Tag Archive: Explosion in Venezuela

Earth Watch Report – Tuesday August 28th, 2012

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August 28, 2012

Earthquakes

USGS

	MAG	UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s	LAT deg	LON deg	DEPTH km	Region
MAP	5.0	2012/08/27 23:16:01	30.614	-113.876	10.1	GULF OF CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.5	2012/08/27 23:05:49	12.470	-88.692	35.6	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.6	2012/08/27 23:05:29	36.508	142.857	31.4	OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 22:40:51	33.030	-115.556	13.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.8	2012/08/27 22:07:40	12.397	-88.645	35.6	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.8	2012/08/27 21:13:29	11.914	-88.719	35.3	OFF THE COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 19:13:03	52.305	-170.594	25.5	FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/27 18:05:59	32.961	-115.549	12.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	5.3	2012/08/27 17:54:24	3.639	126.675	19.9	KEPULAUAN TALAUD, INDONESIA
MAP	3.7	2012/08/27 17:50:47	19.525	-64.451	5.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.7	2012/08/27 17:47:52	33.008	-115.567	9.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 17:44:27	33.043	-115.543	10.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 17:44:25	58.486	-154.149	71.5	ALASKA PENINSULA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 17:14:10	32.926	-115.605	8.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.8	2012/08/27 17:05:14	19.628	-64.284	42.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 17:04:31	32.990	-115.577	12.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.6	2012/08/27 17:00:51	19.599	-64.225	60.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.4	2012/08/27 16:39:43	19.572	-64.531	6.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	5.0	2012/08/27 16:00:50	-27.140	-176.751	39.7	KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 15:34:57	33.002	-114.709	23.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.3	2012/08/27 15:33:48	36.014	-118.404	2.6	CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 14:44:40	32.928	-115.507	9.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.6	2012/08/27 14:36:32	11.963	-89.195	35.0	OFF THE COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/27 13:48:49	19.425	-155.320	7.8	ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP	4.5	2012/08/27 13:46:15	12.098	-88.540	35.0	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.4	2012/08/27 13:34:21	12.571	-88.256	35.0	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.6	2012/08/27 12:55:21	12.926	-88.450	20.5	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	3.3	2012/08/27 12:19:58	60.281	-152.437	94.6	SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP	5.0	2012/08/27 12:05:23	10.346	92.937	45.4	ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
MAP	2.6	2012/08/27 11:25:54	37.173	-114.842	5.2	NEVADA
MAP	4.7	2012/08/27 10:59:41	12.124	-88.490	20.6	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	5.1	2012/08/27 09:05:01	12.154	-88.306	20.1	NEAR THE COAST OF NICARAGUA
MAP	5.3	2012/08/27 09:01:23	2.378	99.002	151.2	NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/27 08:58:23	33.056	-115.537	8.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.6	2012/08/27 08:16:18	12.360	-88.673	19.9	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.5	2012/08/27 08:14:48	12.312	-88.932	20.2	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 08:08:30	19.527	-64.337	9.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.8	2012/08/27 08:05:54	12.313	-89.105	20.4	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 07:55:33	19.432	-155.313	6.5	ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 07:53:38	32.961	-115.531	3.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 07:50:59	33.026	-115.542	13.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.7	2012/08/27 07:47:13	12.063	-88.435	20.2	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	3.0	2012/08/27 07:32:06	32.979	-115.579	14.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.2	2012/08/27 06:37:42	12.100	-88.661	19.2	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.5	2012/08/27 06:37:30	48.907	154.883	62.1	KURIL ISLANDS
MAP	3.4	2012/08/27 06:31:29	33.044	-115.529	5.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 06:24:54	19.693	-64.214	25.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 06:13:00	19.677	-64.217	24.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 06:09:05	19.631	-64.278	41.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.3	2012/08/27 06:02:30	12.326	-88.682	20.0	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.4	2012/08/27 05:55:48	12.253	-88.534	20.0	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 05:47:33	19.426	-155.312	5.9	ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP	3.0	2012/08/27 05:47:25	33.040	-115.532	12.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 05:39:43	32.913	-115.532	14.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	5.4	2012/08/27 05:38:02	12.258	-88.656	20.3	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	5.2	2012/08/27 05:23:23	30.732	-113.875	10.1	GULF OF CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 05:20:51	33.054	-115.582	0.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.3	2012/08/27 05:09:05	33.056	-115.544	8.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 05:08:00	32.527	-115.648	18.5	BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP	4.5	2012/08/27 05:06:06	12.065	-88.997	20.2	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	4.6	2012/08/27 05:01:30	12.124	-88.645	19.9	OFF THE COAST OF EL SALVADOR
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 05:01:22	33.048	-115.535	10.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 04:59:36	33.008	-115.548	10.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 04:59:24	19.791	-155.570	16.2	ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP	2.8	2012/08/27 04:57:04	33.050	-115.542	8.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 04:54:56	33.008	-115.567	0.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.8	2012/08/27 04:53:53	12.593	-88.753	20.3	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 04:49:10	33.027	-115.542	10.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 04:46:14	33.020	-115.494	11.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.9	2012/08/27 04:41:37	33.030	-115.531	9.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	7.3	2012/08/27 04:37:20	12.278	-88.528	20.3	OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 04:20:13	32.988	-115.595	12.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.6	2012/08/27 03:47:43	19.740	-64.342	34.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	5.0	2012/08/27 03:47:18	2.234	126.844	82.3	MOLUCCA SEA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 03:41:41	33.014	-115.547	13.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/27 03:29:42	33.025	-115.546	13.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.8	2012/08/27 03:21:31	19.730	-64.180	35.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 03:18:48	33.021	-115.546	14.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/27 03:03:33	32.993	-115.588	13.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/27 02:57:52	19.503	-64.109	76.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.2	2012/08/27 02:53:15	32.977	-115.609	13.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 02:47:24	33.009	-115.554	12.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/27 02:28:10	33.023	-115.540	14.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.2	2012/08/27 02:03:19	19.204	-64.090	92.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.2	2012/08/27 01:51:03	19.461	-64.165	76.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.4	2012/08/27 00:58:45	32.998	-115.579	13.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/27 00:58:34	33.018	-115.539	0.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/27 00:47:02	19.521	-64.144	71.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	5.1	2012/08/27 00:39:53	-23.805	-69.120	57.1	ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
MAP	3.1	2012/08/27 00:29:10	19.658	-64.140	57.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 00:13:45	33.005	-115.596	18.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/27 00:12:26	33.037	-115.549	8.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.4	2012/08/27 00:12:11	-23.850	-68.707	76.6	ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
MAP	3.4	2012/08/27 00:05:53	19.637	-64.268	49.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.6	2012/08/27 00:03:52	19.730	-64.194	21.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION

	MAG	UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s	LAT deg	LON deg	DEPTH km	Region
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 23:59:20	19.736	-64.176	22.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 23:57:54	19.657	-64.209	10.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.2	2012/08/26 23:53:15	33.033	-115.535	13.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 23:46:34	32.246	-114.746	9.1	SONORA, MEXICO
MAP	3.3	2012/08/26 23:44:32	19.486	-64.145	76.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.8	2012/08/26 23:36:58	33.052	-115.533	7.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 23:34:51	33.001	-115.547	5.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.6	2012/08/26 23:33:25	33.033	-115.531	9.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 23:28:51	19.545	-64.174	67.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 23:26:14	19.174	-63.901	99.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 23:23:41	19.115	-63.923	96.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 23:21:07	59.992	-153.523	100.0	SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 23:21:05	33.021	-115.541	13.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 23:19:06	18.894	-63.961	90.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.3	2012/08/26 23:17:16	12.167	-88.074	65.5	NEAR THE COAST OF NICARAGUA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 23:16:22	33.007	-115.564	13.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 23:13:46	33.032	-115.536	12.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	5.0	2012/08/26 23:06:13	2.684	128.858	44.6	HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 23:01:19	19.496	-64.081	81.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.3	2012/08/26 22:58:42	32.990	-115.590	13.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 22:54:48	33.011	-115.553	12.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 22:53:36	33.023	-115.553	12.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 22:52:10	32.998	-115.589	12.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 22:51:34	40.304	-124.429	11.0	OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 22:51:23	32.997	-115.570	0.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 22:38:56	19.618	-64.347	26.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.2	2012/08/26 22:34:57	14.065	-91.259	90.9	GUATEMALA
MAP	3.5	2012/08/26 22:34:46	33.007	-115.589	13.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 22:34:05	32.992	-115.593	13.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 22:23:57	32.989	-115.428	6.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 22:22:54	32.923	-115.555	12.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 22:22:35	32.962	-115.564	12.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 22:16:24	32.998	-115.589	13.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 22:16:03	32.938	-115.669	0.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 22:13:04	32.999	-115.578	15.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.6	2012/08/26 22:10:24	19.691	-64.186	40.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 22:08:06	33.021	-115.549	14.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 22:06:29	33.014	-115.539	9.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.5	2012/08/26 22:03:09	19.525	-64.229	66.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 22:02:00	33.028	-115.541	13.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 21:54:16	33.004	-115.586	16.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 21:53:58	32.971	-115.551	14.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 21:47:18	33.026	-115.538	10.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 21:46:12	32.996	-115.591	12.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 21:45:26	32.967	-115.551	13.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 21:42:51	33.022	-115.541	11.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 21:37:50	33.051	-115.577	0.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 21:34:48	33.027	-115.532	11.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 21:30:55	33.005	-115.565	12.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.8	2012/08/26 21:26:40	33.038	-115.527	12.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.5	2012/08/26 21:23:24	32.999	-115.590	14.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 21:21:57	32.998	-115.549	0.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 21:21:22	32.970	-115.588	12.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 21:20:24	33.032	-115.524	4.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 21:20:06	33.022	-115.536	10.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 21:19:35	32.974	-115.561	1.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 21:19:01	33.013	-115.536	0.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.9	2012/08/26 21:17:27	32.984	-115.608	9.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.2	2012/08/26 21:15:29	33.041	-115.543	8.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 21:13:59	33.026	-115.524	11.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 21:12:38	32.959	-115.585	0.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.6	2012/08/26 21:08:46	32.997	-115.587	11.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 21:05:12	33.027	-115.537	4.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	5.5	2012/08/26 20:57:58	33.024	-115.549	9.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 20:45:49	33.030	-115.545	12.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 20:34:40	19.646	-64.273	14.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 20:33:02	33.008	-115.529	0.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 20:31:13	33.024	-115.543	4.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 20:28:58	33.009	-115.528	9.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 20:28:20	33.004	-115.553	12.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 20:24:52	33.007	-115.553	12.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 20:20:25	33.026	-115.543	11.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.5	2012/08/26 20:16:54	33.012	-115.564	12.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 20:16:43	33.029	-115.535	10.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 20:14:46	32.996	-115.582	12.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 20:10:14	33.000	-115.561	11.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 20:08:32	32.928	-115.577	7.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 20:06:10	33.029	-115.537	3.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 20:04:50	33.008	-115.559	9.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.6	2012/08/26 19:58:17	33.025	-115.541	13.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 19:57:34	33.010	-115.541	9.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 19:50:15	33.007	-115.586	12.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 19:48:04	33.021	-115.558	24.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 19:47:08	32.989	-115.572	12.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.2	2012/08/26 19:45:56	32.993	-115.575	0.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 19:43:41	33.023	-115.541	10.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.3	2012/08/26 19:40:13	32.990	-115.598	13.8	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 19:39:31	32.998	-115.572	7.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 19:35:52	32.995	-115.485	7.9	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.9	2012/08/26 19:33:01	33.021	-115.554	14.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	5.3	2012/08/26 19:31:23	33.019	-115.546	12.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 19:30:55	33.035	-115.536	10.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 19:28:45	33.023	-115.561	13.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.5	2012/08/26 19:21:04	33.003	-115.546	11.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.6	2012/08/26 19:20:05	33.019	-115.545	13.1	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.0	2012/08/26 19:16:12	33.019	-115.549	10.6	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 19:06:48	33.024	-115.541	13.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 19:06:32	33.027	-115.542	13.3	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 19:03:19	33.027	-115.538	14.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 18:58:12	33.024	-115.546	13.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 18:56:40	19.681	-64.297	24.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 18:55:55	33.008	-115.560	12.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 18:43:16	19.789	-64.160	30.0	NORTH OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 18:39:37	19.734	-64.201	15.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.5	2012/08/26 18:32:55	19.537	-64.491	16.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 18:11:24	33.014	-115.560	12.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 18:08:57	19.745	-64.083	25.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 18:05:13	19.778	-64.120	38.0	NORTH OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 17:39:03	19.603	-64.288	25.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 17:37:16	33.011	-115.551	12.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 17:30:42	19.595	-64.374	16.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.2	2012/08/26 17:24:23	19.609	-64.302	31.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 17:18:13	33.010	-115.556	12.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 17:17:23	33.017	-115.556	12.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.3	2012/08/26 17:16:02	33.023	-115.549	13.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 17:13:52	33.017	-115.555	12.7	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 17:06:53	19.441	-64.472	53.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 17:03:40	32.996	-115.548	6.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.8	2012/08/26 17:02:13	33.019	-115.563	13.2	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 16:45:42	59.587	-153.405	100.0	SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 16:26:17	19.765	-64.094	54.0	NORTH OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 16:18:16	33.018	-115.555	12.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 16:14:51	59.977	-152.290	60.5	SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 16:12:37	19.665	-64.083	66.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.4	2012/08/26 16:02:12	19.616	-64.311	27.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 16:00:53	18.701	-63.541	104.0	ANGUILLA REGION, LEEWARD ISLANDS
MAP	4.2	2012/08/26 15:56:10	19.582	-64.388	9.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 15:50:28	19.660	-64.239	39.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 15:48:24	32.998	-115.559	11.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 15:48:11	33.010	-115.548	12.0	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 15:33:04	33.015	-115.552	12.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 15:28:27	19.889	-64.354	73.0	NORTH OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 15:17:06	18.299	-67.322	82.0	MONA PASSAGE, PUERTO RICO
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 15:13:53	19.708	-64.140	14.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	3.1	2012/08/26 15:11:57	19.674	-64.290	42.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	6.6	2012/08/26 15:05:37	2.197	126.835	91.9	MOLUCCA SEA
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 15:00:15	19.634	-64.040	71.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 14:57:31	19.691	-64.293	27.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.9	2012/08/26 14:55:14	19.762	-68.845	55.0	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC REGION
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 14:49:52	19.736	-64.133	39.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.8	2012/08/26 14:42:11	19.420	-63.968	95.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.1	2012/08/26 14:37:51	19.660	-64.264	32.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	4.4	2012/08/26 14:30:30	37.077	142.533	36.3	OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP	2.6	2012/08/26 14:00:24	35.640	-97.282	5.0	OKLAHOMA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 12:09:34	19.347	-155.091	8.1	ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP	4.6	2012/08/26 12:02:48	-6.038	103.379	35.5	SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA
MAP	4.9	2012/08/26 11:27:04	-6.634	102.996	34.2	SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA
MAP	5.4	2012/08/26 11:22:23	-65.439	-179.843	10.0	PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE
MAP	4.1	2012/08/26 11:13:41	13.670	-90.199	91.7	OFFSHORE GUATEMALA
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 09:55:43	61.708	-154.202	0.1	SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP	3.3	2012/08/26 09:53:14	33.871	-116.194	7.5	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	3.0	2012/08/26 07:21:32	18.416	-66.209	113.0	SAN JUAN URBAN AREA, PUERTO RICO
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 06:49:34	35.984	-117.863	4.7	CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.3	2012/08/26 06:43:25	55.519	-162.540	132.0	ALASKA PENINSULA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 06:41:15	19.136	-64.889	63.0	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.5	2012/08/26 06:06:07	38.437	-122.254	11.8	NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	2.7	2012/08/26 04:22:07	19.245	-155.536	7.4	ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII
MAP	4.8	2012/08/26 03:20:55	53.041	-35.183	10.6	REYKJANES RIDGE
MAP	4.6	2012/08/26 03:16:52	53.058	-35.054	10.0	REYKJANES RIDGE

……………………………………….

6.4 Mwp – MOLUCCA SEA

Preliminary Earthquake Report
Magnitude	6.4 Mwp
Date-Time	26 Aug 2012 15:05:35 UTC 26 Aug 2012 23:05:35 near epicenter 26 Aug 2012 09:05:35 standard time in your timezone
Location	2.231N 126.865E
Depth	69 km
Distances	169 km (105 miles) NNW (340 degrees) of Ternate, Moluccas, Indonesia 239 km (148 miles) ENE (70 degrees) of Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia 460 km (286 miles) ENE (66 degrees) of Gorontalo, Sulawesi, Indonesia 1021 km (634 miles) SW (236 degrees) of KOROR, Palau
Location Uncertainty	Horizontal: 13.4 km; Vertical 7.2 km
Parameters	Nph = 250; Dmin = 170.5 km; Rmss = 1.18 seconds; Gp = 15° M-type = Mwp; Version = 8
Event ID	us c000c76x

For updates, maps, and technical information, see:
Event Page
or
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

National Earthquake Information Center
U.S. Geological Survey
http://neic.usgs.gov/

7.4 Mwp – OFF COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA Near Ecuador

Preliminary Earthquake Report
Magnitude	7.4 Mwp
Date-Time	27 Aug 2012 04:37:23 UTC 26 Aug 2012 22:37:23 near epicenter 26 Aug 2012 22:37:23 standard time in your timezone
Location	12.279N 88.530W
Depth	52 km
Distances	118 km (74 miles) S (185 degrees) of Usulután, Usulután, El Salvador 138 km (86 miles) SSW (196 degrees) of San Miguel, San Miguel, El Salvador 139 km (86 miles) SSW (212 degrees) of La Unión, La Unión, El Salvador 169 km (105 miles) SSE (156 degrees) of SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador
Location Uncertainty	Horizontal: 16.5 km; Vertical 8.8 km
Parameters	Nph = 362; Dmin = 130.5 km; Rmss = 1.02 seconds; Gp = 114° M-type = Mwp; Version = 8
Event ID	us c000c7yw

For updates, maps, and technical information, see:
Event Page
or
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

National Earthquake Information Center
U.S. Geological Survey
http://neic.usgs.gov/

California earthquake swarm felt in Arizona, Mexico, USGS says

The USGS recorded more than two dozen earthquakes in Imperial County, many of them near Brawley. Officials said people reported feeling the quake in Yuma, Ariz., Lake Havasu as well as in Baja California.

