Chris Strouth
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
5.0 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.3 SOLOMON ISLANDS
Yesterday -
3/11/10 -
5.2 BIO-BIO, CHILE
5.1 OFFSHORE O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.7 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.5 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.1 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.3 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.1 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.0 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.1 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.2 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.7 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
6.9 OFFSHORE O'HIGGINS, CHILE
7.2 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.0 LIBERTADOR O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.1 ARAUCANIA, CHILE
5.2 TONGA REGION
5.0 TONGA
5.6 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
Three strong earthquakes struck Chile in quick succession Thursday. A tsunami warning was lifted not long after the quakes. The quakes caused significant damage in at least one city, Rancagua. No fatalities were immediately reported and the biggest worry was damage to homes. A 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit at 11:39 a.m. local time (9:39 a.m. ET), followed by a 6.7-magnitude quake 16 minutes later, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. A third, measured at magnitude 6.0, came 27 minutes later. [Magnitude reports vary, depending on where they were recorded.] They were the strongest aftershocks to rattle Chile since the February 27 earthquake on the country's west coast. Thursday's quakes shook the ground near Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins near the coast just as Chile prepared to inaugurate a new president in Valparaiso, 90 miles away from the epicenter.
The quake that ravaged Haiti over six weeks ago destroyed up to 50 percent of the Caribbean nation's gross domestic product.
TROPICAL STORMS -
Cyclone 19P was 1468 nmi SE of Kwajalein, Marshall Islands.
Cyclone 20P was 1159 nmi E of Townsville, Australia.
A RARE Tropical cyclone formed off Brazil. A compact swirl of clouds off the southern coast of Brazil on Tuesday became what was only the 7th subtropical or tropical cyclone to form in the South Atlantic basin in recorded history.
Dubbed “Invest 90Q” by tropical weather monitors, the subtropical feature was producing almost tropical storm wind speeds of 40 mph by early Wednesday morning. Since such weather features are SO RARE in the Atlantic south of the Equator, there is no official naming protocol by regional weather offices. Brazil has experienced only one landfalling tropical cyclone in recorded history. Eventually dubbed Cyclone Catarina, that storm swirled off the coast of southern Brazil for nearly a week in March 2004 before roaring ashore. Catarina killed three people, destroyed 1,500 homes and damaged around 40,000 others. Extensive damage was also reported to banana and rice crops. Invest 90Q formed very near where Catarina was spawned by a RARE combination of favorable conditions. Tropical cyclones are infrequent in the South Atlantic due to strong upper-air wind sheer, cool ocean temperatures and the lack of disturbances to initiate a spin. There are no African waves in the South Atlantic, and the Intertropical Convergence Zone, key to cyclone development elsewhere, doesn’t exist in the proper location to spawn tropical storms.
The tropical depression that formed near Samoa has formed into a Tropical Cyclone and is expected to hit Fiji by late Sunday. The Nadi weather office named Cyclone Tomas at mid-day. Cyclone Thomas is 700 km from Fiji but is gathering strength and heading towards the Fiji group. “Tropical cyclone Tomas will continue to intensify during Saturday as it moves South-West through to the North of the Fiji group. It will approach the North of Fiji on Sunday and will affect Cikobia and other North Eastern Islands on Sunday.” Flooding is expected in low lying areas; particularly in the Northern and eastern parts of Fiji. The Nadi weather has also issued an alert for the Cikobia islands.
Hubert - An area of disturbed weather between the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar and Reunion gathered into Tropical Cyclone Hubert early Wednesday. Maximum sustained winds were estimated at about 45 mph when the storm made landfall on Madagascar’s east coast near the port of Mananjary Wednesday night. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from the minimal tropical storm. Wet and very windy conditions from the remnants of Hubert were expected across much of southern and central Madagascar until the weekend.
ODD ANIMAL BEHAVIOR-
BRITAIN - Animal welfare experts in England are puzzled by the deaths of 75 starlings which apparently fell out of the sky and smashed into the ground. The birds were found on the driveway of a home in Coxley, Somerset, with broken beaks, legs and wings as well as abdominal injuries. RSPCA workers have begun investigating how the birds died but do not believe they were ill or poisoned before they fell from the sky. Six of the birds were still alive when they were found but had to be euthanased because their injuries were too severe. "It was a remarkable sight, I've never seen anything like it. Onlookers said they heard a whooshing sound and then the birds just hit the ground. They had fallen on to the ground in quite a small area, about 12ft (3.6m) in diameter. They appeared to be in good condition other than injuries that they appear to have suffered when they hit they ground. Our best guess is that this happened because the starlings were trying to escape a predator such as a sparrow hawk and ended up crash landing." The RSPCA believes it is possible that the birds could have been chased by a predator but when they tried to swoop to escape, they flew too low and hit the ground. The owner of the home where the dead birds were found described finding the creatures as "absolutely terrifying". "They seemed to just fall out of the sky. "The only way to describe what they looked like is that they seemed to have had a fright and were petrified."
The mystery about what happened to the birds is just as puzzling as what caused the deaths of thousands of crows, pigeons, wattles and honeyeaters which fell out of the sky in Esperance, Western Australia in 2007. A few weeks later, dozens of grackles, sparrows and pigeons also dropped dead on the other side of the world in Austin, Texas.
SPACE WEATHER -
LOUISIANA, GEORGIA, TENNESSEE - 3/8/10 UPDATE - A meteor hurtling through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound likely caused the sonic boom that startled many north Louisiana residents late Monday afternoon. The apparent sonic boom happened just before 5 p.m. and affected the area southwest of Shreveport to around Vidalia. Experts had suggested Tuesday the sonic boom could have been caused by high-speed aircraft or a meteor. A Lawrenceville, Georgia resident was driving on Interstate 85 in Atlanta early Monday night when he noticed a large, electric blue ring-shaped cloud in the western sky. The amateur astronomer snapped a photo of the noctilucent cloud that likely formed when water molecules surrounded meteor dust particles stirred up when a meteor moved through the atmosphere. Noctilucent clouds are RARE and typically only form in polar regions. It's probably directly related to the apparent sonic boom. "It makes very good sense.The cause of it is definitely pointing to a meteor." A Bunkie resident claims she saw a grey mass with no flames moving through the sky about the same time Monday. The lack of flames could mean the meteor didn't burn and reached the ground, likely somewhere in a low-traffic, wooded area. Some Memphis, Tennessee residents also reported seeing a gray mass hurtling through the sky late Monday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the noise that rattled windows.
HEALTH THREATS -
Household transmission lower for H1N1 than seasonal flu - A study of household transmission of the novel H1N1 virus in Texas, during the first pandemic wave, found that children were most affected and were more likely to transmit the virus to other children, but at rates that were generally lower than seasonal flu. The median time to illness onset between contacts was 4 days. The Emerging Infectious Diseases study found secondary attack rates of 4% for confirmed novel H1N1, compared with rates ranging from 13% to 30% for seasonal flu.
Brain death reported in H1N1 patient - A 7-year-old girl infected with pandemic H1N1 flu developed encephalopathy that led to brain death. She had had fever and malaise for 1 day but no upper respiratory symptoms. Her condition then deteriorated, and on admission to intensive care she had signs of severe neurologic compromise. Brain death was confirmed within 3 days, in the first such instance documented in the pandemic.
Pregnancy, obesity, heart failure, and diabetes were risk factors for admission to an intensive care unit for severe H1N1 flu. But only obesity, heart failure, and diabetes were risk factors for death.
