The full moon is seen as it rises near the Lincoln Memorial, 19 March 2011, in Washington D.C. This type of full moon is called a “Super Perigee Moon” since it is at it’s closest to Earth.
The biggest, brightest Moon of the year is almost here. On 23 June 2013, a Supermoon will be occurring. What that means is that the Moon will be closer to the Earth than at any other time during the year – in fact, the upcoming Supermoon will be the closest encounter between the Earth and the Moon until August 2014.
The Moon will reach its closest distance to the Earth at exactly 7:32 am EDT (4:32 am PDT) on 23 June, but because it will be peaking in the early morning hours, both 22 June and 23 June will put on similar shows. So either day will be a good opportunity to see the larger-and-brighter-than-normal Supermoon.
This year the Supermoon will be up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than a typical Full Moon is. This is a result of the Moon reaching its perigree – the closest that it gets to the Earth during the course of its orbit. During perigree on 23 June the Moon will be “only” about 221,824 miles away, as compared to the 252,581 miles away that it is at its furthest distance from the Earth (apogee). The Moon will actually be at apogee only two weeks after the Supermoon, on 7 July.
(Reuters) – A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck off southwest Mexico near the Guatemalan border on Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Service said.
The quake, which hit 51 miles (82 km) west-southwest of Suchiate, Chiapas, had a depth of 27.3 miles (43 km), the USGS said. The quake’s magnitude was originally listed as 6.0
Earlier on Tuesday, a 5.5 magnitude quake 130 miles (210 km) from Mexico City shook the capital, but officials had no reports of damage in the city.
An ongoing swarm of small earthquakes is rattling homes and nerves in the Inland Empire.
Over the weekend, there were a handful of new quakes near Devore, Idyllwild and Indio. The Devore quake on Saturday morning measured 3.8.
The recent earthquakes have been near the San Andreas Fault, that ominous crack in the Earth that threatens SoCal with the “Big One.”
The current swarm may seem like a lot of quakes, but that’s not necessarily the case.
UC Riverside professor and earthquake expert Gareth Funning crunched the numbers for April 2012 compared to the same time last year.
“There were 200 more events of all earthquake sizes a year ago than there were this year,” Funning said.
The last major rupture of the San Andreas Fault happened about 330 years ago — near Fort Tejon, north of Los Angeles. Seismologists say we’re overdue for another one.
“It’s a one in two chance in the next 30 years that this earthquake will happen,” Funning said.
But pressure on the San Andreas Fault will not, as rumor has it, cause California to fall into the ocean, Funning said.
“It’s causing the mountains to rise and causing California to rise out of the sea,” Funning said.
As for the all recent quakes in the Inland Empire, he calls them purely random.
Elly Burhaini Faizal, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 05/01/2012 6:19 PM
The Mt. Merapi volcano restarted its inflation process immediately after the 2010 eruption and has entered its preparation stage of a forthcoming eruption, a Japanese researcher has said.
Masako Iguchi, a researcher from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University, said Tuesday that the global positioning system (GPS) installed on three Indonesian volcanoes, namely Guntur, Sinabung and Merapi, to detect their ground deformations, had signaled the inflation of Mt. Merapi.
Before the 2010 eruption, he said, Merapi had erupted in 2001 and 2006. This showed that there were some periods in which the volcano had no deformation until it inflated and the next eruption occurred on Oct. 26, 2010.
“But in this latest case, we detected that after its 2010 eruption, Merapi inflated again very quickly. This means that Merapi is a very active volcano,” Iguchi said during a meeting to present the team’s project report titled “Multi-Disciplinary Hazard Reduction from Earthquakes and Volcanoes in Indonesia”.
The three-year project, which is funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan Science and Technology (JST) institute, will end later this year. The project was led by Hery Harjono, an earthquake researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
Iguchi said that during the observation, a joint team of experts from Indonesia and Japan found drastic changes in the chemistry of deposits around Merapi had occurred between October and November 2011.
“More efforts are needed to develop eruption scenarios, volcano monitoring, and countermeasures to mitigate a possible volcanic disaster,” said Iguchi.