The USGS’s “Do You Feel It” system shows the quakes were felt as far away as San Diego, Temecula and San Clemente. The 5.4 quake was also felt in Moreno Valley, Indio, National City and Palm Desert.

The quakes could be felt in the press box at the Del Mar Race Track in neighboring San Diego County, where the $1-million Pacific Classic is scheduled later Sunday.

Between 10 a.m. and 12:50 p.m., the same area was shaken by quakes ranging in magnitude from 2.0 to 5.4, the USGS reported.

The burst of quakes took place roughly 16 miles from El Centro and 92 miles from Tijuana. In the last 10 days, there have been six earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries from the temblor, though reports were still coming in.

The border region is known for frequent seismic activity, though the size of these quakes is larger than typically seen.

Here is a preliminary magnitude count of some of the quakes Sunday:

— 5.3 magnitude at 12:32:59

— 5.4 magnitude at 12:31:23

— 5.3 magnitude at 12:30:54

— 3.7 magnitude at 12:30:27

— 4.7 magnitude at 12:21:04

— 4.6 magnitude at 12:20:04

The size of the quakes are subject to change as the USGS refines its data.

Read more about California earthquakes on L.A. Now.

Earthquake swarm rattles Southern California

By Associated Press and KOMO Staff

Map provided by the U.S. Geologic Survey shows the earthquake swarm. The most recent quakes are in red.

SAN DIEGO (AP) – Dozens of small to moderate earthquakes struck the southeastern corner of California on Sunday, causing minor damages to structures and rattling nerves in a small farming town east of San Diego.

The largest quake registered at a magnitude 5.5 and was centered about three miles northwest of the town of Brawley, said Robert Graves, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Another quake Sunday registered at magnitude 5.3.

More than 30 additional earthquakes with magnitudes of at least 3.5 jiggled the same area near the southern end of the Salton Sea, Graves said.

“The type of activity that we’re seeing could possibly continue for several hours or even days,” Graves said.

At the El Sol Market in Brawley, food packages fell from the shelves, littering aisle ways.

Several glasses and a bottle of wine crashed to the floor and shattered at Assaggio, an Italian restaurant in Brawley, said owner Jerry Ma. The shaking was short-lived but intense, he said.

“It felt like there was quake every 15 minutes. One after another. My kids are small and they’re scared and don’t want to come back inside,” said Mike Patel, who manages Townhouse Inn & Suites in Brawley.

A TV came crashing down and a few light fixtures broke inside the motel, Patel said.

A Brawley Police Department dispatcher said several downtown buildings sustained minor damage. No injuries were reported.

The first quake, with a magnitude of 3.9, occurred at 10:02 a.m. The USGS said more than 100 aftershocks struck the same approximate epicenter, about 16 miles north of El Centro.

Some shaking was felt along the San Diego County coast in Del Mar, some 120 miles from the epicenter, as well as in the Coachella Valley, southern Orange County and parts of northern Mexico.

USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said earthquake swarms are characteristic of the region, known as the Brawley Seismic Zone.

“The area sees lots of events at once, with many close to the largest magnitude, rather than one main shock with several much smaller aftershocks,” Jones said.

The last major swarm was in 2005, following a magnitude-5.1 quake, she said.

Sunday’s quake cluster occurred in what scientists call a transition zone between the Imperial and San Andreas faults, so they weren’t assigning the earthquakes to either fault, Graves said.

27.08.2012

Earthquake

USA

State of California, [Imperial County]

Earthquake in USA on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 03:20 (03:20 AM) UTC.

Description

The series of moderate earthquakes — including several magnitude 5.0 and above — were felt as far north as Orange County, east into Arizona and south into Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS recorded more than two dozen earthquakes in Imperial County, many of them near Brawley. Officials said people reported feeling the quake in Yuma, Ariz., Lake Havasu as well as in Baja California. The USGS’s “Do You Feel It” system shows the quakes were felt as far away as San Diego, Temecula and San Clemente. The 5.4 quake was also felt in Moreno Valley, Indio, National City and Palm Desert. The quakes could be felt in the press box at the Del Mar Race Track in neighboring San Diego County, where the $1-million Pacific Classic is scheduled later Sunday. Between 10 a.m. and 12:50 p.m., the same area was shaken by quakes ranging in magnitude from 2.0 to 5.4, the USGS reported. The burst of quakes took place roughly 16 miles from El Centro and 92 miles from Tijuana. In the last 10 days, there have been six earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries from the temblor, though reports were still coming in. The border region is known for frequent seismic activity, though the size of these quakes is larger than typically seen.

Home video captured the aftermath of one of two moderate earthquakes that struck Imperial County on Sunday, part of a swarm of more than 70 that hit the region. The video shows books and DVDs toppled from shelves and some belongings fallen to the floor. The video was posted on YouTube on Sunday afternoon. But damage appear to be minor. Imperial County officials said no injuries have been reported. A handful of buildings in downtown Brawley had minor damage after an earthquake swarm rattled the area Sunday, officials said. Most of the quakes occurred in and around that California town. Capt. Jesse Zendejas of the Brawley Fire Department described the damage as “cosmetic” and said it occurred in at least three buildings dating to the 1930s. Crews were still assessing other areas of the city, but no injuries had been reported, he said. Imperial County firefighters were also assisting in the survey. The first quake – a magnitude 3.8 temblor, which was downgraded from 3.9 – occurred at 10:02 a.m. about three miles northwest of Brawley and was followed by a series of other quakes in the same general area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which may continue to revise the numbers. Thomas Jordan, director of the USC-based Southern California Earthquake Center, called the activity a “very active swarm” – something not unusual for the southern edge of the San Andreas Fault, which has seen similar occurrences in recent years. This swarm could continue to rumble the region for a few days, Jordan added. “It’s been pretty productive so far,” he said. “It’s a vigorous one. We got some pretty good-sized events.” As data continued to roll in, Jordan said, scientists would study the swarm to learn how the sequence developed and what effect it could have on the fault. “We’re always concerned where there is significant seismic activity because that means there is a higher probability of having more seismic activity,” he said.

…………………………………………….

Intense Magnitude 5 quake nearby Fukushima plant — Hits hours after even stronger quake in Northern Japan (MAP)

Title: Earthquake Information
Source: Japan Meteorological Agency

USS Live Seismic Server

CU/ANWB, Willy Bob, Antigua and Barbuda

CU/BBGH, Gun Hill, Barbados

CU/BCIP, Isla Barro Colorado, Panama

CU/GRGR, Grenville, Grenada

CU/GRTK, Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands

CU/GTBY, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

CU/MTDJ, Mount Denham, Jamaica

CU/SDDR, Presa de Sabaneta, Dominican Republic

CU/TGUH, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

IC/BJT, Baijiatuan, Beijing, China

IC/ENH, Enshi, China

IC/HIA, Hailar, Neimenggu Province, China

IC/LSA, Lhasa, China

IC/MDJ, Mudanjiang, China

IC/QIZ, Qiongzhong, Guangduong Province, China

IU/ADK, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, USA

IU/AFI, Afiamalu, Samoa

IU/ANMO, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

IU/ANTO, Ankara, Turkey

IU/BBSR, Bermuda

IU/BILL, Bilibino, Russia

IU/CASY, Casey, Antarctica

IU/CCM, Cathedral Cave, Missouri, USA

IU/CHTO, Chiang Mai, Thailand

IU/COLA, College Outpost, Alaska, USA

IU/COR, Corvallis, Oregon, USA

IU/CTAO, Charters Towers, Australia

IU/DAV,Davao, Philippines

IU/DWPF,Disney Wilderness Preserve, Florida, USA

IU/FUNA,Funafuti, Tuvalu

IU/FURI, Mt. Furi, Ethiopia

IU/GNI, Garni, Armenia

IU/GRFO, Grafenberg, Germany

IU/GUMO, Guam, Mariana Islands

IU/HKT, Hockley, Texas, USA

IU/HNR, Honiara, Solomon Islands

IU/HRV, Adam Dziewonski Observatory (Oak Ridge), Massachusetts, USA

IU/INCN, Inchon, Republic of Korea

IU/JOHN, Johnston Island, Pacific Ocean

IU/KBS, Ny-Alesund, Spitzbergen, Norway

IU/KEV, Kevo, Finland

IU/KIEV, Kiev, Ukraine

IU/KIP, Kipapa, Hawaii, USA

IU/KMBO, Kilima Mbogo, Kenya

IU/KNTN, Kanton Island, Kiribati

IU/KONO, Kongsberg, Norway

IU/KOWA, Kowa, Mali

IU/LCO, Las Campanas Astronomical Observatory, Chile

IU/LSZ, Lusaka, Zambia

IU/MAJO, Matsushiro, Japan

IU/MAKZ,Makanchi, Kazakhstan

IU/MBWA, Marble Bar, Western Australia

IU/MIDW, Midway Island, Pacific Ocean, USA

IU/NWAO, Narrogin, Australia

IU/OTAV, Otavalo, Ecuador

IU/PAB, San Pablo, Spain

IU/PAYG Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands

IU/PET, Petropavlovsk, Russia

IU/PMG, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

IU/PMSA, Palmer Station, Antarctica

IU/POHA, Pohakaloa, Hawaii

IU/PTCN, Pitcairn Island, South Pacific

IU/PTGA, Pitinga, Brazil

IU/QSPA, South Pole, Antarctica

IU/RAO, Raoul, Kermadec Islands

IU/RAR, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

IU/RCBR, Riachuelo, Brazil

IU/RSSD, Black Hills, South Dakota, USA

IU/SAML, Samuel, Brazil

IU/SBA, Scott Base, Antarctica

IU/SDV, Santo Domingo, Venezuela

IU/SFJD, Sondre Stromfjord, Greenland

IU/SJG, San Juan, Puerto Rico

IU/SLBS, Sierra la Laguna Baja California Sur, Mexico

IU/SNZO, South Karori, New Zealand

IU/SSPA, Standing Stone, Pennsylvania USA

IU/TARA, Tarawa Island, Republic of Kiribati

IU/TATO, Taipei, Taiwan

IU/TEIG, Tepich, Yucatan, Mexico

IU/TIXI, Tiksi, Russia

IU/TRIS, Tristan da Cunha, Atlantic Ocean

IU/TRQA, Tornquist, Argentina

IU/TSUM, Tsumeb, Namibia

IU/TUC, Tucson, Arizona

IU/ULN, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

IU/WAKE, Wake Island, Pacific Ocean

IU/WCI, Wyandotte Cave, Indiana, USA

IU/WVT, Waverly, Tennessee, USA

IU/XMAS, Kiritimati Island, Republic of Kiribati

IU/YSS, Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, Russia

***********************************************************************************************************

Extreme Temperatures/ Weather

27.08.2012

Forest / Wild Fire

USA

State of Kansas, [Wilson County]

Forest / Wild Fire in USA on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 16:34 (04:34 PM) UTC.

Description

Authorities have released preliminary damage estimates of last week’s grass fire that burned more than 1,300 acres in Wilson County. Emergency Management officials said Monday that the fire affected 12 landowners. One home was totally destroyed, along with several outbuildings. Firefighters were able to save five other homes in the path of Thursday’s fire. The fire also destroyed 28 electrical poles, about 315 bales of hay valued at $30,000 and killed one calf. About 8.25 miles of fencing with a replacement value of $123,000 also burned. The cause of the fire may never be determined, but authorities believe it may have been started by a discarded cigarette.

27.08.2012

Forest / Wild Fire

USA

State of Montana, [Delphia Region]

Forest / Wild Fire in USA on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 09:13 (09:13 AM) UTC.

Description

Officials say 10 to 15 structures have been destroyed in south-central Montana and evacuations have been ordered ahead of a fast-moving wildfire that grew to at least 23 square miles on Saturday since starting a day earlier. Fire spokesman Paula Short says the destroyed buildings are believed to be secondary structures and no injuries have been reported. She says the Delphia Fire is in a rural area about 14 miles northeast of Roundup burning in grass, sage and timber. Musselshell County officials have ordered residents along Fishel Creek Road to evacuate, and residents along Hawk Creek Road are under a pre-evacuation notice. Short says about 30 to 40 homes are threatened. She says more than 100 firefighters are battling the fire along with four air tankers and three helicopters.

27.08.2012

Forest / Wild Fire

Bulgaria

Multiple Regions, [Rila Mountain]

Forest / Wild Fire in Bulgaria on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 09:09 (09:09 AM) UTC.

Description

The wildfire that erupted in southern Bulgaria in the Rila Mountain is continuing to engulf the pine forests for the fifth consecutive day. The situation is reported as extremely serious despite the ongoing effort of hundreds of firemen, forest rangers, military servicemen, and volunteers. The two MI-17 helicopters from the Krumovo Air Base, which helped to halt the spread of the flames Sunday, will resume work on Monday. Volunteers will not be allowed Monday and the extinguishing will be only in the hands of professionals. Over 1 500 decares of vegetation have been affected. The wind is further worsening the situation, which was monitored overnight by a new team of 20 people on duty. The fire started on August 23 at an altitude of 2 300 meters and a very difficult to access terrain, right above the historical Rila monastery. The monastery is not in danger, according to authorities. There are 84 active wildfires in the country, the Interior Ministry’s press office reports. The large number of blazes in Bulgaria is attributed to the summer heat and draught, and to human recklessness.

27.08.2012

Forest / Wild Fire

France

Multiple region, [Between Avignon and Aix-en-Provence]

Forest / Wild Fire in France on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 09:06 (09:06 AM) UTC.

Description

Gendarmes have moved in to try to find the cause of a fire that destroyed two houses and around 900 hectares of forest and arable farmlands and forced the evacuation of a campsite. Around 900 firefighters plus 12 water-bomber aircraft were needed to control what was the summer’s largest forest fire in the south-east, half-way between Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. The fire, which covered lands in the communes of Orgon, Sénas and Eyguières, was pushed by a strong Mistral wind which was reaching up to 70kph after several days of intense hot weather. The RD569 between Organ and Eyguières was cut by the fire. Smoke could be seen from several tens of kilometres away and ash was blown as far as Marseille. Firefighters managed to stop the spread late yesterday afternoon but 700 of them were still on the scene at Orgon in Bouches-du-Rhône, near the border with the Vaucluse, this morning. Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur prefect Hugues Parant said they fear that the wind will turn around midday and the fire will take off again. It is not yet known how the fire started, but it was first spotted around midnight on Saturday night near a campsite on a rocky ridge on the edge of the Alpilles. Halfway through the night rescue crews evacuated 70 people from the campsite but could not save two houses and outbuildings in Sénas from being destroyed. One man was also rescued from his car which was caught in the path of the flames. The initial 500 firefighters from Vaucluse and Bouches-du-Rhône were reinforced by others from Hérault, Drôme and Alpes-Maritimes along with seven Canadair, two Tracker and one Dash water-bombers, plus two helicopters. Already this summer more than 650 hectares of forest have been destroyed in a fire at Lacanau, in Gironde, in the south-west.

**********************************************************************************************************

Tsunami

27.08.2012

Tsunami

Other

Pacific Ocean – South, [DART 43413 buoy]

Tsunami in Other on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 07:24 (07:24 AM) UTC.

Description
Tsunami wave has been observed in DART 43413 buoy on 27.08.2012 at 06:19 UTC. The observed tsunami wave height was 0.1 feet (0.10 cm). The wave height wasn’t dangerous.

Tsunami in Other on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 07:24 (07:24 AM) UTC.

Base data
EDIS Number:	TS-20120827-36341-OTH
Event type:	Tsunami
Date/Time:	Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 07:24 (07:24 AM) UTC
Last update:	—
Cause of event:
Damage level:	Unknown
Geographic information
Continent:	Other
Country:	Other
County / State:	Pacific Ocean – South
Area:	DART 43413 buoy
City:
Coordinate:	N 10° 48.000, W 100° 6.000
Number of affected people / Humanities loss
Foreign people:	Affected is unknown.
Dead person(s):	—
Injured person(s):	—
Missing person(s):	—
Evacuated person(s):	—
Affected person(s):	—

27.08.2012

Tsunami

El Salvador

Departamento de La Union, La Union

Tsunami in El Salvador on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 07:22 (07:22 AM) UTC.

Description
Tsunami wave has been observed following the M 7.3 magnitude earthquake in La Union, El Salvador on 27.08.2012 at 06:27 UTC. The observed tsunami wave height was 0.1 feet (0.20 cm). The wave height wasn’t dangerous.

Tsunami in El Salvador on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 07:22 (07:22 AM) UTC.

