Earth ChangesS

Bizarro Earth

US: Nevada - Magnitude 4.0 earthquake strikes east of Reno

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.

Reno quake
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.

Evil Rays

5.5-Magnitude Quake Hits Eastern Turkey

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.

Igloo

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

Nome starts to feel 'one of the worst' storms on record in region; surges feared in towns
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© NOAAThis satellite image shows the storm system moving into western Alaska on Tuesday afternoon.
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.

Cloud Lightning

Oman to be hit with second cyclone system within a week

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.

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© Weather Underground
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.

Bizarro Earth

US: 'Beaver Tail' Tornado Hits Oklahoma

Twister
© Tornadovideosdotnet/YouTubeStorm chasers caught up with one tornado during the Oklahoma outbreak.
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.

Cloud Lightning

US: Storm bears down on Alaska's west coast

Gusts up to 80 mph as well as storm surge will test towns
Image
© GOES Satellite/NOAA
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.

Bizarro Earth

US: Severe Weather in Oklahoma - Tipton Tornado Footage

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.


Bizarro Earth

Eruption continues off the coast of El Hierro

The submarine volcanic eruption that began in mid-October in the Canary Islands continued in early November 2011. The volcanic island of El Hierro sits on a tectonic hot spot in the Atlantic Ocean off of North Africa and Spain.

The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired this natural-color image of El Hierro and a plume of volcanic material in the surrounding waters on November 2, 2011. The waters south of the island have been bubbling and fizzing with heat, sediment, bits of volcanic rock, and minerals for weeks, with the plume stretching tens of kilometers.

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© NASA, Jesse Allen and Robert SimmonALI data from the EO-1 Team, November 2, 2011.
The eruption is believed to be venting about 50 to 100 meters below the water surface, and it is warming the waters by as much as 10 degrees Celsius, according to geologist and blogger Erik Klimetti. The temperature of erupting basalt can be as hot as 1100 to 1200 degrees C, he notes.

Bizarro Earth

88 dead in Vietnam flooding as high waters inundate central and southern regions

Vietnamese officials say some of the country's worst flooding in a decade has killed 88 people and left four others missing in the central and southern regions.

Central Quang Nam province disaster official Nguyen Minh Tuan says recent floods have killed eight people there, leaving another missing as large swaths of land remain submerged.

The government says two other people have drowned in central Vietnam and three more are missing.

Tuan said Tuesday that large parts of Hoi An ancient town, a UNESCO heritage site popular with tourists, were inundated, but that no landmarks were under threat of damage.

Bizarro Earth

Death toll from Thailand floods rises past 500

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© AP Photo/Aaron FavilaThai Buddhist monks navigate a small boat along flooded streets in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011. The polluted black water continued its march into Bangkok and authorities ordered a spate of new evacuations in the sprawling capital.
The death toll from Thailand's worst floods in half a century climbed above 500, as advancing pools of polluted black water threatened Bangkok's subway system Monday and new evacuations were ordered in the sprawling capital.

The latest district added to the government's evacuation list late Sunday was Chatuchak, home to a large public park and an outdoor shopping zone that is a major tourist attraction. The Chatuchak Weekend Market was open but missing many vendors and customers Sunday as floodwaters poured past the market's eastern edge.

So far, Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra has ordered evacuations in 11 of Bangkok's 50 districts, and partial evacuations apply in seven more.

The evacuations are not mandatory, and most people are staying to protect homes and businesses. But the orders illustrate how far flooding has progressed into the city and how powerless the government has been to stop it.

Chatuchak, just a few miles (kilometers) north of Bangkok's still-unaffected central business zone, is home to the government's national emergency flood relief headquarters. It is housed in the Energy Ministry - a building now surrounded by water.