Archive for October, 2011

Hurricane Charley – Port Charlotte, FL – August 13, 2004

Hurricane Charley strengthened rapidly just before striking the southwestern coast of Florida, over Charlotte Harbor, as a Category Four hurricane. Although extremely small in size, Charley produced sustained winds of 150mph and gusts to near 175mph, causing catastrophic wind damage in the communities of Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda, FL. The Charlotte County Medical Center recorded an unofficial gust of 150kts (173mph) and the Charlotte County Airport recorded 139kts (160mph). Charley’s minimum central pressure at landfall was 942mb (27.82in) and I recorded 950mb (28.05in) at my location near Fawcett Memorial Hospital. Veteran storm chaser Andy Dressler accompanied me on this chase.

Duration : 0:4:31

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09/18/2010 Bermuda Pre Hurricane Igor

Hurricane Igor is zeroing in on the Island of Bermuda and BNVN Weather Paparazzi Chris Collura was at Elbow Beach in Saint George Bermuda today and shot this footage of large waves hitting the shoreline.

While Hurricane Igor is still a large storm that is on track to hit Bermuda, looking at the latest USAF Hurricane Hunter recon data and the latest forecast discussion from the National Hurricane Center, it is no surprise that the storm is now Hurricane Igor is a Category One Hurricane with winds of 90 mph. (Cat 1 = Sustained winds 74-95 mph, 64-82 kt, or 119-153 km/hr).

This has been what the computer models have been forecasting for several days. Igor is now dying of rapidly and has lost it’s eye so if the storm continues to fall apart over the next 24 hours, the damage to the island of Bermuda will be minimal since the buildings on the island are designed to withstand major hurricanes.

The man concern now for Bermuda is for the large waves that were generated by Igor when it was still a Major Hurricane several days ago. If the storm drops below hurricane strength before making landfall, my other forecast is for everyone in the media to reuse the term “Dodged The Bullet” with regards to Igor. It is more like the forecast models nailed it and Bermuda will take a hit but won’t be knocked out.

To license this footage, contact http://www.bnvn.com

Duration : 0:0:56

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Tv9 – Chile earthquake on CCTV

Chile earthquake on CCTV

Duration : 0:1:19

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lots of earthquakes have been happening lately, is the globe becoming more active?

i have noticed that lately we have gotten the haiti earthquake, the chile earthquake, the china one, and not an earthquake but the big iceland volcano just blew. Is it common to get this much activity? and correct me if i missed any earthquakes.

Not really. There are hundreds of thousands of earthquakes around the world every year. Now, many of them cannot be felt, but there are tens of thousands (maybe more) that can be felt, and there are probably only ten to twenty 7.0+ earthquakes in any given year. So far in 2010 we have had a handful of big quakes that are putting us above average for the year, but the trend may not continue. Even if it does, at the current rate, we are not dramatically above average for strong earthquakes.

As for volcanic eruptions, we usually have 50-60 of those per year. About half are non-explosive flows, but 20-30 are explosive eruptions. While I don’t actually know, I am pretty certain we are not above average in this department either.

With huge simplifications, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. These things happen more than most of us know. We just happen to be hearing about them recently because they have coincidentally occurred in places in which they effect great numbers of people.

2. It simply isn’t accurate to measure the frequency of these things in a short span of time. If there were two massive earthquakes in one week, it would make no sense to assume there will be 102 more for the year. A few months is simply too short of a span of time, unless of course we were actually having massive earthquakes on a weekly/daily basis.

3. Earthquakes, other earthquakes, and eruptions often go hand in hand. This is related to the last point because it basically says that for a period of time, there are likely to be dramatic increases in activity, but it doesn’t really last. These things may trigger one another, or they may both have the same underlying cause that we are not seeing. Eventually things settle down though (by the way, this is not to say that any of the earthquakes that have gotten a lot of coverage have necessarily had anything to do with one another or with the volcano in Iceland).

4. The earth is under constant activity, and while we may see varying degrees of frequency and magnitude from time to time, the earth ultimately has a pretty stable system. As odd as it may seem, and despite what we may personally experience, the reality is that without outside interference, the activity you are asking about is more likely to slow down (over a crazy amount of time though).

How many earthquakes hit haiti?

I mean after the huge one about a week or 2 ago. I know a total of 3 but were there more?

There have been many more than three. Three was the main 7.0 Richter shock, and numerous aftershocks, from 4.1 to 6.1 (I think that there was one higher, but not sure), last I heard was 52 of the large ones, hundreds below 4.0. The 2.0 Richter magnitude is the threshold at which humans can sense the ground motion.

It’s the enormous number and relatively strong number of earthquakes that hampered rescue efforts – the rubble kept shifting.