A Volcano Stopped an Earthquake?

Mount Aso, one of the most active volcanoes in Japan, recently helped to stop a powerful earthquake before it subsided on its own, researchers discovered.

When a 7.1-magnitude quake struck Kumamoto, Japan, on April 16, 2016, it opened surface ruptures in a zone extending 25 miles (40 kilometers) in length. But scientists found evidence suggesting that the powerful earthquake was halted by a magma chamber under the Aso volcanic cluster, located 19 miles (30 km) from where the quake originated.

This finding provided scientists with a rare glimpse of how two geological phenomena — volcanoes and earthquakes — may interact. This topic is of particular interest in Japan, which is particularly vulnerable to both volcanoes and earthquakes. [The 11 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History (Photos)]

An earthquake is a sudden release of pent-up energy in Earth's crust that has accumulated over time, generated by shifting tectonic plates. When two sides of a fault, or crack along a plate boundary, move apart or slide suddenly past each other, energy gets released. The waves of energy radiate outward from that jolt, often producing shaking on Earth's surface, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Japan is especially prone to earthquakes, as it lies in the Pacific Ring of Fire, a U-shaped area in the Pacific Ocean where several tectonic plates meet, and where many earthquakes are generated.

A number of volcanoes are also found in this Ring of Fire. And it was the particular interaction of the April 2016 earthquake with the Mount Aso volcano that triggered the researchers' interest in how seismic activity could be affected by the structure of volcanic clusters.
http://kidsahead.com/subjects/8-earthquakes/articles/1594

Experts: More Significant Quakes Expected After Massive 6.6 Magnitude Tremblor Strikes Italy

After central Italy was rocked by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake Sunday morning, experts say they can't exclude the possibility that there will be more, possibly stronger aftershocks in the area near Norcia .

British Geological Survey seismologist Margarita Segou told the Associated Press that the important thing to realize is that, while the number of temblors will decline over time, "we cannot  exclude the possibility of larger magnitude aftershocks. 

Carlo Doglioni,  president of Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, Carlo Doglioni, told The Associated Press that the intense activity along a series of faults in the region wasn't anomalous and ​that more significant quakes can be expected.

He said there was a similar sequence of three seismic events within a period of months in 1703, adding "it is normal for the Apennines," where there are a series of interdependent faults.

Doglioni said that natural law dictates that after such an event that there will be more quakes, "which means we can expect some 5 magnitude quakes and many of magnitude 4."

The USGS says the quake was centered about 4 miles north of Norica, Italy, and hit at 7:40 a.m. local time. Last Wednesday's 6.1 and 5.5 magnitude earthquakes were also centered in this same general area, along with many aftershocks in the following days.

There were no immediate reports of deaths, but about 20 people had suffered injuries as numerous buildings that had resisted the previous temblors collapsed. 

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the nation's "soul is disturbed" by the series of quakes that began with the deadly Aug. 24 quake that killed almost 300 people. 

He has vowed that the country will rebuild the homes, churches and other structures destroyed by the temblor, which is the latest to strike the region since Wednesday.

https://www.wunderground.com/news/italy-earthquake-sunday

Rubble of a collapsed building in L'Aquila, central Italy, after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 struck central Italy, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. A powerful earthquake rocked the same area of central and southern Italy hit by quake in August and a pair of aftershocks last week, sending already quake-damaged buildings crumbling after a week of temblors that have left thousands homeless. (Alberto Orsini/ANSA via AP)

Halloween Surprise: Rare Tropical Storm Forms in Mediterranean Sea

A tropical storm formed Halloween weekend, not in the typical Atlantic or Pacific, but in the Mediterranean Sea.

This rather strange sequence of events began as an area of low-pressure dropped southward from southern Europe and became temporarily left behind by the jet stream over the central Mediterranean Sea south of the Italian coast.

(MORE: The 35 Strangest Weather Events I've Seen in My Lifetime)

By Saturday, Oct. 29, a non-tropical low pressure center formed east of Malta, a group of islands between Sicily and the coast of Libya over the weekend. 

