Friday, May 29, 2015

Global Disaster Watch - daily natural disaster updates.

**Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.**
Michael Korda


LARGEST QUAKES so far today -
5.1 SOUTHEAST INDIAN RIDGE
6.8 ALASKA PENINSULA
5.2 ATACAMA, CHILE

Yesterday, 5/28/15 -
None 5.0 or larger.

5/27/15 -
None 5.0 or larger.

5/26/15 -
5.6 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.6 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.4 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.7 BIAK REGION, INDONESIA
5.6 ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

5/25/15 -
5.4 WESTERN INDIAN-ANTARCTIC RIDGE
5.3 SOUTHEAST OF EASTER ISLAND
5.1 SOUTH OF TONGA
5.2 SEA OF JAPAN
5.1 NEAR S. COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.3 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

5/24/15 -
5.2 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.7 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.4 TONGA
6.3 TONGA
6.4 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.0 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

5/23/15 -
5.0 BANDA SEA
5.8 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.0 TARAPACA, CHILE
5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.4 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.2 SOLOMON ISLANDS

5/22/15 -
6.8 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.2 SOLOMON ISLANDS
6.9 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.3 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
5.1 NEAR S COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.0 VANUATU
5.0 RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN
5.0 NEW GUINEA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

5/21/15 -
5.7 SOLOMON ISLANDS
5.0 SOLOMON ISLANDS 5.0 TONGA

5/20/15 -
6.8 SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS REGION
5.1 PERU-ECUADOR BORDER REGION
5.4 MOLUCCA SEA
5.5 TAJIKISTAN
6.0 TONGA

5/19/15 -
6.7 PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.9 VANUATU
5.1 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

5/18/15 -
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 GUATEMALA
5.6 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 CARLSBERG RIDGE
5.8 MID-INDIAN RIDGE

5/17/15 -
5.5 EAST OF SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS
5.0 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.2 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
5.2 OFF COAST OF PAKISTAN
5.5 SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS
5.0 LA RIOJA, ARGENTINA
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.

5/16/15 -
5.6 NEPAL
5.1 NORTHERN PERU

5/15/15 -
5.0 OFFSHORE GUATEMALA
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL PERU
5.9 SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
5.1 EAST OF NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.
5.3 SOUTH OF AFRICA
5.4 EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG., P.N.G.
5.3 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

7.0 magnitude quake strikes offshore Alaska - An earthquake, downgraded to 6.8, struck off the southwest coast of Alaska late on Thursday. The quake's epicenter was 104 km (64 miles) south-southeast of Ugashik and 61.7 km deep. The agency upgraded the temblor to a 7.0 after initially stating it was slightly weaker.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that based on its available data, no tsunami was expected. The USGS said the quake was unlikely to cause casualties and notable damage, and there were no immediate reports of such. The area near the quake, centered some 400 miles (643 km) southwest of Anchorage, is lightly populated.

Movie Review: 'San Andreas' is full of faults - In the film, the San Andreas Fault awakens, unleashing back-to-back jolts that leave a trail of misery from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Skyscrapers crumble. Fires erupt. The letters of the Hollywood Sign topple. Dwayne Johnson stars as a helicopter-rescue pilot trying to save his family after a massive earthquake that is more ridiculous than impressive, though the scale is enormous.

What Will Really Happen When San Andreas Unleashes the Big One? - A major earthquake will cause plenty of destruction along the West Coast, but it won’t look like it does in the movies where a giant earthquake will strike California this summer, the Hoover Dam will crumble and a massive tsunami will wash across the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s the scenario that will play out on the big screen in San Andreas.
The moviemakers consulted the director of the Southern California Earthquake Center before they started filming, but “they probably didn’t take much of my advice,” he says. While the actual threats from the Big One are pretty terrifying, they are nowhere near the devastation witnessed by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and his onscreen companions.
Even the largest of San Andreas' quakes can’t produce a massive tsunami like the one that swells over San Francisco in the movie. “The really big tsunamis, like the one that hit Japan, are caused by earthquakes that generate a major displacement of the ocean floor.” The San Andreas fault sits far inland, and the land slips past on either side. For that reason, a quake also can’t cause the fault to split apart into a giant chasm as it does in the film.
And despite the warnings of distraught movie scientists, even the largest of California's quakes won’t be felt by anything but seismometers on the East Coast. That doesn’t mean California is off the hook, though. While the movie may be more fantasy than reality, the Big One is coming, and it will produce plenty of destruction. “We think Southern California is locked and loaded, that the stresses have really built up, and when things start unleashing, they could unleash for years,” says a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist.
California sits at the border between two major tectonic plates — the Pacific plate, which is moving northwest, and the North Americanplate, which is sliding past it to the southeast. The two plates don’t just meet at a single line, and the state is crisscrossed with dozens of earthquake faults. The San Andreas is the most worrisome, because it generates the quakes that are really dangerous to California residents.
The northern San Andreas leveled San Francisco in 1906, but it’s been a lot longer since the southern part of the fault ruptured. On average, Southern California has seen big quakes every 110 to 140 years, based on records of past earthquakes and studies of earthquake faults. The last big quake near Los Angeles, a magnitude 7.9, struck Fort Tejon in 1857. Farther south, near Palm Springs, the fault hasn’t ruptured in over 300 years. “Eventually the fault will have to break."
While seismologists can’t predict exactly when that will happen, every few years they release a forecast for the likelihood of such an event. The latest forecast, published earlier this year by the USGS, estimates a 7 percent chance that a magnitude 8 quake will occur in California within the next 30 years. That’s about as big as earthquakes can get in California — a magnitude 8.3 quake might be possible if the entire San Andreas fault were to rupture from the Mexico border up to northern California. “We don’t think that’s likely.” Overall, such a quake would cause some $200 billion in damage, 50,000 injuries and 2,000 deaths, the researchers estimated. But “it’s not so much about dying in the earthquake. It’s about being miserable after the earthquake and people giving up on Southern California.” Everything a city relies on to function — water, electricity, sewage systems, telecommunications, roads — would be damaged and possibly not repaired for more than a year. Without functioning infrastructure, the local economy could easily collapse, and people would abandon Los Angeles.