Tomoyuki Tada, a JICA senior representative, said the “Multi-Disciplinary Hazard Reduction from Earthquakes and Volcanoes in Indonesia” project marked the first collaboration between the JICA and JST in Indonesia.
“This is a very important project as Indonesia and Japan are both well-known countries for natural disasters,” he said.
During the project, which began in 2009, three significant natural disasters occurred both in Indonesia and Japan, namely the Merapi eruption, the tsunami on Mentawai Island and the earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan.
“When those disasters struck, this project was able to utilize its network of researchers, which contributed to our cooperation for disaster management and responses to disasters,” said Tada.
Citing one example, he said the JICA sent a Japanese disaster rescue team to Indonesia follwing the Merapi eruption and Mentawai tsunami; while, after the devastating Japanese earthquake and tsunami, workshops and seminars were held in Japan in collaboration with this project’s network of researchers. (nvn)
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 05/01/2012 1:05 PM
Mt. Lokon: (Tribun Manado)
Mount Lokon volcano in North Sulawesi erupted again at 11:55 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
The latest eruption was larger in magnitude compared to the eruption last Wednesday but local residents were more prepared.
The eruption was preceded by a number of mild earthquakes over a span of two minutes.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said smoke plumes reached 2,500 meters in height when Mount Lokon erupted.
According to geologists with the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG), it is not time for residents to evacuate yet, but evacuation sites are being prepared just in case.
The BNPB has deployed a team to keep the situation in Mount Lokon under control. The agency has also prepared transport, Rp 400 million (US$43,600) in cash and other equipment.
Other emergency teams are on stand-by in Malang’s Abdul Rahman Saleh Airport with Hercules C-130 aircraft ready for evacuation. “Everything is ready,” Sutopo said. (nat/swd)
May 1, 2012 – ECUADOR – The Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School today reported a slight increase in seismic activity and ash from the volcano Tungurahua. According to the Geophysical, from about 13:00 the seismic activity is characterized by the generation of a constant tremor signal, high frequency energy that remains. Also he could see a column of about 3 km emission with moderately high ash load and direction of movement to the west and south-west. Also reported minor ash falls in the sectors of El Manzano, Choglontús and Cahuají, south-west of the volcano, with almost constant roar of varying intensity. –La Hora (translated)
GUWAHATI: A ferry with some 250 passengers aboard sank in a river in northeast India on Monday following a storm, police said, adding that 50 people had swum to safety.
The double-decker ferry sank in the fast-flowing Brahmaputra river in Assam state, police said, adding that the fate of the other 200 passengers was not immediately known.
Indian state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan said more than 100 people were feared dead in the ferry accident. “The steamer was travelling with about 250 people on board when it capsized mid-stream in the Brahmaputra following a storm,” P.C. Haloi, police chief of Dhubri district, told AFP by telephone. The boat was on its way from Dhubri to the adjoining district of Fakirganjan when the accident occurred late afternoon, Haloi said, adding that rescue workers were rushing to the site. “I could see people being swept away as the river current was very strong,” Rahul Karmakar, who witnessed the sinking, told AFP. Dhubri is some 300 kilometres (186 miles) from Guwahati, Assam’s largest city. afp
CHANGSHA, May 1 (Xinhua) — Heavy rain and hailstorms in central China’s Hunan Province have affected the lives of nearly 800,000 people, local authorities said Tuesday.
According to a statement issued by the Department of Civil Affairs of Hunan, rain and hail have battered parts of the province since April 28, affecting 758,000 people in Yueyang, Yiyang, Zhangjiajie and Yongzhou.
Massive rainfall triggered mountain torrents, landslides and floods in those areas, where 47,500 residents had been evacuated.
Some 32,600 hectares of farmland have been damaged, and 5,780 hectares of crops would bear no harvest.
Nearly 15,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed by the extreme weather. It was estimated that direct economic losses would add up to 464 million yuan (73.8 million U.S. dollars), according to the statement.
