USGS
The U.S. Geological Survey says a moderate magnitude 5.3 earthquake has rumbled through southeast Idaho, just 60 miles south of Yellowstone National Park.
The U.S. Geological Survey says a moderate magnitude 5.3 earthquake has rumbled through southeast Idaho, just 60 miles south of Yellowstone National Park.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The epicenter of the quake was located 11 miles east of Soda Springs, Idaho, and was also felt in Wyoming, and across northern Utah in Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Draper and Provo.
The USGS reported four separate quakes Saturday evening in an area about 63 miles from Pocatello and 130 miles from Salt Lake City.
The largest quake at magnitude 5.3 struck just before 6 p.m. local time.
The USGS said a handful of smaller quakes followed for about an hour.
The agency says only slight damage occurs with earthquakes at that level of intensity.
An ongoing earthquake swarm at Yellowstone volcano is now one of the biggest ever recorded, with over 2,300 tremors since it began in June.
As of August 30, 2,357 earthquakes had been recorded.
The most powerful in recent weeks was magnitude 3.3; it took place on August 21.
The most powerful in the current swarm was a magnitude 4.4, which was recorded on June 15.
Yesterday's mag 5.3 is by far the biggest.
An ongoing earthquake swarm at Yellowstone volcano is now one of the biggest ever recorded, with over 2,300 tremors since it began in June. As of August 30, 2,357 earthquakes had been recorded. The most powerful in recent weeks was magnitude 3.3; it took place on August 21. The most powerful in the current swarm was a magnitude 4.4, which was recorded on June 15.
Yellowstone has had dozens of these sorts of earthquake swarms in the last 150 years it’s been visited. The last volcanic eruption within the caldera was 70,000 years ago. For magma to reach the surface, a new vent needs to be created, which requires a lot of intense geological activity.
USGS would need to see considerably more and larger earthquakes, combined with contemporaneous ground deformation, steam explosions and changes in gas and heat discharge, prior to moving the alert level. None of that has occurred… YET.
- The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 5.3 earthquake has rumbled through southeast Idaho.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The agency reported four separate quakes Saturday evening in an area about 63 miles from Pocatello and 130 miles from Salt Lake City, where tremors were felt.
The largest quake at magnitude 5.3 struck just before 6 p.m. local time. The USGS said a handful of smaller quakes followed for about an hour.
The agency says only slight damage occurs with earthquakes at that level of intensity.
A wildfire on the northern edge of Los Angeles rapidly grew on Saturday into what the mayor called the largest blaze in the city's history, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of people and the closure of a major highway.
The 5,000-acre (2,023-hectare) La Tuna Fire, named after the canyon area where it erupted on Friday, has led authorities to evacuate more than 700 homes in a north Los Angeles neighborhood and in nearby Burbank and Glendale, officials said.
Authorities warned of erratic winds that could force them to widen the evacuation zone, after the fire destroyed three houses in Los Angeles on Saturday.
"Other than that, no loss of any property," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a news conference. "That is a pretty amazing thing."
The fire was only 10 percent contained with more than 500 firefighters battling it.
The blaze in thick brush that has not burned in decades was slowly creeping down a rugged hillside on Saturday toward houses, with temperatures in the area approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), the Los Angeles Fire Department said in an alert.
"This fire, which broke out yesterday, we can now say is the largest fire in the history of L.A. city, in terms of its acreage," Garcetti told reporters.
On Saturday night, Garcetti declared an emergency, ordering "all available resources" deployed to protect residents and property.
"This declaration also requests that the Governor declare an emergency - so that state and federal assistance can be provided to the City as quickly as possible,” Garcetti said in a statement.
The fire could make air unhealthy to breathe in parts of Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city, and nearby suburbs, the South Coast Air Quality Management District said in an advisory.
Video posted online by media showed the fire burning along the 210 Freeway when it broke out on Friday, with smoke hovering over the roadway as cars passed by flames a few dozen feet away. Officials quickly closed a stretch of the freeway.
More than 400 miles (644 km) to the north, the so-called Ponderosa Fire has burned 3,880 acres, or about 1,570 hectares, and destroyed 32 homes in Butte County since it broke out on Tuesday. It prompted authorities to issue evacuation orders earlier this week to residents of some 500 homes.
