Earth ChangesS


Attention

US, California: 3.6 Earthquake Shakes East County

Quake Centered Near Vallecito, About 16 Miles East-Southeast Of Julian

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake shook eastern San Diego County on Saturday, according to automated seismographs and computers operated by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake was centered near the village of Vallecito, about 16 miles east-southeast of Julian, or about 50 miles east-northeast of downtown San Diego. It hit at 1:49 p.m.

The quake was in a seismically-active valley along the Great Southern Overland Stage Route Of 1849, a bit northwest of the cluster of thousands of aftershocks from last year's magnitude 7.2 Mexicali earthquake.

Sun

Britain on course for hottest Easter since records began

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© M&YThousands spent the day on Brighton beach
Britain is on course for the hottest Easter since records began in 1960 and the warmest April in more than a century.

Millions of holidaymakers flocked to beaches across the country to make the most of the unseasonably warm weather.

But forecasters warned the glorious sunshine will be short-lived as temperatures look set to drop gradually throughout the week, starting on Sunday.

Some parts of the country were even hit by torrential downpours on Saturday afternoon.

In Sheffield, South Yorkshire, some roads became impassable as hailstorms fell and flood water formed several inches deep.

Parts of Kent, London, east Wales, the East Midlands, and Yorkshire were also hit by heavy rain.

Forecasters said the outlook for the royal wedding on Friday remained uncertain but there could well be brief downpours in London during the day.

Cloud Lightning

St. Louis airport may reopen Sunday after tornado; cities damaged

Workers at the St. Louis airport, ravaged by a powerful tornado that smashed windows and rocked airplanes parked at gates, scrambled to have it ready to resume flight operations Sunday, officials said.

The tornado was part of a storm that slashed through metropolitan St. Louis Friday evening, damaging hundreds of homes and closing the airport.

When the tornado hit Bridgeton it had an EF4 rating, indicating it had winds of 166 to 200 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service. As of 3 p.m. Saturday, survey teams had not reached the airport, which is near Bridgeton, and made an official assessment of the tornado's strength there.

When the tornado hit Bridgeton it had an EF3 rating, indicating it had winds of 136 to 165 miles per hour and is considered severe, according to the National Weather Service. The reading at the airport, which is near Bridgeton, may be different.

Umbrella

Rains continue to lash Bangalore

Heavy rains lashed the city for the second successive day today, inundating low lying areas, uprooting trees in some regions and causing traffic jam on all the main roads.

Incessant rains have uprooted trees in some areas while some low lying areas including Ejipura, parts of Mysore road and Goripalya have been inundated. There has also been water logging in areas including Sriramapuram and Okalipuram, officials of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike told PTI.

Better Earth

Earth Will Recover Faster from Global Warming Show Prehistoric Evidence

A team of scientists has analysed evidence from a prehistoric event and came to the conclusion that the Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought.

The study led by a Purdue University team showed that when faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, the Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air.

This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle - though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, who led the study, said.

"We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought," Bowen, who also is a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, said.

"We still don't know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent," he explained.

Cloud Lightning

12 Tornadoes Confirmed In Central Ohio


Cloud Lightning

US: 'Mothership' supercell cloud seen over Mississippi State University on Wednesday

Severe thunderstorms are hitting the Mississippi area hard, with large hail and damaging winds being reported.
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Ryan Hoke of MSU sends this picture on Twitter of what looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. We didn't know what it was so we asked our meteorologist.

"What you are seeing is referred to as the mothership, the mesocyclone of the rotating base and mid levels of a thunderstorms", Senior Meteorologist Kevin Martin said. "Today was excellent for those, but only isolated tornadoes would pop. Sometimes the most pretty storms do not produce tornadoes!"

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake with Magnitude of 6.0 Hits Off Coast of Honshu, Japan

A powerful 6.0-magnitude tremor has stuck near the eastern coast of Japan's Honshu Island.

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The US Geological Survey website says the earthquake occurred at 10:12 am GMT on Saturday at a depth of 38.9km, 160km east of the city of Morioka. There have been no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The latest tremor comes along the series of aftershocks that followed the March 11 mega earthquake and ensuing tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast.

Cloud Lightning

US: Reported tornado hits St. Louis, Missouri airport

Heavy winds from a severe storm caused significant damage, shattered windows and sent debris raining down on passengers at an airport in St. Louis Friday night.


The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is closed indefinitely while officials investigate the damage, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told reporters.

"There was a reported sighting of a tornado. Although that has not been confirmed, that storm caused significant damage to the airport," he said.

Bizarro Earth

US: Shark deaths in Redwood City, California spur search for cause

leopard shark
© Lance Iversen / The ChronicleA dying leopard shark thrashes around in a Redwood Shores slough. At least a dozen such sharks have been found.

At least a dozen leopard sharks have been found dead or dying within the past several days in bayfront lagoons in Redwood City, putting local researchers on alert for some kind of infection or toxic discharge in San Francisco Bay.

The deaths, including both juvenile and adult sharks, appear isolated and far less serious than previous die-offs in 2006 and 2007, which left shark carcasses strewn all over the bay, officials said. Shark experts fear there may be more of the strikingly patterned creatures floundering in Bay Area waterways and succumbing to pollution and disease.

"In the last decade, we've seen an increase in the animals trapped in culverts and pumps that used to be tidal canals or poisoned by periodic pollution events," said Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz group that tracks sharks in Monterey and San Francisco bays.