Earth Changes

Vietnam floods kill at least 100

Terra Daily / Agence France-Presse
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:49 UTC

The death toll from weeks of severe flooding in Vietnam has climbed to 100, the government said Wednesday, as a fresh deluge in central provinces prompted the evacuation of some 30,000 people.

The latest victims, 17 adults and five children, were killed when floods triggered by torrential rain swamped four central provinces in recent days, the national flood and storm control committee said.

Flooding in the country's southern Mekong Delta has already left 78 people dead. The UN said on Monday that 65 children under the age of 16 were among those killed in the delta region, most of them due to drowning.

As the floods battered parts of central Vietnam, newspapers ran pictures of inundated houses and streets in the town of Hoi An and the ancient city of Hue. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

US: Alaska Update - Evacuation order issued with 'epic' 100-mph storm expected to hit Alaska

MSNBC
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:32 UTC

'This will be an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm,' National Weather Service says

An "epic" storm is bearing down on western Alaska, the National Weather Service said, warning that it could be one of the worst on record for the state.

The city of Nome, one of the largest in western Alaska with 3,600 residents, issued an evacuation order late Tuesday with the storm, moving inland from the Aleutian Islands, expected to bring hurricane-force winds with gusts up to 100 miles per hour.

US: Oklahoma - Earthquake rattles Graham

Cherry Rushin
Graham Leader
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:29 UTC

For many in Young County, the house was a rockin' Saturday night.

Oklahoma's biggest earthquake in history, a 5.6 magnitude quake occurred late Saturday and originated near Sparks, Okla. east of Oklahoma City, more than 200 miles from Graham.

"The important thing to understand is that if you take the same magnitude earthquake and you put one here and one in California, it will be felt over a much larger area than the same magnitude in California," said Gary Patterson, geologist and director of education and outreach for the U.S. Center for Earthquake Research and Information.

He said because the geology of the central United States is different - the Earth's crust is harder, colder and denser than in California, the energy travels efficiently, like running a jack hammer on a concrete slab. "If you had a continuous slab, you'd feel it in your feet a greater distance away," Patterson said. He said 95 to 98 percent of the earthquakes in the world happen in places like California.

US: Nevada - Magnitude 4.0 earthquake strikes east of Reno

latimesblogs.latimes.com
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:09 UTC

A shallow, magnitude 4.0 earthquake was reported Tuesday night east of Reno, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 10:40 p.m. at a depth of 0 miles.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nevada quake's epicenter was 216 miles north of Las Vegas. It also was about 19 miles from Eureka, 25 miles from Duckwater, 32 miles from Willow Grove and 47 miles from Ely.

5.5-Magnitude Quake Hits Eastern Turkey

Xinhua
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 02:56 UTC

An earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale hit eastern Turkey early Wednesday at about 00: 05 local time (2205 GMT Tuesday), said Turkey's Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute on its website.

Turkey's institute said that the quake hit the Kaustuk village of Adilcevaz town of Bitlis province, but so far there was no reports on casualties.

The epicenter, with a depth of 9.40 km, was initially determined to be at 38.7143 degrees north latitude and 43.1330 degrees east longitude, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

US - Update: 85 mph gusts, sideways snow test Alaska's west coast

MSNBC
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:04 UTC

Nome starts to feel 'one of the worst' storms on record in region; surges feared in towns

A rapidly intensifying storm was hammering the west coast of Alaska on Tuesday and could become "one of the worst on record" for the region.

The storm was traveling at 60 mph, said Andy Brown, lead National Weather Service forecaster in Anchorage. It could reach the beachfront city of Nome by late Tuesday, with winds hitting 85 mph.

The storm was expected to produce a 10-foot surge, forcing dozens of coastal communities to make emergency preparations. Brown advised Bering Sea mariners and people living in coastal communities from Wales to Unalakleet to "prepare for a really nasty storm."

"It is very dangerous," Brown said. "Everybody is spreading the word to let them know this is a major storm."

