National Weather Service issues winter storm watch for Pa., Md., Va. and W. Va

It may still be October, with the World Series in full swing, but some parts of the East Coast could be in for an unexpected wintry blast of up to 6 inches of snow this weekend.


The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia from Friday night through Saturday afternoon as a storm blows through the region. Even more snow was expected to fall in higher elevations, including the Laurel Highlands and the Pocono Mountains, forecasters said.
Temperatures were expected to drop into the 30s across much of the Northeast by Friday morning. Boston got its first dusting late Thursday night.

Forecasters warned that the early snow could bring down tree limbs - something that Colorado got a dose of this week.

About 12,000 homes and businesses along Colorado's Front Range were still without power Friday morning following a fall snowstorm that downed trees and power lines. Outages were in metro Denver and Boulder and in Greeley, Fort Collins and Loveland to the north. The storm Tuesday and Wednesday brought about six inches of snow to Denver and about a foot to Greeley.

According to the United States Geological Survey, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake shook Sacramento late Wednesday night around 11:37 p.m. Did you feel it?

We sure did.

The quake could be felt as far away as Reno, Nevada, according to the USGS website.

The earthquake's epicenter is believed to have originated in Portola, California about 150 miles north east of Sacramento, though, according to the USGS, the official location has yet to be determined.

Fair Oaks Patch Facebook fans were quick to respond to our status update.

"It woke me up," said Fair Oaks native and Ground Zero Board Shop owner Brendan Mohr. "Never felt one before that and lived here for 28 years."

"Yep felt it," said Fair Oaks Patch Facebook fan, Danielle Parker.

Information is still coming in. As more is gathered we'll be sure to update this story.

Iceland's Katla volcano was hit by two swarms of tremors today. The strongest of the first cluster of small harmonic tremors which rattled the glacier was of a 2.9 magnitude.

A second, more intense swarm of tremors erupted shortly thereafter; including two 3.0 magnitude tremors - one inside the caldera of the volcano and one erupted on the parameter under the Mýrdalsjökull glacier.

Unrest at Katla has been intermittent but almost continuous since April. Geologists are monitoring activity at the volcano closely for any changes which could produce a hazardous flood-threat scenario for people living within the vicinity of the summit.

Six inches falls, cutting power to tens of thousands

A heavy, wet snowstorm descended on the Denver area early on Wednesday morning, causing widespread power outages and numerous car crashes and minor injuries in the Centennial State.


Just two days after record high temperatures, six inches of snow fell in the Denver area forcing the closure of roads in the mountains and eastern planes. Another two to five inches is expected before the storm moves out on Wednesday evening, according to the National Weather Service.

There were no fatalities but numerous car crashes and slide-offs causing minor injuries, the Colorado State Patrol said.

Some 87,000 customers east of the continental divide and north of Denver were without power, public utility company Xcel Energy, Inc. said in a statement.

Waters flood northern suburbs, swamp Don Muang airport and close in on city centre

By boat, truck and bamboo raft, residents evacuated Bangkok's outer suburbs on Thursday as rising floods - which have claimed close to 400 lives across Thailand since July - closed in on the centre of the capital.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, apparently close to tears as she briefed the media on Thailand's worst flooding for half a century, warned Bangkok's 12 million residents "we're fighting against the forces of nature" and said flood waters were damaging several of the city's dykes. Residents of Sai Mai district were told to evacuate to safer ground and Don Muang airport, location of the government's flood relief operations centre, was inundated.

"What we can do now is to manage it, so that it flows slowly, otherwise everybody will suffer," Yingluck told reporters, her voice trembling. "I haven't cried and I won't. I'll be strong to solve this problem for the Thai people. Right now we need to release floodwater to the sea as soon as possible and we need a quick rehabilitation plan."

With quake aftershocks continuing to rattle Junagadh, residents are experiencing a jittery Diwali. On Wednesday, as many as nine earthquake aftershocks were reported from the Sasan Gir area in the district.

According to Institute of Seismological Research (ISR), Gandhinagar, the tremors had a magnitude of 0.8 to 1.7 on the Richter scale. All nine aftershocks were reported 10-13 km south-east of Sasan Gir.

