My OperaONE MORE DISRUPTIVE SNOWFALL WILL EFFECT BALTIMORE BEFORE APRIL 1ST !!!
Saturday, March 12, 2011 1:35:56 AM
SAT: MOSTLY CLOUDY AND RATHER MILD LO: 43 HI: 53
SUN: MOSTLY CLOUDY BUT VERY MILD LO: 38 HI: 58
(THIS WEEKEND FORECAST WAS LAST UPDATED AT 9:45 AM EST ON SATURDAY 03/19/11)
Fears Mount that Japanese Nuclear Plant Is Near Meltdown
New America Media, News Analysis, Yoichi Shimatsu, Posted: Mar 12, 2011
A day after Japan’s devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, core meltdown is underway the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and, at this point, appears to be unstoppable. A mid-afternoon blast on Saturday demolished the structure housing an overheated and leaking reactor, raising the probability of a full-scale nuclear disaster, which could release radiation across the U.S. and even parts of Europe.
Just past noon in Japan, the Industrial Nuclear Safety Agency reported that the radioactive isotopes cesium and iodine had been detected by a monitoring station near the Fukushima plant. The facility has six reactors, three of them operating at the time of the earthquake. Two of these are overheating and Reactor 1 is leaking radioactive particles into the atmosphere.
The presence of these isotopes in air samples is a sure indicator of an uncontrolled chain reaction. Japanese nuclear engineers are explaining that overheated uranium rods seared through their metal casings, triggering the start of nuclear fission. The regulatory agency's statement contradicts the earlier claim of the plant’s operator, TEPCO, that all uranium rods were intact.
The afternoon explosion, which injured four workers, is hampering efforts by emergency workers to pump cold water into the reactor and release steam through safety valves. The internal steam pressure inside the reactor vessel is more than twice the approved level of the original design.
Truck-mounted generators have restored electrical power. The government has been frantically trying to locate robots to reopen the control room, which is now 1,000 times more radioactive than safe levels for humans. The cooling water is being provided by a common fire engine.
If temperatures and internal pressure cannot be significantly lowered soon, the likelihood of a fractured reactor barrier is increased. If the reactor shell cracks, the internal water will vaporize, creating conditions for uncontrolled fission and massive radioactive releases into the atmosphere.
Over the past 24 hours, the evacuation area for local residents has been widened from a diameter of three kilometers to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). Over the same time period, outdoor radiation levels have risen from eight times higher than normal to 20 times higher, according to the monitoring station near Fukushima No.1.
Coming In Hot: Impact on North America
Panic is uncalled for, since cesium contamination poses a long-term rather than short-term threat, which can be reduced with timely countermeasures.
1. Pacific Jet Stream: In the spring season, the jet stream moves eastward from Japan toward the United States. Heated isotopes, riding on a cushion of steam and oceanic updrafts, will rise to the west-east jet stream at altitude 20,000 feet or higher. Areas of radioactive fallout are difficult to predict since these depend on local wind currents, temperatures, rainfall and other factors. The jet stream will cross the following states: California, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and possibly further depending on surface winds. Cesium can be expected to fall unevenly, so monitoring is vital to determine the long-term threat level.
2. Cesium Fallout: Dispersal in the jet stream will greatly dilute the concentration of radiation, but the long half-life of cesium will constitute a health threat to humans and animals. Following the Chernobyl disaster, much of Western Europe was cesium-contaminated. After Chernobyl, the Polish people were given potassium iodide tablets to block radioactive iodine-131 to prevent thyroid disorders, including cancer. Ukraine failed to this this, resulting in a spike in thyroid-related problems. Some countries banned the feeding of infants with breast milk, due to the concentration of radiation in human organs.
3. Cloud-seeding: Precipitation and atmospheric low pressure can force down airborne particles into the ocean. To be effective, a cloud-seeding program would have to be steadily maintained and conducted over a large area of the northwestern Pacific (just east of Japanese waters). The effort is daunting enough to require a multinational commitment of U.S., Russian, Japanese and Canadian air forces to detect radiation and spread pellets of cloud-seeding compounds. Once radioactive particles enter the fast-flowing jet stream, it will be well nigh impossible to contain the flow. Rainfall, natural or artificial, is unlikely to stop all radiation from crossing the Pacific but can lower the total volume.