VOLCANOES -
A volcano erupted on a small island in southern Japan on Friday, spewing black clouds of ash and rock towering into the sky and prompting authorities to tell residents to evacuate the island. No injuries were reported after Mount Shindake erupted about 10 a.m. (0100 GMT) in spectacular fashion, sending dense pyroclastic flows of rock and hot gases seaward.
The agency raised the volcano alert level for Kuchinoerabu island, where Shindake is located, to five, the highest on its scale. Shindake also erupted in August last year for the first time since 1980. A military helicopter was sent to survey the island and assess damage. The Coast Guard had dispatched a ship to help evacuate the residents.
"There was a really loud, 'dong' sound of an explosion, and then black smoke rose, darkening the sky. It smelled of sulfur." A few people on the island were still unaccounted for. One person, who lives in an area that is generally off-limits, was to be evacuated by boat as he could not travel safely to the shelter by land. "The skies here are blue, but smoke is still rising to the west."
Kuchinoerabu is 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of the main southern island of Kyushu. A heavily forested, mountainous island bordered mostly by rocky cliffsides, it is a national park supported mainly by tourism and fishing. Footage showed the mountain shrouded in light gray ash as the clouds from the eruption cleared. Kuchinoerabu usually can be reached only by a once-a-day ferry from Yakushima island, 12 kilometers (about 7 miles) to the east, which has an airport and a population of more than 13,000 people.
Japan, which sits atop the Pacific "Ring of Fire," has dozens of volcanoes and is frequently jolted by earthquakes. In March 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake rocked northeastern Japan, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 18,500 people and ravaged much of the northern Pacific coast. Authorities recently closed part of a popular hot springs about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Tokyo because of fears Mount Hakone, which sits to the southeast of Mount Fuji, might erupt.
The eruption last September of another volcano, Mount Ontake in central Japan, killed 57 people. The eruption on Kuchinoerabu was stronger than Mount Ontake's. Since the 2011 disasters, "this sort of activity has continued. Probably the eruptions will continue."

TROPICAL STORMS -
* In the Eastern Pacific -
Tropical storm Andres was located about 800 mi (1285 km) SSW of the southern tip of Baja California. Strengthening Andres expected to become a hurricane today.

Tropical Storm Andres Forms in the Northeast Pacific, is not a threat to Mexico. The Northeast Pacific's first named storm of 2015 is here. Tropical Storm Andres formed at 11 am EDT on Thursday, in the waters about 690 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.
The first named storm of the Northeast Pacific hurricane season usually forms by June 10, so we are nearly two weeks ahead. According to the database of Eastern Pacific storms maintained by NOAA's Office for Coastal Management, the formation of a tropical storm in May in the Eastern Pacific is not uncommon, 33 named storms have formed in May in the 45 years since accurate satellite records began in 1970.
Sea surface temperatures are UNUSUALLY WARM in the region, at least 2°F (1.1°C) above average, thanks in large part to the intensifying El Niño event underway in the Eastern Pacific. Andres will likely be able to take advantage of these warm waters and become a hurricane this weekend, but the storm will stay well out to sea and not affect any land areas for at least the next five days.

NOAA predicts an above-average Eastern Pacific hurricane season: 18.5 named storms. Andres is the first salvo in what is likely to be a very busy Northeast Pacific hurricane season. NOAA's pre-season prediction for the Eastern Pacific hurricane season, issued on May 27, calls for 15 - 22 named storms, 7 - 12 hurricanes, 5 - 8 major hurricanes, and an ACE index 110% - 190% of the median.
The mid-point of these ranges gives us a forecast for 18.5 named storms, 9.5 hurricanes, and 6.5 major hurricanes, with an ACE index 150% of average. The 1981 - 2010 averages for the Eastern Pacific hurricane season are 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 major hurricanes.

SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -

Hundreds seek safety from Texas floods, severe weather kills 16. Hundreds of people fled areas near Texas rivers that overflowed their banks on Thursday as the state reeled from severe storms this week that killed at least 17 people, flooded cities and set a RECORD FOR THE WETTEST MONTH.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch stretching from south of San Antonio to Dallas, through Oklahoma, where severe weather this week killed an additional six people, and into Kansas. Thunderstorms pelted large parts of the affected region. The city of Wharton, about 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Houston, issued a voluntary evacuation notice for about 300 homes along the Colorado River, where water was expected to rise through Friday.
The Brazos River flooded about 30 miles (50 km) west of Fort Worth and was expected to crest on Thursday evening. Hundreds left their homes on Wednesday as the waterway began breaching its banks. the average rainfall across the state was 7.54 inches (19 cm) in May, breaking the record of 6.66 inches (17 cm) set in June 2004, according to records that date to 1895. "It has been ridiculous."
The body of a man was found on the banks of the Blanco River in San Marcos, authorities said late on Thursday, bringing the number of fatalities to at least 17. The man, who was discovered among flood debris, was not yet identified. The body of a boy was recovered on Wednesday near San Marcos, Hays County officials said. The boy was thought to have been swept away in Blanco River floods that ripped houses off their foundations.
The new storms could hinder rescue workers searching for those washed away along the river. "We are not expecting another surge of the river, but it is going to shift debris piles." There was no damage estimate available for Texas, which has a $1.4 trillion-a-year economy and is the country's leading domestic source of energy.
Lots of photos and videos of Texas and Oklahoma flooding and damage.

