Earthquakes

Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global

5.2 Earthquake hits western Australia.

5.1 Earthquake hits the Fox Islands in the Aleutian Islands.

5.0 Earthquake hits the Fox Islands in the Aleutian Islands.

Storms and Floods

Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:

Post Tropical Cyclone Joaquin is located about 595 mi…960 km WNW of the Azores with maximum sustained winds…65 mph…100 km/h. Present movement…E or 80 degrees at 35 mph…56 km/h.

Tropical Storm 23w (Choi-Wan), located approximately 460 nm east-southeast of Misawa, Japan, and is tracking northward at 38 knots.

Hurricane Oho is located about 1155 mi…1855 km NE of Hilo Hawaii and about 1195 mi…1920 km NE of Honolulu Hawaii with maximum sustained winds…75 mph…120 km/h. Present movement…NNE or 30 degrees at 39 mph…63 km/h.

Invest 95E is an area of disturbed weather in the East Pacific that has the potential for tropical development.

NewsBytes:

South Carolina, USA – Authorities urged another 1,000 homeowners to evacuate as a precaution Wednesday in the event a Columbia-area dam fails in flood-battered South Carolina. Authorities warned residents along South Carolina’s coast Wednesday to prepare for more flooding as water from swollen rivers made its way towards the ocean.

England – Torrential downpours have brought flash floods to Britain along with train delays and washed out sports fixtures. There were astonishing scenes in Bradford after a dramatic thunderstorm left parts of the West Yorkshire city under ankle-deep water. The Met Office had a severe rain warning in place today for the top half of England, with more than an inch (30mm) of rain expected.

Environment

Scientists say a dramatic worldwide coral bleaching event is now underway

For just the third time on record, scientists say they are now watching the unfolding of a massive worldwide coral bleaching event, spanning the globe from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean. And they fear that thanks to warm sea temperatures, the ultimate result could be the loss of more than 12,000 square kilometres, or over 4,500 square miles, of coral this year — with particularly strong impacts in Hawaii and other U.S. tropical regions, and potentially continuing into 2016.

The event is being brought on by a combination of global warming, a very strong El Nino event, and the so-called warm “blob” in the Pacific Ocean, say the researchers, part of a consortium including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as XL Catlin Seaview Survey, The University of Queensland in Australia, and Reef Check.

The prior events were in 1998 and 2010, and those were one year events. We’re looking at a similar spatial scale of bleaching across the globe, but spanning across at least 2 years. So that means a lot of these corals are being put under really prolonged stress, or are being hit 2 years in a row.

The total loss could amount to 5 percent of the world’s corals in 2015. That’s not as bad as the loss in 1998, but there’s a fear that if the event continues into 2016, the losses would grow.

Wildfires

Wildfires – Indonesia

Indonesia on Thursday asked several countries including China, Singapore, Russia, and Japan for help to put out fires that have sent choking smoke drifting across the region for weeks.

Indonesia had repeatedly declined offers of outside help to tackle the smoke, which is mostly caused by companies using fire to clear land for palm oil and pulp wood plantations on Sumatra island and its part of Borneo island.

The smoke has pushed up pollution to dangerous levels across parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and southern Thailand, disrupted flights and closed schools on bad days.

Vessels line the anchorage area in the southern coast of Singapore October 5, 2015.

Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity

Alaid (Northern Kuriles): The northernmost of the volcanoes in the Kurile arc continues to show signs of weak activity in the form of a thermal anomaly at the summit crater.

Aso (Kyushu): The volcano continues to be at unrest. The main vent in the Nakadake crater continues to produce mild, sporadic ash emissions and intense degassing, creating a plume that rises few hundred meters.

Batu Tara (Sunda Islands, Indonesia): Strombolian to vulcanian-type explosive activity continues at the volcano, sometimes strong enough to produce plumes visible on satellite imagery.

VAAC Darwin reported an ash plume to 6000 ft (1.8 km) altitude that extended 90 km W from the volcano yesterday.

Ijen (East Java, Indonesia): Access to the volcano’s famous crater lake (and its sulphur mining area) has been temporarily closed by authorities. It seems that weak phreatic explosions occurred under the lake on 1 October, without causing damage or fatalities.

No further details are currently available.

Fuego (Guatemala): Another phase of strongly increased activity is occurring at the volcano. Starting 6 Oct, strombolian activity increased to pulsating lava fountains from two summit vents and feeds two lava flows that started to descend the southern and western flanks of the volcano through the Trinidad and Santa Teresa canyon, reaching 1000 and 600 m, respectively.

The activity so far has not resulted in the generation of the much-feared pyroclastic flows, but remains intense and could trigger such flows, if parts of the lava flows on the steep flanks collapse.