RGB composite satellite image of the Mediterranean storm as it was making the transition to a subtropical storm on October 30, 2016, at 12:00 UTC.
(NERC Satellite Receiving Station, University of Dundee)

The next day, thunderstorms became more clustered near the low-pressure center to warm the mid levels of the atmosphere sufficiently to morph the system into a subtropical storm. 

A subtropical storm displays features of both tropical and non-tropical systems, including a broad wind field, no cold or warm fronts, and generally low-topped thunderstorms displaced from the center of the system. 

https://www.wunderground.com/news/medicane-tropical-storm-mediterranean-sea-31oct2016

Fall Heat Wave Will Smash Records From Halloween Into the First Days of November

Record warmth will continue to give a summer feel into the first days of November this week, with hundreds of daily record highs and warm lows likely to be set and also some monthly record highs expected in parts of the heat-weary South and Plains states.

Current Temperatures

Some southern cities could set a new daily record high each day through much of this week.

This continues what has been a much warmer-than-average month for the vast majority of Americans east of the Rockies, including a mid-October warm spell that shattered records.

Below are details on the forecast temperatures through Wednesday, along with perspective on how warm it has been so far this month.

(MORE: U.S. Warm Records Trouncing Cold Records)

Tuesday's Forecast

Forecast Highs Compared to Average Tuesday

• Highs 10 to 25 degrees above average will surge back into the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley and Appalachians, while continuing to encompass much of the Plains and South.
• 70s are possible as far north as Lower Michigan and western Pennsylvania.
• 80s will once again rule the Ohio Valley, central and southern Plains and South.
• A few 90s are possible in the Deep South.
• Record highs will again likely be numerous from the Southeast to the Ohio Valley and in parts of the Plains, threatening some all-time November record highs in some areas.
• Potential all-time November record highs (record to beat is shown): Amarillo, Texas (87 degrees); Cincinnati, Ohio (81 degrees); Louisville, Kentucky (84 degrees); Nashville, Tennessee (85 degrees)

https://www.wunderground.com/news/record-warmth-west-central-south-late-october

Haboob-nado"

A tornado and gust front in Jilin Province, China on May 31, 2015. (Newsflare) (Newsflare)

• WATCH VIDEO

You may have heard of, or experienced, a dust storm known as a haboob, which are common in the Middle East and U.S. Desert Southwest.
What appeared at first to be a haboob in China's Jilin Province on May 31 had something extra. It was rotating.
"It certainly had some significant rotation," said severe weather expert, Dr. Greg Forbes in an internal email. "I suspect it was a tornado with a big gust front; probably not a violent tornado."
"Haboobnado? Whatever it was, it was wild!" said senior meteorologist Stu Ostro.
The storm blew vehicles over and damaged buildings in Tongyu County

weather.com

Winter Storm + Tropical Landfall on Mother's Day

19 inches of snow piled up in Crawford, Nebraska, while Tropical Storm Ana soaked Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina on May 10, 2015. (Lisa Aschwege via KNEB-TV, left; Greg Agee, right)

Mother's Day 2015 was a strange one, meteorologically.
First, Tropical Storm Ana became the record earliest tropical or subtropical storm to make landfall on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard (neglecting a weird Groundhog Day 1952 Florida tropical storm), according to Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel.
Since it was still only early May, High Plains snowstorms were still within the realm of climatological possibility, and 2015 delivered with Winter Storm Venus dumping up to 2 feet of snow.
A landfalling tropical storm and a major winter storm simultaneously hitting on one early May weekend. Amazingly, this wasn't the first time this has happened -- but it's still rare enough to make our list

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Icy Imprint

This icy imprint was left standing even after a Jeep pulled away from this parking lot in Greenville, North Carolina on February 17, 2015. (Facebook/Trista Stiles)

We mentioned February was brutally cold in most of the East. Other than New England's giant snow piles, an icy photo from North Carolina may have been most emblematic of that month's misery.
Following a period of sleet and freezing rain, a Jeep didn't take its ice accumulation with it when pulling out of a Greenville, North Carolina, parking lot. It left it there.