We move to the break news out of California. Wildfires threatening homes in Burbank, a heavily populated part of Los Angeles. Residents were forced to evacuate in the dead of night and ABC's Jim Avila is on the scene. Reporter: Good morning, Dan and Paula. The southern California heat wave lighting up the hillsides paying for a while and sleepless night. Overnight, mandatory evacuations ordered as a wildfire rages out of control racing toward hundreds of homes north of los Angeles. The blaze in Burbank growing to 2,000 acres, huge flames burning on hilltops. 260 firefighters tackling hot spots from the streets and in the air. We have an abundance of firefighters here on scene that will remain
A shallow magnitude 3.0 earthquake was reported Saturday afternoon seven miles from Coso Junction, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of zero miles.
According to the USGS, the epicenter was 27 miles from Ridgecrest, 61 miles from California City and 67 miles from Porterville.
In the last 10 days, there have been no earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.
This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author.
A strong M6.3 earthquake hit near the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia on August 31, 2017.
The epicenter of the shallow quake was situated at a depth of 49.5 km (30.7 miles), and the videos shot are pretty impressive:
5 Charts Showing Where Hurricane Irma Might Land
For anyone wondering why meteorologists can’t say for certain where Hurricane Irma – now a category 3 storm – might land in the US, Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist at Weather.com, has an explanation. First, let’s look at the National Hurricane Center current forecast cone, a five-day forecast.
According to NHC statistics, the average error in a five-day forecast path of the center in 2016 was about 194 miles. While NHC track forecasts have improved over the years, this is still a sizable error at five days, roughly the distance between Miami and Cape Canaveral, or from midtown Manhattan to Martha's Vineyard.
A basic tenet of numerical weather prediction is that small errors grow with time. If the five-day track error is already almost 200 miles, imagine what a 10-plus-day track error would be?
So, in the spirit of offering a more comprehensive assessment of where the hurricane might land, Erdman recommends looking at what’s called an ensemble model. Instead of using one set of parameters, economists use a range of initial conditions.
The ensemble forecast from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts can be seen below, in grey. The data are current as of Aug. 31 at 8 p.m. EDT. As Weather.com notes, readers can hardly see the US map below the mess of possible tracks, extending from south of Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico…
…And here’s another set of projections from NOAA.
Of course, forecasting the path of a hurricane with complete certainty is impossible. All meteorologists can say with some degree of accuracy is that the US East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico should be paying attention.
While it’s difficult to neatly sort a hurricane into a series of scenarios, meteorologists at Weather.com created illustrations showing what an east-coast landfall – as well as a near miss – might look like.
Ultimately, whether Irma hits the East Coast will depend on the Bermuda-Azores high, the primary steering wheel for Atlantic tropical cyclones.
“When this high is strong and expansive in west-to-east extent and/or there's little or no southward plunge of the jet stream anywhere near the eastern U.S., an approaching hurricane would be steered westward into the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico or East Coast.”
While the path and precise landfall of the storm is still unclear, at least one metereologist has described Irma's 180-mph winds as "the highest windspeed forecasts I've ever seen in my 10 yrs of Atlantic hurricane forecasting."
These are the highest windspeed forecasts I've ever seen in my 10 yrs of Atlantic hurricane forecasting. #Irma is another retiree candidate. pic.twitter.com/e6nMsp1myY— Michael Ventrice (@MJVentrice) August 31, 2017
Meteorologists should have a clearer picture of what to expect in a few days. After seeing photos of the flooding in Texas, we imagine homeowners along the Atlantic seaboard, not to mention the Gulf of Mexico, will be nervously awaiting more news.
1 comment:
Yikes. Reading that models have Irma's winds potentially in the Cat 6 or even 7 range is enough to get our attention. 180 MPH won't be leaving lots of man made "stuff" standing.
If that thing makes a B-Line for the DC or NE coast, there is going to be pandemonium like never seen before.
It might be a good time to go visit WV. Well, lets see how the Va Tech vs WV game goes tonight before bringing up the subject.
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