Base data
EDIS Number:	TS-20120827-36340-SLV
Event type:	Tsunami
Date/Time:	Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 07:22 (07:22 AM) UTC
Last update:	—
Cause of event:
Damage level:	Unknown
Geographic information
Continent:	Central-America
Country:	El Salvador
County / State:	Departamento de La Union
Area:
City:	La Union
Coordinate:	N 13° 18.000, W 87° 48.000
Number of affected people / Humanities loss
Foreign people:	Affected is unknown.
Dead person(s):	—
Injured person(s):	—
Missing person(s):	—
Evacuated person(s):	—
Affected person(s):	—

27.08.2012

Tsunami

El Salvador

Departmento de Sonsonate, Acajutla

Tsunami in El Salvador on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 06:25 (06:25 AM) UTC.

Description
Tsunami wave has been observed following the M 7.3 magnitude earthquake in El Salvador on 27.08.2012 at 05:40 UTC. The observed tsunami wave height was 0.3 feet (0.10 cm). The wave height wasn’t dangerous.

Tsunami in El Salvador on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 06:25 (06:25 AM) UTC.

Base data
EDIS Number:	TS-20120827-36339-SLV
Event type:	Tsunami
Date/Time:	Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 06:25 (06:25 AM) UTC
Last update:	—
Cause of event:
Damage level:	Unknown
Geographic information
Continent:	Central-America
Country:	El Salvador
County / State:	Departmento de Sonsonate
Area:
City:	Acajutla
Coordinate:	N 13° 36.000, W 89° 48.000
Number of affected people / Humanities loss
Foreign people:	Affected is unknown.
Dead person(s):	—
Injured person(s):	—
Missing person(s):	—
Evacuated person(s):	—
Affected person(s):	—

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Storms / Flooding

Active tropical storm system(s)

Name of storm system	Location	Formed	Last update	Last category	Course	Wind Speed	Gust	Wave	Source	Details
Tembin (15W)	Pacific Ocean	19.08.2012	28.08.2012	Typhoon I	35 °	102 km/h	130 km/h	5.79 m	JTWC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Tembin (15W)
Area:	Pacific Ocean
Start up location:	N 17° 42.000, E 124° 36.000
Start up:	19th August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	405.65 km
Top category.:
Report by:	JTWC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source
20th Aug 2012	05:16:05	N 18° 0.000, E 124° 48.000	6	139	167	Typhoon I.	360	9		JTWC
21st Aug 2012	04:48:23	N 20° 12.000, E 125° 18.000	13	213	259	Typhoon IV.	360	15		JTWC
23rd Aug 2012	04:49:56	N 22° 30.000, E 123° 36.000	4	204	232	Typhoon III.	270	9		JTWC
25th Aug 2012	05:19:01	N 22° 24.000, E 118° 6.000	13	139	167	Typhoon I.	260	17		JTWC
27th Aug 2012	04:54:48	N 20° 18.000, E 117° 36.000	11	157	194	Typhoon II.	125	19		JTWC

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
28th Aug 2012	04:53:36	N 23° 0.000, E 121° 54.000	28	102	130	Typhoon I	35 °	19		JTWC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
29th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 29° 24.000, E 124° 0.000	Typhoon I	102	130	JTWC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 27° 6.000, E 123° 54.000	Typhoon I	93	120	JTWC
30th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 31° 42.000, E 123° 48.000	Typhoon I	102	130	JTWC
31st Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 36° 30.000, E 123° 54.000	Tropical Depression	83	102	JTWC
01st Sep 2012	00:00:00	N 42° 42.000, E 126° 0.000	Tropical Depression	65	83	JTWC
02nd Sep 2012	00:00:00	N 48° 6.000, E 130° 6.000	Tropical Depression	37	56	JTWC

Bolaven (16W)

Pacific Ocean

20.08.2012

28.08.2012

Typhoon I

350 °

102 km/h

130 km/h

7.01 m

JTWC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Bolaven (16W)
Area:	Pacific Ocean
Start up location:	N 17° 18.000, E 141° 30.000
Start up:	20th August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	1,586.63 km
Top category.:
Report by:	JTWC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source
20th Aug 2012	05:13:46	N 17° 18.000, E 141° 30.000	13	56	74	Tropical Depression	330	12		JTWC
21st Aug 2012	04:47:46	N 18° 12.000, E 140° 30.000	9	93	120	Tropical Storm	295	10		JTWC
23rd Aug 2012	04:49:02	N 19° 42.000, E 135° 36.000	9	167	204	Typhoon II.	280	10		JTWC
24th Aug 2012	05:22:54	N 21° 0.000, E 133° 36.000	11	194	241	Typhoon III.	325	16		JTWC
25th Aug 2012	05:16:28	N 23° 30.000, E 132° 6.000	15	232	278	Typhoon IV.	325	18		JTWC
26th Aug 2012	05:21:23	N 25° 18.000, E 129° 30.000	17	213	259	Typhoon IV.	315	19		JTWC
27th Aug 2012	04:52:17	N 28° 36.000, E 126° 48.000	22	176	213	Typhoon II.	335	19		JTWC

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
28th Aug 2012	04:51:25	N 34° 48.000, E 124° 42.000	33	102	130	Typhoon I	350 °	23		JTWC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
29th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 47° 24.000, E 130° 36.000	Tropical Depression	56	74	JTWC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 43° 0.000, E 127° 24.000	Tropical Depression	65	83	JTWC

Isaac (AL09)

Atlantic Ocean

21.08.2012

27.08.2012

Hurricane I

305 °

102 km/h

120 km/h

5.18 m

NOAA NHC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Isaac (AL09)
Area:	Atlantic Ocean
Start up location:	N 15° 12.000, W 51° 12.000
Start up:	21st August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	2,435.14 km
Top category.:
Report by:	NOAA NHC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source
22nd Aug 2012	04:54:04	N 15° 36.000, W 55° 36.000	30	65	83	Tropical Storm	275	16	1006 MB	NOAA NHC
23rd Aug 2012	05:06:43	N 15° 48.000, W 63° 0.000	31	74	93	Tropical Storm	270	22	1003 MB	NOAA NHC
24th Aug 2012	05:17:31	N 16° 42.000, W 68° 42.000	28	74	93	Tropical Storm	290	19	1001 MB	NOAA NHC
25th Aug 2012	05:21:33	N 17° 42.000, W 72° 30.000	22	111	139	Tropical Storm	310	15	990 MB	NOAA NHC
27th Aug 2012	04:49:08	N 24° 12.000, W 82° 54.000	22	102	120	Tropical Storm	285	19	993 MB	NOAA NHC

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
28th Aug 2012	05:00:18	N 27° 6.000, W 87° 0.000	17	111	139	Hurricane I	310 °	19	310 MB	NOAA NHC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
29th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 29° 54.000, W 90° 6.000	Hurricane I	120	148	NOAA NHC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 29° 6.000, W 89° 12.000	Hurricane III	148	185	NOAA NHC
30th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 30° 42.000, W 90° 42.000	Tropical Depression	93	111	NOAA NHC
31st Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 33° 18.000, W 91° 42.000	Tropical Depression	56	74	NOAA NHC
01st Sep 2012	00:00:00	N 37° 30.000, W 91° 30.000	Tropical Depression	46	65	NOAA NHC
02nd Sep 2012	00:00:00	N 40° 30.000, W 87° 30.000	Tropical Depression	37	56	NOAA NHC

Ileana (EP09)

Pacific Ocean – East

28.08.2012

Tropical Depression

290 °

74 km/h

93 km/h

4.57 m

NOAA NHC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Ileana (EP09)
Area:	Pacific Ocean – East
Start up location:	N 15° 30.000, W 107° 42.000
Start up:	28th August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	0.00 km
Top category.:
Report by:	NOAA NHC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
28th Aug 2012	04:45:33	N 15° 30.000, W 107° 42.000	19	74	93	Tropical Depression	290 °	15	1000 MB	NOAA NHC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
29th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 17° 18.000, W 111° 54.000	Hurricane I	120	148	NOAA NHC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 16° 36.000, W 110° 36.000	Hurricane I	111	139	NOAA NHC
30th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 18° 6.000, W 112° 48.000	Hurricane II	130	157	NOAA NHC
31st Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 19° 30.000, W 114° 0.000	Hurricane II	139	167	NOAA NHC
01st Sep 2012	00:00:00	N 21° 0.000, W 115° 30.000	Hurricane I	120	148	NOAA NHC
02nd Sep 2012	00:00:00	N 22° 30.000, W 119° 0.000	Tropical Depression	93	111	NOAA NHC

…………………………

Massive Typhoon Bolaven slams Okinawa, heads for Koreas

By the CNN Wire Staff

Riding out typhoon in Okinawa

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: “It’s been a long and rough night,” storm chaser says
Bolaven crosses over Okinawa
It is the strongest typhoon in the region since 1956
Typhoon Bolaven’s cloud field is about 20 times the length of Okinawa

Tokyo (CNN) — A massive typhoon crossed over Okinawa on Sunday, bringing winds more ferocious than even the typhoon-weary Japanese island has seen in decades.

Typhoon Bolaven, with wind gusts that reached as high as 259 kilometers per hour (161 mph), is the strongest to strike the region in nearly 50 years. And with a cloud field of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), it is 20 times larger than Okinawa’s length.

“It’s been very, very severe,” said storm chaser James Reynolds, who was on the northwestern coast of the island during the worst of the storm.

Typhoon makes landfall in Taiwan

Tree branches were flying through the air amid torrential rain, he said.

Speaking to CNN early Monday morning on Okinawa, Reynolds said, “It’s been a long and rough night.”

“The eye of the typhoon actually crashed ashore just after dark. … Like the rest of the population we all just kind of holed up in the strong and sturdy buildings which make up Okinawa,” he said.

The infrastructure on Okinawa is designed to withstand violent storms. “Everything’s made of solid concrete,” said Reynolds.

The last storm of this scale was Typhoon Naha in 1956.

At 3 a.m. Monday local time (2 p.m. ET Sunday), Bolaven had winds of 194 kilometers per hour, with gusts at 240 kilometers per hour, CNN International meteorologist Jennifer Delgado reported.

Bolaven could make landfall at the Korean peninsula on Tuesday morning, or potentially in South Korea on Monday night, Delgado said.

In the meantime, rainfall totals in Okinawa could top 500 mm (20 inches) in 24 hours, said CNN International meteorologist Tom Sater.

Bolaven is “roughly the size of France to Poland in land mass,” said Sater.

Storm surges were expected to be a major problem for Okinawa. More than 400,000 people in the area live at elevations less than 50 meters (164 feet).

“The large battering waves on both sides of Okinawa are going to be a threat to people living near the water,” Reynolds predicted. “But I think the worst has passed now. The storm is moving away and unfortunately it’s the people in the Korean peninsula who look like they’ve got to prepare for the incoming storm.”

Taiwan, meanwhile, could be in for a pounding due to something called the Fujiwhara effect.

Typhoon Tembin made landfall in southern Taiwan a few days ago, and was expected to work its way toward Hong Kong. But Bolaven, which is much stronger, has stopped Tembin’s movement toward Hong Kong and has been spinning it around. Tembin is likely to make a second landfall in southern Taiwan, also on Tuesday morning.

“As Typhoon Bolaven moves northward towards the Yellow Sea, it will drag Tembin toward the China coast very near Shanghai,” said Sater. “That’s an amazing change in direction.”

27.08.2012

Power Outage

USA

State of Florida, [Southern Regions]

Power Outage in USA on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 16:06 (04:06 PM) UTC.

Description

About 63,000 homes and businesses were out of power mid-morning in the South Florida area as heavy wind and rain continue. The outages represent about 3 percent of Florida Power and Light’s 2.4 million customers in the tri-county area. In Broward, roughly 24,130 locations are without power, according to FPL, out of 800,000 customers. In Miami-Dade, 23,200 are without power out of more than 1 million customers. In Palm Beach, 18,380 locations are without power out of 600,000 customers. That’s significantly more than the roughly 18,000 customers left without power in the hours following Isaac’s closest path to the area, as the large storm continues sending debris and branches into FPL lines. “Palm fronds, believe it or not, are actually a huge cause of power outages,’’ said Richard Gibbs, an FPL spokesman.

27.08.2012

Flash Flood

India

Capital City, New Delhi

Flash Flood in India on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 18:34 (06:34 PM) UTC.

Description

A torrential downpour Monday evening turned several roads in the capital into virtual rivulets, causing massive traffic jams that affected tens of thousands. “The whole of Delhi is witnessing traffic jams,” an exasperated Delhi Traffic Police officer told IANS. A city that had been complaining about poor rainfall this year was suddenly hit by blinding rains after 6 p.m., taking motorists and people by surprise. In no time, scores of roads big and small became flooded, thanks to choked drains. In some areas, water entered houses and shops. Motorists had a harrowing time all across the city. On some streets, there was knee deep water. “It took me more than 45 minutes to cross a distance that normally takes just 15 minutes,” complained software professional Punit Chadda. Chadda was driving on the arterial Ring Road, which witnessed flooding at several spots.

North Delhi Mayor Meera Aggarwal told IANS that there was no flooding in the areas she visited. “But when there is such heavy downpour, flooding is bound to happen,” she said. Public Relations Executive Manish Arora was stuck on an otherwise busy road near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for some 30 minutes because of bumper to bumper traffic. Delhi Metro reported huge crowds as harried Delhites chose the network, even dumping their own vehicles. “Though office hours are always rush hours in metro, today the volume of crowd is more than usual,” Madhulika, a regular commuter, told IANS. South Delhi Mayor Sarita Chaudhary blamed multiple civic agencies for the chaos on the roads. “Sometimes PWD digs up the road but it doesn’t come under us. Who is responsible?” North and East Delhi Municipal Corporation spokesman Yogendra Singh Mann said it was high time the capital’s drainage system was given an overhaul. Rainfall recorded in the last 24 hours till 5.30 p.m. was 26 mm. Officials said data for the later rains was not immediately available. Rains are also expected Tuesday, with the India Meteorological Department predicting light rains or thundershowers. With the Yamuna’s level rising menacingly, the Delhi government asked people living along the river’s banks to move to safer places.

An official said the Yamuna had touched 204.16 metres — 67 centimetres short of danger mark. “All preparations are in place to deal any flood like situation in Delhi,” said Irrigation and Flood Control Minister A.K. Walia. The official said 43,218 cusecs (cubic meters per second) of water has been released from upstream at the Hathnikund Barrage in Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana Monday. Delhi’s rainfall this monsoon has been 26 percent less than the average. So far, 372.1 millimetres of rain has been recorded, against the average of 504.3 millimetres.

27.08.2012

Flash Flood

Nigeria

MultiStates, [States of Adamawa, Katsina and Niger]

Flash Flood in Nigeria on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 10:09 (10:09 AM) UTC.

Description

Floods wreaked havoc in several states in the North at the weekend, killing at least 15 people in Adamawa State and another four in Niger State. Hundreds of homes and farmlands were destroyed in floods in Katsina State, while roadways and bridges were submerged in Nasarawa State. The Adamawa flood affected 36 villages in 13 local government areas and was partly caused by the release of excess water from the Lagdo Dam in Cameroon, emergency authorities said. A local diver said apart from the 15 people who died, as many others were declared missing. “In Yola we counted three corpses, Numan 2, Demsa 3, Guyuk 4, Michika 2, and the list goes on,” he said, asking not to be named. Apart from the Cameroon dam water release, torrential rainfall in the affected areas worsened the floods, head of the Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency, Mr Shadrach Daniel, said. Hundreds of acres of farmlands were submerged in Mayo-Belwa, Song, Fufore, Yola South, Yola North, Shelleng, Lamurde and Numan local government areas wasting farm produce worth millions. Daniel said over 20,000 people have so far been rendered homeless by the incident across the three senatorial districts of the state. He confirmed that people died but said he could not give figures.

27.08.2012

Flash Flood

Philippines

Provincia del Zamboanga del Sur, [Province-wide]

Flash Flood in Philippines on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 09:14 (09:14 AM) UTC.

Description

At least one person was killed while two people were reported missing in two separate flash flooding incidents in Zamboanga del Sur over the weekend, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said on Monday. In its 6:00 a.m. report, the NDRRMC said a person was killed after a flash flood caused a cargo truck to overturn in the Salug Dako River, Mahayag town in Zamboanga del Sur at 5:30 p.m. p.m. on Saurday. “The victims were on board a cargo truck when a strong current coming from the said river hit the vehicle, which caused it to overturn,” the NDRRMC said. The NDRRMC heavy rain may have caused the river to overflow and destroyed the spillway that connects Mahayag and Dumingag towns. The NDRRMC did not name the fatality but said five other passengers of the truck were rescued.

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Epidemic Hazards / Diseases

Epidemic Hazard in Russia [Asia] on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 03:14 (03:14 AM) UTC.

Description
An anthrax outbreak in a Siberian village left one person dead and 10 others hospitalized as the Russian government declared a state of emergency in the area in a bid to prevent an epidemic. There were at least two other confirmed cases of anthrax infection in the village of Druzhba in the Altai region, reported an unidentified officials. The death was reported in a statement today by the Moscow-based Emergency Situations Ministry, which didn’t say whether it was caused by anthrax. Roads around the village have been closed off, Yevgenia Belikova, a spokeswoman for investigators in Altai. Veterinary officials killed several heads of cattle infected with anthrax and vaccinated another 187, as well as 21 horses and pigs, the Altai region’s press office said on its website. The anthrax outbreak is “under control and localized,” Deputy Governor Daniil Bessarabov said in the statement. The anthrax bacteria, known as Bacillus anthracis, occurs most commonly in cattle, sheep and goats and can be lethal to humans. The bacteria, which can cause skin infections and more severe lung infections, may survive in soil decades after an outbreak.
Biohazard name:	Anthrax
Biohazard level:	4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:	Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Symptoms:
Status:	confirmed

Epidemic Hazard in Russia [Asia] on Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 03:14 (03:14 AM) UTC.