Extreme Rainfall Causes Tragic Flooding in the Appalachians

Flooding completely submerges the I-79 Clendenin exit in Kanawha County, West Virginia, on June 24, 2016. (Facebook/West Virginia Department of Transportation)

Thunderstorms dumped extreme rainfall in southeast West Virginia and neighboring Virginia on June 23, resulting in devastating flooding for several towns in the area.
The floods have led to the deaths of at least 23 people as of this writing.
(MORE: Deadly Flooding in West Virginia)
Rainfall totals of 8-10 inches (possibly higher in localized areas) fell in about 12 hours across parts of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, and Alleghany County, Virginia, the National Weather Service (NWS) said. The NWS added that this was nearly a one in a thousand year rainfall event for that area.

weather.com

Record Early Arrival For "C" and "D" Storms in the Atlantic

The Atlantic basin had already seen four named storms in the 2016 hurricane season as of June 20.
Among those are Tropical Storms Colin and Danielle, which set a record for the earliest third and fourth tropical storms on record in the Atlantic basin.
Tropical Storm Colin was named on June 5, beating out the previous record for the earliest third tropical storm set by Chris on June 18, 2012.
The formation of Tropical Storm Danielle on June 20 beat out the previous record for the earliest fourth tropical storm previously held by Debby on June 23, 2012

weather.com

Another Deadly Flood Year in Texas

Kyle Lester paddles past a submerged SUV as he looks for residents to help in the Timber Lakes Timber Ridge subdivision near Houston in April 2016. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)

No state was hit harder by deadly flooding in the first half of 2016 than Texas.
At least 29 people have been killed due to floodwaters in the state this year. This follows on the heels of a deadly 2015 where 48 people lost their lives in the state due to flooding.
The north and west sides of the Houston metro area were swamped with 10-20 inches of rain late April 17 into April 18, resulting in disastrous flooding that left eight people dead. Later that month, six people were killed by a separate flood event in Palestine.
Six more deaths occurred in the last few days of May 2016 from flooding in central and southeast Texas, according to the Associated Press. This was followed by the deaths of nine Fort Hood soldiers that were killed when their truck was washed away on June 2, 2016.

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Softball Size Hail, Wind Destroys Home's Windows

Nearly all of the windows in this Wylie, Texas, home were knocked out by the April 11 hailstorm. (Twitter/@WylieBear1)

Damaging hailstorms were plentiful this spring, impacting metro areas such as Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio (twice), Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Lincoln, Nebraska.
Of all the photos from those events, the one above from Wylie, Texas, stands out due to the incredible damage to the home's windows. A combination strong winds and hail to the size of softballs from a lone supercell thunderstorm caused the damage.
(MORE: 10 Craziest Photos of the North Texas Hailstorm)
A day later, the San Antonio metro area was hit hard by what would be the first of two major hailstorms to hit the city in April.
The combined insured losses from the hailstorms April 10-15 in Texas was $2.5 billion, according to meteorologist Steve Bowen. This includes both the April 11 north Texas hailstorm and the April 12 San Antonio storm.

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March Miracle" in the Sierra: 10+ Feet in 10 Days

Sierra Nevada snow on March 13, 2016. (Mirko Buholzer/Instagram)

After an optimistically wet start to the rainy season in California, including the highest Sierra Nevada snowpack measured in five years in late January, February trended much drier. The state overall recorded its 14th driest February on record, making some wonder if any additional drought relief would arrive.
Thankfully, the Sierra made big snowpack gains during a 10-day period in early March thanks to a strong jet stream that funneled copious amounts of Pacific moisture into the mountain range.
With the jet stream tapping into a so-called "atmospheric river" at times, snowfall totals were measured in feet across the highest elevations.
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort saw an estimated 10+ feet of snow at its summit (elevation 8,383 feet) March 5 into early March 14. A total of 59 inches was estimated to have fallen March 5-7. This was then followed by an estimate of an additional 66 inches from a second round of heavy snow. That brought the estimated total there over a span of about 10 days to 125 inches.

