Earth ChangesS


Snowman

US: Rare Snow for San Francisco and Los Angeles This Weekend

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Extremely rare opportunities for snow will continue for San Francisco and Sacramento into tonight, then even down into some valleys around Los Angeles Saturday.

The last time it snowed in downtown San Francisco was 1976.

As AccuWeather.com Western Expert Ken Clark has been stressing, this storm is a "big deal" for California.

Major disruptions to travel through passes, including all those leading into and out of the L.A. Basin, are expected with this unusually cold storm. The snow will be coming just before the Oscars kick off Sunday.

Travel-snarling snow will not be limited to just California, with parts of Arizona, Nevada and states farther east set to get blasted this weekend as well. Snow could even fall at the Accenture Match Play Championship at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Marana, Ariz., this weekend.

More details on how the storm will impact these southwestern states are provided in this news story.

Attention

Philippine scientists warn of more volcano explosions

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Mount Bulusan
Philippine scientists on Tuesday warned of more explosions from a restive volcano that has been spewing ash for two days after nearly three months of inactivity.

More than 100,000 people were affected by Monday's two ash explosions at Mount Bulusan volcano in Sorsogon province, 250 kilometers southeast of Manila.

At least 2,000 were forced to flee their homes in three towns at the foot of Mount Bulusan, according to civil defense authorities.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it had recorded 16 volcanic earthquakes since the ash explosions started Monday.

Umbrella

South America: State of emergency declared after floods affect 10,000 families

Cochabamba, Bolivia - Authorities in Peru and Bolivia declared a state of emergency on Tuesday due to massive flooding affecting both Andean countries.

In Bolivia, three people died and almost 7,000 were left homeless by the strong rains hitting the country for the past weeks.

One of the victims died in Cochabamba and the other two in Tarija.

Six of the nine Bolivian administrative regions have been affected and the Bolivian government has released a special 20 (m) million US dollar aid package for the victims.


Beaker

California Overdue for Massive Quake

The Southern California Earthquake Center (link), an international research collaborative headquartered at the Univ. of Southern California (link), has developed advanced simulation models of how the ground will shake in a magnitude 8.0 earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault.

Evidence pulled from sediment in three deep trenches suggests the south end of the San Andreas Fault is likely overdue for a massive quake based on historical averages.

This section of the fault has gone perhaps 140 years longer than the average 180 years between quakes, according to the research reported in the February issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.


The study also nixes the idea that lake changes in the now-dry region caused past quakes.

However, the findings do not change existing thinking about the threat of a major quake - potentially measuring 7.0 to 8.0 on the Richter scale - for Southern California, including the Los Angeles Basin. Projections of such a quake in recent years led to the nation's largest-ever drill, the Great Southern California ShakeOut, last year. The 2011 ShakeOut is set for Oct. 20. There's even a video projection of the quake's probable route created by the Southern California Earthquake Center. The last earthquake to originate from the area occurred in about 1690.

Radar

Study: Tremors can signal volcano eruption

U.S. and Canadian scientists say volcanoes produce distinctive tremors minutes, days or even weeks before they erupt, making prediction of events possible.

Researchers at Yale University, along with colleagues at the University of British Columbia, said no matter their size or shape, explosive volcanoes produce tremors at similar frequencies, a Yale release said Wednesday.

Prior to most explosive eruptions the volcanoes shake slightly but measurably, and the shaking becomes more dramatic during the eruption itself and is a primary precursor used by vulcanologists for forecasting an eruption.

"Tremor is very mysterious, most notably because it shakes at pretty much the same frequency in almost every explosive volcano, whether it's in Alaska, the Caribbean, New Zealand or Central America," Yale geology professor David Bercovici said.

Snowflake

Winter storm moving into Las Vegas area

High winds today, rain tonight and possibly some snow on Saturday for western foothills of Spring Mountains, forecasters say

Get ready for a mostly cloudy and breezy day, with winds gusting as high as 50 mph in the Las Vegas Valley.

Temperatures will climb to the low 60s today, but the National Weather Service has issued weather advisories and warnings as a winter storm rolls in tonight, bringing wet weather and snow for the weekend.

The wind advisory, which runs from 10 a.m. today until 1 a.m. Saturday, includes Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Summerlin, Nellis, Mountains Edge, Seven Hills and Blue Diamond, the weather service said.

Alarm Clock

Canada: Mount Baker Overdue for Eruption

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© Creative Commons photo, WikimediaMount Baker
Mount Baker is long overdue for an eruption, considering how much "wagging" is going on inside the volcano.
Mark Jellinek, a volcanologist at the University of British Columbia, told the Montreal Gazette that the Washington volcano is showing signs of activity, most notably that it's shaking and vibrating - "wagging," as those in the volcano business say - because of giant columns of magma moving from within.

Jellinek and Yale researcher David Bercovici published research in the journal Nature saying the movement could help predict when the mountain will explode.

Binoculars

Volcano Watch: Things are not always what they seem

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© USGS / B. GaddisAs lava entered the sea in July 2008, littoral explosions sent incandescent lava fragments skyward, building a small littoral cone on the flank of Kilauea
The Hawaiian Islands are home to numerous beautiful landforms. The islands themselves are volcanoes, but these volcanoes are speckled with secondary landforms.

For example, there are numerous cones, or puu, strewn along the coast from the "Road to the Sea" to the Kahuku fault scarp. Are these primary vents? If so, this region would be in Lava Flow Hazard Zone 1 because, by definition, Hazard Zone 1 includes primary vents. Yet this region is not designated Lava Flow Hazard Zone 1.

The "cones" along the coast are littoral cones. Littoral cones are a type of volcanic landform created when lava flows come into contact with the sea. Littoral is a word that means "of or pertaining to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean."

When seawater and lava interact, the water is converted instantly to steam. This transformation is so abrupt that steam-driven explosions occur. The explosions fragment the lava and propel lava bombs and tephra into the air. The fragments deposited on shore form the cones.

Attention

Philippines: 7 quakes recorded at Taal Volcano

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Taal Volcano
At least seven volcanic quakes were recorded around restive Taal Volcano in Batangas in the last 24 hours, state volcanologists said Friday.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology also noted weak steaming activity even as it said Alert Level 1 stays.

"Alert Level 1 is still enforced over Taal Volcano. This means that a hazardous eruption is not imminent. However, the public is reminded that the Main Crater should be strictly off-limits due to sudden occurrence of steam explosions and accumulation of toxic gases," it said in its Taal update.

Cloud Lightning

Heavy Rain, Winds Bring Flood Threat to U.S. Northeast

Flights to airports in parts of the U.S. Northeast were delayed as much as three hours or more as a storm packing 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain and wind gusts as high as 60 mph (97 kph) moved across the northern U.S.

Winter storm warnings range from Ohio to Maine, while high wind warnings and watches extend from North Carolina to Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service (link). Almost 1,100 flights were canceled today, the FlightAware tracking service reported.

A cold front will move through the New York City area about 3 p.m., raising sustained winds to as high as 30 mph with gusts of 60 mph or higher, said Lauren Nash, a weather service meteorologist in Upton, New York.