Back

Updated:	Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 16:11 UTC
Description
Russian emergency officials quarantined the village of Druzhba after a suspected exposure to anthrax killed one person and sent 10 others to area hospitals. Officials said one person died and three people were sickened from anthrax exposure Saturday in Druzhba. Seven others were hospitalized for tests, officials said. Authorities said 32 people in the Altai territory are thought to have come into contact with infected animals. Druzhba, with a population of 740, was quarantined and officials ordered all animals vaccinated. Stray animals were killed to help contain the outbreak.

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Climate Change

United States Is Losing Ozone!
Unexpected And Serious Discovery Scientists Say

MessageToEagle.com – Scientists have discovered a serious and unexpected loss of ozone over United States this summer.

How worried should we be?

The finding is startling because the complex atmospheric chemistry that destroys ozone has previously been thought to occur only at very cold temperatures over polar regions where there is very little threat to humans. (A large hole in the ozone layer persists over Antarctica.)

The discovery also links—for the first time—ozone loss (an issue around which world leaders successfully organized to ban chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs) to climate change (a global problem that has so far proven politically intractable).

The ozone layer blocks a large fraction of the sun’s ultraviolet light from reaching the earth, protecting life forms from potentially damaging radiation that in humans can lead to skin cancer.But stratospheric ozone is susceptible to chemical catalysts of manmade origin, such as chlorine and bromine, which are present in the earth’s atmosphere as a result of the formerly widespread commercial use of CFCs. And the chemical reactions that destroy ozone are highly dependent on both atmospheric temperature and the presence of water vapor.

The finding was published in advance online on July 26 at Science’s Science Express website.

Anderson’s team has discovered that during intense summer storms over the United States, water vapor is thrust by convection far higher into the lower stratosphere than previously thought possible, altering atmospheric conditions in a way that leads to substantial, widespread ozone loss throughout the ensuing week.

The paper links the loss of ozone over populated mid-latitude regions in summer to the frequency and intensity of these big storms, which could increase with climate change resulting from rising levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.

Storms threaten ozone layer over United States. Image credit: Harvard

“We were investigating the behavior of convective water vapor as part of our climate research,” Anderson says, “not ozone photochemistry.

What proved surprising was the remarkable altitude to which water vapor was being lofted—altitudes exceeding 60,000 feet—and how frequently it was happening.” Anderson and his team realized the significance of the finding because higher water- vapor concentrations in the cold reaches of the lower stratosphere change the threshold temperature at which chlorine is converted to a free radical state: in the presence of water vapor, direct catalytic removal of ozone takes place at warmer temperatures.

In continuing studies the team used isotopic signatures to demonstrate that the water vapor had been carried directly to the stratosphere as a result of convective injection. And in the region of convectively injected water vapor, the researchers found that the catalytic loss of ozone increased by a hundredfold.

As a result, rates of ozone loss could exceed the natural rates of ozone regeneration (and replacement through transport from other regions) by two orders of magnitude. These data come from experimental evidence gathered over the United States, but the researchers note that similar conditions may exist elsewhere.

Harvard scientists have discovered that intense summer storms can force water vapor into the dry and cold stratosphere through a process called convective injection. The presence of such water vapor, which normally stops at the tropopause (the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere), changes the threshold temperature at which ozone is destroyed by chemistry dependent on manmade chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are still present in the atmosphere despite an international ban on their use.

The chemical reactions that destroy ozone typically occur only at very cold temperatures. The presence of water vapor raises the temperature at which ozone loss takes place, to the point that threshold conditions for ozone destruction are routinely crossed during the summer above the United States and possibly elsewhere. The frequency and intensity of these summer storms is expected to increase with climate forcing due to increasing levels of heat-trapping atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane. Reductions in stratospheric ozone would allow more DNA-damaging ultraviolet radiation to reach Earth, with potential biological effects on human beings, animals, and plants. Image credit: James G. Anderson/Art by Rob Stanhope

These findings have a public-health impact because they indicate that significant amounts of ozone can be destroyed in only a few days within regions of high water-vapor concentration—and skin-cancer incidence is associated with ultraviolet (UV) dosage levels, which in turn depend on ozone concentrations.

The findings are troubling also because—if the currently extremely dry stratosphere were to become wetter (as happened during earlier periods of elevated carbon dioxide, as indicated in the paleorecord)—the impact on ozone levels could be significant. The high current loading of chlorine and bromine resulting from earlier commercial release of CFCs and halons is unprecedented in Earth’s history. “Were the intensity and frequency of convective events to increase irreversibly as a result of climate forcing,” the scientists write, “decreases in ozone and associated increases in UV dosage would also be irreversible.”

The Science paper notes that loss of ice in the Arctic threatens to release significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane from the soils of Siberia and Northern Alaska, potentially accelerating climate change. The researchers also note that an increasingly cited remedy for climate change—geo-engineering the climate by launching sulfate particles directly into the atmosphere in order to reflect sunlight away from Earth—would accelerate the process of ozone loss by increasing the reactive surface area for the conversion of chlorine to free radical form, as was observed after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991.

Loss of ice in the Arctic threatens to release significant amounts of carbon dioxide.

Mario Molina, S.D. ’12, Distinguished Professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC, San Diego, and co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on CFCs and ozone depletion, says that the findings described in the Science paper are “something very much to worry about, because there is the potential for a pretty significant effect on stratospheric ozone at latitudes where we normally wouldn’t think that would happen.” His own famous 1974 paper on CFC and ozone chemistry, he notes, was largely hypothesis, whereas the Anderson team’s work is based on science that is well-established: even though the results will have to be tested with further measurements, he says that “there is not much speculation” in the paper.

The location of the ozone loss in this case gives special cause for concern. Because the Antarctic ozone hole is confined to the most southern latitudes and only occasionally moves toward the southern tip of South America, scientists have little field experience with biological impacts. “DNA, of course, is constantly being damaged by ultraviolet radiation,” notes Molina, “and there is a natural repair mechanism.

But should ozone disappear in the way described in Professor Anderson’s paper, this would very much be a threat. Many ecological systems are quite sensitive to ultraviolet radiation and they have not evolved the repair mechanisms for more severe ozone depletion.”

Dramatic loss of ozone in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica was first noticed in the 1970s by a research group from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) who were monitoring the atmosphere above Antarctica from a research station. Today, we learn about unexpected loss of ozone over United States.

Molina says this is “a further indication of society having impacts on the environment which in principle we can do something about.” Harking back to the ozone issue, he points out that if there had “been no international agreement to ban CFCs” in the late 1980s, this newly described problem “would have been a lot worse.” He hopes that “these types of warnings will make the case even stronger for society to begin to react to the climate-change issue, just like we managed to do with the ozone issue.”

Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences and himself an atmospheric chemist, says that Anderson’s group has “come up with a very important overall picture where the individual pieces are well mapped out; they have been studied by the world’s best experts and they work.”

How serious the findings are is not yet clear, Cicerone says, “but what the Anderson group is talking about can be measured fairly quickly. It is now just a matter of marshaling the people and resources to investigate further.”

“Then we can figure out what the influence is on ozone,” he continues, “and how much more ultraviolet light penetrates to the surface of the earth, so that we can get to the bottom-line effects on human health, as well as crop and other damage.” If further investigation verifies the Anderson team’s findings, then the impacts in “a future climate where the air is getting warmer and moister” will need to be considered, Cicerone says.

Are these storms that “thrust moisture into the stratosphere going to be more frequent?” he asks. “We think they are.”

MessageToEagle.com based on information provided by Harvard

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Solar Activity

2MIN News August 26.2012: Gulf Coast Alert

Published on Aug 26, 2012 by Suspicious0bservers

TODAY’S LINKS
Isaac Video: http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/08/25/isaac-roars-through-the-caribbean?vid…
Isaac Video 2: http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/raw-isaac-cause…
Venezuela Oil Explosion: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/25/us-venezuela-refinery-idUSBRE87O02R…
Venezuela Fire Video: http://www.reuters.com/article/video/idUSBRE87O02R20120825?videoId=237280302

REPEAT LINKS
Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com/ [Look on the left at the X-ray Flux and Solar Wind Speed/Density]

HAARP: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html [Click online data, and have a little fun]

SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ [Place to find Solar Images and Videos – as seen from earth]

SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater [SOHO; Lasco and EIT – as seen from earth]

Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images [Stereo; Cor, EUVI, HI – as seen from the side]

SunAEON:http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/ [Just click it… trust me]

SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/ [All purpose data viewing site]

iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html [Free Application; for advanced sun watchers]

NASA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSystemWebApp/iSWACygnetStreamer?timestamp=…
NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/

NOAA Bouys: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]

JAPAN Radiation Map: http://jciv.iidj.net/map/

LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/operations/heliplots_gsn.php

Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/ [Really? You can’t figure out what this one is for?]

BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html [Top left box, look for BIG blue circles]

TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-torcon-index [Tornado Forecast for the day]

GOES Weather: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ [Clouds over America]

EL DORADO WORLD WEATHER MAP: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/ssec/world/world-composite-ir-…

PRESSURE MAP: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=us&MENU=0000000000&…

HURRICANE TRACKER: http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker

INTELLICAST: http://www.intellicast.com/ [Weather site used by many youtubers]

NASA News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/

PHYSORG: http://phys.org/ [GREAT News Site!]

2MIN News August 27. 2012: Earth Shakes

Published on Aug 27, 2012 by Suspicious0bservers

TODAY’S LINKS
Rainfall Records: http://www.cocorahs.org/ViewData/ListIntensePrecipReports.aspx

REPEAT LINKS
Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com/ [Look on the left at the X-ray Flux and Solar Wind Speed/Density]

HAARP: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html [Click online data, and have a little fun]

SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ [Place to find Solar Images and Videos – as seen from earth]

SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater [SOHO; Lasco and EIT – as seen from earth]

Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images [Stereo; Cor, EUVI, HI – as seen from the side]

SunAEON:http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/ [Just click it… trust me]

SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/ [All purpose data viewing site]

iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html [Free Application; for advanced sun watchers]

NASA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSystemWebApp/iSWACygnetStreamer?timestamp=…
NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/

NOAA Bouys: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]

JAPAN Radiation Map: http://jciv.iidj.net/map/

LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/operations/heliplots_gsn.php

Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/ [Really? You can’t figure out what this one is for?]

BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html [Top left box, look for BIG blue circles]

TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-torcon-index [Tornado Forecast for the day]

GOES Weather: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ [Clouds over America]

EL DORADO WORLD WEATHER MAP: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/ssec/world/world-composite-ir-…

PRESSURE MAP: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=us&MENU=0000000000&…

HURRICANE TRACKER: http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker

INTELLICAST: http://www.intellicast.com/ [Weather site used by many youtubers]

NASA News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/

PHYSORG: http://phys.org/ [GREAT News Site!]

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Space

Earth approaching objects (objects that are known in the next 30 days)

Object Name

Apporach Date

Left

AU Distance

LD Distance

Estimated Diameter*

Relative Velocity

331769 (2003 BQ35)

28th August 2012

0 day(s)

0.1585

61.7

240 m – 530 m

4.64 km/s

16704 km/h

(2010 SC)

28th August 2012

0 day(s)

0.1679

65.3

16 m – 36 m

9.56 km/s

34416 km/h

4769 Castalia

28th August 2012

0 day(s)

0.1135

44.2

1.4 km

12.06 km/s

43416 km/h

(2012 LU7)

02nd September 2012

5 day(s)

0.1200

46.7

440 m – 990 m

8.16 km/s

29376 km/h

(2012 FS35)

02nd September 2012

5 day(s)

0.1545

60.1

2.3 m – 5.2 m

2.87 km/s

10332 km/h

(2012 HG31)

03rd September 2012

6 day(s)

0.0716

27.9

440 m – 990 m

10.33 km/s

37188 km/h

(2012 PX)

04th September 2012

7 day(s)

0.0452

17.6

61 m – 140 m

9.94 km/s

35784 km/h

(2012 EH5)

05th September 2012

8 day(s)

0.1613

62.8

38 m – 84 m

9.75 km/s

35100 km/h

(2011 EO11)

05th September 2012

8 day(s)

0.1034

40.2

9.0 m – 20 m

8.81 km/s

31716 km/h

(2007 PS25)

06th September 2012

9 day(s)

0.0497

19.3

23 m – 52 m

8.50 km/s

30600 km/h

329520 (2002 SV)

08th September 2012

11 day(s)

0.1076

41.9

300 m – 670 m

9.17 km/s

33012 km/h

(2011 ES4)

10th September 2012

13 day(s)

0.1792

69.8

20 m – 44 m

12.96 km/s

46656 km/h

(2008 CO)

11th September 2012

14 day(s)

0.1847

71.9

74 m – 160 m

4.10 km/s

14760 km/h

(2007 PB8)

14th September 2012

17 day(s)

0.1682

65.5

150 m – 340 m

14.51 km/s

52236 km/h

226514 (2003 UX34)

14th September 2012

17 day(s)

0.1882

73.2

260 m – 590 m

25.74 km/s

92664 km/h

(1998 QC1)

14th September 2012

17 day(s)

0.1642

63.9

310 m – 700 m

17.11 km/s

61596 km/h

(2002 EM6)

15th September 2012

18 day(s)

0.1833

71.3

270 m – 590 m

18.56 km/s

66816 km/h

(2002 RP137)

16th September 2012

19 day(s)

0.1624

63.2

67 m – 150 m

7.31 km/s

26316 km/h

(2009 RX4)

16th September 2012

19 day(s)

0.1701

66.2

15 m – 35 m

8.35 km/s

30060 km/h

(2005 UC)

17th September 2012

20 day(s)

0.1992

77.5

280 m – 640 m

7.55 km/s

27180 km/h

(2012 FC71)

18th September 2012

21 day(s)

0.1074

41.8

24 m – 53 m

3.51 km/s

12636 km/h

(1998 FF14)

19th September 2012

22 day(s)

0.0928

36.1

210 m – 480 m

21.40 km/s

77040 km/h

331990 (2005 FD)

19th September 2012

22 day(s)

0.1914

74.5

320 m – 710 m

15.92 km/s

57312 km/h

(2009 SH2)

24th September 2012

27 day(s)

0.1462

56.9

28 m – 62 m

7.52 km/s

27072 km/h

333578 (2006 KM103)

25th September 2012

28 day(s)

0.0626

24.4

250 m – 560 m

8.54 km/s

30744 km/h

(2002 EZ2)

26th September 2012

29 day(s)

0.1922

74.8

270 m – 610 m

6.76 km/s

24336 km/h

1 AU = ~150 million kilometers,1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers

Source: NASA-NEO

………………………………….

First X-Rays From The Remains Of A Supernova
Observed Over 50 Years Ago

MessageToEagle.com – Astronomers have detected X-rays from the remains of a supernova in the constellation Hydra, first seen from Earth over 50 years ago.

While detected in the radio and optical for decades, the supernova SN 1957D, the fourth one detected in the year 1957, did not appear in previous X-ray images.

Astronomers needed a long observation (8.5 days) from Chandra of the spiral galaxy where SN 1957D is found to finally detect it.

The Chandra data suggest a rapidly rotating neutron star was formed by the explosion, which would be one of the youngest objects of this type ever observed.Over fifty years ago, a supernova was discovered in M83, a spiral galaxy about 15 million light years from Earth. Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to make the first detection of X-rays emitted by the debris from this explosion.

Named SN 1957D because it was the fourth supernova to be discovered in the year of 1957, it is one of only a few located outside of the Milky Way galaxy that is detectable, in both radio and optical wavelengths, decades after its explosion was observed.

In 1981, astronomers saw the remnant of the exploded star in radio waves, and then in 1987 they detected the remnant at optical wavelengths, years after the light from the explosion itself became undetectable.

A relatively short observation — about 14 hours long — from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2000 and 2001 did not detect any X-rays from the remnant of SN 1957D.

Click on image to enlargeThis new Chandra image of M83 is one of the deepest X-ray observations ever made of a spiral galaxy beyond our own. Credits: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
However, a much longer observation obtained in 2010 and 2011, totaling nearly 8 and 1/2 days of Chandra time, did reveal the presence of X-ray emission. The X-ray brightness in 2000 and 2001 was about the same as or lower than in this deep image.

This new Chandra image of M83 is one of the deepest X-ray observations ever made of a spiral galaxy beyond our own.

This full-field view of the spiral galaxy shows the low, medium, and high-energy X-rays observed by Chandra in red, green, and blue respectively. The location of SN 1957D, which is found on the inner edge of the spiral arm just above the galaxy’s center, is outlined in the box (or can be seen by mousing over the image.)

Click on image to enlargeMultipanel with Optical, H-alpha & X-ray images of SN 1957D in M83

This set of images from the Hubble Space Telescope shows optical and H-alpha images of the area around SN 1957D in M83. The optical images, shown at two different zooms, includes one filter at ultraviolet wavelengths and two different filters at optical wavelengths, colored blue, green and red. The H-alpha images show light emitted by hydrogen in red, sulfur in green and oxygen in blue. In each case SN 1957D is located in the middle of the image. In the optical images the star cluster containing the supernova is visible and in the H-alpha images the remains of the supernova are visible. The multipanel shows the optical and H-alpha images next to the Chandra image. Credit: Optical: NASA/STScI
The new X-ray data from the remnant of SN 1957D provide important information about the nature of this explosion that astronomers think happened when a massive star ran out of fuel and collapsed. The distribution of X-rays with energy suggests that SN 1957D contains a neutron star, a rapidly spinning, dense star formed when the core of pre-supernova star collapsed. This neutron star, or pulsar, may be producing a cocoon of charged particles moving at close to the speed of light known as a pulsar wind nebula.