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Go South For Snow, Waaaay South

Snow cover viewed from satellite in Mexico's mountains on March 9, 2016. (NASA)

An area of low pressure that formed in northern Mexico during early March was unusually strong and cold for that area, not only for March, but anytime of year.
"Such a large, strong upper low appears to be an unprecedented event in modern weather observations for Mexico," said Bob Henson in a wunderground.com blog.
As the above satellite image illustrates, snow fell throughout Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains. However, some high-valley locations even saw snowfall from this storm system.
Mexico's second-most populated city, Guadalajara, even saw a coating of snow in some areas. Guadalajara is at a latitude lower than Miami and even Havana, Cuba. However, its elevation of about 5,200 feet in combination with the cold nature of the low pressure system allowed snow to fall there. This is reportedly the first snow in Guadalajara since December 1997, another strong El Nino year.

Northeast Sees Coldest Temperatures in Decades...During a Mild February

A potent blast of arctic air brought the coldest temperatures in decades to several Northeast cities Valentine's Day morning.
Boston fell to minus 9 degrees on Feb. 14, making it the coldest temperature recorded in the city since Jan. 15, 1957, or nearly 60 years. New York City slipped below zero for the first time since Jan. 19, 1994.
The odd thing about all of this is that every state in the Northeast saw a warmer than average February overall. For some New England states, it was a top 10 warmest February.
This cold air mass on Valentine's Day weekend was very potent, but short-lived.

weather.com

Winter Storm Jonas: A Record Northeast Snowstorm

Jonas snowfall analysis. (NOAA)

Winter Storm Jonas was the biggest winter storm of the year, hammering the Northeast, Appalachians and mid-Atlantic with feet of snow.
For New York City, Jonas was the heaviest snowstorm on record dating to 1869. The Big Apple picked up 27.5 inches of snow Jan. 22-23. Jonas was also a record snowstorm for Baltimore, Maryland (29.2 inches), and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (30.2 inches).
Snowfall totals from the storm topped out near 42 inches in West Virginia, and at least 14 states in total received more than a foot of snow from the storm.
One of the most interesting aspects of the storm was how well in advance it was forecast. Computer forecast models repeatedly forecast a major winter storm for the East Coast at least five days in advance of its arrival, though with uncertainty in the details

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Car Encased in Ice as Winter's Cold Finally Arrives

(John Normille/Getty Images)

After a mild end of 2015, winter finally showed up in the Great Lakes in early January.
This viral photo shows a car that became encrusted in ice after it was parked for several hours outside a restaurant in Hamburg, New York, on Jan. 10 while the driver was watching NFL postseason games.
Strong winds and much colder temperatures swept in with an arctic cold front during that time, allowing water from Lake Erie to spray locations along the lakeshore, leading to the build up of ice on the car and other surfaces.

weather.com

Active Tropics...in January?

Left: Pali on January 11, 2016 just before reaching hurricane status. Right: Hurricane Alex on January 14, 2016 (NASA)

January featured not one, but two oddities in the tropics.
First, Hurricane Pali became the earliest hurricane on record in the central Pacific basin on Jan. 11, peaking as a Category 2 on Jan. 12. Pali was also just the third January storm dating to 1949 in the central Pacific.
About the same time, Subtropical Storm Alex formed in the northeast Atlantic Ocean on Jan. 13. Alex then fully acquired tropical characteristics and became a hurricane on Jan. 14, making it just the second hurricane on record to form during the month of January in the Atlantic

Unprecedented Warmth During First Five Months of 2016

(NOAA)

Monthly heat records for the globe have fallen by the wayside in each of the first five months this year. There is no better way to illustrate this than with the eye-popping graph above.

