Tropical Storm, Tsunami, Earthquakes, Typhoon

It’s not local weather, but it has been such a crazy week, with places getting hit multiple times with devastating effect, that it’s worth mentioning.

If you have anything to spare, it would be worth donating to aid organizations like the Red Cross in the South Pacific and South East Asian countries hit this week.

First Tropical Storm Ketsana hit the Manila area with some of the largest rainfalls ever recorded, anywhere (21in), and continued into Vietnam and Cambodia… in total, over 300 people are dead and more are still missing.

Then a 15ft Tsunami struck the tiny Islands of Samoa… doesn’t sound like much, but on these low tropical islands, the water went in over 1 kilometer in places. Many people managed to get to higher ground after the initial earthquake stopped, but many didn’t.

Then 2 Earthquakes, first 7.6 on Wednesday then 6.6 on Thursday, have hit the Indonesian region of Sumatra and the city of Padang (population 900,000). Thousands are trapped, hundreds are dead.

A 5.1 magnitude Earthquake has also hit California, but no major damage has been reported yet.

And finally, Typhoon Parma is set to strengthen to a Super Typhoon strength (>200kph) and hit, you guessed it, the Phillipines, north of Manilla… there is still a chance it will turn North before it gets there, and the rain won’t be so bad, it will be the wind that will be dangerous.

We are lucky to live where we do.

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3 thoughts on “Tropical Storm, Tsunami, Earthquakes, Typhoon

  1. Chris: This next week certainly should make us feel lucky to live here – it looks like another extension of summer!
    I was looking at the NOAA’s GFS forecast though, and they are predicting 237mm of precipitation for us for the week of Oct 12 – 20. Woah! Could that be right?

  2. Woah is right!

    You can see in the 0-180h forecast that Bar Pressure starts to fall off around Friday… then the wet comes for the end of Thanksgiving weekend and pressure goes down to 990mb on the following Wednesday so we’d probably be getting a bunch of wind with that 237mm after that… WEE! :D.

    My father-in-law is going to be some annoyed when he sees that… he has a birthday fishing trip to Gold River planned for that weekend! Hopefully it holds off for him… those forecasts seem to be pretty hit and miss time wise.

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