If this interpretation is confirmed, the pulsar in SN 1957D is observed at an age of 55 years, one of the youngest pulsars ever seen. The remnant of SN 1979C in the galaxy M100 contains another candidate for the youngest pulsar, but astronomers are still unsure whether there is a black hole or a pulsar at the center of SN 1979C.

An image from the Hubble Space Telescope (in the box labeled “Optical Close-Up”) shows that the debris of the explosion that created SN 1957D is located at the edge of a star cluster less than 10 million years old.

Many of these stars are estimated to have masses about 17 times that of the Sun. This is just the right mass for a star’s evolution to result in a core-collapse supernova as is thought to be the case in SN 1957D.

These results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The researchers involved with this study were Knox Long (Space Telescope Science Institute), William Blair (Johns Hopkins University), Leith Godfrey (Curtin University, Australia), Kip Kuntz (Johns Hopkins), Paul Plucinsky (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Roberto Soria (Curtin University), Christopher Stockdale (University of Oklahoma and the Australian Astronomical Observatory), Bradley Whitmore (Space Telescope Science Institute), and Frank Winkler (Middlebury College).
MessageToEagle.com

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Mysterious Booms / Rumblings & Sinkholes

Source Of Loud Boom In Foothills A Mystery

EL DORADO COUNTY (CBS13) – People from all over El Dorado County say they’re hearing loud booms several times a week, but there are many theories on what is causing them.

“I thought it was thunder,” said one person.

“It’s definitely not thunder; too consistent. I thought it was just mining,” said another person.

“I always considered them to be sonic booms from flying aircrafts for years,” said Loring Brunius, owner of Sierra Rock Diamond Quarry.

People who live near Pleasant Valley say their days have been interrupted by loud booms, shaking the floor beneath them.

“You can feel it in the ground, no question about it. But no one’s been able to figure out why,” said Pleasant Valley resident Peter O’Grady. “I tend to hear somewhere between four to six of these things during the weekdays usually between 11 p.m. and 2 p.m.

“Boom, boom, boom, boom just like that,” said Lorren Gonzales, who lives near Pleasant Valley.

And the rolling foothills of El Dorado County make it difficult for them to even tell where it’s coming from.

We asked the owner of Sierra Rock Diamond Quarry what he knew about it. He says they havent blasted since last year. And any miners or quarry owners would need government permission before they can set off any explosives.

“It’s a federally mandated system, and enforced,” said Brunius.

Some think the booms are from nearby wineries using propane cannons to scare away birds.

“We’ve never done it and I don’t know of any other winery that does,” said Carrie Bendick, a winemaker at Holly’s Hill Winery.

According to USGS, there aren’t enough seismic stations to pinpoint the exact location. Meanwhile, some say the booms have been around so long and happen so often they barely notice them anymore. Still, others want to solve the mystery.

“I would like to know what it is, yeah. And I’d like to know when it’s going to stop too,” said O’Grady.

CBS13 spoke to Fallon Naval Air Station that said any supersonic flight operations they do are only allowed over Dixie Valley, which is hundreds of miles away.

Some think illegal mining could be the source of the sounds, but Brunius doubts that theory. He said if that was the case, the culprit would have been caught by now.

08/25/12 Flyover Bayou Corne

Gas-detecting plane will fly near sinkhole

BY DAVID J. MITCHELL

River Parishes bureau

PIERRE PART — A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency aircraft is expected to make back-and-forth aerial passes at 300 feet as soon as Saturday over the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas in an attempt to detect possible plumes of natural gas leaking from the land and water below.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources has hired a firm to drill a ground water observation well to test whether natural gas may be in a water aquifer underneath the same area.

And, a science advisory team has recommended a battery of tests for Texas Brine Co. LLC to conduct with the investigatory well that Texas Brine is already drilling to peer inside one of the company’s salt caverns.

Louisiana Department of Natural Resources officials detailed these and other steps during a public meeting Friday.

All are aimed at getting to the bottom of a large sinkhole that was found between Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou on Aug. 3 and prompted an ongoing mandatory evacuation of people living in about 150 homes.

DNR was one of several agencies providing an overview Friday at the parish hall of St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in Pierre Part about recent developments in response to the sinkhole and the continuing natural gas releases that preceded the sinkhole by about two months.

DNR scientists think the cavern inside the Napoleonville Dome may have failed and released its brine contents, causing the sinkhole.

The 1-mile-by-3-mile dome is a large salt deposit pushed up from an ancient sea bed under the earth.

The cavern was used in solution mining for nearly three decades to produce brine for industry. In the process, the cavern was hollowed out of the salt dome with water into the shape of a narrow, upside-down vase 3,400 feet underground.

Brent Campbell, DNR Pipeline Division director, told a few hundred people in the church hall that the Office of Conservation and DNR are committed to be in the Bayou Corne area for the long haul.

“We are going to continue to provide any resources that we need to personnel so we can find the cause and try to resolve this problem,” he said.

The group also learned about other theories being considered as a possible causes of the sinkhole or natural gas releases.

Officials with the Louisiana departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Hospitals also continued to say that samples collected from the air and water in and around the sinkhole do not pose a risk to public health.

“While there are a lot of interesting things happening here, one of them is not health risk from pollution. I’d like to make that very clear and the Health Department will point that out when they come as well,” said Chris Piehler, DEQ Inspection Division administrator, adding: “Your health is not threatened from air pollution.”

Piehler noted that the agency’s equipment is sensitive and picking up a variety of chemicals but they are at very low levels, including traces of carcinogenic benzene, or are not toxic, such as natural gas.

“These are incredibly low levels. In fact, I confirmed before coming here tonight that the air quality as indicated by those samples is better than it is in Baton Rouge,” Piehler said.

But residents also received some unsettling news as well.

Michel Cernuska, 36, of Brule St. Martin, asked DNR officials what was being considered by the science advisory group to fix the cavern or its well casing if either has had a failure.

“If it’s as simple as a casing, yes (it can be fixed). If it’s a cavern fracture, failure, whatever, there’s little that you can do,” said Chris Knotts, a civil engineer with DNR who is coordinating the science group studying the sinkhole.

A low but audible rumble in the crowd followed that statement.

Cernuska also asked about the “oxymoronic” evacuation order in light of DEQ and DHH are saying people’s health is not at risk.

But Assumption parish Police Jury President Martin “Marty” Triche said parish officials are not comfortable lifting the order with so many unknowns about the cavern’s cause.

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Articles of Interest

27.08.2012

Explosion

Venezuela

Departmento de Falcon, [Paraguana Refinery Complex]

Explosion in Venezuela on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 12:56 (12:56 PM) UTC.

Back

Updated:

Monday, 27 August, 2012 at 03:19 UTC

Description

After nightfall on Friday, as red lights began glowing atop the massive Amuay refinery in western Venezuela, the odor of sulfur made its way through the surrounding neighborhood of working-class homes and small shops. Francisco Gonzalez, a stocky accountant with dark hair, noticed the smell after 7 p.m. as he climbed the stairs to his second-story apartment across the street from the refinery. He had smelled the fumes from gas leaks many times before, so he didn’t think much about it as he shut the door. Six hours later, disaster struck. A powerful explosion ripped through the neighborhood and engulfed part of the refinery in flames, killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 80 in Venezuela’s deadliest refinery blast ever. “The first thing I saw was that the apartment didn’t have windows or doors or walls, just a floor and a roof,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t know how we survived.” In the dark, the 31-year-old man made his way downstairs to the street, where he, his brother and sister-in-law joined terrified neighbors. Some were wounded. Others were shouting.

When Gonzalez looked at the back of his right hand, it was bleeding from gashes. At about 2 a.m., the halls of the hospital were filling up with wounded people. Doctors and nurses hurried to treat the most seriously hurt, while Gonzalez and others sat on the floor waiting their turn. Back at the refinery, soldiers, firefighters and state oil company workers were diving into action. Bodies were pulled from the rubble and lifted onto pickup trucks. Stella Lugo, the governor of Falcon state, went on state television to update the nation, setting the initial toll at seven people dead and 48 injured. The toll steadily rose in the next hours. When she reached the refinery at dawn, Lugo posted a photo on Twitter showing balls of fire and black smoke billowing. Other government officials went on television saying the gas leak had led to the blast and that the fire was being brought under control. President Hugo Chavez ordered an investigation and declared three days of mourning in the country. A total of 209 homes and 11 businesses were damaged in the explosion, and a National Guard post next to the refinery was destroyed, Vice President Elias Jaua said on Saturday. He said 18 of the victims were National Guard soldiers.

On Saturday night, dozens of people who had fled their homes in the neighborhood of La Pastora returned to streets covered with rubble, twisted scraps of metal and puddles of spilled fuel. Gabriela Nunez, a housewife, went back to her home to gather belongings, saying she was worried about looters who had stolen goods from nearby stores hours after the explosion. “That forced us to come back, even though we’re afraid, to save what can be saved and secure our houses,” Nunez said. More than a day after the blast, the flames were still raging on Sunday, sending up a column of dark smoke. Some oil experts and government critics were also raising questions, saying they believe there hasn’t been sufficient maintenance at refineries and that the situation could be making such incidents more likely. Refinery manager Jesus Luongo denied that, as did Chavez, who spoke to journalists near the refinery on Sunday. The president said investigators haven’t determined what caused the disaster. “Lack of maintenance? Who can, who can say that right now with any seriousness? Nobody,” Chavez said. He said he had spoken personally with some of the military officers who were on duty at the time. “They tell me that very night, in the rounds that were made a few hours earlier, no substantial leak was detected,” said Chavez, who later visited the refinery complex and attended a Mass for the victims. Amuay is among the world’s largest refineries and is part of the Paraguana Refinery Complex, which also includes the adjacent Cardon refinery. Together, the refineries process about 900,000 barrels of crude per day ad 200,000 barrels of gasoline. Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said the country has enough fuel in storage, “10 days of inventories,” to keep the Venezuelan market fully supplied. He said fires were still burning in two fuel storage tanks but that other “process areas” of the refinery were otherwise unaffected.

Once the flames are completely extinguished, Ramirez said, “we have the ability to restart our refinery in two days.” Restarting will be a challenge for Gonzalez, who picked through what remained of his family’s apartment, sweeping away debris with a broom. Broken glass littered the floor along with fragments of the shattered walls. The shop on the first floor was also destroyed, but Gonzalez and his brother and sister-in-law all survived with only minor injuries. “I’m happy to be here telling this story,” Gonzalez said, his hand covered in a bandage and with stitches on his arms. “Material things, although they cost us a great deal to obtain, aren’t worth much when you compare them with life.”

………………………………….

Hidden Rift Valley As Big As Grand Canyon
Discovered Beneath West Antarctica

MessageToEagle.com – A new discovery suggests that a rift in the Antarctic rock as deep as the Grand Canyon is increasing ice melt from the continent.

Experts from the University of Aberdeen and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) made the discovery below Ferrigno Ice Stream, a region visited only once previously, over fifty years ago, in 1961, and one that is remote even by Antarctic standards.

Their findings, reported in Nature this week reveal that the ice-filled ancient rift basin is connected to the warming ocean which impacts upon contemporary ice flow and loss.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is of great scientific interest and societal importance as it is losing ice faster than any other part of Antarctica with some glaciers shrinking by more than one metre per year.

Understanding the processes that influence ice loss from West Antarctica is important to improve predictions of its future behaviour in a warming world.

Dr Robert Bingham, a glaciologist working in the University of Aberdeen’s School of Geosciences and lead author of the study, discovered the rift valley whilst undertaking three months of fieldwork with British Antarctic Survey in 2010.Dr Bingham, whose fieldwork was funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) said:“Over the last 20 years we have used satellites to monitor ice losses from Antarctica, and we have witnessed consistent and substantial ice losses from around much of its coastline.

“For some of the glaciers, including Ferrigno Ice Stream, the losses are especially pronounced, and, to understand why, we needed to acquire data about conditions beneath the ice surface.”

The team gathered the data using an ice-penetrating radar system towed behind a skidoo driven across the relatively flat ice surface, over a distance of 1500 miles — greater than that between London and Athens.

Dr Bingham continued: “What we found is that lying beneath the ice there is a large valley, parts of which are approximately a mile deeper than the surrounding landscape.

“If you stripped away all of the ice here today, you’d see a feature every bit as dramatic as the huge rift valleys you see in Africa and in size as significant as the Grand Canyon.

“This is at odds with the flat ice surface that we were driving across — without these measurements we would never have known that it was there.

“What’s particularly important is that this spectacular valley aligns perfectly with the recordings of ice-surface lowering and ice loss that we have witnessed with satellite observations over this area for the last twenty years.”

Co-author and geophysicist Dr Fausto Ferraccioli from British Antarctic Survey added: “The newly discovered Ferrigno Rift is part of a huge and yet poorly understood rift system that lies beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The ice-margin of Ferrigno Ice Stream where it flows into Eltanin Bay.
(Credit: Photo Rob Bingham)

“What this study shows is that this ancient rift basin, and the others discovered under the ice that connect to the warming ocean can influence contemporary ice flow and may exacerbate ice losses by steering coastal changes further inland.”

Image credit: NASA

Professor David Vaughan, from British Antarctic Survey leads Ice2sea, a major EU-funded FP7 research programme to improve projections of global and regional sea-level. He said, “Thinning ice in West Antarctica is currently contributing nearly 10 per cent of global sea level rise. It’s important to understand this hot spot of change so we can make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise.”

Glossary

Rift valley: A linear-shaped lowland between highlands or mountain ranges created by the action of a geologic rift or fault. This action is manifest as crustal extension, a spreading apart of the surface which is subsequently further deepened by the forces of erosion.

Glacier: A ‘river of ice’ fed by the accumulation of snow. Glaciers drain ice from mountains to lower levels, where the ice either melts, breaks away into the sea as icebergs, or feeds into an ice shelf.

Ice sheet: The huge mass of ice, up to 4 km thick that covers bedrock in Antarctica or Greenland. It flows from the centre of the continent towards the coast where it feeds ice shelves.

MessageToEagle.com via British Antarctic Survey

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[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]

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Earth Watch Report – Sunday August 26th, 2012

Filed under: Asteroids, Biological Hazard, Diseases, Drought, Earth Watch Report, Earthquakes, Extreme Weather, Fire - Forest/ Wild Fires, Flooding, Global Disaster Watch, meteors, Solar Activity, Space, Storms, Volcanic Events — Leave a comment

August 26, 2012

Earthquakes

RSOE EDIS

Date/Time (UTC)	Magnitude	Area	Country	State/Prov./Gov.	Location	Risk	Source	Details
26.08.2012 08:10:33	2.5	North America	United States	California	Yountville		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 07:40:21	3.2	Asia	Turkey	Manisa	Golmarmara		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:43:26	2.0	North America	United States	California	Brawley		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 06:43:50	2.0	North America	United States	Alaska	Nanwalek		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 06:44:07	2.0	North America	United States	California	Brawley		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 06:31:48	2.7	North America	United States	Hawaii	Pahala		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 07:40:42	3.2	Asia	Turkey	Manisa	Golmarmara		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:40:27	3.1	Asia	Turkey	Manisa	Golmarmara		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:40:54	3.0	South-America	Chile	Valparaíso	Los Andes		EMSC
26.08.2012 07:41:24	2.7	Asia	Turkey	Kütahya	Saphane		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:41:13	2.2	Europe	Norway	Nordland	Hemnesberget		EMSC
26.08.2012 07:41:42	2.2	Asia	Turkey	Malatya	Arguvan		EMSC
26.08.2012 05:40:27	4.6	Atlantic Ocean – North	Greenland	Kujalleq	Prins Christians Sund		EMSC
26.08.2012 05:42:57	4.8	Atlantic Ocean	Greenland	Kujalleq	Prins Christians Sund		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 05:40:52	4.6	Atlantic Ocean – North	Greenland	Kujalleq	Prins Christians Sund		EMSC
26.08.2012 05:36:02	4.6	Atlantic Ocean	Greenland	Kujalleq	Prins Christians Sund		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 05:41:14	2.1	Europe	Italy	Emilia-Romagna	San Prospero		EMSC
26.08.2012 04:00:34	2.4	North America	United States	Alaska	Nanwalek		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 07:42:08	3.0	Asia	Turkey	Mu?la	Ula		EMSC
26.08.2012 07:42:26	2.8	Asia	Turkey	Tokat	Yesilyurt		EMSC
26.08.2012 03:30:28	2.3	North America	United States	California	Markleeville		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 03:35:25	2.5	Europe	Greece	Central Greece	Kastrakion		EMSC
26.08.2012 03:35:43	2.9	Europe	Greece	South Aegean	Oia		EMSC
26.08.2012 02:45:30	2.1	North America	United States	Washington	Danville		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 02:35:39	2.0	Europe	Spain	Andalusia	Villarrubia		EMSC
26.08.2012 01:50:31	2.0	North America	United States	Hawaii	Pahala		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 02:36:01	3.2	Asia	Turkey	Kütahya	Simav		EMSC
26.08.2012 01:25:34	2.1	North America	United States	Alaska	Four Mile Road		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 06:41:31	2.2	Asia	Turkey	Malatya	Doganyol		EMSC
26.08.2012 00:15:28	2.7	Middle America	Mexico	Baja California	Alberto Oviedo Mota		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 02:55:27	2.1	North America	United States	California	Bertsch-Oceanview		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 00:40:26	3.0	Caribbean	British Virgin Islands		Road Town		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 00:20:22	2.4	Europe	Italy	Sicily	Letoianni		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:41:50	2.6	Asia	Turkey	?zmir	Seferihisar		EMSC
25.08.2012 23:20:20	2.3	South-America	Chile	Antofagasta	Tocopilla		EMSC
25.08.2012 23:05:40	3.1	Caribbean	Puerto Rico	Rincon	Stella		USGS-RSOE
25.08.2012 23:20:49	3.5	South-America	Argentina	San Juan	Calingasta		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:42:08	2.2	Asia	Turkey	Van	Toyga		EMSC
25.08.2012 22:20:25	2.7	Europe	Croatia	Splitsko-Dalmatinska	Strazica		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:42:27	2.2	Asia	Turkey	Van	Yuvacik		EMSC
25.08.2012 21:50:42	3.3	North America	United States	Alaska	Port Alsworth		USGS-RSOE
26.08.2012 06:42:46	2.6	Asia	Turkey	?zmir	Candarli		EMSC
25.08.2012 21:00:36	5.1	Asia	Japan	Fukushima	Iwaki		USGS-RSOE
25.08.2012 21:15:21	5.1	Asia	Japan	Fukushima	Iwaki		EMSC
25.08.2012 21:15:44	2.5	Europe	Greece	Peloponnese	Velon		EMSC
26.08.2012 06:43:05	2.6	Asia	Turkey	Kütahya	Saphane		EMSC
26.08.2012 05:41:34	2.3	Asia	Turkey	Kütahya	Simav		EMSC
25.08.2012 19:45:37	4.2	Middle America	Mexico	Sonora	Puerto Penasco		USGS-RSOE
25.08.2012 20:15:26	4.2	Middle-America	Mexico	Sonora	Puerto Penasco		EMSC
25.08.2012 20:15:46	2.9	Europe	Spain	Canary Islands	La Restinga		EMSC

……………………………….

