MAGNITUDE 5.3 – BANDA SEA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000lxaa#summary
Subject To Change
Depth: 34 km
Distances: 337km (209mi) WNW of Saumlaki, Indonesia
360km (224mi) ENE of Dili, East Timor
361km (224mi) S of Ambon, Indonesia
404km (251mi) S of Amahai, Indonesia
455km (283mi) ENE of Atambua, Indonesia
Polar Vortex To Plunge USA Temperatures to -50C
A plane skids on a JFK Airport runway as cold air sucked from the Arctic sends temperatures in the north and east US plummeting
Windchills of nearly -50C (-60F) are threatening to turn states in the north and northwest US into an icy deep freeze.
A phenomenon described as a polar vortex is set to suck super-chilled air from the Arctic into North and South Dakota, the Great Lakes states and New England, sending temperatures plunging.
Washington DC has already seen its coldest temperatures for 20 years and several states in the Midwest have recorded their lowest mercury readings for more than a decade.
Icy weather is feared to have been a factor that led to a Delta Airways flight skidding off the runway at JFK Airport on Sunday.
None of the flight’s 35 passengers were injured and the aircraft was safely towed to a gate.
The busy New York airport suspended operations for about two hours due to slick runways.
In Chicago, about 1,200 flights have been cancelled at the city’s O’Hare and Midway international airports.
Weather Bell meteorologist Ryan Maue described current weather conditions as a once in a generation event.
“If you’re under 40 (years old), you’ve not seen this stuff before,” he said.
With much of the northeast of the country already under thick snow and well below zero, a newly emerging weather system is threatening to cause further misery.
The ‘polar vortex’ is an anti-clockwise rotating pool of cold, dense air that forms close to the North Pole, but typically hangs over Canada.
Meteorologists say that unusually, this year, it is heading south and moving towards the north and eastern United States.
Fargo in North Dakota is expected to dip to -31C (-25F), International Falls, Minnesota will fall to -35C (-31F) and Indianapolis, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois, will reach -26C (-15F).
Forecasters say that at those temperatures exposed skin can get frostbitten in minutes and hypothermia can quickly set in as wind chills may reach 50, 60 or even 70 below zero F (45.5, 51 or even 56.7 below zero C).
The frigid forecast prompted Minnesota public school officials to announce a statewide closure for Monday, marking the first such mass closing in 17 years.
The Wisconsin cities of Milwaukee and Madison have also announced school closures to start the week.
Also in Wisconsin, Sunday’s NFL playoff game at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field could be among the coldest ever played, with temperatures at kickoff expect to be at -19C (-2F).
The coldest NFL game on record was the 1967 Championship Game at Lambeau between the Packers and Dallas Cowboys. Temperatures for that game – dubbed The Ice Bowl – fell to -25C (-13F).
Elsewhere, parts of New England have already dropped into the negatives with some places hitting -35C (-30F) in Vermont and -38C (-36F) in Maine.
At least 16 deaths have been blamed on a snow storm that swept across the eastern half of the US at the end of last week.
Only a few thousand people have been left without power in the US despite heavy snowfalls, but in Canada, which has seen unusually heavy snow in a country used to cold winters, nearly 90,000 are without power in Newfoundland.
Temperatures were also expected to plummet to -35C in northwestern Ontario and Environment Canada issued a special weather statement on Saturday night for much of southern Ontario, warning of heavy snowfalls.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, soaring temperatures in Rio de Janeiro set off fire sprinklers in shopping malls as the thermometer topped 40C (102F).
Thousands headed to the beach as temperatures rose to more than 50C in the sunshine.
Plane Crashes At Colorado Airport, USA
A private jet explodes while landing at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, which serves the famous Colorado skiing resort
A private jet has crashed and burst into flames while landing at an airport in the US state of Colorado.
The accident happened at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, which serves the famous Colorado skiing resort.
Photos and video from the scene show a fire engine spraying down the wreckage, and smoke billowing from the plane.
Aspen is a popular winter holiday destination for celebrities, and comedian Kevin Nealon and singer LeAnn Rimes posted tweets after witnessing the crash.
“Horrible plane crash here at Aspen airport. Exploded into flames as it was landing. I think it was a private jet,” wrote Nealon, best known for his role in TV black comedy Weeds.
“Fire trucks and other emergency vehicles still at scene. No word on survivors or who was on jet but I can’t imagine there are survivors.”
Rimes wrote: “So sad. Horrible plane crash we just saw happen at the Aspen airport.”
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Allen Kenitzer said: “The airplane appears to be a Bombardier Challenger 600, coming from Tucson to Aspen. It crashed while attempting to land.”
A spokeswoman for Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the accident but had no details on possible casualties.
ABC News reported that at least one person was killed in the crash.
It is not clear how many people were on board.
Aspen, nestled in the Rocky Mountains, is about 100 miles southwest of Denver.
http://news.sky.com/story/1190625/aspen-plane-crashes-at-colorado-airport
Michele Casati: reports on highest solar radio flux so far cycle 24
News a few hours ago, the sunspot group that is positioning itself facing Earth (Ar1943 – Ar1944), recorded at 22:00 UTC on January 4, 2013, the highest value of the solar flux, since it started, at the turn of 2009 and 2010 this solar cycle 24.
SF corrected to 211.1
— from G. translate into English
From his New Ice Age blog http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/?p=27496
View original post 17 more words
Mount Sinabung Erupts 30 Times In One Day
AN INDONESIAN VOLCANO that has erupted relentlessly for months shot volcanic ash into the air 30 times yesterday, forcing further evacuations with more than 20,000 people now displaced, an official said.
Mount Sinabung on the western island of Sumatra sent rivers of lava flowing through an evacuation zone and columns of volcanic cloud up as high as 4,000 metres, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
“Hot lava spewed from the volcano some 60 times, reaching up to five kilometres southeast of the crater. This outpour is the biggest we’ve seen in all the recent eruptions,” Nugroho said.
Authorities had already told residents in a five-kilometre radius of the volcano to evacuate, and Nugroho said an expanded evacuation zone may be considered.
The number of people who have now fled the rumbling volcano since it began erupting in September last year has risen to 20,331, Nugroho said.
Ring of Fire
Mount Sinabung is one of dozens of active volcanoes in Indonesia that straddle major tectonic fault lines, known as the Ring of Fire.
It had been quiet for around 400 years until it rumbled back to life in 2010, and again in September last year.
In August, five people were killed and hundreds evacuated when a volcano on a tiny island in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted.
The country’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions in 2010.
MAGNITUDE 5.0 – NORTH OF HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
Subject To Change
Depth: 57 km
Distances: 527 km SE of Davao, Philippines / pop: 1,212,504 / local time: 22:41:30.0 2014-01-05
435 km NE of Manado, Indonesia / pop: 451,893 / local time: 22:41:30.0 2014-01-05
167 km N of Tobelo, Indonesia / pop: 10,000 / local time: 23:41:30.0 2014-01-05
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