Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

USA - Winter returns: Wind, rain, snow

It's turn back the calendar week. Back to November.

A series of storms will rush into Western Washington from the Pacific this week, bringing dreadful weather.

Western Washington will be under a wind advisory from noon to 9 p.m. Monday. Expect winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts of 45 mph.

Expect rain Monday and through the week. The National Weather Service has forecast temperatures in the lower 50s through the week and a chance of rain each day.

No day looks to be dry, but Tuesday, with a 30 percent chance of rain, may be the least miserable.

The weather systems will bring more snow to the mountains, where there is a winter weather advisory until 5 a.m. Tuesday.

X

Landslide kills at least 10 in southern Philippines

The army took over rescue efforts Friday after a landslide swept through a small mountain village in the southern Philippines, killing at least 10 people and leaving dozens missing.

Inclement weather and rocky terrain made it difficult to reach the community, according to Lt. Ari Ben Hernaez, who said the death toll is expected to increase.

Bizarro Earth

Strong, shallow earthquake hits eastern Indonesia

A strong and shallow earthquake hit eastern Indonesia early Monday, sending residents, hotels guests and patients from a hospital fleeing in panic. Some homes were damaged, with windows shattered and walls cracked, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.2 quake was centered 45 miles (75 kilometers) southeast of Kendari, a town on Sulawesi island, at a depth of just 6 miles (9 kilometers). It was followed by three strong aftershocks.

Andre Wijaya, a geological official in Kendari, said the earth shook violently beneath his feet.

"Women and children were screaming as they ran from their homes and into nearby fields," said Lt. Laode Surachman, a police officer in Kendari, adding that hotels emptied out and patients in a hospital were evacuated to safety. "Even officers taking part in morning roll call scattered and fled."

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that make the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

A giant quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, half of them in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia - Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Sulawesi

Indon Quake_240411
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 23:07:51 UTC

Monday, April 25, 2011 at 07:07:51 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
4.593°S, 122.808°E

Depth:
9.4 km (5.8 miles)

Region:
SULAWESI, INDONESIA

Distances:
75 km (46 miles) SSE of Kendari, Sulawesi, Indonesia

99 km (61 miles) NNE of Baubau, Sulawesi, Indonesia

534 km (331 miles) NW of DILI, Timor-Leste

1240 km (770 miles) NW of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

Bizarro Earth

Orange Volcanic Alert on Kamchatka

Kamchatka volcano
© Flickr.com/robnunn/cc-by-ncKamchatka volcano.
The Shiveluch volcano has spewed a new plume of ash 7.5 km above the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. The ash cloud sprawled 143 km to the northwest.

The authorities announced the orange alert level warning aircrafts about volcanic dust and gases in the air. At present, there is no risk to human health.

Shiveluch, is one of Kamchatka's largest volcanoes. It rises more than 3.200 meters above sea level.

Info

US: Preliminary magnitude-3.1 quake rumbles in Arkansas

The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded a preliminary magnitude-3.1 earthquake near Greenbrier in central Arkansas.

The quake was recorded at 7:20 a.m. Saturday three miles northeast of Greenbrier - about 35 miles north of Little Rock. Greenbrier police say there weren't any reports of injuries or damage. A magnitude-2.2 quake was recorded in the same area 20 minutes later.

Seismologists have recorded some 1,000 quakes in the region since September - including a magnitude 4.7 in February that was the strongest earthquake recorded in Arkansas in 35 years.

The latest quakes come after two natural gas exploration companies - Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Clarita Operating LLC - agreed this week to keep two nearby injection wells shutdown as researchers study whether the operations are linked to the quakes.

Source: The Associated Press

Attention

US, California: 3.6 Earthquake Shakes East County

Quake Centered Near Vallecito, About 16 Miles East-Southeast Of Julian

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake shook eastern San Diego County on Saturday, according to automated seismographs and computers operated by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake was centered near the village of Vallecito, about 16 miles east-southeast of Julian, or about 50 miles east-northeast of downtown San Diego. It hit at 1:49 p.m.

The quake was in a seismically-active valley along the Great Southern Overland Stage Route Of 1849, a bit northwest of the cluster of thousands of aftershocks from last year's magnitude 7.2 Mexicali earthquake.

Sun

Britain on course for hottest Easter since records began

Image
© M&YThousands spent the day on Brighton beach
Britain is on course for the hottest Easter since records began in 1960 and the warmest April in more than a century.

Millions of holidaymakers flocked to beaches across the country to make the most of the unseasonably warm weather.

But forecasters warned the glorious sunshine will be short-lived as temperatures look set to drop gradually throughout the week, starting on Sunday.

Some parts of the country were even hit by torrential downpours on Saturday afternoon.

In Sheffield, South Yorkshire, some roads became impassable as hailstorms fell and flood water formed several inches deep.

Parts of Kent, London, east Wales, the East Midlands, and Yorkshire were also hit by heavy rain.

Forecasters said the outlook for the royal wedding on Friday remained uncertain but there could well be brief downpours in London during the day.

Cloud Lightning

St. Louis airport may reopen Sunday after tornado; cities damaged

Workers at the St. Louis airport, ravaged by a powerful tornado that smashed windows and rocked airplanes parked at gates, scrambled to have it ready to resume flight operations Sunday, officials said.

The tornado was part of a storm that slashed through metropolitan St. Louis Friday evening, damaging hundreds of homes and closing the airport.

When the tornado hit Bridgeton it had an EF4 rating, indicating it had winds of 166 to 200 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service. As of 3 p.m. Saturday, survey teams had not reached the airport, which is near Bridgeton, and made an official assessment of the tornado's strength there.

When the tornado hit Bridgeton it had an EF3 rating, indicating it had winds of 136 to 165 miles per hour and is considered severe, according to the National Weather Service. The reading at the airport, which is near Bridgeton, may be different.

Umbrella

Rains continue to lash Bangalore

Heavy rains lashed the city for the second successive day today, inundating low lying areas, uprooting trees in some regions and causing traffic jam on all the main roads.

Incessant rains have uprooted trees in some areas while some low lying areas including Ejipura, parts of Mysore road and Goripalya have been inundated. There has also been water logging in areas including Sriramapuram and Okalipuram, officials of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike told PTI.