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Friday, May 15, 2015

Global Disaster Watch - daily natural disaster updates.

**The sea has neither meaning nor pity.**
Anton Chekhov


LARGEST QUAKES so far today -
5.4 EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG., P.N.G.
5.3 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Yesterday, 5/14/15 -
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 BANDA SEA
5.4 OFF COAST OF PAKISTAN
5.1 OFFSHORE ATACAMA, CHILE
5.1 NEAR COAST OF NICARAGUA
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.3 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA

5/13/15 -
5.0 NEPAL
5.2 EAST OF NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 MOLUCCA SEA

5/12/15 -
5.2 NEPAL-INDIA BORDER REGION
6.8 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 SOUTH OF AFRICA
5.0 TONGA
5.0 NEPAL
5.3 NEPAL
5.2 NEPAL
5.1 NEPAL
5.0 NEPAL
5.0 NEPAL
6.2 NEPAL
5.5 NEPAL
5.4 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA
5.6 NEPAL
7.3 NEPAL
5.1 SOUTH OF JAVA, INDONESIA

5/11/15 -
5.3 MID-INDIAN RIDGE
5.3 MID-INDIAN RIDGE
5.0 HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
5.5 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 KURIL ISLANDS
5.1 SOUTHERN EAST PACIFIC RISE
5.0 MOLUCCA SEA
5.1 FIJI REGION
5.0 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION

5/10/15 -
5.9 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.1 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.4 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.6 OFF COAST OF CHIAPAS, MEXICO

5/9/15 -
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.4 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.3 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.

5/8/15 -
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.9 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.7 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.

5/7/15 -
5.0 MENDOZA, ARGENTINA
5.4 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 TONGA REGION
5.0 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.4 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 SOUTH OF MARIANA ISLANDS
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
7.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.

Death toll in Nepal's fresh earthquake reaches 83, over 1900 injured. Two weeks after more than 8,000 people died from a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal, a new quake measuring 7.3 struck on 12 May.
The second massive earthquake to hit Nepal in less than three weeks has killed 83 people, including 17 in India and one in Chinese Tibet, and injured nearly 2,000, with thousands staying outdoors as the country was jolted by dozens of aftershocks overnight. Officials put the number of wounded at 1,926.
Authorities said there was no news of the UH-1 helicopter of the US Marine Corps that went missing on Tuesday during a relief sortie. Six US Marines and two Nepal Army personnel were in the helicopter. With the fresh casualties, the total death toll in Nepal since the April 25 quake has crossed 8,200. The home ministry said 382 people had been reported as missing.
Aftershocks continued on Tuesday night and in the early hours of Wednesday, forcing people to stay outdoors. Eight houses were reportedly destroyed in the capital Kathmandu following Tuesday's quake. Nepal's National Seismological Centre said 33 aftershocks of more than 4- magnitude were recorded since 12:50pm on Tuesday. One of them, of 6.2-magnitude and with its epicenter at Dolakha, was recorded 21 minutes after the 7.3-magnitude quake. Another one, of 5.9-magnitude and with its epicenter at Dhading, occurred at 3.10am on Wednesday.
Fresh landslides after Tuesday's quake were reported from 38 districts and key highways were blocked in some areas. Authorities immediately launched operations to clear them. Tuesday’s quake exacerbated the devastation caused less than three weeks ago by the devastating 7.8- magnitude temblor. The fresh quake had its epicentre 68 km west of the town of Namche Bazaar near Mount Everest. Tremors were felt in India all the way from the border states of Bihar and West Bengal to Gujarat and Delhi.
Seventeen people were killed in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Indian home ministry said in a statement. Chinese media reported one person died in Tibet after rocks fell on a car. Tuesday’s quake flattened buildings in Kathmandu and other parts of Nepal that were already weakened by the April 25 earthquake. The fresh tremors, which lasted nearly a minute, came just as residents of Kathmandu and other districts were picking up the pieces after last month’s quake that displaced millions.
Mountaineers seeking to scale the world's tallest peak called off this year's Everest season after 18 people died when last month's quake triggered avalanches. There were no climbers or sherpa guides at the base camp when Tuesday’s quake struck. (video)

