Earth Changes
Update: Preliminary analyses from NOAA/NWS Weather Prediction Center as of midday Thursday show that Grayson deepened by an incredible 59 millibars in just 24 hours, which would be a record for midlatitude storms in this part of the Northwest Atlantic. The central pressure at 10 AM EST was analyzed by WPC at 951 mb.

Residents examine a crack in the ground after a mysterious bang in Alberta Beach, Alta., Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018
Some residents of a village west of Edmonton awoke earlier this week to a very loud bang, and in the morning they reported cracks in homes and the ground.
Alberta Beach mayor Jim Benedict says people thought something had hit their houses -- or that something had fallen on their houses -- very early Tuesday morning.
Alberta Energy Regulator spokesman Jordan Fitzgerald says staff at the regulator's Alberta Geological Survey confirm there were two seismic events of approximately 2.0 magnitude late Monday night.
The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) has put the strength of the tremor at 5.1 magnitude. The epicenter of the earthquake was located some 36 km east of Tokyo.
More cancellations are expected Friday as the storm lingers in New England.
Thousands of New Yorkers were left in the cold as parts of the city were blanketed under more than a foot of snow. All inbound and outbound flights at JFK and LaGuardia airports were temporarily suspended.
Winter Storm Grayson hit New York City hard Thursday, causing more than 6,500 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartments to lose power. Six NYCHA developments, which house more than 15,000 people, all lost heat, hot water, or both at some point, according to New York City Patch.
In the last 48 hours, the southwestern State in the US has been rocked by eight tremors, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
All but three of the tremors have come along the San Andreas fault - a deadly line which runs through California and is one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
The strongest of the quakes came in Berkeley, near the east coast of California, which measured 4.4 on the Richter scale.
Californian residents took to social media to share their experiences of the earthquakes, with many fearing that the worst is yet to come.
Comment: Nobody knows when the dreaded 'big one' will come - yet it will come.
- The San Andreas' sister faults are active in Northern California
- Enormous earthquakes occur on both sides of the Pacific: Experts warn that San Andreas could "unzip all at once"
- Signs of past mega-quakes show wide-ranging implications of major rupture on California's San Andreas fault
"The volcano emitted ash as high as 5.5 km [above sea level.] The volcano itself is 4.75 km high," the response team specified. The ash spread 92 km in a north-western direction from the volcano.
This is the third time Klyuchevskoy erupted ash in 2018. On January 3, it spewed up ash as high as 6 km, and on January 4 an orange hazard code was declared for aircraft after the second eruption at the same height.
Olhão harbour master, Nunes Ferreira, said the sperm whale was towed to port at high tide by a life boat.
He said the whale, which measured 8.5 metres could be the same one that was beached on Monte Gordo beach on Sunday.
A sperm whale was beached on Sunday in Monte Gordo, but locals and the maritime police managed to get it back out to sea.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said flooding from the "historic high tide" prompted the deployment of National Guard high-water rescue vehicles to aid residents and stranded vehicles, the Associated Press reports.
Philadelphia authorities announced a death Thursday as the storm made its sheer power felt by millions.
Local police told AP that a passenger was killed after a vehicle was unable to stop at the bottom of an icy, steep hill and crashed into a commuter train. The driver managed to escape, but the passenger remained inside as the car went through a gate at the railroad crossing. Police later discovered the body along the tracks.
As tides rose in the afternoon hours, coastal areas saw flooding in addition to the wintry precipitation from the storm.
Storm surge poured into the streets in towns like Scituate, Massachusetts, flooding the roads with partially frozen salt water. In the town of Rockport, The Weather Channel storm tracker Jim Cantore watched as water levels rose quickly Thursday afternoon and threatened to wash away several parked cars that were left behind.
Comment: According to the Weather Channel, Winter Storm Grayson has undergone what meteorologists call bombogenesis, defined by a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure of 24 millibars or more in a period of 24 hours.
In over four decades-worth of data compiled by Dr. Andrea Lopez Lang from SUNY-Albany and David Roth from NOAA's Weather Prediction Center, this bombogenesis rate of 59 millibars in 24 hours through 10 a.m. EST Thursday was a record magnitude for this part of the western Atlantic Ocean, dating to 1976.
According to NOAA's ensemble tracks forecast, Grayson's central pressure will drop further today. For comparison, past Northeast storms such as Nemo (February 2013), Juno (January 2015) and Stella (March 2017) had minimum central pressures in the 970s millibars.
See also: North America enters a freeze so deep even the penguins are panicking














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