Stay dry Californian-UMSF'ers.

"I'm dreamin' of a dry Christmas, just like the ones I used to know."

Thanks, Astro0. It's pretty much over now, just a few sprinkles here & there. (What we call a "torrential rain" here would usually be characterized as a typical storm almost anywhere else in the world...)

Still, as a direct result of the fact that it doesn't rain here much, events like this can have some dire effects on the hilly areas of the greater LA area particularly in the burn areas like last year's Station Fire. In addition to some prominent UMSFers, a number of JPLers live in or near that area; best wishes to them all for a safe, quiet holiday season.

I've seen three tornadoes (well 2 water spouts and 1 proper tornado on land) and just missed one that I didn't see that destroyed a bunch of houses about two miles away from where I live now. As a kid though I grew up right on the coast where we got the full anger of North Atlantic storms on a regular basis - we'd get Hurricane force (75mph or greater) sustained winds at least once a year and when those hit land you get all sorts of interesting gust effects that produce the really violent small scale vortex effects like water spouts. I'm not sure if they are technically tornadoes now that I think about it but with a tight vortex and wind speeds well above 100mph I'm not sure that the mechanical origins matter all that much. When the storms can throw around 100 ton boulders from sea defences as if they were pebbles you know that when the forecast said "Severe Storm" that they weren't joking.

I'd happily swap a couple of those for the cold we're having now. We're now heading into the fourth consecutive week of heavy snow and sub zero temperatures. It hit -15C last night according to my car and yet again I have to dig the blasted thing out from under a foot deep blanket of snow.

I've seen videos of basically, small rivers carrying quite large rocks straight over someones driveway about a mile outside of JPL. I had no problems ( I'm a few miles from the foothills ) - but it had a lot of us on edge. About 11 inches of rain in 5 days all told. That's about 1,400 tons of water over a football pitch.

Yeah, Doug, you guys in or near the hills really bore the brunt of this (though I think that the OC got whacked pretty hard this morning as well.)

Downtown...no real problems. This afternoon on El Segundo Blvd, though, I drove through by far the heaviest rain I've seen since we moved here...the street was flooding literally as I watched, the rate must have been several cm per hr for at least five minutes. Such things are both awe-inspiring & humbling to witness.

I saw a tornado from here in the Summer and one in October at Sheringham..

Nature hiccuped a blizzard here in the northeastern US. Lots of fluffy snow with depths of 1 1/2 feet (half a meter) plus drifts. Winds to 60 miles per hour in gusts last night, still very breezy today. The road are being cleared, but there are many residential streets that are totally blocked off with the piles from the plows. We're ok, thankfully we have power and heat, but intercity transport is not happening (air) and starting to run (trains).
I'll post a photo on http://bkellysky.wordpress.com/

bob

I just want everyone to know that I'm having a difficult time here in Northern California. The rays of sunlight are streaming in through the French doors next to my computer and making it very difficult to read my monitor. Also with all this sunshine and the warming temperatures my wife is now insisting that I go organize the back patio and pick up around the yard since we are having company next Saturday. So please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

I don't know how you'll manage.

Lucky you. I'm having to deal with these clouds. And it's only going to get up to the mid-60s today. I'll probably freeze.

Been very snowy here in Kendal. Very icy, too. I had a nasty slip on the way to work the other week, but luckily my fall was broken by a fence, then a car and then the pavement, one after another... Snowed overnight last night, and quite thick on the ground at lunchtime. Not as bad as some places, and of course nowhere near as bad as you're experiencing over there in the US, but perfect for photography...

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Elk Grove Dan! - I hear you brother!
I would pitch in and help , but we just wrapped up 24 hrs of blizzard conditions - Now the wind is howling, the snow is drifting. The wind chill is -15F
I have a six foot tall plug of snow at the end of the driveway (thanks town plows!) and Logan airport is closed. On the bright side, I do have power back on, heat is OK, and the fridge in the garage is chock full of beer... (I think I am taking tomorrow off....hickup!)

I also had a hell of time time driving up some very well cleared roads to temporarily enjoy some lovely snow fall over 6kft behind Mt Wilson, before returning back to a sunny 20C/60F Pasadena.

The mountains behind Wilson were so white yesterday morning! Gonna be a beautiful backdrop to the Rose Parade.

OH LORDY!
We just WISH we had your problems,
here in Hawaii.

Were the last few posts the very first "UMSF International Four Yorkshiremen Sketch".
"Living in blizzard conditions?! You were lucky!"

This is the front door to our little electronics company this morning (I make it in --- after shoveling some more!)
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Stu - your panoramas are quite nice!

This is as close as we can get to a "White Christmas" in San Diego - socked in with fog!

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Though we are back to having ElkGroveDan's problems now: clear skies and sunshine.