Mild Quake Hits Southwestern Iran

TEHRAN (FNA)- An earthquake measuring 3.3 on the Richter scale hit the town of Lali in Khuzestan province, Southwestern Iran, on Friday.

The Seismological center of Khuzestan province affiliated to the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the quake at 08:02 hours local time (0332 GMT).

The epicenter of the quake was located in an area 49.2 degrees in longitude and 33.6 degrees in latitude.

Iran sits astride several major faults in the earth’s crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of which have been devastating.

The worst in recent times hit Bam in southeastern Kerman province in December 2003, killing 31,000 people – about a quarter of its population – and destroying the city’s ancient mud-built citadel.

The deadliest quake in the country was in June 1990 and measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. About 37,000 people were killed and more than 100,000 injured in the northwestern provinces of Gilan and Zanjan. It devastated 27 towns and about 1,870 villages.

Tehran alone sits on two major fault lines, and the capital’s 14 million residents fear a major quake.

Tremors jolt Rolpa villages

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

ROLPA: Villages in Rolpa got up this morning to an earthquake to the 10 consecutive time, locals said.

According to local Jay Prakash Rokamagar, they felt the shake for at least 10 times till 9.45 today morning. “Villagers have been staying out in the open since the first tremor,” he said.

With the quake’s epicenter in the border areas of Rukum and Baglung, the tremor of the first quake was felt in Kathmandu at 10.15 pm yesterday for 23 seconds. Its magnitude was 5 on the Richter Scale.

The tremor, measured at 28.699 degree North, 82.693 degree East and 38.3 kilometre depth, was mostly felt around Rukum and Rolpa’s eastern region and Rolpa’s northern areas, District Police Office Inspector, Rolpa, Rupesh Khadka said.

Newly build Thawang-4-based Bir Balbhadra Higher Secondary School and two-storey hostel building of Thawang Higher Secondary School have been collapsed by the quake. After the incident, all the students were shifted to safer places.

Likewise, Thawang VDC’s health post’s wall and Area Police Office building were also cracked by the tremors, DSP Kedar Rajaure informed.

More than a dozen houses, including Thawang-8’s Dil Bahadur Pariyar’s house and shed, Ramu Pariyar’s and Utte Pariyar’s houses and Kureli-8’s Reg Bahadur Budha’s two storey house were damaged by the shake.

Almost all the people of headquarters Libang and Rolpa are said to be staying in open after the tremor of the first quake.

The details of the further destruction are yet to arrive, District Police Office said.

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Volcanic Activity

Tangkubanperahu volcano (West Java): increased earthquakes prompt rise of alert level

BY: T

An increase in seismic activity at Tangkubanperahu volcano near Bandung, the capital of West Java, has been detected since 13 August and promted the Indonesian Volcanological survey (PVMBG) to increase the alert level of the volcano from 1 (normal) to 2 (alert) on 23 August.

Between 1 July and 23 Aug, 264 volcanic earthquakes were recorded, which is almost double to values measured during similar periods of time at the beginning of the year. In addition, pulses of volcanic tremor could be recognized.
Tangkubanperahu has 2 main craters, each about 1000 m wide and 400 m deep, filled by crater lakes, Kawah Ratu (queen) and Kawah Upas, respectively. The craters and lakes along with fumaroles and warm springs are popular tourist destinations. (It is recommended not to climb the volcano’s crater, which is a popular tourist destination in the area.
The last eruptions of the Tangkubanperahu were phreatic explosions in 1994.

All news about: Tangkubanparahu volcano
Information about: Tangkubanparahu volcano

—
Links / Sources:

Peningkatan status G. Tangkubanparahu dari Normal menjadi Waspada, 23 Agustus 2012 (PVMBG)

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Extreme Temperatures/ Weather

Bosnia on red alert during hottest summer on record

by Staff Writers
Sarajevo (AFP)

Bosnian authorities put the entire country on red alert Thursday against a heatwave that has seen the Balkan nation bake in its hottest summer on record, the national weather institute said.

Meteorologist Dzenan Zulum said the months of June, July and August had been the hottest since measurements were first recorded 120 years ago.

In some places, the mercury has soared to 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 Fahrenheit) and temperatures in the capital Sarajevo have in recent days been about seven degrees Celsius warmer than normal.

“We predict a similar temperature for the next two or three days followed by a slight cooling from Sunday,” Zulum said.

Farmers say between 50-80 percent of their crops have been damaged in the heatwave, and water distribution to several towns has been disrupted.

Bosnia is also battling dozens of forest fires in the south and east of the country, with many hundreds of hectares (acres) of land burned.

Related Links
Weather News at TerraDaily.com

25.08.2012

Forest / Wild Fire

Greece

Region of Attica, [Near to Afidnes]

Forest / Wild Fire in Greece on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 13:08 (01:08 PM) UTC.

Description

Firefighters on Saturday managed to partially control a large forest fire that broke out on the northeastern outskirts of Athens, officials said. “I believe we are going well,” Pavlos Papageorgiou, a senior fire department officer, told state television NET. “The only front is in a ravine near the town of Afidnes, we are moving forces from other areas where the fire is under control,” he said. The fire broke out before dawn near Afidnes, clouding the skies over the capital’s northern suburbs with smoke and ash. It had earlier threatened an army camp and an industrial park in the vicinity. NET said a number of homes and vehicles had been burnt in the community of Drosopigi and that local residents had heard explosions before the fire broke out, suggesting that arson was involved. Traffic police briefly diverted traffic on the national highway leading north of Athens as a precaution. The same area had also been ravaged by fires in 2009. Greece suffers from a large number of summer fires usually aided by high temperatures and strong winds and are often attributed to arson. The Athens national observatory this week said the months of June and July were among the hottest on record. The worst disaster this season occurred on the Aegean island of Chios where scores of mastic orchards were destroyed by a fire burning for a week.

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Storms / Flooding

Active tropical storm system(s)

Name of storm system	Location	Formed	Last update	Last category	Course	Wind Speed	Gust	Wave	Source	Details
Tembin (15W)	Pacific Ocean	19.08.2012	26.08.2012	Typhoon III	155 °	157 km/h	194 km/h	4.27 m	JTWC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Tembin (15W)
Area:	Pacific Ocean
Start up location:	N 17° 42.000, E 124° 36.000
Start up:	19th August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	551.01 km
Top category.:
Report by:	JTWC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source
19th Aug 2012	05:28:29	N 17° 42.000, E 124° 36.000	9	56	74	Tropical Depression	190	11		JTWC
20th Aug 2012	05:16:05	N 18° 0.000, E 124° 48.000	6	139	167	Typhoon I.	360	9		JTWC
21st Aug 2012	04:48:23	N 20° 12.000, E 125° 18.000	13	213	259	Typhoon IV.	360	15		JTWC
23rd Aug 2012	04:49:56	N 22° 30.000, E 123° 36.000	4	204	232	Typhoon III.	270	9		JTWC
24th Aug 2012	05:23:44	N 22° 6.000, E 120° 30.000	19	185	232	Typhoon III.	245	19		JTWC
25th Aug 2012	05:19:01	N 22° 24.000, E 118° 6.000	13	139	167	Typhoon I.	260	17		JTWC

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
26th Aug 2012	05:24:20	N 21° 0.000, E 116° 54.000	7	157	194	Typhoon III	155 °	14		JTWC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
27th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 21° 24.000, E 119° 42.000	Typhoon IV	176	213	JTWC
27th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 20° 36.000, E 118° 24.000	Typhoon IV	185	232	JTWC
28th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 22° 48.000, E 120° 54.000	Typhoon II	130	157	JTWC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 26° 36.000, E 122° 18.000	Typhoon I	102	130	JTWC
30th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 30° 18.000, E 121° 36.000	Tropical Depression	83	102	JTWC
31st Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 34° 12.000, E 120° 0.000	Tropical Depression	65	83	JTWC

Bolaven (16W)

Pacific Ocean

20.08.2012

26.08.2012

SuperTyphoon

315 °

213 km/h

259 km/h

5.79 m

JTWC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Bolaven (16W)
Area:	Pacific Ocean
Start up location:	N 17° 18.000, E 141° 30.000
Start up:	20th August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	947.93 km
Top category.:
Report by:	JTWC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source
20th Aug 2012	05:13:46	N 17° 18.000, E 141° 30.000	13	56	74	Tropical Depression	330	12		JTWC
21st Aug 2012	04:47:46	N 18° 12.000, E 140° 30.000	9	93	120	Tropical Storm	295	10		JTWC
23rd Aug 2012	04:49:02	N 19° 42.000, E 135° 36.000	9	167	204	Typhoon II.	280	10		JTWC
24th Aug 2012	05:22:54	N 21° 0.000, E 133° 36.000	11	194	241	Typhoon III.	325	16		JTWC
25th Aug 2012	05:16:28	N 23° 30.000, E 132° 6.000	15	232	278	Typhoon IV.	325	18		JTWC

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
26th Aug 2012	05:21:23	N 25° 18.000, E 129° 30.000	17	213	259	SuperTyphoon	315 °	19		JTWC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
27th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 32° 12.000, E 125° 18.000	Typhoon IV	185	232	JTWC
27th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 29° 0.000, E 126° 36.000	Typhoon IV	194	241	JTWC
28th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 36° 6.000, E 125° 0.000	Typhoon III	157	194	JTWC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 43° 42.000, E 128° 6.000	Tropical Depression	65	83	JTWC
30th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 50° 30.000, E 136° 18.000	Tropical Depression	56	74	JTWC

Isaac (AL09)

Atlantic Ocean

21.08.2012

26.08.2012

Tropical Depression

305 °

93 km/h

111 km/h

5.79 m

NOAA NHC

Tropical Storm data

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Storm name:	Isaac (AL09)
Area:	Atlantic Ocean
Start up location:	N 15° 12.000, W 51° 12.000
Start up:	21st August 2012
Status:	Active
Track long:	1,763.96 km
Top category.:
Report by:	NOAA NHC

Useful links:

Past track
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave	Pressure	Source
22nd Aug 2012	04:54:04	N 15° 36.000, W 55° 36.000	30	65	83	Tropical Storm	275	16	1006 MB	NOAA NHC
23rd Aug 2012	05:06:43	N 15° 48.000, W 63° 0.000	31	74	93	Tropical Storm	270	22	1003 MB	NOAA NHC
24th Aug 2012	05:17:31	N 16° 42.000, W 68° 42.000	28	74	93	Tropical Storm	290	19	1001 MB	NOAA NHC
25th Aug 2012	05:21:33	N 17° 42.000, W 72° 30.000	22	111	139	Tropical Storm	310	15	990 MB	NOAA NHC

Current position
Date	Time	Position	Speed km/h	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Category	Course	Wave feet	Pressure	Source
26th Aug 2012	06:01:20	N 22° 6.000, W 77° 12.000	28	93	111	Tropical Depression	305 °	19	997 MB	NOAA NHC

Forecast track
Date	Time	Position	Category	Wind km/h	Gust km/h	Source
27th Aug 2012	12:00:00	N 25° 48.000, W 83° 42.000	Hurricane II	139	167	NOAA NHC
27th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 24° 36.000, W 81° 48.000	Hurricane I	120	148	NOAA NHC
28th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 27° 12.000, W 85° 12.000	Hurricane III	157	194	NOAA NHC
29th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 29° 30.000, W 86° 30.000	Hurricane III	167	204	NOAA NHC
30th Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 31° 30.000, W 86° 30.000	Tropical Depression	93	111	NOAA NHC
31st Aug 2012	00:00:00	N 34° 0.000, W 86° 0.000	Tropical Depression	46	65	NOAA NHC

…………………………………..

Heavy rain, floods kill 26 in Pakistan: officials

by Staff Writers
Muzaffarabad, Pakistan (AFP)

Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed at least 26 people and destroyed hundreds of houses in northern Pakistan, officials said on Thursday.

Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, the prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir said at least 17 people have been killed and nine others injured in six districts since Monday.

“Some 685 houses and 125 shops have been damaged and roads washed away,” Majeed said, adding that a request has been made to the federal government for financial help.

Irshad Bhatti, a spokesman for the country’s National Disaster Management Authority, said the extent of the damage was still being assessed.

The majority of the deaths in Kashmir came when buildings collapsed due to the rains, and a further nine people died in flooding in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, officials said.

Adnan Khan, an official from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said he feared the death toll there could rise.

“Dozens of families have suffered and their houses were destroyed, several people are still missing” Khan told AFP.

Weather officials are predicting heavy rain in the next three days and rescue teams are closely monitoring the situation, Bhatti said.

Floods in Pakistan in the summer of 2011 affected 5.8 million people, with floodwaters killing livestock, destroying crops, homes and infrastructure as the nation struggled to recover from record inundations the previous year.

Tropical Storm Isaac hugs Cuba coast, expected to be Cat 2 hurricane in Gulf

Florida’s governor declares a state of emergency as residents and tourists flee Key West. Storm preparations are under way all along the Gulf Coast. NBC’s Thanh Truong reports.

By NBC News and wire services

Updated at 6 p.m. ET: Tropical Storm Isaac was hugging the northern coastline of eastern Cuba on Saturday after claiming at least four lives in Haiti. Isaac should become a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday just as it nears the Florida Keys, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, and then grow into an even stronger Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds.

Isaac “could be significantly stronger than currently forecast” once it enters the Gulf of Mexico, the center said in an advisory.

It will first sweep past southwest Florida and the Florida Keys, where “hurricane conditions are expected … Sunday,” it said in a separate update.

Isaac is a massive storm, with tropical storm-force winds extending 230 miles from the center. Key West International Airport was halting all flights at 7 p.m. Saturday until the storm had passed.

Tropical Storm Isaac is picking up steam as it barrels through the Caribbean. The Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel reports on the storm’s effects.

In Haiti, a woman and a child in the town of Souvenance were killed in the storm, a local official reported. A woman in the southern coastal city of Jacmel was crushed to death when a tree fell on her house, government officials said.

In the capital Port-au-Prince — where some 350,000 people are still living in tents or shelters after the 2010 Haiti earthquake — a girl, 10, was killed when a wall fell on her.

Power outages and flooding were reported as Isaac moved across the hilly and severely deforested Caribbean country.

“There’s a lot of rain, a lot of wind,” said Magdala Jean-Baptiste, who huddled with her frightened children in their home in the southern coastal city of Jacmel. “We haven’t had any power since the storm started yesterday. We passed the night with no sleep.”

Tropical Storm Isaac lashes the island of Hispaniola, killing at least three people in Haiti, where thousands still live in tents after an earthquake over two years ago. NBC’s Mark Potter reports.

In neighboring Dominican Republic, Isaac felled power and phone lines and left at least a dozen towns cut off by flood waters. The most severe damage was reported along the south coast, including the capital Santo Domingo, where more than half the city was without power.

Cuba prepared by closing beaches and evacuating tourists in vulnerable areas, NBC’s Mary Murray and The Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel reported from Havana. Flights across Cuba were also suspended.

In Baracoa, a city on Cuba’s eastern side, high seas began topping the seawall Friday night, Radio Baracoa reported.

Now with 60-mph winds, Isaac should exit Cuba on Sunday and then move south of the Florida Keys and into the Gulf.

Dieu Nalio Chery / AP

Residents wade through a flooded street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Saturday.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Saturday declared a state of emergency to make sure local and state agencies would be ready. Republicans effectively canceled the first day of their national convention in Tampa, on Florida’s central Gulf Coast, deciding to gavel it open on Monday, then immediately recess to some time on Tuesday.

