According to the fire chief, no survivors or bodies have been found since Monday night. He said the goal was to conduct three searches of each location just to be sure. Emergency crews have had trouble navigating the devastated neighbourhoods because there were no street signs remaining. Some used mobile phones and GPS to navigate. Heavy-lifting equipment was deployed under bright floodlights as the operation continued overnight and throughout Tuesday. Rescuers braved the danger of electrocution and fire from downed power lines, as well as ruptured natural gas lines.
The storm, which also killed nine children, has meanwhile been upgraded to to EF-5, the most powerful level of twister. Packing winds of at least 200mph (320km/h), the tornado razed a swathe of the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore. The death toll may rise above 24 as some bodies could have been taken directly to funeral homes. The body count was revised down from 51 after the state medical examiner said some victims may have been counted twice in the confusion.
The National Weather Service uses the word "incredible'' to describe the force of such a storm. The NWS said the twister's path was 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide. For about 45 minutes on Monday afternoon, the storm battered the suburb of about 55,000 people. Emergency workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital, while 237 people were known to have been injured.
Seven of the nine children killed in the tornado died at Plaza Towers Elementary, where the storm ripped off the roof and knocked down walls as students and teachers cowered in hallways and bathrooms. Officials said they were still trying to account for a handful of children not found at the schools who may have gone home early with their parents. That primary school and one other hit by the storm, Briarwood Elementary, did not have safe-rooms that protect against tornadoes. More than 100 schools in Oklahoma had been provided with state-funded safe rooms, but not those two.
Residents were given 16 minutes' warning before the tornado touched down - officials said such advisories were usually issued eight to 10 minutes ahead of a twister. Oklahoma's insurance commissioner said the cost of the storm would exceed that of the 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, that killed 158 people. The Joplin twister caused $3bn (£2bn) in damage.
The storm left a tangle of ruined buildings, piles of broken wood, overturned and crushed cars. Many houses in the area are built on hard ground without basements, so many residents had struggled to find shelter. Oklahoma City lies inside the so-called Tornado Alley stretching from South Dakota to central Texas, an area particularly vulnerable to storms. The city of Moore was hit by a severe tornado in May 1999, which had the highest winds ever recorded on Earth, over 310mph.
Photos
about to be devoured by a great white shark
or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.**
Axel Rose
LARGEST QUAKES -
Live Seismograms - Worldwide (update every 30 minutes)
This morning -
None 5.0 or higher.
Yesterday -
5/21/13 -
5.8 CENTRAL PERU
5.2 SOUTHERN PERU
5.3 OFF COAST OF AISEN, CHILE
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.2 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
6.1 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.6 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.4 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.2 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.8 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.8 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
6.0 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.2 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
5.5 SOUTHWESTERN RYUKYU ISL., JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5/20/13 -
5.0 MINAHASA, SULAWESI, INDONESIA
5.6 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.6 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
6.4 OFF COAST OF AISEN, CHILE
VOLCANOES -
Volcano Webcams
The Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City is still rumbling. - Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center says seismic activity shook the area early Sunday and the mountain also emitted gas, ash and glowing-hot rocks. 'Popo' has been especially active in the past three weeks which prompted the authorities to raise the alarm level to 'yellow,' a step before a 'red' alert, under which residents living nearby would have to be evacuated.
Eruption of Alaska volcano prompts cancellations of some area commuter, cargo flights - The eruption that started last week at Pavlof, at the far western end of the Alaska Peninsula, is still going strong. The volcano eruption is prompting regional airlines to cancel flights to nearby communities, including a town that reported traces of fallen ash. Pavlof released ash plumes as high as 22,000 feet over the weekend. The lava flows and fountains are continuing, with steam-and-ash plumes reported to be reaching 5-6 km (20,000+ feet).
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical storms.
The killer cyclone that struck Bangladesh six days ago damaged the homes of tens of thousands of people and destroyed their crops, aid groups said, warning that many coastal communities were still in need. Cyclone Mahasen slammed into Bangladesh's low-lying southern coast late Thursday, also striking parts of Myanmar. Downgraded to a tropical storm as winds weakened and eventually fizzled over India, the storm still killed a reported 45 people.
