about buying land in the Twin Cities, near a lake.
I believe because of climate changes,
the future of America is in Minnesota.**
William Shatner
Live Seismograms - Worldwide (update every 30 minutes)
This morning -
5.2 FIJI REGION
Yesterday -
4/25/12 -
5.1 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.2 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.2 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.7 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.3 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 SAMAR, PHILIPPINES
5.0 TONGA REGION
5.0 TONGA
VOLCANOES -
Mexico - Satellites continue to provide a look at the ash and gas clouds being emitted from Mexico's Popocatepetl Volcano. NASA has animated imagery from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite to provide a week long look at the volcano's activity. Over the period from April 14 through April 22, the one minute, 14 second black and white video covers shows the volcano's ash mostly blowing to the southeast. "Most of the time, the prevailing westerly winds carry the debris (ash and smoke) far to the east in the mornings, while the daily rains bring down the ash before it can go far in the afternoon." Over the course of a week, the light brown cloud of ash and smoke can be seen streaming from Popocateptl, and then the white, puffy cumulus clouds develop in the afternoon and sometimes bring rain. Popocatepetl is located about 34 miles (55 kilometers east of Mexico City. More than 30 million people live within sight of the volcano. On April 17, the volcano's gas and ash plume reached a height of about 980 feet (~300 meters), spreading ash in the nearby town of Puebla. The Alert level at the volcano remains at "Yellow Phase Three". That alert means explosive activity could escalate, there may be growth of domes or expulsion of magma, and ash could rain on populated areas.
Volcano behind Atlantis legend re-awakens - The volcano that may have given birth to the Atlantis legend has reawakened after more than 60 years. About 3,600 years ago, eruptions at the Greek isle of Santorini devastated the Minoan civilization and reduced much of Santorini to a largely underwater caldera, perhaps inspiring the legend of the lost city. From the air, the resulting caldera, or volcanic crater, appears as a small cluster within the larger collection of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Over the next four millennia, the largely underwater caldera at Santorini has experienced a series of smaller eruptions, with five such outbursts in the past 600 years, ending most recently in 1950. After a 60-year lull, Santorini awakened in January 2011 with a swarm of tremors, each magnitude 3.2 or less, new GPS research has revealed.
Indonesia's Mount Lokon erupts - Indonesia's Mount Lokon in North Sulawesi Province erupted at 10:20 Jakarta time (0320 GMT) on Tuesday. The eruption height is not known as it is covered by clouds. "Tremor is felt 5 kilometers away from Tompuloan crater." People have not been urged to take refuge. The government has urged people not to make any activity at the distance of 2.5 kilometers below the crater. "Luckily, there is no residence across the distance." There is potential of another eruption. "People are urged to stay calm and increase alertness." The eruption, occurring several times in a few months, is expected to further release the volcano's energy. Authorities have maintained danger status of level III. Previously, the head of the Center of Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Hazard Mitigation said that the volcano was in a critical condition following increased activities. "There are once tectonic distant earthquake, twice local tectonic earthquakes, 13 times deep volcanic earthquakes and about 50 times shallow volcanic earthquakes." He had said that if such activities continued, the volcano would erupt.
Major Volcano Eruptions Could Stymie Hurricanes - Eruptions of very large volcanoes can reduce the number and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean for as long as the next three years, a study suggests.
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical storms.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
Dominican Republic - Heavy rains are causing floods, with more than 11,000 people evacuated from homes. There are no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. Nearly 3000 homes have been flooded after rivers and streams spilled their banks. The floods have affected low-lying areas in the northern province of Puerto Plata and some central and southeastern towns. With rain forecast to continue for the rest of the week, 23 of the country's 32 provinces are at risk of flooding.
CLIMATE CHANGE -
U.S. East Coast Strange Storm - The springtime nor’easter broke records and deposited inches of rain by the time Tuesday ushered in drier weather in its place. The intensity of the storm was NEARLY UNPRECEDENTED SO LATE IN THE SEASON. Drought-stricken Long Island got wet, New York Harbor saw tropical storm force winds and more than a foot of snow landed in western parts of the state. New York City BROKE A 43-YEAR-OLD DAILY RAINFALL RECORD after Central Park tallied 2.45 inches of liquid precipitation (beating 1.8 inches on the same date in 1969). By the time the drops stopped completely on Monday, more than three inches had fallen across a vast swath of coastal New Jersey, much of Long Island and southern Connecticut. West Haven, Conn. picked up the biggest total, at just over four inches. The highly amplified weather pattern drew moisture northwards from as far afield as Nicaragua and gathered much of its energy from the ANOMALOUSLY WARM Gulf of Mexico. As for the cause, a recent report by an international panel of scientists concluded that these extreme weather events are occurring more often due to climate change. Though not quite as powerful and affecting a more limited area, the nor’easter drew comparisons to a late October’s East Coast blizzard. That snowstorm caused more than a billion dollars of damage and blacked out large chunks of Connecticut for more than a week. For many in the region, this recent storm bookended a HIGHLY UNUSUAL WINTER in which the two biggest storms fell outside of the typical November-to-March window, with hardly any snow in between. At least 18 inches of snow has fallen as of Monday afternoon in the higher elevations east of Pittsburgh, a city that since the 1880s has only recorded significant snows a handful of times after April 15. In Ithaca, N.Y., and across western parts of the state, nearly a foot of snow brought snowplows out in force and snapped countless branches with trees in full leaf after a record warm month of March. (interactive weather service map.)
SPACE WEATHER -
NASA calls meteor eruption a "huge event" - On Sunday morning, April 22nd, just as the Lyrid meteor shower was dying down, a spectacular fireball exploded over California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. The loud explosion rattled homes from central California to Reno, Nevada, and beyond. "The energy is estimated at a whopping 3.8 kilotons of TNT, so this was a big event. I am not saying there was a 3.8 kiloton explosion on the ground in California. I am saying that the meteor possessed this amount of energy before it broke apart in the atmosphere." That's about one fourth of the "little boy" bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima during WWII. "This meteor was about the size of a minivan and had a mass somewhere around 70 metric tons. So if you can imagine a boulder about the size of a minivan with mass of 70 tons, you get a pretty good idea what the meteor was like." The meteor was probably moving at about 33,000 miles per hour. It probably came from the asteroid belt and exploded in the upper atmosphere and spread meteorites in eastern California, near the Nevada border. "When they get low in the atmosphere, the pressure in front of them builds up to the point where the meteor simply breaks apart and it does so violently it creates an explosion. The sound you heard was probably build up from that over pressure and the shock wave generated from that explosion." The fact that sonic booms were heard indicates that this meteor penetrated very low in atmosphere. "This meteor was probably not a Lyrid; without a trajectory, I cannot rule out a Lyrid origin, but I think it likely that it was a background or sporadic meteor." You might think they are dangerous, but in all of recorded history, only one person has ever been hit a meteorite.