The department dispatched working groups to the worst-hit cities to deliver blankets to residents and conduct other rescue efforts.
A wildfire sparked Monday morning near Toquerville has since grown to 500 acres according to fire officials.Two firefighters have been injured due to the blaze.Toquerville Fire Information Officer Nick Howell says the two firefighters were injured due to heat exposure from the flames. One was treated on the scene and another was transported to an area hospital and then released.The fire started just northeast of the city off of U.S. 17.Howell says the fire was caused from someone burning debris. He says the fire is not currently threatening any structures.Fire crews from Toquerville and the Bureau of Land Management are handling the fire and have two helicopters and 13 fire engines to help them battle the blaze.As of Tuesday evening, crews have about 30 percent of the fire contained.
5:30 p.m. CDT: “Golf ball-sized hail right now,” from Stearns Cunty, Minn. police scanner
5:05 p.m. CDT: Two tornado reports are coming out of Pope County, Minn., near Brooten and in Sedan as storms heat up across the Upper Midwest.
4:20 p.m. CDT: Hail with diameters up to 1.25 inches covered the ground with drifting reported.
Severe thunderstorms will ignite across the upper Mississippi Valley later this afternoon and tonight.
Places that will need to keep an eye out for damaging severe storms include St. Cloud, Minneapolis and Mankato, Minn., Sioux Falls, S.D., and Omaha, Neb.
The greatest risks will be large hail, locally damaging wind gusts, flash flooding and a few tornadoes.
Hail the size of baseballs and wind gusts to 60 mph can cause significant damage to automobiles, homes, trees and power lines.
Torrential downpours are capable of causing flash flooding. Heavy rain that falls in a short amount of time can lead to roadways becoming submerged in quickly rising water, especially in low-lying and poor drainage areas.
Never drive on a roadway that has been completely covered with water. Turn around and seek a safer alternative route to your destination.
There will also be the threat for isolated tornadoes. Heed all watches and warnings and be prepared to take action if a warning is issued for your area.
A storm system will move eastward from the northern Rockies into the northern Plains later today. Out ahead of the storm, warm and moist air will stream northward into the region, creating an atmosphere conducive for explosive thunderstorms.
Later in the afternoon and at night, after daytime heating has taken place, a cold front will slice into the region from the northwest.
The cold front will act as a trigger for damaging severe thunderstorms to erupt.
Strong to severe storms will also fire across parts of western Texas this afternoon.
While the threat is much more isolated today, some places that were hit with severe storms on Monday will be in store for another round this afternoon.
Cities in the threat zone include Amarillo, Lubbock and Midland.
Residents in this area should be on the lookout for thunderstorms capable of producing large hail and strong, potentially damaging winds.
A boundary separating very dry air from very moist air, also known as a dry line, will provide the spark for thunderstorms to ignite later this afternoon.
Keep checking back with AccuWeather.com for the latest severe weather updates.
Around 1,000 people were last night evacuated from a caravan holiday park beside a marina over fears that it could suffer flash flooding. Caravan owners and guests at the Billing Aquadrome site in Great Billing, Northampton were told to leave after the Environment Agency (EA) issued a flood warning, with heavy rain predicted overnight.
Northamptonshire Police confirmed the site had been successfully evacuated yesterday evening and said most people had been able to stay with friends or family or had travelled home.An emergency shelter had been set up at Lings Forum for those in need of alternative accommodation.It comes after a second holiday park, Cogonhoe Mill, started to evacuate its residents over the weekend following concerns about the level of the River Nene. A number of flood warnings are in place along the river.A statement on Billing Aquadrome website yesterday said: “EA officers have visited Billing Aquadrome today and instructed that the park is evacuated as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of holiday guests and holiday home owners.
The toll of those sickened by apparent food poisoning at a Children’s Day festival in a Mexican village has risen to 302 children and 15 adults.The health department in southern Guerrero state says 47 children and one adult remain hospitalized. The others have been released.The department said Monday that all of those who fell ill ate spaghetti, beef, salsa and cake at a grade school celebration in the hamlet of Los Organos, on the outskirts of the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.The adults who fell ill were teachers, parents and school staff.State health authorities are analyzing food served at the party to determine exactly what caused the food poisoning.
