The USGS placed the epicenter in the Log Hill Village area.

Ron Semrod lives between Placerville and the Blue Jay restaurant in the Applebaugh Subdivision. Yesterday afternoon he heard a sound rippling up the valley and then back down, "like thunder when it rips across the sky."

He felt his house shake. At first he thought something big had fallen against the house. But, he said, "If something fell, it was the size of a truck."

What he felt, it turned out, was the biggest earthquake to hit Colorado in some time.

"I could see the house shake. It looked like it moved," Semrod said. "It's the strongest I've ever felt."

The USGS said the quake could be felt in Ridgway, Montrose, Placerville, Telluride and other areas.

What exactly you felt yesterday afternoon seemed to depend both on where you were and also how in-tune you are to tremors.

Inside the Telluride Daily Planet's offices, production manager Nancy Matthews, who lived in Southern California for 20 years, distinctly noticed a "serious bump." But a native Coloradan at a desk near her, unaccustomed to swaying floors, didn't register a thing.

The center was 25 miles southwest of Montrose, but the staff at the Montrose Daily Press said the earth stood still.

In Ridgway, even closer to the center, Donnis Parrie and the crew at the True Grit Caf/ never felt the ground move.

"Nothing shaking here," Parrie said.

Colorado is generally a geologically calm area, free of raucous seismic activity.

The largest earthquake in Colorado's history was a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that hit in 1882, said John Bellini, geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey in Golden.

"They're not common in Colorado," Bellini said. "But we do get them from time to time."

The Rocky Mountains are laced with small seismic faults, many of which haven't even been mapped, Bellini said. There's no telling which fault caused yesterday's quake.

"There is a fault there, but as far as knowing which fault it is, there's no way," he said.

Earthquakes of this magnitude happen three or four times a year in Colorado, Bellini said.

On Sept. 9, a 3.6 magnitude earthquake hit the south-central part of the state.

A 3.3 magnitude earthquake isn't big enough to cause any real damage, Bellini said.

"Really you need about a 4.5 to do any damage," said Bellini. "Then you start to see things get knocked off shelves and things."

But it was plenty to put a scare into Ron Semrod.

"It was spooky," he said. "I wondered if I was gonna fall into a hole."

And it was enough tectonic shifting for Semrod for a while.

"I think a 3 is about as much as I wanna feel," Semrod said. "I can't imagine a 7."

The quake, which happened around islands claimed by both Japan and Russia, was 100 kilometres deep, the agency said.

There were no immediate reports of damage and no concerns about a tsunami, the agency said.

The Nemuro area experienced minor tsunamis last week after one of the biggest earthquakes in recent times hit near the northeastern Russian-ruled Kuril islands.

Japan lies at the junction of four tectonic plates and endures about 20 per cent of the world's most powerful earthquakes, which frequently jolt Tokyo and other major cities.

One Mill Creek man is lucky to be alive after a surviving a brush with lightning. It happened just as he was arriving home. Al Fitz had just driven through the thunderstorm and was getting home after picking up his daughter. He never made it inside.

Lightning hit a tall evergreen next to his house and spiraled down the trunk. It left a 40-foot burn streak down the side of the tree.

The lightning then shot under ground just as Fitz hopped out of his truck. When the electricity reached him, he was thrown unconscious right out of his driveway.

"My daughter was still in the truck and I saw a flash and was thrown about 7 feet from the truck," Fitz said. "I woke up and saw my daughter still in the truck and got her out of there and ran over to my neighbors house."

Fitz was taken to the hospital by ambulance. A fire crew actually saw the lightning strike from several miles away before getting the 911 call from his neighbor.

Before leaving for the hospital, Fitz said he felt scared, shaky and still in shock. Fortunately, he is expected to make a full recovery.

We're also told that flash hit a transformer in the Magnolia area, setting the pole on fire. Debris from the transformer explosion broke a window in a building under construction. Two other windows nearby were also knocked out.

Lightning also hit several other power poles around the Seattle area, causing localized power outages.

The storm hit the Kitsap Peninsula first, then moved into the Seattle and Everett area. It was moving toward the east/northeast into northeastern King and southern Snohomish County. We had reports of lightning and hail in Port Orchard, and hail big enough to cover the ground in Edmonds.

Somehow, this particular storm mostly missed Sea-Tac Airport though, which got a little rain, but not enough to measure. So this particular storm didn't break our much-anticipated record for wettest month ever in Seattle since records have been kept at the airport. But following showers Tuesday night were enough to finally push us over the top.