Gulf of Mexico operators began shutting down offshore oil and gas rigs on Friday ahead of the storm.

Follow Isaac’s path with our storm tracker
Live updates and analysis from weather.com

Tampa’s weather forecast includes rain and high winds Sunday night and into Monday, The Weather Channel reported. The winds could gust up to 60 mph.

The Weather Channel’s Bryan Norcross tracks Tropical Storm Isaac’s movement and predictions about where it is headed.

Monday and Tuesday include a risk of tornadoes across south Florida.

Officials were handing out sandbags to residents in the Tampa area, which often floods when heavy rainstorms hit. Sandbags also were being handed out in Homestead, 20 years after Hurricane Andrew devastated the community there. Otherwise, however, convention preparations were moving ahead as usual.

Isaac’s exact path is still unclear, but the hurricane center said models suggest it will make landfall somewhere between the Florida Panhandle and New Orleans on Tuesday night.

The storm’s anticipated path did shift closer to the Keys than previously forecast and emergency managers urged tourists to leave the islands if they could do so safely. A single road links the chain of islands to the Florida Peninsula.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Isaac tracks toward Florida

Walter Michot / AP

Tropical Storm Isaac rakes the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba as it makes its way toward Florida, where Tampa will be hosting the Republican National Convention.

Launch slideshow

Have Swedish Forests Recovered from the Storm Gudrun?

ScienceDaily

In January 2005, the storm Gudrun hit Sweden. It has been estimated to have caused an overall economic damage of 2.4 billion euros in Swedish forestry alone. But has there been more damage to the forest than was clearly visible? A recently published study by Seidl and Blennow shows that Gudrun caused not only immediate damage corresponding to 110% of the average annual harvest in Sweden from only 16% of the country’s forest area but also pervasive effects in terms of growth reduction.

In recent decades, the frequency and severity of natural disturbances by e.g., strong winds and insect outbreaks has increased considerably in many forest ecosystems around the world. Future climate change is expected to further intensify disturbance regimes, which makes addressing disturbances in ecosystem management a top priority. As a prerequisite a broader understanding of disturbance impacts and ecosystem responses is needed. With regard to the effects of strong winds — the most detrimental disturbance agent in central and northern Europe — monitoring and management has focused on structural damage, i.e., tree mortality from uprooting and stem breakage. Effects on the functioning of trees surviving the storm (e.g., their productivity and allocation) have been rarely accounted for to date.

Seidl and Blennow show that growth reduction following the storm was significant and pervasive in a 6.79 million hectare forest landscape. Wind-related growth reduction in Norway spruce forests surviving the storm exceeded 10% in the worst hit regions. At the landscape scale, wind-related growth reduction amounted to 3.0 million m3 in the three years following Gudrun. It thus exceeds the annual long-term average storm damage from uprooting and stem breakage in Sweden and is in the same order of magnitude as the volume damaged by spruce bark beetles after Gudrun.

Seidl and Blennow conclude that the impact of strong winds on forest ecosystems is not limited to the immediately visible area of structural damage, and call for a broader consideration of disturbance effects on ecosystem structure and functioning in the context of forest management and climate change mitigation.

Today

Tropical Storm

Japan

Island of Okinawa, [Okinawa-wide]

Tropical Storm in Japan on Sunday, 26 August, 2012 at 04:38 (04:38 AM) UTC.

Description

An unusually powerful typhoon packing 250-kilometre per hour gusts is approaching the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. Okinawa weather officials projected that Typhoon Bolaven would be the strongest typhoon to hit the island in several years. The Japan Meteorological Agency said the typhoon was centered about 200 kilometres southeast of Okinawa and was expected to pass directly over the island by this evening, dumping as much as 500 millimetres of rain over a 24-hour period. Public broadcaster NHK warned that the storm’s strong winds could produce heavy damage and told residents to stay indoors and away from windows.

Today

Flash Flood

China

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, [Helan Mountain]

Flash Flood in China on Sunday, 26 August, 2012 at 03:47 (03:47 AM) UTC.

Description

Six tourists died and more than 30 were evacuated after a flash flood that soaked a mountain ravine in Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region Saturday, local authorities said. The flash flood, triggered by torrential rains in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, hit the Leek Ravine in the Helan Mountain that borders Inner Mongolia’s Alxa League and Shizuishan city of Ningxia at 12 pm, Ningxia’s regional drought relief and flood control headquarters said in a statement. Nine tourists were washed away while playing near a waterfall in the ravine. Six of them were found dead by rescuers and the other three were hospitalized with injuries, it said. At least 30 other tourists were evacuated to the city proper for safety considerations, said Xu Dongtao, an officer with Ningxia’s fire prevention headquarters who led the rescue operation. More than 100 officers and fire fighters joined the search and rescue. The city government of Shizuishan warned citizens Saturday of more mountain torrents and landslides in the Helan Mountain this flood season

25.08.2012

Flash Flood

USA

State of North Carolina, Roanoke Rapids

Flash Flood in USA on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 14:34 (02:34 PM) UTC.

Description

At least 15 roads in the Roanoke Rapids area became impassable Saturday morning after flash floods swept through the city following at least one hour of heavy rainfall, according to a Halifax County official. Authorities are asking all residents to stay in their homes and, if they have to drive, to never attempt to pass through any high water. A flash flood warning remains in effect for Halifax County until noon. One shelter is open in the city, at the T.J. Davis Recreation Center, 600 E. 6th St., authorities said. No injuries have been reported, said Roanoke Rapids Police Chief Jeff Hinton. He estimated that some streets are covered with up to 4 feet of water. Flooded roads were also reported in Northampton County. Rain, along with warn temperatures and partly cloudy skies, are on tap throughout central North Carolina for the weekend. The rainfall started Friday night in many areas, including Wake County. Temperatures will climb to the upper 70s on Saturday and the mid-80s on Sunday. Monday’s high temperature could reach the low 90s. Tropical Storm Isaac could end up having an impact on North Carolina later this week. As of 8 p.m. Friday, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and was expected to make landfall on Haiti late Friday and could lose some of its intensity over the weekend, as it moves over mountainous terrain. “It may get ripped apart so much that by the time it makes its way into the Gulf of Mexico, it may have a difficult time to reorganize,” WRAL meteorologist Mike Maze said. The storm, however, is expected to strengthen again in the Gulf to a Category 1 hurricane, and if it does, that could mean rain for the Triangle.

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Epidemic Hazards / Diseases

25.08.2012

Epidemic Hazard

Nepal

Khimna VDC, Palanta [Kalikot District]

Epidemic Hazard in Nepal on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 14:11 (02:11 PM) UTC.

Description
Four school girls have died from an unknown disease at Khimna VDC in Palanta area of Kalikot district. Over 65 students have fallen sick due to a breakout of mysterious disease. The victims were the students at the local Kalika Lower Secondary School. Following an outbreak of mysterious illness, an emergency meeting of the school management on last Wednesday decided to close the school until the situation comes under control, said school principal Man Bahadur Budha. Principal Budha has complained that the District Public Health Office has turned a deaf ear towards frequent calls by the school management to take measures to investigate the causes of mass illness and take the situation under control. “The local health centers here are not able to provide even Citamol tablets for the sick,” he said. The locals have submitted an application at the District Administration Office and the District Education Office demanding that lives of the students be saved. Meanwhile, a man who, was found dead on the bank of a glacier at Phoimahadev Ward No-1 in the district few days back, has been identified, said the District Police Office, Jumla. He is Surya Hamal, 29, of Narakot-2 in the district. Mentally ill Hamal had left his home some two weeks ago, said the family source. His body was handed to the family today and his final rites were conducted today itself.
Biohazard name:	Unidentified fatal disease
Biohazard level:	4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:	Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Symptoms:
Status:	suspected

………………………………………..

New Strain of Hand, Foot and Mouth Virus Worries Parents, Pediatricians

ScienceDaily

Your child goes to bed in perfect health. The next morning she wakes up with high fever, malaise and bright red blisters erupting all over her body. Johns Hopkins Children’s Center dermatologists say the disturbing scenario has become quite common in the last few months, sending scared parents to their pediatrician’s office or straight to the emergency room.

Bernard Cohen, M.D., director of pediatric dermatology at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and colleague Kate Puttgen, M.D., have seen or consulted on close to 50 such cases in the last few months and have received countless phone calls from scared parents and concerned physicians. Cohen believes this number may be just the tip of the iceberg with primary care pediatricians seeing the bulk of new cases.

Cohen and Puttgen want to reassure parents that most cases of the disease are benign and that nearly all patients recover in seven to 10 days without treatment and without serious complications.

“What we are seeing is relatively common viral illness called hand-foot-and-mouth disease but with a new twist,” Cohen says.

The culprit is an unusual strain of the common coxsackie virus that usually causes the disease. The new strain, coxsackie A6, previously found only in Africa and Asia, is now cropping up all over the United States.

The coxsackie virus strikes infants and children under age 5 in the summer and autumn months. Symptoms include fever and malaise and, a day or two later, a non-itchy skin rash with flat or raised red spots on the hands and feet and/or mouth sores. The new strain, however, behaves somewhat differently from its homegrown cousin, Cohen says. It carries a slightly higher risk for more serious illness and more widespread rash that can involve the arms, legs, face and diaper area. The new strain also seems to affect older as well as younger children.

“We’ve talked with many of our pediatric dermatology colleagues around the country and the number of cases and the severity of the rash is clearly new and different from the typical hand, foot and mouth disease we are used to seeing,” adds Puttgen. “The good news is that it looks bad but hasn’t actually caused severe symptoms for our patients.”

The new virus can also cause a rash that mimics lesions of herpes simplex virus, which requires treatment with antivirals.

“It can look like disseminated herpes simplex, and parents may panic if they don’t know what it is,” Cohen says. “But unlike herpes simplex, this rash evolves very fast. It’s bad for a few days and then gets better very quickly without any treatment at all.”

To reduce the spread of the virus, Cohen and Puttgen advise frequent hand washing and good general hygiene. Pediatricians need not refer patients to a specialist if they recognize the rash for what it is and if the child is otherwise healthy, they say. “If the child has low-grade fever, but is otherwise well, waiting and watching is appropriate,” Cohen says. “If the child is having problems with feeding or drinking or acting ill, it’s time to call the doctor.” Specifically, Cohen says, children with immune deficiencies, cancer or other serious illness should be followed closely by their pediatrician to avoid or promptly treat any complications.

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Climate Change

Good News from the Bad Drought: Gulf ‘Dead Zone’ Smallest in Years

ScienceDaily

The worst drought to hit the United States in at least 50 years does have one benefit: it has created the smallest “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico in years, says a Texas A&M University researcher who has just returned from gulf waters.

Less oxygen dissolved in the water is often referred to as a “dead zone” (in red above) because most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts. (Credit: NOAA)

Oceanography professor Steve DiMarco, one of the world’s leading authorities on the dead zone, says he and other Texas A&M researchers and graduate students analyzed the Gulf Aug. 15-21 and covered more than 1,200 miles of cruise track, from Texas to Louisiana. The team found no hypoxia off the Texas coast while only finding hypoxia near the Mississippi River delta on the Louisiana coast.

“We had to really hunt to find any hypoxia at all and Texas had none,” he explains.

“The most severe hypoxia levels were found near Terrabonne Bay and Barataria Bay off the coast of southeast Louisiana.

“In all, we found about 1,580 square miles of hypoxia compared to about 3,400 square miles in August 2011. What has happened is that the drought has caused very little fresh-water runoff and nutrient load into the Gulf, and that means a smaller region for marine life to be impacted.”

DiMarco has made 27 research trips to investigate the dead zone since 2003.

DiMarco says the size of the dead zone off coastal Louisiana has been routinely monitored for about 25 years. Previous research has also shown that nitrogen levels in the Gulf related to human activities have tripled over the past 50 years. During the past five years, the dead zone has averaged about 5,700 square miles and has reached as high as 9,400 square miles.

Hypoxia is when oxygen levels in seawater drop to dangerously low levels, defined as concentrations less than 2 milligrams per liter, and persistent hypoxia can potentially result in fish kills and harm marine life, thereby creating a “dead zone” of life in that particular area.

The Mississippi is the largest river in the United States, draining 40 percent of the land area of the country. It also accounts for almost 90 percent of the freshwater runoff into the Gulf of Mexico.

“These findings confirm what we found in a trip to the Gulf back in June, and also what other researchers in Louisiana have discovered, so there is general agreement that the dead zone this year is a very, very small one.

“But the situation could certainly change by next spring,” DiMarco adds.

“The changes we see year to year are extreme. For example, last year, record flooding of the Mississippi River and westerly winds in the Gulf led to a much larger hypoxic area, particularly earlier in the summer. We’ll just have to wait and see what kind of rainfall is in store for the Midwest over the next 8-10 months.”

Reference

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Solar Activity

3MIN News August 25. 2012

Published on Aug 25, 2012 by Suspicious0bservers

Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com/ [Look on the left at the X-ray Flux and Solar Wind Speed/Density]

HAARP: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html [Click online data, and have a little fun]

SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ [Place to find Solar Images and Videos – as seen from earth]

SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater [SOHO; Lasco and EIT – as seen from earth]

Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images [Stereo; Cor, EUVI, HI – as seen from the side]

SunAEON:http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/ [Just click it… trust me]

SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/ [All purpose data viewing site]

iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html [Free Application; for advanced sun watchers]

NASA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSystemWebApp/iSWACygnetStreamer?timestamp=…
NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/

NOAA Bouys: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]

JAPAN Radiation Map: http://jciv.iidj.net/map/

LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/operations/heliplots_gsn.php

Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/ [Really? You can’t figure out what this one is for?]

BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html [Top left box, look for BIG blue circles]

TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-torcon-index [Tornado Forecast for the day]

GOES Weather: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ [Clouds over America]

EL DORADO WORLD WEATHER MAP: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/ssec/world/world-composite-ir-…

PRESSURE MAP: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=us&MENU=0000000000&…

HURRICANE TRACKER: http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker

INTELLICAST: http://www.intellicast.com/ [Weather site used by many youtubers]

NASA News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/

PHYSORG: http://phys.org/ [GREAT News Site!]

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Space

Earth approaching objects (objects that are known in the next 30 days)

Object Name

Apporach Date

Left

AU Distance

LD Distance

Estimated Diameter*

Relative Velocity

(2009 AV)

26th August 2012

0 day(s)

0.1615

62.8

670 m – 1.5 km

22.51 km/s

81036 km/h

331769 (2003 BQ35)

28th August 2012

2 day(s)

0.1585

61.7

240 m – 530 m

4.64 km/s

16704 km/h

(2010 SC)

28th August 2012

2 day(s)

0.1679

65.3

16 m – 36 m

9.56 km/s

34416 km/h

4769 Castalia

28th August 2012

2 day(s)

0.1135

44.2

1.4 km

12.06 km/s

43416 km/h

(2012 LU7)

02nd September 2012

7 day(s)

0.1200

46.7

440 m – 990 m

8.16 km/s

29376 km/h

(2012 FS35)

02nd September 2012

7 day(s)

0.1545

60.1

2.3 m – 5.2 m

2.87 km/s

10332 km/h

(2012 HG31)

03rd September 2012

8 day(s)

0.0716

27.9

440 m – 990 m

10.33 km/s

37188 km/h

(2012 PX)

04th September 2012

9 day(s)

0.0452

17.6

61 m – 140 m

9.94 km/s

35784 km/h

(2012 EH5)

05th September 2012

10 day(s)

0.1613

62.8

38 m – 84 m

9.75 km/s

35100 km/h

(2011 EO11)

05th September 2012

10 day(s)

0.1034

40.2

9.0 m – 20 m

8.81 km/s

31716 km/h

(2007 PS25)

06th September 2012

11 day(s)

0.0497

19.3

23 m – 52 m

8.50 km/s

30600 km/h

329520 (2002 SV)

08th September 2012

13 day(s)

0.1076

41.9

300 m – 670 m

9.17 km/s

33012 km/h

(2011 ES4)

10th September 2012

15 day(s)

0.1792

69.8

20 m – 44 m

12.96 km/s

46656 km/h

(2008 CO)

11th September 2012

16 day(s)

0.1847

71.9

74 m – 160 m

4.10 km/s

14760 km/h

(2007 PB8)

14th September 2012

19 day(s)

0.1682

65.5

150 m – 340 m

14.51 km/s

52236 km/h

226514 (2003 UX34)

14th September 2012

19 day(s)

0.1882

73.2

260 m – 590 m

25.74 km/s

92664 km/h

(1998 QC1)

14th September 2012

19 day(s)

0.1642

63.9

310 m – 700 m

17.11 km/s

61596 km/h

(2002 EM6)

15th September 2012

20 day(s)

0.1833

71.3

270 m – 590 m

18.56 km/s

66816 km/h

(2002 RP137)

16th September 2012

21 day(s)

0.1624

63.2

67 m – 150 m

7.31 km/s

26316 km/h

(2009 RX4)

16th September 2012

21 day(s)

0.1701

66.2

15 m – 35 m

8.35 km/s

30060 km/h

(2005 UC)

17th September 2012

22 day(s)

0.1992

77.5

280 m – 640 m

7.55 km/s

27180 km/h

(2012 FC71)

18th September 2012

23 day(s)

0.1074

41.8

24 m – 53 m

3.51 km/s

12636 km/h

(1998 FF14)

19th September 2012

24 day(s)

0.0928

36.1

210 m – 480 m

21.40 km/s

77040 km/h

331990 (2005 FD)

19th September 2012

24 day(s)

0.1914

74.5

320 m – 710 m

15.92 km/s

57312 km/h

(2009 SH2)

24th September 2012

29 day(s)

0.1462

56.9

28 m – 62 m

7.52 km/s

27072 km/h

1 AU = ~150 million kilometers,1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers

Source: NASA-NEO

……………………………………

Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Unveiled

by John Williams

A quick check of Hubble’s gallery shows just 1,300 images; however more than raw 700,000 images reside in a vast archive with hundreds of potentially jaw-dropping astronomical scenes just waiting to be uncovered. That was the idea behind the European Space Agency’s international contest called Hubble’s Hidden Treasures. And now with the hard work of amateur astronomers and more than 3,000 submissions, some of Hubble’s incredible celestial treasures are revealed.