Biohazard name:
Unknow or unidentifed hazard.”
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Thousands of dead herring have been discovered washed up on a north Norwegian beach – prompting Doomsday predictors to hail it as another sign the world is set to end. More than 20 tonnes of the fish is currently carpeting the beach of Kvaenes, in Nordreisa, with experts views differing on how they have come to be there. One thing is for sure, it will provide welcome ammunition to those believing the Mayan prophecy that 2012 will bring the end of Earth. Jan-Petter Jorgensen, 44, was walking with his dog Molly when he found the stinky haul. He said: ‘People say that something similar happened in the 80s. Maybe the fish have been caught in a deprived oxygen environment, and then died of fresh water?’ Experts have said the school could have been trapped by tidal waters after predatory fish – such as coalfish – chased them towards the shoreline. Another theory is that the fish were washed ashore during a recent storm, or trapped in shallow waters and affected by freshwater from a river that flows into the bay. Jens Christian Holst, of the Institute of Marine Research, said several factors could have come together at once. And he said he hoped they would be able to conduct tests on the dead fish to see if they had died of a disease.
Biohazard name:
Mass Fish-Die off
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Skywatcher Tim McCord of Entiat, Washington caught this amazing view of the March 19, 2011 full moon – called a supermoon because the moon was at perigee, the closest point to Earth in its orbit – using a camera-equipped telescope.
CREDIT: Tim McCord
Skywatchers take note: The biggest full moon of the year is due to arrive this weekend.
The moon will officially become full Saturday (May 5) at 11:35 p.m. EDT. And because this month’s full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth — it will also be the year’s biggest.
The moon will swing in 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, offering skywatchers a spectacular view of an extra-big, extra-bright moon, nicknamed a supermoon.
And not only does the moon’s perigee coincide with full moon this month, but this perigee will be the nearest to Earth of any this year, as the distance of the moon’s close approach varies by about 3 percent, according to meteorologist Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist. This happens because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular.
Penn State University astronomers have discovered record-breaking radio waves from an ultra-cool star that is not much warmer than the planet Jupiter.
The team used a giant 1,000-feet radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rica to look for radio signals from a class of objects known as brown dwarfs. Brown dwarf’s bridge the gap between gas giant planets, and hydrogen-fusing stars.
The astronomers found that a brown dwarf named J1047+21 that lies 33.6 light years away in the constellation Leo could help boost the odds of discovering life in other places in the universe.
“This object is the coolest brown dwarf ever detected emitting radio waves – it’s half the temperature of the previous record holder, making it only about five times hotter than Jupiter,” Matthew Route, a graduate student at Penn State and the lead author of the discovery paper, said in a press release.
The newly discovered star has a surface temperature that is not much higher than that of a giant plant, and is scarcely visible in optical light.
The radio flares seen at the giant telescope show that the star has a strong magnetic field, which could imply that the same could be true of other similar stars, according to the researchers.
“We hope that in the future we’ll be able to detect yet colder brown dwarfs, and possibly even giant planets around other stars,” Wolszczan, an Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the leader of the project, said.
He said the possibility that young, hot planets around other stars could be detected in the same way the team did has implications for the chances of finding life in other places in the Milky Way Galaxy.
“The Earth’s field protects life on its surface from harmful particles of the solar wind,” Wolszczan said. “Knowing whether planetary magnetic fields are common or not throughout the Galaxy will aid our efforts to understand chances that life may exist beyond the Solar System.”
Discovering the brown dwarf through radio signals helps broaden the window through which astronomers are able to study the atmosphere and interiors of this class of stars.
The researchers said that the brown dwarf’s atmosphere must be made of neutral gas, which would not give off radio signals like they saw. So, the energy to drive the signals is coming from magnetic fields found deep inside the star, according to the astronomers.
The astronomers said that this field is similar to the field that protects the Earth from dangerous high-energy particles.