As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, Seattle was at 12.94" of rain for the month of November, breaking the all-time record of 12.92" set in January of 1953.

(It should be said that Seattle has recorded a month of 15.33" of rain in December 1933. That was back when records were kept at the Downtown Federal Building. The official reporting station was since moved to Sea-Tac Airport and observations are no longer kept at the federal building, so it's apples and oranges to link the two together.)

Unofficially, we've counted as many as 10 storms that have blown through the area, although defining, say, what counts as one storm and what might count as two storms or parts of the same storm, is somewhat arbitrary.

Nonetheless, Seattleites soldier on. It was nice to see that despite the seemingly never-ending rain, all but one person walking around the Seattle Center today still wasn't carrying an umbrella.

So far, it seems Seattle is going to be the only city that is a shoe-in to break its official all-time monthly record. (Tacoma might set an unofficial record. More on that below).

The way most of the storms have come ashore this month, the largest plumes of moisture have been focused from Seattle southward. Forks isn't too far above normal for the month and doesn't even rate in the Top 20 wettest months yet. Bellingham is also quite a ways away.

Here's what we have so far as of 6 p.m. Tuesday:

SEATTLE:
This month: 12.94" (1st place)
Record: 12.92" (January 1953)

OLYMPIA:
This month: 16.32" (2nd place)
Record: 19.84" (January 1953)

FORKS:
This month: 16.17" (not even Top 20)
Record: 29.14 (November 1983)

BELLINGHAM:
This month: 6.89" (nowhere close to record)
Record: 11.60" (November 1990)

HOQUIAM:
This month: 17.68" (5th place)
Record: 23.46" (January 2006)

For these cities below, we're not quite comparing apples to apples, because their current official measuring station either hasn't been around long enough to get a good historical context, or doesn't report their totals daily to know where they are this month.

So we'll compare their current observation with their nearest historical observation point. (In other words, these wouldn't be official records, but more of a "general idea" of how wet it's been)

TACOMA:
This month (Tacoma Narrows Airport): 15.23"
Highest previous total found (Downtown, 1948-1981): 11.63" (January 2006)
Highest previous total at Narrows Airport (1999-2006): 12.36 (January 2006)

EVERETT:
This month (Paine Field): 7.34"
Highest previous total found (Everett Jr. College) 9.77" (January 1971)
Highest previous total at Paine Field (1998-2006): 8.39" (November 1999)

SHELTON:
This month (Shelton Airport): 23.15"
Highest previous total at city observation point (before 2000): 23.86 (missing one day of data; January 1953)
Highest previous total at Shelton Airport (since 1999): 23.49"

BREMERTON:
This month: 22.82" ** this is not including November 3rd. Unfortunately, Bremerton's data from that date is corrupted, and it was a really rainy day, so we're not sure how much rain they have this month. It's likely around 24".)
Highest previous total: 20.08" (January 1953)

Next month, the 113 centimetre-tall robot will be selling mobile phones at a store, said Akiko Sakurai, a spokeswoman at the company, Ubiquitous Exchange.

Ubiko can be hired as a temporary worker for two hours for US$890.

"We see this as serious business. There are jobs that robots are better at," Sakurai said Wednesday. "People do develop an attachment with the robot, and it's lovable."

The US$255,000 Ubiko, which comes mounted with a camera and infared sensors, greets customers with a nasal electronic voice, shows DVDs with the projector in its head and hands out balloons and other goods with wireless remote-controllable metallic arms, she said.

Ubiko is short for "ubiquitous computing" and "ubiquitous company," but also sounds like a Japanese female name, which often end with "ko."

Tmsuk, the Japanese manufacturer that made the robot, sold three last month to a hospital, where they are working as full-time, rather than temporary, receptionists and guides, said company spokeswoman Rie Sudo.

One of the receptionist robots at the hospital has a touch-panel on its body, and visitors can use it to get directions for where they want to go, and has been programmed to greet visitors.

"Just give it electricity, and a robot can work for long hours, even doing repetitive work, and you don't have to worry about labour laws," Sudo said.

Japan's declining birth rate means that in coming years it could face a labour shortage, and some experts believe that robots could be part of the answer in resolving that problem.

Robots are very popular in Japan partly because of the popularity of "manga" comics and animation that portray the robot as a friend and aide to humans.