Nepal’s devastating earthquake underlines the risks of China’s Tibet dam-building binge. The earthquake that rattled Nepal on April 25, killing thousands, also cracked a huge hydroelectric dam and damaged many others. Things could have been much worse, though. The collapse of one of these could have let loose a deluge of water and debris downstream, a disquieting prospect given that more than 400 dams are being built or are slated for construction in the Himalayan valley.
This underscores the risks of China’s recent push to dam rivers in Tibet. Threatened by a lack of natural energy sources, the Chinese government has been on a dam-building bender. China now has more installed hydropower capacity than the next three runner-up countries combined. But the government has only just begun to harness the power created as runoff from Himalayan glaciers flows across Tibet, plunging around 3,000 meters. The biggest of these rivers, the Yarlung River (a.k.a. Yarlung Tsangpo, Yarlung Zangbo), cuts along the bottom third of the autonomous region before hanging a sharp right into India and Bangladesh, where it’s called the Brahmaputra. In November of 2014, the government unveiled Tibet’s first truly huge hydropower project — a 9.6 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) project spanning the Yarlung River’s middle reaches, called the Zangmu dam.
Unfortunately, like much of the rest of the Himalayan valley, the bedrock around the Yarlung River is unusually tectonically active. Worse, the weight of dammed reservoirs has been linked to more than 100 earthquakes, most notoriously, the 2008 earthquake in nearby Sichuan, which killed around 80,000. Why take the risk? The Chinese government says the hydropower projects will solve Tibet’s electricity shortages. But it’s not clear Tibetans actually need it.
The region surrounding the Yarlung River has too few people and too small an economy to require all that electricity, a geologist and chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau says. The Zangmu dam will provide 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year. That’s around 80% of what Tibet consumes in total — and four more dams are in the works for other sites along the Yarlung River.
Mining companies probably need that electricity more than nomadic herders. Among Tibet’s bounty of natural resources, a significant share of its gold and copper mines sit within convenient reach of current or planned Yarlung River hydropower stations. Other likely beneficiaries of Himalayan wattage are energy-strapped Chinese provinces to the east. Though Tibet has less than 0.25% of China’s population, it holds around three- tenths of its water power resources.
The government has long planned to turn Tibet into a base for the “West-East Electricity Transmission Project,” shunting energy from China’s resource-rich western regions to the coastal provinces, which are far more industrialized yet also resource-scarce. This hints at ugly odds behind China’s dam-building frenzy in Tibet. A single earthquake, let alone dam collapse, could devastate many in Tibet. Unfortunately for them, the ultimate winners of this cheap-power gamble will be too far away to feel it.

VOLCANOES -
Washington - A tunnel dug to help drain a lake whose natural outlet was blocked when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 is narrowing. Experts say if it fails, Interstate 5 in Washington state could be inundated.
The Spirit Lake Tunnel was built after the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, when ash and debris blocked the lake's natral outlet into a local creek. When lake levels began to rise, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bored a 1.6-mile tunnel through bedrock to provide Spirit Lake a new outlet.
The tunnel opened in 1985. Last fall and spring, inspections found that the tunnel floor was rising. Geologists say shifting rock formations under the surface are to blame.
"The bottom of the tunnel is actually pushing up into the tunnel and deforming the shape." In October 2013, the tunnel had an opening of eight feet, six inches. One year later, the tunnel was constricted to seven feet, one inch. In April of 2015, the uplift reduced the opening to six feet, eight inches.
"That was a pretty gross and significant movement that I had not seen in the 30 years I've been inspecting the tunnel." If the tunnel were to collapse, the lake could fill up and overflow, causing a catastrophe. In a recent report, the U.S. Army Corps wrote that "this worst case possibility would destroy all transportation routes" to the west of the lake, in southern Washington along the Cowlitz Valley, including Interstate-5 and the main North- South rail lines.
The tunnel still has a ways to go before it can no longer drain the lake. "I don't think that is imminent. We have time." The Army Corp of Engineers, which inspects and maintains the tunnel for the U.S. Forest Service, is now working on designs to fix the problem. It hopes to make emergency repairs to the tunnel by later this year. So far, there is no price tag on the fix.
Two Washington senators and a congresswoman have raised serious concerns about the problem. "Complete failure of this tunnel in the shadow of Mount St. Helens could be catastrophic to Washington state on multiple levels." (video)

TROPICAL STORMS -

* In the Western Pacific -
Typhoon Dolphin is located approximately 135 nm east of Andersen AFB.
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Tropical Storm Ana Starts Hurricane Season Early - Atlantic hurricane season doesn’t start officially until June 1, but this year we’ve already seen our first named storm. Tropical storm Ana spent this weekend off the southeast coast, transitioning from a cluster of thunderstorms into a tropical system late on Friday night.
Ana moved onshore just northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at 6 a.m. Sunday, with 45 mph sustained winds. She dropped 2 to 7 inches of rainfall near the South Carolina – North Carolina border, and created some coastal erosion. Overall, an unremarkable storm, except for how early in the year she developed.
NASA scientists estimate that a tropical system, strong enough to get a name, occurs this early in the year only once or twice every 100 years. Ana was the second-earliest tropical storm or hurricane to make landfall in the U.S., behind an unnamed storm in February of 1952.
All this drama comes at a time in history when the U.S. has been in a hurricane drought, of sorts. Over the past nine years there have been 59 hurricanes in the Atlantic. But during that time, no hurricanes of Category 3 or higher have hit the U.S. coastline. Such a string of lucky years is likely to happen only once in 177 years, according to a new NASA study.
Storms weaker than Category 3 can still be dangerous. Sandy in 2012, Irene in 2011, and Ike in 2008, together caused over $100 billion of damage. As for this upcoming hurricane season, the official predictions haven’t been released yet. But statistical analysis suggests that, for any given year, there is a 40 percent chance of a Category 3 or higher hurricane landing across the U.S. coastline.

SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -

New Zealand - Evacuations after heavy rain, floods and slips in Wellington region. The Wellington region was battered on Thursday with torrential rain that caused slips, travel disruptions and left one person dead.
An elderly man was found dead in floodwaters after torrential rain brought chaos to the Wellington region. Police discovered the body of the 80-year-old man near Sladden Park, in Bracken St, Petone. More heavy rain and traffic disruptions are expected on Friday after the deluge that left homes flooded, roads turned to rivers, and trains cancelled. Thousands of commuters were stranded in Wellington, once again highlighting the fragility of the road network.
The region was hit by a deluge of rain overnight causing slips and flooding, with 117.4mm falling in Paraparaumu and 96mm in Lower Hutt in the last 24 hours. Residents are being advised by Civil Defence to stay out of floodwaters because of potential sewage contamination and electrical danger.
All commuter train services across the Wellington region have been cancelled until Friday afternoon at the earliest. Schools, businesses and homeowners have all been affected, with 18 homes evacuated. (video)

EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / WILDFIRES -

Texas Removed From Worst Category of U.S. Drought Monitor For First Time Since 2012. Just one year ago, more than 20 percent of Texas was labeled under the most extreme category of the U.S. Drought Monitor – "exceptional." But for the first time in nearly three years, the entire Lone Star State has been removed from that distinction.
In fact, more than three-fourths of Texas is no longer in any drought at all. That's big news for a state that has been ravaged by drought since 2010. During the most recent of its weekly assessments, however, the Drought Monitor found more than 2.7 million people are still affected by drought in Texas, so the state hasn't completely recovered from the long-term drought just yet. Sections of the state were still listed Thursday as abnormally dry or in moderate, severe or extreme drought.
Parts of the Houston metro area received more than 10 inches of rain this week. Corsicana last weekend was doused with 11 inches of rain. Wichita Falls has already picked up more rain this year - 15.79 inches through May 13 - than in all of 2011, their record driest year - 12.97 inches. At least one inch of rain has fallen four separate days this month, two more than occurred in all of 2011.
More rainfall is on the way for Texas in the coming days, and that should continue to shrink the area that's still highlighted by the Drought Monitor. On the other hand, additional rainfall could actually be bad news for parts of the state that have already seen dangerous flooding, which may cause water to rise over roadways and into homes.

Australia - Record Queensland drought could get worse with El Nino. Drought has been declared in more than 80 per cent of Queensland, with fears El Nino will only make things worse.
Queensland is experiencing its MOST WIDESPREAD DROUGHT CONDITIONS ON RECORD, with 80.35% of the state drought-declared. During the past six months western and northern Queensland has generally seen below average rainfall. In the southeastern districts rainfall has actually been above average in some parts. However, the reason for drought declaration of so much of Queensland is that widespread healthy falls haven't been experienced since the back-to-back La Nina events finished in early 2012.
During the past 26 El Nino events, 17 have resulted in widespread Australian drought. Thankfully El Nino is not the only climate driver to affect Queensland weather in the coming months. During June and July there is actually a higher than usual chance of above average rain in southwestern Queensland. This is due to the presence of warmer than usual waters in the Indian Ocean off the Western Australian coastline. Northwest cloudbands drawing upon this moisture are likely to be more frequent in the coming months and could bring some decent rain.
Therefore, with drought in place and El Nino on the way it is likely to be a very hard season for Queenslanders, but hopefully enough rain will fall in coming months to get them through to the next wet season.

'This Could Be a Mess': An Apparent Drought in North Korea Brings Fear of Famine - A severe drought could bring North Korea to the brink of famine this summer, according to experts who keep close tabs on the Hermit Kingdom.
"If they get a lot of rain over the next two months, then they've dodged a bullet. If they don't get good rain, then this could be a mess." Satellite imagery showed alarmingly low reservoirs and dry lakebeds throughout the country's agricultural region. Even the lake next to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un's vacation house appeared lower than usual.
They reviewed images dating from November 2012 to March 2014, so it is possible that rainfall has helped refill those water bodies since then — but it's not likely. A severe drought struck North Korea last year, and this past winter was also dry, leading to wildfires in recent months. Much of the precipitation North Korea sees in a given year comes during the wet season in June and July.
Without significant rainfall soon, North Korean farmers might not be able to grow enough food to feed the country's nearly 25 million people. The financial excesses of the country's elite are well documented, and Pyongyang lacks sufficient foreign currency reserves to make up for the shortfall. And while international aid has helped address the country's food shortages in the past, its distribution to the North Korean people depends on the country's paranoid government.
A report on the situation from United Press International cited South Korean media saying that North Korean officials had called for a "national mobilization" in response to the drought. But North Korea is ill-prepared to contend with an extended drought. He noted that, in addition to food shortages, low water levels could also lead to blackouts because of the country's dependence on hydroelectric dams.
"North Korea is a poor, repressive country with a dated infrastructure and opaque political culture. It would probably be very difficult for them to adapt to a severe climactic shock." Of course, it's impossible to provide a clear picture of what's happening in North Korea because of the regime's ironclad grip on information. But the country has a tragic, well- documented history with famine.
In the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed and ended its subsidies to the communist country, North Korea ran out of the fuel, fertilizers, and pesticides necessary to grow enough crops to feed its people. A deadly famine ensued and between 600,000 and 2.5 million people perished.
Few experts believe famine on that scale would hit North Korea again. News outlets have been unsuccessfully predicting another famine for the past few years, but harvests lately have been good, and black markets sanctioned by corrupt bureaucrats are now booming in the country and distributing food more efficiently than the overweening state. Still, in the twisted world of North Korea, Kim arguably has little incentive to work too hard to keep his people fed. "There's a line of thought that says, 'As long as he keeps the army in good shape and the city of Pyongyang in shape, the rest of the country can go to hell. If you're starving, the only thing you're interested in is getting food in your belly. There are no revolts during famines."