That included the Coast Guard. "We are prestaging helicopters from Air Station Kodiak to parts of Western Alaska in response to severe weather advisories including hurricane force winds and high seas that are forecast all along the west coast of Alaska," said Capt. Daniel Travers.

The storm, described by Brown as "big, deep, low," was taking an unusual path through the northern and eastern Bering Sea.

The storm will likely be "life-threatening ... one of the worst on record," the service said.

"Essentially the entire west coast of Alaska is going to see blizzard and winter conditions: heavy snow, poor visibility, high winds," NWS forecaster Bob Fischer told alaskadispatch.com.

Oman to be hit with second cyclone system within a week

The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:15 UTC

Last week, Oman was hit by Cyclone Keila which left 14 people dead and Oman under nearly 2 meters of water in some places. Now, the country is about to be hit again with Cyclone 4- the fourth such cyclone to form in the Arabian Sea this year. Scientists say airborne pollution from South Asia is helping to brew monster storms in the Arabian Sea that have claimed thousands of lives and cost billions of dollars, say environmental scientists.

The scientists, led by Amato Evan of the University of Virginia, point the finger at a haze known as the 'Asian brown cloud', which hangs over parts of the northern Indian Ocean, India and Pakistan. Several kilometres thick, the cloud comprises brownish particles of carbon soot and sulphates spewed by factories, diesel exhaust and poorly-burnt biomass. "In addition to the multitude of known health impacts associated with aerosols that comprise the 'Asian brown cloud', we suggest that the increasing intensity of landfalling tropical cyclones is a consequence of regional emissions of pollution aerosols," they write in today's issue of Nature.

US: 'Beaver Tail' Tornado Hits Oklahoma

Charles Q. Choi
OurAmazingPlanet
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:57 UTC

At least one tornado - and most likely many more - ripped through southwest Oklahoma last night (Nov. 7) due to textbook twister weather, just days after the biggest earthquake in the state's history.

One twister has been confirmed by the National Weather Service (NWS) in Norman, Okla., and today, their storm damage survey teams will deploy to investigate the tornado tracks. They will most likely confirm other tornadoes and rate their strength.

"There were probably quite a few more than one tornado," said Mark Austin, a meteorologist at the NWS office in Norman.

Baseball-size hail pounded the state. Wind gusts up to 92 mph were reported. A twister flipped a storm-chaser's car, but he escaped unscathed.

Many buildings in Oklahoma are vulnerable to severe weather after a magnitude 5.6 earthquake rocked the state this past weekend. The earthquake was the largest in the state's history, and was bookended by a magnitude 4.7 foreshock and a magnitude 4.7 aftershock, which struck last night.

No twister-related injuries have been reported, but an Oklahoma State University extension office was destroyed in Tillman County, in the southwest part of the state.

US: Storm bears down on Alaska's west coast

MSNBC
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:10 UTC

Gusts up to 80 mph as well as storm surge will test towns

A rapidly intensifying storm was approaching the west coast of Alaska on Tuesday and could become "one of the worst on record" for the region, the National Weather Service said in an alert.

The alert, issued by the NWS in Fairbanks, said the "extremely dangerous" storm would lash coastal areas from Tuesday night into Wednesday. It was expected to be just west of the Bering Strait by Tuesday night and then move into the southern Chukchi Sea on Wednesday.

The storm will likely be "life-threatening ... one of the worst on record," the service said.

"Essentially the entire west coast of Alaska is going to see blizzard and winter conditions: heavy snow, poor visibility, high winds," Bob Fischer, lead NWS forecaster in Alaska, told alaskadispatch.com.

US: Severe Weather in Oklahoma - Tipton Tornado Footage

Kevin Allocca
StormChasingVideo.com / YouTube
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:39 UTC

Some areas of Oklahoma experienced hail and even tornadoes Monday as severe weather blanketed the region. A number of storm chasers were out capturing video of the tornadoes as they touched down and a number of videos have already been posted of the twisters.