Great earthquake rocks Chile; NYC gets 4th greatest snow ever; Xynthia batters Europe
A great earthquake with magnitude 8.8 rocked the coast of Chile at 6:34 GMT this morning, generating a potentially dangerous tsunami that is racing across the Pacific Ocean. The great quake is the 7th most powerful tremor in world history (Figure 1). Preliminary tsunami wave heights for the California coast near Santa Barbara are 2 - 2.5 feet. The wave is expected to arrive between 12:15 - 12:35 pm PST. The tsunami is expected to arrive in Hawaii between 11:05 - 11:42am HST, with a wave 8.2 feet high expected in Hilo, on the Big Island. A tsunami from the 9.5 Magnitude 1960 earthquake in Chile killed 61 people in Hilo. Today's quake was so strong, that it triggered a seiche in Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, over 4,500 miles (7,000 km) away. The lake sloshed back and forth, creating a wave 0.4 - 0.51 feet on either side of the lake.
Figure 1. Wikipedia's list of strongest earthquakes of all-time.
Preliminary tsunami amplitude forecasts:
La Jolla, CA 2.3 ft
Los Angeles, CA 2.0 ft
Malibu, CA 2.6 ft
Pt. San Luis, CA 2.3 ft
Half Moon Bay, CA 2.6 ft
Crescent City, CA 1.7 ft
Morro Bay, CA 2.2 ft
Santa Monica, CA 3.3 ft
San Francisco, CA 0.7 ft
Pismo Beach, CA 4.6 ft
Hilo, HI 8.2 feet 11:5am HST
Honolulu, HI 1.6 ft 11:37am HST
Kahului, HI 7.2 ft 11:26am HST
Nawiliwili, HI 3.0 ft 11:42am HST
Haleiwa 1.6 ft
Kawaihae 2.0 ft
Port Orford, OR 0.7 ft
Moclip, WA 1.3 ft
Seward, AK 1.3 ft
Stika, AK 1.3 ft
Kodiak, AK 2.3 ft
Tofino, British Columbia 1.7 ft
Today's great quake occurred at the boundary between the Nazca and South American plates about 325 km southwest of the capital Santiago (population 5.3 million). The depth was estimated at 35 km. At least four aftershocks of magnitude 6 or higher have occurred, the largest being a 6.9 aftershock. Fortunately, the area close to the epicenter is relatively sparsely populated, but there may be heavy damage in Concepción (est. pop. 300,000) and Chillan (est. pop. 170,000), which lie 115 km and 100 km to the south of the epicenter, respectively.
Figure 2. NOAA's preliminary forecast of tsunami wave energy for today's earthquake. Image credit: NOAA Tsunami Warning Center.
New York City slammed with its 4th largest snowstorm on record
The snow from the fourth extreme snowstorm to wallop the Northeast U.S. this winter dumped a remarkable 20.9" of snow on New York City's Central Park yesterday and Thursday. This is the 4th largest snowstorm for the city in recorded history. According to the National Weather Service, the top ten snowstorms on record for New York City's Central Park are:
26.9" Feb 11-12, 2006
26.4" Dec 26-27, 1947
21.0" Mar 12-14, 1888
20.9" Feb 25-26, 2010
20.2" Jan 7-8, 1996
19.8" Feb 16-17, 2003
18.1" Mar 7-8, 1941
17.7" Feb 5-7, 1978
17.6" Feb 11-12, 1983
17.5" Feb 4-7, 1920
The storm also helped New York City set a new all-time snowfall record for the most snow ever recorded in a month--36.9". The old record was 30.5", set in March 1896. However, the old Lower Manhattan WB Station recorded 37.9" in February 1894. Yesterday's snowstorm puts New York City's snow for the 2009 - 2010 season at 51.4", making it the 11th snowiest winter since 1869. Chris Burt, author of Extreme Weather, lists the city's all-time seasonal snowfall record at 81.5", set in the winter of 1867 - 1868. This measurement came before official records began in Central Park, and were done be the NY Park Commissioners (see "Annual Report NY Park Commissioners", 1868, by John B. Marie). The second snowiest winter in NYC occurred during the winter of 1995 - 1996, when 75.6" fell.