The black line is the departure from average temperature for the entire surface of the earth January-May 2016. Also shown is the departure from average for the seven warmest years on record. As you can see, it's not even close, as the period from January-May 2016 has been far and away warmer than those years to date.
In January, February, March and April, the previous monthly record was crushed by the new record in 2016.
A record strong El Niño likely played a role in fueling the incredibly mild temperatures we saw to start the year.

A strange thing happened in the stratosphere; A 60-year pattern in the stratosphere changes up

This disruption to the wind pattern -- called the "quasi-biennial oscillation" -- did not have any immediate impact on weather or climate as we experience it on Earth's surface. But it does raise interesting questions for the NASA scientists who observed it: If a pattern holds for six decades and then suddenly changes, what caused that to happen? Will it happen again? What effects might it have?

"The quasi-biennial oscillation is the stratosphere's Old Faithful," said Paul Newman, Chief Scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author on a new paper about the event published online in Geophysical Research Letters. "If Old Faithful stopped for a day, you'd begin to wonder about what was happening under the ground."

Winds in the tropical stratosphere, an atmospheric layer that extends from about 10 to 30 miles above Earth's surface, circulate the planet in alternating easterly and westerly directions over roughly a two-year period. Westerly winds develop at the top of the stratosphere, and gradually descend to the bottom, about 10 miles above the surface while at the same time being replaced by a layer of easterly winds above them. In turn, the easterlies descend and are replaced by westerlies.

This pattern repeats every 28 months. In the 1960s scientists coined it the "quasi-biennial oscillation." The record of these measurements, made by weather balloons released in the tropics at various points around the globe, dates to 1953.

The pattern never changed -- until late 2015. As the year came to a close, winds from the west neared the end of their typical descent. The regular pattern held that weaker easterly winds would soon replace them. But then the westerlies appeared to move upwards and block the downward movement of the easterlies. This new pattern held for nearly half a year, and by July 2016 the old regime seemed to resume.

"It's really interesting when nature throws us a curveball," Newman said.

The quasi-biennial oscillation has a wide influence on stratospheric conditions. The amount of ozone at the equator changes by 10 percent between the peaks of the easterly and westerly phases, while the oscillation also has an impact on levels of polar ozone depletion.

With this disruption now documented, Newman and colleagues are currently focused on studying both its causes and potential implications. They have two hypotheses for what could have triggered it -- the particularly strong El Niño in 2015-16 or the long-term trend of rising global temperatures. Newman said the scientists are conducting further research now to figure out if the event was a "black swan," a once-in-a-generation event, or a "canary in the coal mine," a shift with unforeseen circumstances, caused by climate change.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160902142132.htm

El Niño, global warming combine to cause extreme drought in Amazon rainforest

A study led by researchers at the Global Change Unit at the Universitat de València (UV) shows the impact the current 2015/2016 El Niño is having in Amazonia. Areas of extreme drought and changes to their typical distribution in the region are among the most evident consequences.

The El Niño effect is part of a cycle of global heating and cooling associated with the changing temperatures of a band of ocean water in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific ocean. Repeating every three to five years, it is one of the main drivers of climate variability. Although its consequences are felt at the global level, its impact on tropical forests -- particularly the Amazon rainforests -- are considered particularly significant, since this ecosystem is considered one of the planet's main carbon sinks.

Some El Niño events, like those of 1982/1983 and, especially, 1997/1998, are stronger than average. In 2014 alarm bells started ringing at the possibility of another such 'Mega Niño', as they are known, though ultimately not all of the necessary conditions converged. However, in 2015 they all fell into place, leading to the current 2015/2016 event, which, coupled with the trend of global warming, is proving more extreme than any on record.

The study, by researchers at the Universitat de València and published in Scientific Reports, shows how the current El Niño event is associated with an unprecedented heating of Amazonia, reaching the highest temperature in the last forty years and, probably, the last century. Additionally, extreme drought has hit a much larger area of this region than usual and is distributed atypically, with extremely dry conditions in the northeast and unusual wetting in the southeast (something which occurred in 2009/2010, though to a lesser extent).