Weird Gravity Waves Pulse From a Tropical Cyclone - Last Monday, May 13, the Suomi NPP satellite captured a fascinating image of Tropical Cyclone Mahasen as it moved northeast over the Bay of Bengal. The clouds of the storm itself weren’t optically visible in the darkness of a nearly new Moon, but lightning flashes within it were, as well as the eerie ripples of atmospheric gravity waves spreading outwards from its center.
Gravity waves are the oscillations of air parcels by the lifting force of bouyancy and the restoring force of gravity. These waves propagate vertically as well as horizontally, and actively transport energy and momentum from the troposphere to the middle and upper atmosphere. Gravity waves are caused by a variety of sources, including the passage of wind across terrestrial landforms, interaction at the velocity shear of the polar jet stream and radiation incident from space. They are found to affect atmospheric tides in the middle atmosphere and terrestrial weather in the lower atmosphere.
Atmospheric gravity waves aren’t to be confused with gravitational waves in space, which are created by very dense, massive objects (like white dwarf stars or black holes) orbiting each other closely. When the image was captured, Tropical Cyclone Mahasen was moving north through the Indian Ocean along a track that placed landfall along the Bangladesh coast. As it moved off the coast of India, Suomi’s VIIRS Day-Night Band was able to resolve lightning flashes towards the center of the storm, along with mesopheric gravity waves emanating outwards like ripples in a pond. Such gravity waves are of particular interest to air traffic controllers so assist in identifying areas of turbulence.
Over the course of the next few days Mahasen weakened into a deep depression, making landfall as a tropical storm on Bangladesh on May 16. In preparation for the storm large-scale evacuations were recommended for parts of Myanmar; however, this resulted in the overcrowding of boats and several vessels capsized. Suomi is the first satellite specifically designed to collect data to improve short-term weather forecasts and increase understanding of long-term climate change.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
Tornado Alley: Patterns without predictability - The enormous tornado that struck in Moore, Oklahoma, on Monday has added a chilling entry into the list of the deadliest tornadoes on record. The event has many recalling a record-breaking tornado that struck in precisely the same region in 1999, during which the fastest winds ever seen on the Earth's surface were recorded: over 500km/h (310mph).
Tornadoes remain the most viscerally terrifying example of extreme weather, combining an extraordinary capacity for damage with a stubborn unpredictability. Broadly, they arise in the same conditions that spawn the biggest thunderstorms. The geography and climatology in the U.S. interior provide for just this situation with great regularity; three-quarters of the tornadoes that happen on Earth happen in North America. A disproportionate number of those occur in a region in the nation's centre, widely known as "Tornado Alley".
It is a loosely defined area; the state of Texas gets on average the highest annual number of tornadoes, but Kansas, further north, gets the highest number of the more violent storms. In simplest terms, warm, wet air blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico meets cold, dry air coming from the massive Rocky Mountain range, hemmed in by air masses on the eastern part of the country. That frequently creates the conditions for grand thunderstorms.
What is evident only in the light of years' worth of data is that there are some patterns in tornado occurrence. Monday's tornado came during the annual peak of tornado activity in the region; according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , tornado occurrences in the last 30 years strongly peak in the months of May and June. Curiously, they also peak in time of day, tending to occur more often in late afternoon hours (Monday's event occurred at a time on the rising edge of this peak, at about 15:00 local time).
There are more tornadoes in total being recorded in recent years, mainly due to better reporting and fewer truly unpopulated areas where they would go unseen. Yet there is no indication that the frequency of large tornadoes is increasing. While 2011 saw the largest number of storms above EF1 among records dating back to 1954, 2012 was among the lowest. And the average number of fatalities caused by tornadoes has been steadily declining since 1925 - before Monday's storm, only one of the 25 deadliest tornadoes occurred in the last 58 years, and most of that list stretches back further than a century.
Much of this can be attributed to better building codes and increasingly advanced warning systems in affected areas - the National Weather Service in Oklahoma issued a warning 16 minutes before the storm hit. But such warning systems can only give a rough indication of an area in which conditions are almost certain to spark tornadoes; what they cannot provide is a precise prediction of where a tornado will touch down.
HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
U.K. Apples and pears shaping up to enjoy strong harvest - Last year's poor summer hit UK fruit growers, especially orchard owners, very hard, but UK fruit growers could enjoy a much improved harvest of apples and pears this year. The recent cold weather, a key part of a successful fruit harvest, could see fruit-filled branches in the autumn.