People are still spending sleepless nights in Junagadh region, which had experienced an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale on October 20. "Even a small tremor is scaring us these days. People rush out of their homes the moment they feel the earth shaking. However, people here now know that these are aftershocks and not earthquake,'' said Mensi Sariya, a resident of Talala town in Junagadh district.

What would the island be called? And who would own it? Spewing magma and growing in height, an underwater volcano off the Canary Island of El Hierro has captured the imagination of locals in recent weeks. It could eventually rise from the sea to create a new part of the archipelago.

It hasn't yet reached the surface, but residents of the Canary Islands have taken to the internet to suggest names for a potential new islet. There are already more than 500 suggestions. Favorites include "The Discovery," "Atlantis" and "The Best." Meanwhile Spanish newspapers are taking a different approach to the subject, debating who would take responsibility for the new territory.

"Speak My Will, Make Yourself a Prophet!"

At any given point in time there seems to be at least one charlatan running around predicting the imminent end of the world. In 2011, radio evangelist Harold Camping predicted the world's faithful would be 'Raptured' on 21 May 2011. Of course, the date turned out to be a total dud, prompting Camping to 'revise' his prediction to October 21. Needless to say, at the time of writing we weren't holding our breath, and with good reason. We might have passed out and missed another apocalyptic non-event!

But is there such a thing as valid prophecy or prediction of future events? The results of the Cassiopaean Experiment suggest that there is indeed such a thing, and more (e.g., remote access to unconventional knowledge, whether obscure or just previously unheard of). But the Cs have presented a very unique take on the subject of prediction. It is intimately tied with their cosmology and their view on 'time'. According to the Cs, our universe is a 'free will' universe and time is not a strictly linear 'one-off' phenomenon. That means the future is open. More on that below.

Most predictions are based on a pretty simplistic, and probably completely false, view of reality. According to this mechanistic idea, the universe was originally set in motion at some imaginary 'beginning' point in time by some equally imaginary 'first cause'. Religions have called this first cause 'God' while scientists have deemed it the 'Big Bang'. Once the machine has been set in motion, it obeys physical laws and plays itself out like clockwork. Theoretically, with enough data, every event in this mechanistic chain of cause and effect can be predicted. So when some prophet gives a prediction of a future event, he or she is basically operating on the assumption that because 'God' or some other divine being is omniscient and can see how everything will play itself out (and assuming this being actually exists, and that it is not simply pulling a cosmic practical joke on its subject), it's gotta be right. But things aren't that simple.

In the past 10 days, California has felt earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 and greater. While the quakes haven't caused any significant damage, they are an unnerving reminder that the state is due for the Big One.

Could a warning system help -- even if it only offered mere seconds to prepare? The state is banking on it.

California is setting up a network of seismic monitors that would detect the first vibrations from a quake, and transmit a warning to affected areas before the shaking gets violent. This could offer citizen precious seconds to brace for the shaking.

"It's matured to the point where it's sort of duct tape and bailing wire," said Doug Given, a USGS Geophysicist and coordinator for the earthquake early warning project. "It's not ready for public use yet ... But we want to move that into a more fully functional and robust system."

This isn't earthquake prediction -- that's not possible yet. While scientists can say where they think stronger quakes will happen, there is no way to forecast them the way meteorologists do the rain. But earthquakes aren't instantaneous, and that's where an early warning system can help.

The key is the different types of waves that make up a typical earthquake. Initially there is the P-wave (primary wave), which is a pressure wave like the sound waves in air. It is often felt as a sudden vertical motion (though not always). That arrives ahead of the S-waves and surface waves. Those are more like the waves in the ocean.

A day after 136 students collapsed at a Kompong Cham high school while standing at attention as punishment for not showing deference to the national flag, the local police chief offered a unique explanation for the mass fainting - trees.

"According to the hospital's analysis, the reason why the students fainted is [because of] the huge tree in the school compound and the farmland surrounding the school, which absorbed the oxygen," said Heng Meng, police chief of Chamkar Leu district, adding that the punishment could not be blamed as one of the teachers "also [had difficulty breathing] and felt dizzy".

Heng Phal Rith, school director of Bosknor high school in Chamkar Leu district, also cited the hospital's report in blaming the incident on a lack of oxygen, adding that he "did not punish the students. It is just a rumour".