“The response was impressive, with almost 3000 submissions,” the ESA said in a press release. “More than a thousand of these images were fully processed: a difficult and time-consuming task. We’ve already started featuring the best of these in our Hubble Picture of the Week series.”

The top 10 images selected in the Hubble Hidden Treasures basic imaging category. Top row: NGC 6300 by Brian Campbell, V* PV Cephei by Alexey Romashin, IRAS 14568-6304 by Luca Limatola, NGC 1579 by Kathlyn Smith, B 1608+656 by Adam Kill Bottom row: NGC 4490 by Kathy van Pelt, NGC 6153 by Ralf Schoofs, NGC 6153 by Matej Novak, NGC 7814 by Gavrila Alexandru, NGC 7026 by Linda Morgan-O’Connor

Credit: NASA & ESA

Judges ranked images from two categories, an image processing category and basic image searching category. Judges sifted through 1189 entries in the image processing category; a painstaking process of finding promising data and creating an attractive image using professional imaging software. But even if contestants didn’t have the technical know-how to create large mosaics and combine color filters, they could find stunning images in the Hubble archive using using simple online tools. The ESA received more than 1600 entries in this category.

“Every week, we search the archive for hidden treasures, process the scientific data into attractive images and publish them as the Hubble Picture of the Week,” says the ESA on their Hidden Treasures website. “But the archive is so vast that nobody really knows the full extent of what Hubble has observed.”

Josh Lake of the United States won with this awesome image of NGC 1763, part of the N11 star-forming region of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

First place in the processed category, which asked contestants to find promising data within the archive and process that scene into an attractive image, went to Josh Lake, from the United States. The image, which won the public vote, narrowly edged out other images. Lake produced a bold two-color image that is not in natural colors but contrasts light from glowing hydrogen and nitrogen. In natural colors, the two glowing gasses produce almost indistinguishable shades of red. Lake’s image separates them out into red and blue offering a dramatic view of the structure.

Messier 77 produced by Andre van der Hoeven, of the Netherlands came in a close second.

Andre van der Hoeven of the Netherlands came in a close second. The jury noted the impressive nature of Messier 77 in the image as well as the processing which combines several datasets from separate instruments to create the amazing image.

“This was my hardest job until now,” van der Hoeven says on the Flickr page. “Combining the different datasets to get equal colors was really hard. M77 was not fully covered by one dataset, so I had to combine channels of the WFPC2 with different wavelengths and tune the colors to get them to fit. But the result is in my opinion quite astonishing.”

We are as surprised as him that this image had not been released before.

Judy Schmidt of the United States entered this image of XZ Tauri, a new star lighting up a nearby cloud of gas and dust. She entered several images into the contest.

Third place went to an interesting image of XZ Tauri, a newborn star spraying gas into its surroundings as well as lighting up a nearby cloud of gas. The panel said it was a challenging dataset to process because Hubble captured only two colors in the region. “Nevertheless, the end result is an attractive image, and an unusual object that we would never have found without her help,” the panel said.

Revealing the challenge of many Hubble mosaics, the jury was impressed with the technical achievement Renaud Houdinet showed in putting together this ambitious view. He called this “The Great Mosaic Disaster in Chamaeleon. “Sometimes, things don’t turn out as they ought,” Houdinet admits on the Flickr description. Chamaeleon 1 is a large nebula near the south celestial pole and was not covered in one single Hubble image.

Robert Gendler took fifth place with an image of spiral galaxy Messier 96. You may know Gendler’s work as his version of Hubble’s image of NGC 3190 is the default image on the desktop of new Apple computers.

Top image caption: Top ten images selected in the Hubble Hidden Treasures image processing competition. Top row: NGC 1763 by Josh Lake, M 77 by Andre van der Hoeven, XZ Tauri by Judy Schmidt, Chamaeleon I by Renaud Houdinet, M 96 by Robert Gendler. Bottom row: SNR 0519-69 by Claude Cornen, PK 111-2.1 by Josh Barrington, NGC 1501 by kyokugaisha1, Abell 68 by Nick Rose, IC 10 by Nikolaus Sulzenauer. Credit: NASA & ESA

Links:

About the Author: John Williams is owner of TerraZoom, a Colorado-based web development shop specializing in web mapping and online image zooms. He also writes the award-winning blog, StarryCritters, an interactive site devoted to looking at images from NASA’s Great Observatories and other sources in a different way. A former contributing editor for Final Frontier, his work has appeared in the Planetary Society Blog, Air & Space Smithsonian, Astronomy, Earth, MX Developer’s Journal, The Kansas City Star and many other newspapers and magazines.

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Biological Hazards / Wildlife / Hazmat

25.08.2012

Biological Hazard

Italy

Region of Veneto, [Veneto-wide]

Biological Hazard in Italy on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 16:22 (04:22 PM) UTC.

Description
Italian researchers said a new strain of West Nile virus appeared to be spreading in the northeast area of the country. A new report from the University of Padua said the strain of West Nile first detected last month was different from the virus that caused outbreaks in Italy’s Veneto region in 2008 and 2009. Health officials in the area were urged by the researchers to increase their surveillance of mosquito-borne West Nile. West Nile has been appearing more frequently in the Mediterranean and Eastern European nations in recent years. The Padua study published in Eurosurveillance concluded the new virus had found a hospitable home in the area. “This shows that the virus is able to winter in wetland areas near rivers, where it probably has established its endemic cycle”, said Giorgio Palu, one of the authors of the study.
Biohazard name:	West Nile virus
Biohazard level:	0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:	This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:

25.08.2012

Biological Hazard

USA

State of Maryland, [Poplar Island]

Biological Hazard in USA on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 13:18 (01:18 PM) UTC.

Description
Poplar Island attracts hundreds of species of birds, from shorebirds to waterfowl to birds of prey. But some of them are in trouble. Avian botulism is sickening and killing some of the shorebirds and waterfowl at Poplar, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services one of the government agencies involved in restoring the Chesapeake Bay island as a wildlife sanctuary. This summer’s heat waves and lack of rain have allowed avian botulism to thrive on the island, where dredged material is being used to reclaim the island as a wildlife habitat, said Chris Guy, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake Bay office in Annapolis. Avian botulism is not harmful to humans but can cause lethargy and dehydration in birds. If left untreated, it can be fatal to birds. The concern started Aug. 2 when a black-neck stilt, a large black-and-white shorebird, was spotted with signs of avian botulism. In recent weeks, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Maryland Environmental Service have collected nearly 300 sick or dying birds, mostly sandpipers and mallards. A total of 78 birds have been sent to Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research in Delaware for treatment. The goal is to eventually allow the birds to be released. Biologists think they caught the outbreak in time to prevent a large-scale loss of birds. “By recognizing warning signs and taking decisive action, we were able to keep the number of birds harmed by this event very low,” said Pete McGowan, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. More than 130 species of birds have been spotted nesting, feeding or resting at Poplar Island. It has a particularly robust population of cormorants, as well as many egrets, terns and ducks.
Biohazard name:	Avian botulism
Biohazard level:	2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:	Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Symptoms:
Status:	confirmed

25.08.2012

Biological Hazard

USA

State of California, Burbank [700 block of Screenland Drive]

Biological Hazard in USA on Thursday, 23 August, 2012 at 06:35 (06:35 AM) UTC.

Back

Updated:	Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 03:38 UTC
Description
Health officials are trying to stop the spread of the potentially deadly disease Typhus, primarily transmitted by fleas. “Murine typhus, which is a disease transmitted primarily by fleas, has been slowly increasing in Los Angeles County,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the L.A. County Department of Health. “It is not an epidemic. We had a total of 38 cases reported last year. We’ve had 15 confirmed this year and another 17 that we’re investigating.” Health officials say people can get typhus when their pets come in contact with wild, flea-infested animals like possums, rats, feral cats and others. “And some of the fleas have moved from those animals to your animals,” said Fielding. If one of those fleas from your pet bites you, you could end up with typhus. Health officials say the symptoms of typhus are similar to a bad case of the flu: headaches, high fever, chills, muscle aches and more. Another sign of typhus is a rather large rash that can break out over your body. “The good news is when it’s diagnosed it’s very treatable with antibiotics,” said Fielding. At least one human infection had been confirmed so far this year in Burbank, and two have been verified in the San Fernando Valley. Another three cases are under investigation, according to public health officials. In Los Angeles County, 15 cases of typhus have been confirmed so far this year, while another 17 were still under investigation, according to Fielding. The latest infections are part of a trend in which county officials have noticed a slight increase in flea-borne typhus cases over the past five to six years.

Today

HAZMAT

USA

State of Texas, Mount Pleasant

HAZMAT in USA on Sunday, 26 August, 2012 at 04:05 (04:05 AM) UTC.

Description

[This event happened on 24.08.2012] An ammonia leak at the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry packing plant on FM 127 in Mount Pleasant Friday afternoon resulted in a general evacuation and sent at least 17 people to the hospital. The leak happened about 2:30 p.m. Friday at the plant. Pilgrim’s spokeswoman Margaret McDonald said that contract workers were performing maintenance on the plant roof when the leak began and the plant was evacuated. Titus County first responders provided oxygen and chilled water for the employees as they were examined. Folding cots were also provided for the employees described by the incident as the “walking wounded”. The plant’s cafeteria was re-opened to allow the workers get some relief from the heat; at least 40 employees took advantage of the air conditioning. Because of the large emergency response, FM 127 (Monticello Road) was closed temporarily to through traffic. McDonald says all workers taken to the hospital were examined, treated and released, and the leak was repaired by 3:30 p.m. The incident was formally terminated by Titus County emergency services at 4:10 p.m., although some first responders remained a little longer. TRMC spokesman Shannon Norfleet told the Associated Press says the examinations were precautionary and no serious injuries or illnesses were found.

25.08.2012

Environment Pollution

Sri Lanka

Capital City, Colombo [Wellawatte]

Environment Pollution in Sri Lanka on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 13:38 (01:38 PM) UTC.

Description

A patch of oil reached the coast of Wellawatte, a zone of Colombo popular with local swimmers, the coast conservation department said. The national Disaster Management Centre (DMC) has said the slick is about 10 kilometres (six miles) long and warned that areas popular with tourists could be at risk. But the spill had not reached any such areas on Saturday and the conservation department said it did not pose a great danger. “The spill is manageable and the leak from the sunken ship had stopped from last night,” department chief Anil Premarathne told AFP. “About 10 or 15 people would be enough for this clean up.” The rusting 15,000-tonne Thmothrmopolyseara, a Cyprus-flagged carrier, went down late Thursday after remaining anchored outside the Colombo harbour since 2009 following a dispute over its cargo of steel, local officials said. The DMC said it had mobilised 500 volunteers, including security personnel, for a coastal clean up if the problem got worse.

Centre director Sarath Kumara said much of the 600 tonnes of oil from the ship had been pumped out before it sank and only a small residue remained aboard. The coast line from Mount Lavinia, a popular tourist resort just south of the capital Colombo, and Negombo, the first beach resort opened for tourism in the early 1970s, was at risk, the DMC said. The vessel had been detained by Sri Lankan courts following litigation over the cargo of steel valued at over $300 million, according to local media reports. It was not clear who owned the vessel. Sri Lanka’s merchant shipping authority director Ajith Seneviratne said they were ready to tow the ship away to a salvage yard in the island’s east, but were prevented by a court order against the removal.

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Articles of Interest

25.08.2012

Explosion

Venezuela

Departmento de Falcon, [Paraguana Refinery Complex]

Explosion in Venezuela on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 12:56 (12:56 PM) UTC.

Description

A huge explosion rocked Venezuela’s biggest oil refinery early Saturday, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 50 others in the deadliest disaster in memoryfor the country’s key oil industry. Balls of fire rose over the Amuay refinery, one of the largest in the world, in video posted on the Internet by people who were nearby at the time. Those killed included a 10-year-old boy, and at least 53 people were injured, Falcon state Gov. Stella Lugo said on state television. She said firefighters had controlled the flames at the refinery on the Paraguana Peninsula in western Venezuela, where large clouds of smoke were rising. “The areas that had to be evacuated were evacuated,” Lugo said, according to the state-run Venezuelan News Agency. “The situation is controlled. Of course they’re still a fire rising very high, but … the specialists tell me there is no risk of another explosion.” The blast occurred after 1 a.m. when a gas leak created a cloud that ignited, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said. Some nearby houses were damaged by the blast, he said on television. “That gas generated a cloud that later exploded and has caused fires in at least two tanks of the refinery and surrounding areas,” Ramirez said on state television. “The blast wave was of a significant magnitude.”

Images in state media showed the flames casting an orange glow against the night sky. One photograph showed an injured man being wheeled away on a stretcher. Ramirez said oil workers will determine what caused the gas leak and were inspecting the damage along with troops. He said supplies of fuel had been cut off to the part of the refinery that was still in flames. Troops were securing the area at the refinery, Lugo said. Vice President Elias Jaua said on his Twitter account that the military was deployed to the area and that air ambulances were dispatched to ferry the wounded. The defense minister was traveling to the refinery along with Ramirez and other officials, Jaua said. Amuay is part of the Paraguana Refinery Complex, which also includes the adjacent Cardon refinery. Together, the two refineries process about 900,000 barrels of crude a day and 200,000 barrels of gasoline. It was unclear to what extent the explosion might affect oil shipments from Venezuela, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Explosion in Venezuela on Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 12:56 (12:56 PM) UTC.

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Updated:

Saturday, 25 August, 2012 at 13:42 UTC

Description

A gas leak caused an explosion that killed at least 19 people at Venezuela’s biggest oil refinery on Saturday and wounded more than 50 in the OPEC nation’s worst industrial accident in recent memory. The deadly blast follows a string of minor accidents and unplanned stoppages that have afflicted state oil company PDVSA over the last decade, prompting critics to accuse President Hugo Chavez’s government of mismanagement. It was not immediately clear how the blast would affect operations at the 645,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) Amuay facility, which makes up two-thirds of the world’s second-largest refinery complex, nor for how long output might be affected. State TV showed footage of smoke billowing from the refinery as dawn broke, and emergency workers were on the scene. Stella Lugo, the governor of local Falcon state, said the explosion had also hit homes in the area and that a 10-year-old child was among the dead. “We are deploying our whole fire service team, all our health team, the whole contingency plan on the orders of Comandante Chavez to first of all care for the people affected by this emergency,” Lugo told state TV.

Located on a peninsula overlooking the Caribbean sea in the west of Venezuela, Amuay is part of the Paraguana Refining Center, the second-biggest refinery complex in the world with an overall capacity of 955,000 bpd. “A cloud of gas exploded,” Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told state TV. “It was a significant explosion. There is appreciable damage to infrastructure and to houses opposite the refinery.” Both Ramirez and Lugo said the situation was under control several hours after the explosion at about 1 a.m. local time. “There’s no risk of another explosion,” Lugo said. Ivan Freites, a union leader at the Paraguana complex, said foam had been used to control the blaze. PDVSA has struggled with repeated refinery problems in recent years, crimping its capacity and its ability to fulfill ambitious expansion plans. Power faults, accidents and stoppages for maintenance have also curbed exports of oil products.

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Tags: 3MIN News August 25. 2012, A patch of oil reached the coast of Wellawatte 10 kilometres (six miles) long, Alaska, ammonia leak at the Pilgrim's Pride poultry packing plant, Argentina, Asia, Atlantic Ocean, Avian botulism, Biological Hazard in Italy, Biological Hazard in USA, Bosnia, Bosnia on red alert during hottest summer on record, British Virgin Islands, California, Caribbean, Chile, China, Croatia, Cuba, Earth approaching objects, Environment Pollution in Sri Lanka, Epidemic Hazard in Nepal, Europe, expected to be Cat 2 hurricane in Gulf, Explosion in Venezuela, Flash Flood in China, Flash Flood in USA, floods kill 26 in Pakistan: officials, Florida, Foot and Mouth Virus Worries Parents, Forest / Wild Fire in Greece, Good News from the Bad Drought: Gulf 'Dead Zone' Smallest in Years, Greece, Greenland, Have Swedish Forests Recovered from the Storm Gudrun?, Hawaii, HAZMAT in USA, Heavy rain, Himalayas, Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Unveiled, Hurricane Isaac (AL09), Iran, Italy, Japan, Kathmandu, Maryland., Mexico, Middle America, Middle East, Mild Quake Hits Southwestern Iran, Murine typhus, New Strain of Hand, North America, North Carolina, Norway, Pakistan, Pediatricians, Puerto Rico, Spain, Tangkubanperahu volcano, Tangkubanperahu volcano (West Java): increased earthquakes prompt rise of alert level, Tremors jolt Rolpa villages, Tropical Storm in Japan, Tropical Storm Isaac hugs Cuba coast, Turkey, Typhoon Bolaven (16W), Typhoon Tembin (15W), Typhus, Unidentified fatal disease, United States, Venezuela, Washington

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