According to the UV scientists, this fact, not observed in the 1982/1983 and 1997/1998 events, implies that, the more the central equatorial Pacific is heated, the more marked the difference between and distribution of the wet zones and areas of extreme drought in the Amazon rainforest.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914090454.htm

Pacific Ocean’s response to greenhouse gases could extend California drought for centuries

Clues from prehistoric droughts and arid periods in California show that today's increasing greenhouse gas levels could lock the state into drought for centuries, according to a study led by UCLA professor Glen MacDonald.

The study, published today in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, looked at how natural climatic forces contributed to centuries-long and even millennia-long periods of dryness in California during the past 10,000 years. These phenomena -- sun spots, a slightly different earth orbit, a decrease in volcanic activity -- intermittently warmed the region through a process called radiative forcing, and recently have been joined by a new force: greenhouse gases.

As long as warming forces like greenhouse gases are present, the resulting radiative forcing can extend drought-like conditions more or less indefinitely, said MacDonald, a distinguished professor of geography and of ecology and evolutionary biology.

"Radiative forcing in the past appears to have had catastrophic effects in extending droughts," said MacDonald, an international authority on drought and climate change. "When you have arid periods that persist for 60 years, as we did in the 12th century, or for millennia, as we did from 6,000 to 1,000 B.C., that's not really a 'drought.' That aridity is the new normal."

Researchers tracked California's historic and prehistoric climate and water conditions by taking a sediment core in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They pulled a 2-inch-wide, 10-foot-deep cylinder of sediment from the bottom of Kirman Lake and analyzed it in third-of-an-inch sections, creating the most detailed and continuous paleoenvironmental record of California.

The team correlated their findings with other studies of California climate history, and for the first time, united all the studies and cross-referenced them with histories of the Pacific Ocean's temperature taken from marine sediment cores and other sources.

What they found was not only that periods of increased radiative forcing could produce drought-like conditions that extended indefinitely, but that these conditions were closely tied to prolonged changes in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915131524.htm

UCLA professor Glen MacDonald studies sediment samples, like the one shown here from an unrelated study, looking for clues about prehistoric climate conditions.

Credit: John Vande Wege/UCLA

2016 ties with 2007 for second lowest Arctic sea ice minimum

The Arctic's ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent on September 10, 2016, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Arctic sea ice extent on that day stood at 4.14 million square kilometers (1.60 million square miles), statistically tied at second lowest in the satellite record with the 2007 minimum. The 2007 minimum occurred on September 18 of that year, when Arctic sea ice extent stood at 4.15 million square kilometers (1.60 million square miles).

"It was a stormy, cloudy, and fairly cool summer," said NSIDC director Mark Serreze. "Historically, such weather conditions slow down the summer ice loss, but we still got down to essentially a tie for second lowest in the satellite record."

"It really suggests that in the next few years, with more typical warmer conditions, we will see some very dramatic further losses," said Ted Scambos, NSIDC lead scientist.

Arctic sea ice cover grows each autumn and winter, and shrinks each spring and summer. Each year, the Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum extent in September. The record lowest extent in the 37-year satellite record occurred on September 17, 2012 when sea ice extent fell to 3.39 million square kilometers (1.31 million square miles).

During the first ten days of September this year, the Arctic lost ice at a faster than average rate. On average, the Arctic lost 34,100 square kilometers (13,200 square miles) per day compared to the 1981 to 2010 long-term average of 21,000 square kilometers (8,100 square miles) per day. The early September rate of decline also greatly exceeded the rate observed for the same period during the record low year of 2012 (19,000 square kilometers, or 7,340 square miles, per day). By September, the air is cooling and there is little surface melt. This argues that that the fairly rapid early September ice loss was due to extra heat in the upper ocean. Recent ice loss was most pronounced in the Chukchi Sea, northwest of Alaska. NSIDC scientists said ice may also relate to the impact of two strong storms that passed through the region during August.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915153338.htm