'GLOBAL WEIRDNESS' / CLIMATE CHANGE -

A Rare Mid-Year El Niño Event Is Strengthening - The robust El Niño event anticipated for more than a year is finally coming to fruition, according to the latest observations and forecasts. NOAA's latest monthly analysis, issued on Thursday morning, continues the El Niño Advisory already in effect and calls for a 90% chance of El Niño conditions persisting through the summer, with a greater-than-80% chance they will continue through the end of 2015.
These are the highest probabilities yet for the current event, and a sign of increased forecaster confidence - despite the fact that we're in northern spring, the very time when El Niño outlooks are most uncertain. Forecasters and computer models alike have been confounded by this event.
In a classic El Niño, the ocean and atmosphere are synchronized in a mutually reinforcing pattern that pushes warm sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) and thunderstorm activity along the equator eastward for thousands of miles, from Indonesia toward South America (see Figure 1). Sometimes the atmosphere doesn't respond to a "kick" from the ocean, and an embryonic El Niño fails to develop. This was the case last spring, when a powerful oceanic Kelvin wave (a broad, shallow, slow-moving impulse) pushed warm water east across the Pacific tropics.
Keying off this wave, many of the global models used in El Niño prediction called for a moderate or even strong El Niño by the fall of 2014. However, the normal east-to-west trade winds never reversed, which helped torpedo the needed ocean-atmosphere synchrony. The ocean tried again last fall with another Kelvin wave, but again the atmosphere failed to respond, and the SST warming disappeared after a few weeks.
This time, things appear to be different: SSTs have warmed for the last several months, and more recently, trade winds have weakened. As of Monday, the weekly-averaged SSTs over the four regions monitored for El Niño were all at least 1.0°C above average. If the values for all four regions can sustain this feat throughout the next month, it'll be the first time this has happened since November 1997, during the strongest El Niño event of the 20th century.
Just as significant, the persistently warmer-than-normal SSTs over the western tropical Pacific have now cooled, which helps support the reversal of trade winds so critical to El Niño. The current SST map now resembles a more textbook-like El Niño signature, and there is every indication that the ocean-atmosphere coupling will now continue to grow.
An event out of season - As far as the eastern tropical Pacific goes, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. El Niño - "the Christ child" in Spanish - gets its name from its tendency to bring above-average SSTs to the coasts of Peru and Ecuador around Christmastime. The climatology of the eastern Pacific tends to support El Niño and La Niña development during the northern autumn, maximum strength in the winter, and decay in the spring.
The current event is thus bucking climatology as it continues into northern spring. The three-month departure from average in the Niño3.4 region reached the El Niño threshold of +0.5°C in Oct-Nov-Jan 2014-15, and it's hovered in the weak range (+0.5 to +1.0°C] ever since, with a value of +0.6°C for Feb-Mar-Apr 2015. Only 12 of the 65 prior years in the historical database of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have seen a value of at least +0.5°C during the Feb-Mar-Apr period.
Water temperatures in the Niño3.4 region are normally at their warmest in May, so the current warm anomaly is leading to especially toasty SSTs of around 29°C (84°F).
If this El Niño event does intensify, as models strongly suggest it will, it'll be one for the record books. There are no analogs in the database for a weak event in northern winter that becomes a stronger event by summer. Persisting into northern fall will also greatly raise the odds of this becoming a rare two- year event.
In every case since at least 1950 when El Niño conditions were present by Jul-Aug-Sep, the event continued into the start of the next calendar year. Two-year El Niños are more unusual than two-year La Niñas, but they do happen, as in 1968-1970 and 1986-1988.
Northern spring is an especially difficult time to predict El Niño evolution. Computer-model skill at predicting ENSO is at its lowest then, in part because of reduced east-west gradients in SSTs across the tropical Pacific, but also due to factors that have yet to be fully understood.
"The Spring Barrier is the climate forecaster’s equivalent of mayhem." Skill does begin to improve for forecasts produced in May, so we can begin placing more trust in the 2015-16 El Niño predictions from this point onward - although even model runs produced in August still miss about a quarter of the winter variability in ENSO.
How strong will it get? This week's Niño3.4 SST anomaly of +1.0°C is at the threshold of a moderate-strength event. Another 0.5°C would push the event into the strong range, which was last observed in late 2009 and early 2010. "We have had some pretty unusual (non-persistent) behavior of the ENSO-system in the last four years that was anticipated better than by flipping a coin, especially last year, but certainly not perfectly."
Because it's quite rare to have intensifying El Niño conditions at this time of year, it's difficult to glean a confident signal from past events on how El Niño might affect U.S. summer weather. The global effects of El Niño arise from a shifting of showers and thunderstorms into the central and eastern tropical Pacific, which causes a reverberating sequence of atmospheric waves that tend to enhance precipitation in some areas and reduce it in others. In midlatitudes, these relationships, called teleconnections, are usually strongest in the winter hemisphere; for example, Australia often falls into drought when El Niño is developing in Jun-Jul-Aug.
If a strong El Niño does develop and persists into northern winter, the likely U.S. impacts would be more clear-cut, including wetter-than- average conditions across the southern half of the country, from California through Texas to Florida. This month could be seen as a sneak preview of sorts, with soggy conditions prevalent across the central and southern Plains and two unusually-wet-for-May systems reaching southern California, one last weekend and another now on its way.
There is some hope for drought relief in the Golden State, given that the odds of an wetter-than- normal California rise sharply for the strongest El Niño events, but by no means would a wet winter be guaranteed. The strong El Niño of 1987-88 (which happened to be the second year of a two-year event) produced a drier-than-average winter from California to Washington.
Given that El Niño tends to suppress hurricane formation in the North Atlantic, the odds of a quiet season in that basin are growing by the month. However, a season with few storms doesn't necessarily translate into a low-impact year: the anemic 1992 season included the catastrophic Hurricane Andrew. And it's possible (though unlikely) to have a busy Atlantic hurricane season even during El Niño.
Right in the middle of the weak-to-moderate two-year El Niño event of 1968-70, the Atlantic produced its most active season in 36 years, with a total of 18 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes - including the horrific Hurricane Camille.
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Thursday, May 7, 2015

Global Disaster Watch - daily natural disaster updates.