I spoke too soon. We're expecting 2.1 inches in Southern Sacramento County tonight and widespread flooding. (Though I'm on top of a hill, so not worried.)

I'm alive and well here in Brislantis.

That's good to hear -- I'd been wondering if the deluge had affected any UMSFers. Keep your head above water and best of luck to you and your neighbors

Great to hear you are okay, and that you are keeping a good sense of humor about it.

Been wondering how you guys were doing down there, SFJ, admit that I was a bit afraid to ask. Hope that you & our other Australian friends are okay & stay that way!

The flood water is just a short walk from where I live.

Hey SFJ, stay dry up there in Brislantis!
I'm sure another drought is just around the corner mate

No seriously, you know what they say "Queensland. Beautiful one day, Venice the next."
Oh and New South Wales challenges you to a game of water polo at Suncorp Stadium

It's cool everyone, Australians cope with disaster using humour and self-deprication all the time. It's just the way we are.

OK serious mode - everyone in Australia is thinking of all of you up there in Queensland. We're ready to do whatever is needed to get you back on your feet. Stay safe.

It is good to hear that everyone is ok downunder, I guess the 2 feet of snow here is not so much to have to deal with.

Just got back from volunteering. Am tired, bruised and coated in foul smelling mud.

One of the new Aussie heroes in our midst folks.
The reaction by the public to the flood crisis has been amazing.
People in their tens of thousands have been volunteering, helping complete strangers, working through the mud and mess trying to bring whole communities back to life.

Thanks you SFJCody!

It just feels like the right thing to do. I escaped essentially unscathed so it seems fair that I should put in a few hours every weekend to help others who were less fortunate.

Admirable. You're good people, SFJ.

Spare a thought for our friends in Queensland tonight who will be in the path of Cyclone Yasi (Category 5 at the moment) bearing down on them tonight.
This is the largest storm to ever hit Queensland and comes only weeks after the devasting floods.
There's an ocean storm surge coinciding with a high tide as well as 250kph winds, so damage from this 500km wide storm has the potenital to be significant.
You can follow the storms path here: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemiloops/shirgmscol.html

Stay safe Queenslanders.

Well said, Astro0. Been thinking about the Queenslanders all day, actually; sure hope that they catch a good break here somehow.

If any of our members are under or near this monster... all of you, take care down there...


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If this report from Reuters is accurate, it seems that Queensland was indeed spared the worst possible. I sincerely hope so.

Thoughts go out to our friends in Japan. Pandaneko has been helping out here with translation of Jaxa documents lately and he and Subaru have participated in the Hayabusa threads in the past. Any other UMSF members in Japan?

First of all our thanks go out to all those countries who are helping us at the moment. What follows is my accout of what it felt like and a few things I have noticed.

I was probably 800km away from the first epicentre (and there were two more breakages in succession over a distance of about 500km). Each breakage lasted about 100 seconds.

I and all others who have mobile access knew that a very strong tremor was approaching because we get an automatic e-mail warning when your area is going to be affected a tremor with (shaking) severity larger than 4. I had, I think, about one minute warning. All the tremors I had experienced until that day were under 3 minus. This time, I experienced 5 plus.

However, as far as I am concerend it was a very strange one indeed. All those quakes I had experienced were of short duration, sometime a fraction of a second and were all kicks, impulses lasting a few seconds at the most.

This one was totally different. It was not a very violent tremor, perhaps it was, but I did not feel ferociously violent elements in it. Instead, the ground rolled a great deal, not up and down, but sideways, and lasting for 5 mininutes. It seemed not ending at all.

My guess now is that all those higher frequency tremors failed to reach my area. I was standing by the side of my car and I did see it shake violently side to side and sometimes up and down.

Now, tsunami, it is a Japanese word, meaning narrow bay tidal waves. The areas most affected by the tsunami were protected against severe tsunamis. This is because historically these areas were frequently devastated by tsunamis. There was one town which was famous for its protective barriers.

Many overseas observers had visited this town in order to plan for their own barriers. This town had two barriers in pararell, each reaching to the height of 10 m. However, they did not work at all as the actual tide height easily exceeded 20m, wiping out the whole town.

You could have planned for 20m waves or more, but there is this cost issue.

Now my serious thought about evacuation. Normally, they suppluy blanckets and they usually arrive too late, say 5,6 days after the shake and that was the case this time. So, what people did was to rip off school and gym curtains to wrap themselves (no water, no heating, no gas, no electricity, no food and snowing outside with temp down to minus 10 C, of course).

I am now convinced that sleeping bags should be supplied, because with blanckets cold air still sneaks in.

Regulated power cust are imposed now and I went out to buy battery-powered fluorescent lamps, but they were all sold out. So, I had to buy Coleman's buthane lamps, which turned out to be rather good. All the rooms in my house are (electricity) air-conditined and the living room has an additional gas heating system.