The astronomers will be able to determine how stable the magnetic field is over time by monitoring J1047 +21, and also find out the size of the emitter itself from flare duration.
The research was published in The Astrophysical Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Institute of Physical for the American Astronomical Society.
Dan Janisse/Windsor StarCanadians suspect a mysterious rumble is coming from Zug Island, on the U.S. side of the Detroit River.
WINDSOR, Ontario—Last month, Bob Dechert, a senior aide to Canada’s foreign minister, was dispatched to Detroit with an important diplomatic mission: To stop a highly annoying noise.
The so-called Windsor hum, described as a low-frequency rumbling sound, has rattled windows and knocked objects off shelves in this border community just across the Detroit River from the Motor City. Locals have said it sounds like a large diesel truck idling, a loud boom box or the bass vocals of Barry White.
Windsor residents have blamed the hum for causing illness, whipping dogs into frenzies, keeping cats housebound and sending goldfish to the surface in backyard ponds. Many have resorted to switching on their furnace fan all season to drown out the noise.
Even weirder, Americans can’t seem to hear it. Canadians find that suspicious—especially since their research suggests the hum is coming from the Yankees’ side—and accuse U.S. officials of staying silent over the noise.
A strange hum on the U.S./Canadian border has Windsor, Ontario residents pointing the finger at an industrialized wasteland on the southern fringe of Detroit. WSJ’s Alistair McDonald reports.
“The government of Canada takes this issue seriously,” Mr. Dechert said after his recent fact-finding trip, which included a visit to a heavily industrialized area on the American side of the river that some Canadian scientists believe is to blame for the hum.
Unexplained noises have tormented city dwellers for centuries. Residents west of Green Bay, Wis., have been trying to identify an occasional loud boom that they say sounds like a cannon blast—geologists have said earthquakes made the noise. Locals in upstate New York and other places have described similar episodes.
But few such cases have become international diplomatic incidents.
After three months of seismic studies conducted by Canada’s natural resources department, scientists said the noise was likely coming from Zug Island, a nearly 600-acre man-made island on the Michigan side of the Detroit River. The coal-blackened industrial zone is dominated by steel mills, including facilities operated by U.S. Steel Corp. and others whose blast furnaces belch out steam and flames.
The area is off-limits to the general public and surrounded by wire fences, with the only access via a guarded gate. A spokeswoman for U.S. Steel didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The sound has been plaguing Windsor residents on and off for two years. Last May, a particularly loud eruption shook Windsor resident David Robins as he watched the National Basketball Association playoffs. The room began to vibrate with a loud throbbing noise.
Mr. Robins hit mute, fearing he had gone overboard on volume. But the noise persisted. Stepping outside, Mr. Robins said he found the “entire neighborhood pulsating.”
“To be honest, I was scared,” he said.
Hundreds of other sleep-deprived locals have demanded action from politicians in Windsor and Ottawa.
Locals blamed earthquakes, local salt mines, an underground river and wind turbines in the past. But Canada’s seismic study last summer narrowed the likely source down to approximately 250 acres in the vicinity of Zug Island.
American officials say they aren’t so sure.
“It may not be actually emanating from Michigan,” said Hansen Clarke, the U.S. Representative for the East Detroit congressional district that includes Zug.
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May 1, 2012 – ECUADOR – The Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School today reported a slight increase in seismic activity and ash from the volcano Tungurahua. According to the Geophysical, from about 13:00 the seismic activity is characterized by the generation of a constant tremor signal, high frequency energy that remains. Also he could see a column of about 3 km emission with moderately high ash load and direction of movement to the west and south-west. Also reported minor ash falls in the sectors of El Manzano, Choglontús and Cahuají, south-west of the volcano, with almost constant roar of varying intensity. –
“Minnesota Thunder Storm on Lake Waconia,” by Flicker user antti_nannimus
![[CANHUM]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BF989_CANHUM_G_20120430175307.jpg)
Dan Janisse/Windsor StarCanadians suspect a mysterious rumble is coming from Zug Island, on the U.S. side of the Detroit River.
Family Survival Protocol - Microcosm News 