Poor weather conditions during 2012 saw British fruit yields down by up to 50%. However, the prolonged cold weather this year has not helped cereal growers, who face another tough year. An assessment suggested that the growing season was about EIGHT WEEKS LATE, but the recent warming has seen it reduce this deficit to about three to four weeks. "We are hopeful of a good harvest this year as long as this reasonable weather keeps up during flowering." The return of cold weather in some parts of the country, which have experienced ground frost, is not likely to jeopardise this.
But there would be concern if there was air frost (when the air temperature 1.25m above the ground fell to 0C (32F) or below). "We don't want an air frost, and we certainly do not want it falling beneath -2C. Kent, Worcestershire and Herefordshire are probably through this period now, so the crop should be set." "I would have thought they have got away with it because I do not remember hearing of any serious air frost in the past 14 days."
Apple trees are generally in blossom for about 14 days, during which time the flowers are pollinated - primarily by wild bees and hoverflies. Most varieties will not produce any apples unless they are pollinated, and pollinated with pollen from a different variety of apple tree so it is important that the trees are in flower at the same time.
A bumper harvest depended on a number of natural milestones being achieved over the course of 12 months. "We are looking for a good autumn that initiates plenty of flowers, so we want a sunny, dry autumn, and then we want a nice cold period during the winter. We have had plenty of cold this season. Then we want a good fortnight [during the spring] with no air frost when the blossom is out, it's pretty simple really."
Conditions last year were "absolutely diabolical" while apple trees were in flower. "And during the summer we would like some proper growing weather. Proper growing weather during May is some showers and warm nights, ideally double figure nights above 10C, and no drought during June, July and August."
STRANGE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR -
Anteater Gives Birth Without Mating, Zoo Officials Puzzled - A female anteater that gave birth despite the absence of a male partner at a zoo in Connecticut has zoo officials puzzled, offering a bizarre situation where likely explanations to the mystery are in short supply.
At Greenwich's LEO Zoological Conservation Center, a female giant anteater called Armani gave birth as planned last August. Because male anteaters are known to eat their young, Armani's mate, Alf, was removed from cohabitation for a period of several months. The story gets weird when last month, a zookeeper went into to Armani's holding area one morning and found that she had given birth to another baby. "The gestation period for anteaters is six months. Armani and Alf had not been back together long enough to do what they needed to do to put the cycle of life into gear a second time."
So how did it happen? "It is a bit of a mystery." But a possibility was suggested: delayed implantation. Sloths and armadillos, which belong to the same family as anteaters, have been observed with fertilized eggs remaining dormant in the uterus for some time, so it's possible Armani had the same thing happening. But not everybody believes that theory.
"When she gives birth, her entire uterus is going to clear out. Anything that's in her uterus, even another undeveloped embryo, would clear out," said a zookeeper and species survival plan coordinator for the North American population of giant anteaters at Reid Park Zoo in Tuscon, Ariona. In her opinion, the most likely scenario was that the two anteaters were able to mate, somehow.
"My guess is they thought they had him separated. We've seen incredible feats of breeding success. We've had animals breed through fences." The separated anteaters did share a fence line, but keepers didn't see how mating could have taken place between it. With nothing but speculation to go on, the mystery will likely never be solved.
HEALTH THREATS -
Coronavirus cases, deaths reported in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia - The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has reached Tunisia, killing one man and infecting two of his relatives, while Saudi Arabia has reported another death and a new case since May 17.
WHO expert concerned guest workers could spread coronavirus - A World Health Organization (WHO) expert has expressed concern that guest workers in the Middle East could carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) to India and the Philippines.
RECALLS & ALERTS
- Galveston Shrimp Company has issued a precautionary voluntary recall of its pre-packaged Texas Gulf Shrimp due to foreign material found in a bag. The pre-packaged bags are shipped to HEB Stores. Customers who recently purchased pre-packaged Gulf Shrimp are encouraged to check their refrigerators and/or freezers.
- Eco-Cuisine of Boulder, Colorado is recalling lots of Brownie, Muffin & Cookie Mixes, Ground Beef Style Quick Mix, Sausage Style Quick Mix, English Scone Mix, and Basic Scone Mix, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.
