, he said, “it’s not political.” The White House has named a task force of state and local officials to make recommendations this fall on how best to advance “climate preparedness and resilience.” Williams sees that as a positive sign.
“The White House gets it,” he said.
But in this age of austerity, even the Pentagon struggles to get its needs met. At Naval Station Norfolk, sea-level rise prompted a decision in the late 1990s to raise the station’s 12 piers, said Joe Bouchard, base commander at the time. Construction has since been completed on only four, he said, adding that work was halted in 2008, when the recession hit, the federal budget deficit soared and Congress began frantically slashing spending.
“That’s when Washington went bonkers,” said Bouchard, an expert on the national security implications of climate change. “That’s spelled B-O-N-K-E-R-S, if you want to quote me.”
The city is also looking to federal officials to help the Unitarian Church if no one steps forward to buy its property, which is assessed at $1.8 million. Williams said the city cannot use “the people’s purse to buy every property that’s vulnerable,” but he raised the possibility of a FEMA buyout.
FEMA, however, typically has limits on what it can spend, and Slade, the minister at the church, worries whether a buyout would produce enough cash to purchase property on higher ground.
“There really are no good answers, because the only answers are unacceptable,” Slade said. “The right answer is to give this space back to nature. But this is the most historic part of Norfolk.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-norfolk-evidence-of-climate-change-is-in-the-streets-at-high-tide/2014/05/31/fe3ae860-e71f-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html
PHOTO GALLERY:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/norfolk-wrestles-with-rising-waters-sinking-options/2014/05/31/31c4e736-e837-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_gallery.html#item0
Earth's Magnetic Field Is Weakening Fast
By Laura Dattaro Published: Jul 10, 2014, 1:28 PM EDT weather.com
Earth’s protective magnetic field has been weakening at a faster rate than expected, according to data from newly launched European Space Agency satellites. The finding may indicate that Earth’s poles will switch sooner than scientists thought.
Because of the iron core at the Earth’s center, the planet produces a magnetic field that extends 370,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, according to LiveScience. (For comparison, the International Space Station orbits less than 300 miles above the planet.) This field protects the planet from radiation from the sun and space, and is the reason why magnetic north exists.
Studies on deep ocean cores have revealed that, on average, the poles reverse once every 200,000 to 300,000 years, according to NASA. It’s been about 780,000 years since the last flip.
Although we know that the magnetic field originates from several sources, exactly how it is generated and why it changes is not yet fully understood. (ESA/ATG Medialab)
It was previously thought that the field was weakening by about 5 percent each century, LiveScience reports, pointing to a flip in about 2,000 years. But the new data shows a much more dramatic weakening, at a pace of 5 percent per decade — 10 times faster than previously thought.
The new data come from a trio of satellites collectively known as Swarm, launched by the ESA in November. The measurements show a dramatic weakening over the Western hemisphere, with some strengthening in other areas, like the southern Indian Ocean, according to a release.
The observations confirm that magnetic north is moving southward, toward Siberia, according to the release.
"Such a flip is not instantaneous, but would take many hundred if not a few thousand years," Rune Floberghagen, Swarm’s mission manager, told Live Science. "They have happened many times in the past."
Though a magnetic flip sounds dramatic, no evidence indicates that it would cause any harm to life on Earth, according to Wired. Past flips are not associated with any mass extinctions or radiation damage. But changes could disrupt power grids and communications networks, which have been damaged by strong solar storms in the past.
The Swarm satellites also collect data on the Earth’s core, mantle, crust and oceans, according to LiveScience. They could help improve navigation systems and earthquake predictions and find natural resources below the Earth’s surface.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us20002926?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook#general_map
Multiple quakes thereafter. 1000 fatalities - number may not be accurate.
Felt as far away as Bangladesh and Calcutta.
Geez Louise, there are 7 cyclones in the Pacific right now (one of them is an Invest). I'll bet that's unprecedented.
You can see the graphic here, but it might change --
http://icons.wxug.com/data/images/sst_basin/gl_sst_mm.gif
Also here:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/
Fascinating map - I know so little about these so well known names.