As it turned out this gas heating system did not work when power is down. Kitchen gas system does work. My wife was just recently talking about changing our kichen heating to induction heating and I am glad that we did not do that. For a start, it does provide some heat and for that matter Coleman's also provide some heating. That is good, because under this controlled power cuts you lose 7 hours of heating/day (usually 3.5 hours, but double that when it is cold and that is exactly when you need heating!).

About nuclear reactors, I am glad that hydrogen explosions took place. If they did not happen there is no easy way to pour water into those pools. This shows that you need to prepare for even unimaginable situations when trying to use nuclear reactors.

Thanking once again for your concern and help.

Pandaneko

Pandaneko, I'm glad to hear from you that you were far from the devastated areas. Thank you for your account, and best wishes for your country's rapid recovery.



This is my experience of large but distant earthquakes too, though yours lasted far longer than any I've experienced. Last year there was a biggish quake in northern Mexico, Mag 7.2 about 400 km away from Los Angeles. At my house it felt like a few rolling ocean waves passing by -- slooow up, sloooow down, up and down a couple of times, each "roller" lasting several seconds. I think you are right about the high-frequency waves damping quickly, while the low-frequency ones travel farther; also, the high-frequency waves will be "noisy" and tend to cancel each other while the low-frequency ones will be more coherent. Here is an animation made from GPS station data where you can see the up and down motion of the waves radiating out from the earthquake source.

I think Pandaneko exemplifies the Japanese sprit!
You're in our thoughts with the recovery effort.

Thanks, and I think I will be reporting on this more as time goes on. Right now, my biggest concern is the regulated power cuts. In between them, I need to gather info on next cuts and radiation. My responses will be slow and minimum, for the time being. I think that this regulated power custs will last for the next 2 years.

One piece of good news is that yesterday (22 March) a dolphin was found struggling in a rice paddy field filled with sea water (as the area had sunk by 1.2m) in Sendai area, 2 km inland. (To me, it is like a n elephant found stranded on a tree after a tsunami!) Despite severe food shortage there they did not eat it and it was safely released back into the Paciffic.

It is good to see on TV the flight deck of Ronald Regan (US carrier off the coast of Sendai) piling up with nappies and waters and all other supplies. My salute goes to US armies, air, sea and ground. Most grateful.

Pandaneko

Any regulars or viewers here that are or will be affected by the current Missouri River flooding emergency please know you're in my thoughts.

My house will not be inundated by flood waters, but my area will have disruptions in internet, electricity, transportation, and cell and land line phone service.

Oh, crap. Good luck, Tasp.

For some reason this hasn't been on the media screen much, though it definitely should be.

Local media coverage will expand to national when the peak water arrives in several days. The duration of this flood will also be unusually long.
I have been studying the Army Corp of Engineers inundation maps. Amazing (to me at least) at the accuracy they have for the location elevations. Were space based technologies used to scan this area? They have noted local 'mudholes' and slopes all but unnoticeable from my local perspective.

Also, it seems the snowfall on Enceladus was more accurately characterized last year than that which fell in Montana . . . . .

Just a note to encourage good wishes for our UMSF friends--and everyone else--on the US East Coast who may be affected by Hurricane Irene.

Juramike is in NC--the state most likely to bear the brunt of the storm--but thankfully well inland. That doesn't exempt him from torrential rains, though.

Hang tight, man, and hope this is a non-event after all is said & done.

To all the UMSFers on the west coast, AZ, UT, and others affected:

Hope all of you are well after the wicked winds in the west.

JPL's weatherstation reported a peak wind of only 65mph - elsewhere in Pasadena I've heard reports of 90mph+ Thursday from about midnight till 4am was terrifying.

Had a tree down infront of my house - had to axe my way to work yesterday. Lots of roof shingles down. Pasadena is a mess - hundreds of downed trees, several hundred homes damaged - I've seen half a dozen crushed cars. But - no reports of serious injury so far.

Wow. The hillside really took the brunt of it, apparently.

I was traveling so missed most of it; Kay said downtown LA wasn't bad (all those buildings.) However, I will say that was the bumpiest damn flight I've been on in years (flew to San Jose); NOBODY was allowed out of their seats, and rightfully so.

My fence was felled last night here in San Jose. Last night and this morning seem to have the worst winds so far in my area.

Unfortunately I have a flight to Vegas this morning . I see the same flight before mine departed on time but arrived late.

Wow! What a serious wind storm! A giant oak tree came down outside my studio in South Pasadena, CA. I had been in its path minutes prior to it coming down. Thankfully, no injuries, just a lot of sore muscles from chopping it up and clearing the debris.

A little wet and windy here in Boston and other parts of the east coast. Power out for two hours, but back on---so I can visit UMSF

We lost power (at home, not at the University) last night for a few hours - London Ontario was at the outer edge of the storm. Much worse further east.

Phil