Destructive Winter Storm Xynthia battering Portugal and Spain
A powerful 969 mb low pressure system named "Xynthia" is rapidly intensifying of the coast of Spain, and stands poised to deliver a devastating blow to Portugal, Spain, and France today and tomorrow as it powers through Europe. Sustained winds of 60 mph (96 km/hr) were reported today at a Personal Weather Station in Costa del Morte, Spain. The pressure fell to 969 mb as Xynthia passed overhead. For comparison, Winter Storm Klaus had a minimum pressure of 967 mb. Klaus, which hit northern Spain and southwest France January 23 - 25, was Earth's most costly natural disaster of 2009, causing $5.1 billion in damage and killing 26. Models predict that Xynthia will continue to intensify today, reaching 962 mb as it moves into the west coast of France Sunday morning. Sustained winds of 50 - 65 mph (80 - 105 km/hr) with hurricane-force gusts up to 100 mph (160 km/hr) are possible along the north coast of Spain tonight and the west coast of France on Sunday as Xynthia barrels through. The storm is also bringing an exceptionally moist plume of tropical moisture ashore, as seen in precipitable water imagery from NOAA (Figure 4). This moisture is likely to cause moderate to severe flooding in portions of Europe over the weekend.
Figure 3. Visible satellite image at 12 GMT of Xynthia.
Figure 4. Satellite measurements show a region of extremely high atmospheric moisture is associated with Winter Storm Xynthia. This moisture will surge over Portugal and Spain today, potentially creating serious flooding. Image credit: Sheldon Kusselson, NOAA/NESDIS.
Links to follow:
Wundermap for Northwest Spain
Spanish radar
Meteo-France
Portugese radar
Jeff Masters
the BIG one
Taken in Manhattan
This cottage was no match for 65 mph wind and an old pine tree.
Reader Comments
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I probably didn't do it right. still the video was disturbing...reminded me of Waveland, and other areas, post Katrina. Only maybe, a little worse.
Why would anyone cheer against their own country otherwise? That does not make sense....
Just my take >>>>>
Ahmen!!!!
These images are primarily for use in tropical storm monitoring. There are several areas to choose from providing a large-scale view of the Atlantic, down to the Gulf of Mexico. During hurricane season, the hurricanes page provides a variety of GOES atmospheric products to help monitor the active storms.
I was scorned very harshly for your same thoughts.......watch your back my friend as the attacks waves will start on you. Check out some blogs and read what some have printed about me. ITS SOME REALLY GOOD STUFF! Its ok i really don't care and have my heart in the right spot as do you!
LoL, If one of the Canadian fans at today's hockey game with a Canadian shirt on cheers the Americans, they might be tossed on the ice.
Ever been to a Philadelphia Eagles football game at their home field? That is no mans land if you cheer for he opponent. One visit there was enough for me to go through a box of band-aids and 20 lbs of ice when I got home. It sure was not Steeler's country.. The good thing is, we do have a choice :)
Snowpocalypse to snowicane: Hype reigns in winter
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The snowmenclature smackdown among meteorologists started with "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse." When the latest snow event — laden with flakes and whipped by heavy winds — headed for the storm-weary Northeast this week, the folks at AccuWeather Inc. warned of a coming "snowicane."
That did it for the more reserved National Weather Service, which accused the for-profit forecasters of overhyping to the point of inciting panic. The Weather Channel, an AccuWeather competitor, also took issue with the word.
As "snowicane" foreshadowed impending wind-and-snow doom Wednesday on AccuWeather's Web site, National Weather Service meteorologist Craig Evanego said the federal forecasters were taking a more measured approach, because the storm hadn't yet fully formed.
"It's almost inciting the public, inciting panic," Evanego said of AccuWeather's terminology.
His weather service colleague, meteorologist Roy Miller in Mount Holly, N.J., put it bluntly to The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pa.
"It's not responsible to be putting out things like this," he said.
The newspaper called the brouhaha a "meteorologist smackdown."
Richard Grumm, the government service's chief science and operations officer in State College, said science and "getting people's attention and entertainment" each serve a purpose.
"Scientifically, I have my own opinion of what a hurricane is," he added. "The word, 'snowicane' — I have a glossary of meteorology, it doesn't exist."
A key meteorological measure of a hurricane is sustained winds of at least 74 mph. As this week's storm barreled into New England, it slung wind gusts into that range and higher — but those winds were not sustained. It therefore failed to achieve hurricane status.
It did, however, dump even more snow on a region digging out from the deepest cumulative snows ever recorded for a winter season and knocked out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses. The number of outages was cut nearly in half by midday Saturday.
Evan Myers, chief operations officer of AccuWeather, defended the choice of words but said his firm wasn't trying to panic anyone.
"I guess you can say that we stuck our necks out on this storm. ... Some people thought we were crazy, we were nuts, talking about the storm from this perspective," Myers said Friday from the floor of AccuWeather's high-tech operations center in State College.
"The storm performed as advertised," Myers said, noting, among other things, the coastal flooding from Maine to eastern Long Island and heavy snows in some areas.
AccuWeather's Web site on Saturday took up the "snowicane" defense: "Our concern was that the storm might be taken too lightly by the public if we stuck to the norm of calling the system a nor'easter, snowstorm, or even a blizzard."
It cited wind gusts of 90-plus mph off the New England coast.