For the first time in recorded history, three Category 4 hurricanes have appeared in the Pacific Ocean at the same time, and they’re inching ever-closer to the Big Island of Hawaii. The never-before-seen meteorological event involves the hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio, and Jimena, the latter of which has sustained winds of up to 225 km/h.
According to the US Weather Channel, we haven’t seen anything close to this event before
Well, this kind of observations "we haven’t seen anything close to this event before" will become more common in the future.
41 Dead After 7.8-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Near Ecuador's Coast
NBCNews.com
- 2 hours ago
A magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck on Ecuador's coast Saturday, leaving at least 41 people dead and causing buildings to shake in cities more than 100 miles away and collapsing an overpass, authorities and witnesses said. The temblor struck just before ...
Related Articles »
41 Killed, 1500 Injured After Major Japan Earthquake | The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel
- 13 hours ago
Residents and officials are slowly trying to piece their lives back together after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit southern Japan's Kyushu Island early Saturday morning local time. At least 41 people have been confirmed dead and as many as 1,500 have ...
Related Articles »
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes near the coast of Ecuador
10News
- 2 hours ago
Previous Next. ECUADOR - A magnitude-7.4 earthquake occurred Saturday evening on the coast of Ecuador, 173 kilometers WNW of the capital of Quito, according to the United States Geological Survey. The event was recorded at a depth of 20 kilometers.
Magnitude 6.4 earthquake hits southern Japan
CNBC
- Apr 14, 2016
A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck southern Japan on Thursday, but there was no danger of a tsunami or any immediate reports of casualties or damage. Japan's Meteorological Agency said the quake hit at 9:26 p.m. (1226 ...
6.4 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Vanuatu; No Damage or Injuries Reported | The ...
The Weather Channel
- Apr 15, 2016
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Vanuatu at 8:50 a.m. Friday local time (5:50 p.m. EDT Thursday), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tremor occurred at a depth of 9.9 miles, the USGS also reported. The quake's epicenter was located off the ...
Related Articles »
At least six killed, others reportedly trapped after magnitude-7.3 quake hits ...
Fox News
- Apr 15, 2016
Six people were killed and at least 400 reported injured when a powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 struck southern Japan early Saturday, barely 24 hours after a smaller quake hit the same region and killed nine people.
Powerful Earthquake Hits Myanmar, But No Deaths Reported the Day After | The ...
The Weather Channel
- Apr 13, 2016
A 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Asian nation of Myanmar Wednesday night, but officials were cautiously optimistic that the powerful shaking didn't result in any deaths. The tremor was a deep 83.7 miles below the surface, according to the U.S. ...
See the following link for continuation of listings and further details about each:
http://earthquakes.tafoni.net/
There seems to be a run on these, over magnitude 6 in the last week.
Long range forecast for Matthew: thrown for a loop
Thanks to my advancing years and a low-stress lifestyle that features daily meditation, there’s not much that can move me to profanity—except the occasional low-skill driver who endangers my life on the road. But this morning while looking at the latest weather model runs, multiple very bad words escaped my lips. I’ve been a meteorologist for 35 years, and am not easily startled by a fresh set of model results: situations in 2005 and 1992 are the only ones that come to mind. However, this morning’s depiction by our top models—the GFS, European, and UKMET—of Matthew missing getting picked up by the trough to its north this weekend and looping back to potentially punish The Bahamas and Florida next week was worthy of profuse profanity. While a loop back towards Florida and The Bahamas next week is not yet a sure thing, the increasing trend of our top models in that direction is a strong indication that Matthew will be around for a very long time. Long-range forecasts of wind shear are not very reliable, but this morning’s wind shear forecast from the 00Z run of the European model does show a low to moderate shear environment over the Bahamas and waters surrounding South Florida late next week, potentially supportive of a hurricane--if Matthew survives the high wind shear of 50+ knots expected to affect the storm early next week. The bottom line is that it currently appears that Matthew will not recurve out to sea early next week, and The Bahamas and Florida may have to deal with the storm again next week.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3464
I watched a bit of CNN's coverage of Irma's activities. All I can say, is that Trump has delivered apparently a massive blow to journalism as well. These people are selling now emotions rather than news. There was an endless chatter about what may happen, what could transpire, etc. All that while the storm was over 200 miles out to the sea.
Sheer bollocks.