The map above shows how 99 smaller earthquakes in the last month ...were in retrospect... fore shocks to the larger 8.2 Earthquake just off shore North coast of Chile. It's also worth noting the quake was deep below the surface and they are very used to strong quakes in that region. Whether they saw the 99 quakes as fore shocks or not I can't say just yet, but they should have seen it coming. What worries me a bit is that the numerous quakes in the LA area could and I do mean "COULD" be fore shocks for a larger quake down the road in the near future.
Mother Earth is shaking her way into Spring and she's moving into April like a Lion not a Lamb.
Sometimes a 5.1 Earthquake is as strong as it gets. Sometimes a 5.1 Earthquake is a prelude to a much stronger event. Only time will tell. People need to be aware that a stronger quake could hit the LA area or anywhere in the general region as you can see from the map above... we are in a very active period right now.
And, we are not even going to discuss El Nino that may or may not be forming off the coast of Peru, Columbia and Chile. Nope.. not today. Too much on the geological plate here today.
There were fears a Tsunami would form and so far as I write this Tuesday night the threat seems to be fading. Still this is what the map would look like......if a tsunami was reported. There was a 6.5 foot tsunami in South America.. not huge but if it slams onto your beach you notice it.
Evacuations have been going on for the region and there have been another strong 5 aftershocks in the last few hours which shake loose what the last quake may have weakened. It's a process.
Do not believe early reports of "no damage" and "no deaths" as it is just too soon to tell. Tomorrow morning will tell the story as we know how bad the situation truly is..or isn't. Sites of damages have been streaming in.. a church, a store... some one's home. Only time will tell.. not early reports on the news wire before the real reports have even had a chance to surface. And, remember it is very easy to have an additional aftershock that is the same strength or just a bit weaker than the 8.2 earthquake tonight. Happens often.
The mudslide in Washington is truly heart breaking if you stop and read up on it. A man was getting texts from his sister who just happened to be driving down the only real road in the area and ... he never heard from her again. The randomness of it all is truly hard to comprehend. A grandmother's body was found near her grandchild. It seems we need to know how to respond faster to mudslides in areas far from large cities such as this... in the way that we respond to building collapses in big cities. We respond to earthquakes, to hurricanes and to twisters faster than we do an area where the mountainside simply gave way in a sea of mud that carried with it and drowned everyone in it...in a muddy debris of temporary graves awaiting help to dig out the bodies. You know.. we worry on hurricanes and volcanoes and it's the mudslides in life that will get you. Don't mean to be so dark.. it's just true. I haven't written much on it, because... I don't want to. It's truly tragic. 28 people have died, 22 are still missing and the whole area looks a lot like school books pictures I saw from Mt. Etna...
I had a tornado warning the other night. One day I was in New Orleans grounded waiting for a bad squall line to pass through and the next night I was dealing with a tornado warning from the same system that blew through Nola. Mind you normally when I am traveling on Friday and I see a storm at the airport my first thought should be... I'm never going to make that connection. Instead my first thought was to drop my bags and start taking pictures. Instinct. Weather Nation asked permission to use this picture on air.. told them to "go for it" and then it sunk in..
That's me just after they announced that they shut down the airport for lightning..
...it was shut down for a long time. I was an hour late getting out.
Luckily.....Orlando flights were also late and I caught my connection and got home..
.... just in time to enjoy the same line going through with a tornado warning..
There was two small twisters just south of Raleigh... happens.
To be honest..........I am going to write a long, intricate post on my trip to New Orleans where I gave the Keynote Speech for the Mariposa Cat Adjusters Conference. I had an amazing trip.. awesome. And, I got to meet a lot of the adjusters who work all the hurricanes I write about... and have tracked ...chased.
Mariposa does a first rate, classy, professional job in all ways. I'm very honored to have been their Keynote Speaker. The conference was superbly put together. Incredibly, interesting speakers and presenters and it was all held on the Creole Queen. Afterwards we took a trip up the river or maybe down the river. Just so much to say.
But tonight this is about the Earthquake in Chile. At least 2 people have died and am sure that number will climb higher. And, there is no way of knowing how strong the rest of the aftershocks will be...
When you live along the Ring of Fire.. you deal with earthquakes eventually. When you live along the Hurricane Coast of the US from Galveston to Maine... you get hurricanes eventually.
Will we eventually find the missing Malaysian Plane? I like to believe so.. but only time will tell.
It occurs to me tonight watching CNN's coverage that the "cone" so to speak for the search keeps getting moved .. no yanked around out in the South Indian Ocean faster than the NHC would EVER move a cone around the Atlantic Ocean.
The NHC prides itself on continuity, professionalism and caution when forecasting a tropical cyclone.
This investigation on the missing plane has been just the opposite... poorly put together like 5 or 6 blind countries trying to find an elephant in an area larger than the USA.. and we have no real zero proof that it took the southern route. We have lots of hypothesis and no real hard facts. We have data from the pings... which is a word we have come to know much like the phrase "hanging chads" and I wonder what other data is not being shared or has not surfaced.
It's April and yet this is not an April Fool's post.. it's real and its here.
My dogwood tree is beginning to bloom and the Loblolly Pines are threatening to dump their maize colored pollen on my deck and my dogwood.. It is supposed to be 82 degrees tomorrow as a high.
Twisters and Severe Weather is here to stay and floods will be an ongoing problem this Spring. I heard someone say to me recently "no the forecast is not for bad floods just small ones" and I asked him what he meant. He said "not historic" and I smiled and told him that if the flood floods out your town and your home it is indeed historic. It's all a matter of perspective.
If you live in LA today you have to be thinking "oh Lord could that have been a fore shock" and if you live in Miami you are thinking "oh Lord we are almost to the hurricane season and we barely had a winter" and if you had are in Chile ... everything else is far, far away and not important as you try to put your life back together again.
Hello April... what else do you have in store for us I wonder?
As for me..........I ordered some summer clothes from Victoria's Secrets and I'm still recuperating from my whirlwind, wonderful trip to New Orleans. Beautiful city by the river in any weather it's incredible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDDkUE8GjZI
I had a long talk with a lady at the Historical Museum there who went through Hurricane Betsy as a young teen about to leave for college in Morgan City, Louisiana. Great interview and another side of Betsy that I never saw... the side that hit Louisiana.
I'll be back tomorrow with hard facts on the Earthquake and the weather, but probably not the missing plane My youngest son just keeps texting "never gonna find that airplane' ... well ... time will tell...
Besos Bobbi
Ps... look at a partial list of fore shocks that occurred prior to the 8.2 Earthquake. Did they see it coming? Does anyone see something coming they do not want to open up their eyes to see? Hmnnn?
