Power Failure Affecting Thousands In West Island, Canada
Hydro-Quebec crews say a power failure in the West Island Friday is due to defective equipment, but they are not sure where the faulty equipment is.
About 5,000 people lost power at 3:15 a.m. in Ile Bizard, DDO, Pierrefonds and Ste. Anne de Bellevue. By midday just over 3,000 were still without electricity.
The utility said the outage is due to defective equipment, not the cold snap, but the exact cause of the problem is still unknown.
Crews are redirecting electricity from different feed lines to work around the problem.
In the meantime residents in Pierrefonds, Ile Bizard and Roxboro are asked to reduce their electrical consumption.
Meteorite Breaks Up Over Southern Arizona, America
The massive fireball caused sonic booms, rattled windows and scattered much of its debris on Tucson’s northwest side.
Now, scientists are in Tucson hunting for the remnants.
Prescott resident Robert Ward hunts for meteorites all over the world. He’s in Tucson working with representatives from NASA and the American Meteor Society to begin the search for meteorites.
Because they can only search on public lands, Ward and his colleagues are asking private residents to contact him if they find meteorites on their private property so he and other scientists can plot the meteor’s course.
Northeast Of America Braces For Weekend Snow, Sleet Storm
A snow and ice storm headed for the Northeast was expected to slow weekend travel by air, rail and highway and had utilities and airports on alert.
The National Weather Service said six to 12 inches of snow was expected from Saturday to Sunday in most of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Areas north and west of New York City also could get eight inches or more. And sleet and freezing rain were expected.
A saltwater solution applied to roads before storms won’t work now because temperatures are too low and the saltwater would freeze, said Kevin Nursick, spokesman at the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
However, crews have treated highways before recent snowfalls with salt, helping to keep snow from bonding. And the storm will not affect work day commutes.
“The timing is pretty good coming on a weekend,” Nursick said.
Not so for retailers, who have less than two weeks before Christmas to clear their shelves and face the prospect of losing critical weekend sales.
Kathy Grannis, a spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation, said consumers will likely shop online. And the weekend before Christmas gives retailers and shoppers another opportunity after this weekend.
“If a big storm hits around 21st, 22nd, it will be a completely different story,” Grannis said.
Matthew Brelis, a spokesman for Boston’s Logan Airport, expects the brunt of the storm Saturday night, but will evaluate conditions as forecasts change.
“At some point, we’ll start calling in more staff,” he said.
Caroline Pretyman, a spokeswoman for Northeast Utilities, which serves electric and gas customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, said extra crews would be available beginning overnight Saturday to respond to outages.
And Metro-North, which runs trains between New York City and suburban Connecticut, Long Island and New York’s Hudson Valley, said on its website it may reduce or suspend service “depending on the severity of the weather.”
It cautioned that snow and sub-freezing temperatures can create moisture that could freeze brake lines, door mechanisms, switches and signals.
In Pennsylvania, two state high school football championship games were moved from Saturday to Sunday because of a predicted five to eight inches of snow.
John Wallace, spokesman at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn., said airport officials expected to meet with vendors and airlines on Friday to assess the impact of the storm. But he’s not worried.
“It’s New England. It’s the wintertime. I think we’re pretty well ready for whatever is headed our way,” he said.
Storms will be unleashing it’s venom to the Northern Hemisphere starting tomorrow 14th December 2013 which includes parts of the UK.
Flooding and structual damage will be a great worry.
A much colder airflow will cover the Northern Hemisphere including the UK where there will be an enduring and lengthly freeze.
This is going to be a very fierce winter.
MAGNITUDE 4.1 – CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
Subject To Change
Depth: 22 km
Distances: 242 km NW of Los Angeles, United States / pop: 3,792,621 / local time: 23:49:57.0 2013-12-12
60 km S of Hanford, United States / pop: 53,967 / local time: 23:49:57.0 2013-12-12
24 km NW of Lost Hills, United States / pop: 2,412 / local time: 23:49:57.0 2013-12-12
MAGNITUDE 5.2 – KURIL ISLANDS
Subject To Change
Depth: 40 km
Distances: 2026 km NE of Tokyo, Japan / pop: 8,336,599 / local time: 14:34:31.0 2013-12-13
447 km SW of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia / pop: 187,282 / local time: 17:34:31.0 2013-12-13
151 km S of Severo-Kuril’sk, Russia / pop: 2,422 / local time: 16:34:31.0 2013-12-13
MAGNITUDE 4.9 – SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA
Subject To Change
Depth: 10 km
Distances: 483 km W of Jakarta, Indonesia / pop: 8,540,121 / local time: 12:29:37.0 2013-12-13
336 km S of Bengkulu, Indonesia / pop: 309,712 / local time: 12:29:37.0 2013-12-13
322 km S of Pagaralam, Indonesia / pop: 70,386 / local time: 12:29:37.0 2013-12-13
MAGNITUDE 5.5 – OFFSHORE EL SALVADOR
Subject To Change
Depth: 50 km
Distances: 56 km S of San Salvador, El Salvador / pop: 525,990 / local time: 22:45:09.0 2013-12-12
39 km SW of Zacatecoluca, El Salvador / pop: 39,613 / local time: 22:45:09.0 2013-12-12
Please Donate To Support My Work
Earth Extremities 
Comments