**A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.**
Alexander Pope.


LARGEST QUAKES so far today -
5.5 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 SOUTH OF MARIANA ISLANDS
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
7.2 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.

Yesterday, 5/6/15 -
5.1 VANUATU
5.0 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.4 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.7 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
5.2 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.4 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.

5/5/15 -
5.5 MID-INDIAN RIDGE
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.6 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.3 VANUATU
5.2 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 VANUATU
5.2 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.5 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.5 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.8 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
7.4 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.

5/4/15 -
5.4 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.7 BALLENY ISLANDS REGION
5.1 IRAN-PAKISTAN BORDER REGION
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 MOLUCCA SEA
5.6 SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND

5/3/15 -
5.8 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.5 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.8 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

5/2/15 -
5.7 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.

5/1/15 -
5.2 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
6.8 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 SOUTH OF JAVA, INDONESIA
5.2 SOUTHEAST OF LOYALTY ISLANDS

4/30/15 -
6.7 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.8 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

4/29/15 -
5.4 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.2 OFF COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
5.1 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
5.0 RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN

4/28/15 -
5.5 OAXACA, MEXICO
6.2 FIJI REGION
5.1 STATE OF CHUUK, MICRONESIA
5.3 NEAR COAST OF ECUADOR

4/27/15 -
5.2 INDIA-BANGLADESH BORDER REGION

4/26/15 -
5.6 NEAR COAST OF NORTHERN PERU
5.2 NEPAL
5.0 NEPAL
6.7 NEPAL
5.2 FIJI REGION

4/25/15 -
5.5 NEPAL-INDIA BORDER REGION
5.1 TAIWAN REGION
5.3 XIZANG-NEPAL BORDER REGION
5.2 NEW GUINEA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
5.3 NORTH OF HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
5.0 NEPAL
5.2 NEPAL
5.1 XIZANG-NEPAL BORDER REGION
5.6 WESTERN XIZANG
5.0 NEPAL
5.4 NEPAL
5.1 NEPAL
5.0 NEPAL
5.3 NEPAL
5.0 XIZANG-NEPAL BORDER REGION
5.0 NEPAL
5.1 NEPAL
5.7 XIZANG-NEPAL BORDER REGION
6.7 NEPAL
5.3 NEPAL
5.3 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
7.8 NEPAL
5.1 GUAM REGION

4/24/15 -
6.1 QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS REGION
5.1 MOLUCCA SEA
6.0 SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
5.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.4 OFF COAST OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
5.2 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS.

4/23/15 -
5.1 RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS

4/22/15 -
6.3 SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS
5.0 SOUTHERN PERU
5.2 KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND

Strong 7.2 Quake Rocks Papua New Guinea, Local Tsunami Possible. A powerful earthquake rattled Papua New Guinea on Thursday — the fourth strong quake to hit the South Pacific island nation in a week — prompting a tsunami warning for nearby coasts.
The 7.2-magnitude quake struck about 150 kilometers (94 miles) southwest of the town of Panguna on Bougainville Island at a depth of 22 kilometers (14 miles). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of up to 1 meter (3 feet) were possible within 300 kilometers (186 miles) of the epicenter on the coast of Papua New Guinea. There was no threat of a tsunami beyond that.
There were no immediate reports of damage. Because the epicenter was so far offshore, the chance of serious damage on land was less likely. "It's not a particularly strong earthquake in global terms, but it could still have generated a tsunami, so it's a bit too uncertain at this stage to be sure."
Thursday's quake was located in a different area of Papua New Guinea than the previous three temblors that rattled the region over the past week, and was therefore an unrelated event. Papua New Guinea sits on the Ring of Fire, the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes are common.

Lots of earthquakes across California - is there a connection? The series of earthquakes across California aren't all connected, experts say.
It was an active seismic day in California, with small earthquakes rattling residents across Northern California and the Inland Empire on Wednesday morning. Earthquake experts said there’s no reason to think they’re connected. Even the three quakes in Riverside County were too far apart to all be linked. The first two, a magnitude-3.7 and -2.7 that struck shortly after midnight, both were traced back to the San Jacinto fault zone. But the third temblor, a magnitude-3.1 near Corona at 9:11 a.m., occurred in a different fault zone.
Scientists are still studying the details of the third earthquake, which occurred near the Elsinore and Whittier faults. As for the first two, it seemed like business as usual for the San Jacinto fault zone, a major network of faults in Southern California. "We see relatively small earthquakes [on the San Jacinto fault], but it's relatively active."
Hundreds of miles north, in California’s East Bay area, three small earthquakes shook the Concord area Wednesday morning. The first temblor, a magnitude-3.0, occurred at 7:01 a.m. Half an hour later, a magnitude-3.5 quake and a magnitude-2.6 quake hit within three minutes of each other. The three quakes were centered about two miles from Pleasant Hill, four miles from Walnut Creek and 51 miles from Sacramento.
Farther up the state, a 3.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Redding area at 11:30 a.m. The epicenter was about five miles from Shasta Lake and 149 miles from Sacramento.