By another measure, barometric pressure, the storm lived up to its billing, AccuWeather said. The storm's central pressure was as low as a category 2 hurricane, the Web site reported.
"We said it would have the characteristics of a (hurricane or tropical system), and in fact, it did," Myers said.
Fred Carr, director of the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology, hadn't been following the AccuWeather forecasts, but briefly reviewed one from early Thursday. AccuWeather's forecasts were consistent with the government's forecast models, he said. The difference was with the words used, not the forecast itself, he said.
"I'm sure no one seriously, even AccuWeather, (could) have seriously meant it to be like a hurricane," Carr said. "I think it was just a catchy term that would give them more publicity ... of course, now I'm playing psychologist."
Though it didn't specifically name AccuWeather, The Weather Channel joined the fray. On its Web site, weather.com, it called invocation of the H-word an example of "bad meteorology."
"It's not an apt analogy to compare this winter storm, which is really all about cold air and jet stream, with a hurricane, which is all about heat and ... things of tropical origin," said Bruce Rose, vice president and principal scientist at The Weather Channel.
Using a baseball analogy, Rose acknowledged the competitiveness among the meteorologists.
"When a guy gets a base hit, he's kidding around with the other team's first baseman," he said. "But they are still trying to beat each other's brains out when it comes to the final score.
The newspaper called the brouhaha a "meteorologist smackdown."
A "Perfect" call if ever there was one.
Look for more from E in the coming weeks as well.
I doubt our founding fathers will yell for Canada just to be nice as they would be very simialar to Eagle Fan i'm sure...And ME! LOL
Cool.
Nite Aussie stay safe and please dream of Spring for us all PLEASE!
Compared to 2004.....we might be in trouble.
9 °C
Berlin Tegel, Germany
Later this will change ...
http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-1051525.html
WT ...
Night sky from location of Chile earthquake, at the moment the quake struck:
Night sky in Chile from the same location during the last full moon, at midnight in Haiti's time zone:
Night sky in Haiti at midnight on the night of the full moon, same time as above:
And this is the difference from 2005:
Uh-oh.
from 1998:
from 2004:
from 2005:
At least 23 of those deaths came in France, local media reported, where the extra-tropical cyclone whipped the country's coastal regions and moved inland, bringing sometimes heavy flooding with it.
"At 3 o'clock in the morning, we heard the toilets backing up. We got up to look and then we saw 80 cm (about 31 inches) of water in the garage," a resident of Aiguillon-Sur-Mer, in the department of Vendee, told CNN affiliate BFM.
"It was rushing in, it broke down the walls around the garden and the gate."
At least one million households were without power Sunday afternoon, Bernard Lassus of Electricite de France told BFM.
The high winds -- at times spiking to 200 km/h (124 mph) -- reached inland as far as Paris, where as many as 100 flights were canceled at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport, BFM reported.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/02/28/europe.storms/
Happens to me every year. The URLs are never the same lol. It can get annoying when it's hard to find the page I used to have.
The perfect call was ACCUWEATHER's they nailed the storm and its effects WAY before the NWS or the WC did. That's a fact. The rest are jealous. And consider this. Accuweather has to sell a product that the NWS gives away free.
If they don't do a good job the free-market will vote with their dollars and ACCUWEATHER will cease to exist. Thats a fact so get over it.
The NWS
LOL.
And that's the way it is folks.
Now back to yer reg scheduled Blogging.
Or Joe B. Worshiping 101.
And I have 2 successful Businesses.
And I also serve a Growing Non-Profit called portlight.org,for the betterment of others less fortunate...
Portlight is admirable. I concede that.
Im a work in progress.
Love trumps hate everytime.
Enjoy yer day and leave my lil World alone.
The Iggy button should remove my ramblings from your perception.
lots of pissing in the wind going on here i see be careful wind can blow that stuff all over ya if ya don't do it right
You bash, I'll defend and leave it at that.
I just finished burning leaves and branches for 3 1/2 hours...contributing to Global Warming. WOOHOO!
Since they appear to want to use as many words as possible to describe an event, this intent would be better served by explaining what a snow storm and hurricane, if blended to together, would do, and explain the differences.
Explaining what something is not and sticking to the facts also makes better entertainment if that is what they're going for.
Congratulations to the Hawaiian Islands for a successful tsunami drill yesterday. Nobody got hurt. Now everyone knows what to do.
I was disappointed by the technical aspects, however; and wonder why no one can accurately predict the magnitude, given accurate variables. Maybe the right stuff to measure that isn't out there yet.
Anyway, this blog had real information.
I wonder still about Astro's comment of 5 waves merging. Was there a backwash of sorts that broke down what was headed east?
Rep. Tom Perriello tells ‘spineless’ Senate to get ‘its head out of its rear end’ and confront climate crisis
Viewing: 701 - 751
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