Nepal quake - Officials were struggling to find 1,000 EU citizens who are unaccounted for in Nepal, six days after the 7.8 earthquake that killed more than 6,000 people. Most are thought to have been trekking in the Everest or remote Langtang regions. Many are hoped to be alive but isolated by the quake. The fate of thousands of Nepalese in remote communities is also unknown.
At Kathmandu's historic Durbar Square, soldiers and volunteers form human chains to remove the debris, brick by brick. The bricks come from historic buildings levelled by the earthquake. Many are very old and are being stored so that they can be used to rebuild these ancient sites. The soldiers are joined by aid workers - but also tourists.
Nearly 14,000 people were injured in the disaster. Relief and rescue teams have reached most areas but many people remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Twelve EU citizens are known to have died so far. Some of them were killed by avalanches, triggered by the quake, that struck base camp below Mount Everest.
Landslides and poor weather have hampered efforts to deliver aid to isolated districts. Fights have broken out with victims demanding evacuation being left unable to board helicopters. China is expected to send more aircraft, but still more will be needed - along with road vehicles to carry relief supplies. There has been growing anger at the government's response to the disaster, with a number of protests breaking out.
The tent cities which sprang up around Kathmandu in the days following the quake have almost gone as the fear of aftershocks subsides. The quake destroyed seed stocks for the mid-May rice- sowing season, as well as stone huts that were storing grain. If farmers miss this month's planting season, they will be unable to harvest rice - Nepal's staple food - until late 2016.

Europe's Sentinel-1a satellite has got its first good look at the aftermath of Saturday's big quake in Nepal. The radar spacecraft is able to sense ground movement by comparing before and after imagery acquired from orbit. Researchers can see how the fault ruptured east from the epicentre, and did not break the surface. This may indicate that not all the strain built up in the rocks prior to the earthquake was released in the magnitude-7.8 event and its subsequent aftershocks.

Nepal Earthquake videos -
Climbers engulfed in avalanche.
Whole mountain came to life.
Looking for survivors.
Moving debris stone by stone

VOLCANOES -
Wired' Underwater Volcano May Be Erupting Off Oregon - Axial Seamount, an undersea volcano located 300 miles (480 kilometers) off the coast of Oregon, appears to be erupting and may be spewing out lava about a mile beneath the sea. Researchers were alerted to the possible submarine eruption by large changes in the seafloor elevation and an increase in the number of tiny earthquakes on April 24.
"It's kind of like a balloon — as magma is going into the balloon, it's inflating, and it pushes the seafloor up. As more and more magma gets in, the pressure builds. Eventually, it reaches some critical pressure where [the seamount] can't hold it in anymore, and then it squirts out."
After the volcano erupts, the seafloor drops very rapidly, "like letting air out of a balloon." Last week, the center of the volcanic crater dropped by nearly 8 feet (2.4 m) over a period of 12 hours, and the number of tiny earthquakes increased from hundreds per day to thousands per day. On April 24, there were 8,000 earthquakes in one day. (The earthquakes are too small to cause any harm to coastal residents or to trigger a tsunami, the researchers noted.)
The seamount last erupted in April 2011.

TROPICAL STORMS -

* In the Western Pacific -
Typhoon Noul was located approximately 809 nm east-southeast of Manila, Philippines.

Tropical depression 07w is located approximately 201 nm south-southeast of Pohnpei, Micronesia.
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National Hurricane Center says 70 percent chance of cyclone near southeast U.S. coast - A non-tropical low pressure system located about 220 miles south-southeast of the South Carolina-North Carolina border has a 70 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours. "A subtropical or tropical cyclone could form later today or on Friday, and interests along the southeast coast of the United States should monitor the progress of this system."

Strengthening Typhoon Noul heads for Philippines, with possible stronger storm to follow - Typhoon Noul continues to slowly intensify as it moves on a course to make landfall in the northern Philippines on May 10. Meanwhile, a tropical depression has formed upstream from Typhoon Noul, as expected by some computer models.
The U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts this system to become Typhoon Dolphin, and predicts it will intensify significantly in the coming days as it heads northwest. This storm may be a threat to Japan or the Philippines early next week. Typhoon Noul is intensifying in the Western Pacific Ocean, and appears to be headed for a collision with the northern Philippine island of Luzon this weekend as a compact but intense storm.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, has shifted the storm's projected forecast track to potentially make landfall in Luzon, before recurving to the northeast toward Japan early next week. Previous forecasts had shown that Noul would miss the Philippines entirely. As the world's most disaster-prone nation, however, it has endured everything from typhoons to volcanoes; this year, the Philippines lies in the path of what could be some particularly vicious storms that will be supercharged by unusually mild ocean waters. The overabundance of ocean heat content is in large part related to an El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which has boosted ocean surface temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific, and altered wind and weather patterns.

SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -

Afghanistan landslide buries remote village, killing 52. 97 houses collapsed in north-eastern Afghanistan after a huge landslide swept through a village in Khawahan district, Badakhshan province, near Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan. The affected area was not accessible by road due to heavy snow, seriously hampering rescue efforts. The region regularly suffers landslides when snow begins to melt in the spring.
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