4. Reactor Entombment: In event of a full-on core meltdown, entombment of a cracked reactor is necessary, as was done in Chernobyl. An out-of-control reactor will have to be encased by tons of concrete mixed with a neutron absorber like titanium dioxide. The process is slow and difficult requiring helicopter drops and high-pressure concrete pumps.
5. Herd Slaughter and Burial: Dispersed cesium is collected in the bodies of grazing animals and then concentrated in their milk and organs. In more affected areas of North America, a mass slaughter and burial of herding animals and wildlife will have to be methodically organized, as was done across Northern Europe following the Chernobyl disaster. Grain-fed animals must also be monitored for herd destruction if the grain crops were grown in contaminated soils.
Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, has covered the earthquakes in San Francisco and Kobe, participated in the rescue operation immediately after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and led the field research for an architectural report on structural design flaws that led to the tsunami death toll in Thailand.
** NO CURRENT ADVISORY IN EFFECT **blazin3596 # Sunday, March 13, 2011 6:22:14 PM
A new report released today in the Kremlin prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Institute of Physics of the Earth, in Moscow, is warning that the America’s are in danger of suffering a mega-quake of catastrophic proportions during the next fortnight (14 days) with a specific emphasis being placed on the United States, Mexico, Central America and South American west coast regions along with the New Madrid Fault Zone region.
This report further warns that catastrophic earthquakes in Asia and the sub-continent are, also, “more than likely to occur” with the 7.3 magnitude quake in Japan today being “one of at least 4 of this intensity” to occur during this same time period.
Raising the concerns of a mega-quake occurring, this report says, are the increasing subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in the Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World, with the most intense being over the US Western coastal and Midwest regions.
Important to note are that Russian and British scientists are at the forefront of predicting earthquakes based on these subtle electromagnetic signals and have joined in an effort to put satellites in space to detect more of them.
More ominously in this report are Russian scientists confirming the independent analysis of New Zealand mathematician and long-range weather forecaster, Ken Ring, who predicted the deadly Christchurch quake and this week issued another warning of a quake to hit on or about March 20th.
Ring explains his methodology for predicting earthquakes as follows:
“The planets very much affect the earth, indirectly, by having an effect on the Sun. Some planets are very large. If the Sun was a basketball the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn would be the size of grapefruits, and the Earth would be, on that scale, the size of a peppercorn.
Jupiter and Saturn cause extra tides on the Sun when they get on either side of the Sun (as with Moon – Earth-Sun when the moon is full) and when these gas giants get on the same side as the Sun, (as with Earth -Moon – Sun when the moon is new). These greater solar tides become sunspot activity and solar flares and can be understood as akin to the increase in tides caused by the Moon when it too gets alongside Earth or opposite Earth.
At the moment we have Jupiter and Saturn on either side of the Sun and creating a tug of war with Earth in the middle. That started last September and will continue until about May. In September the Earth was right in line with Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun too.
That’s why there were several 7+ earthquakes around, it wasn’t just us. For instance there was one in Pakistan on the same day as Christchurch. This Jupiter/Saturn alignment continues until about May, and the Earth comes back into line as well in March. It is why there may be an extreme event, perhaps a large earthquake, around 20 March, which is when the Moon may be again in a trigger position.”
According to this report, however, where Ring is correct in assessing blame for our Earth’s earthquakes on the Sun and Planets, his substituting of Perigean Spring Tides (also known as King Tides) for the low pressure systems associated with them may be incorrect.
The mention in this report of massive low pressure systems being associated with catastrophic earthquakes is especially dire to the United States Midwestern region, which even today is continuing to be pounded by horrific rainfall amounts, and most especially impacting the New Madrid Fault Zone State of Arkansas which has suffered over 800 earthquakes in the past 6 months alone.
Equally in danger, this report continues, is the South American Nation of Bolivia which has, likewise, suffered catastrophic low pressure system storms that in the past week have killed over 52 people.
Most ominous in this report, though, is its warning that the fault-riddled State of California may be about to suffer its most catastrophic earthquake in decades as new reports for this region show the mass death of millions of fish [photo bottom left] is now occurring, and just like the mass stranding of whales on New Zealand beaches days prior to the February 22nd destruction of Christchurch.
Making the situation for our Planet even grimmer are the reports that our Sun is continuing to spew forth massive solar flares, the latest warned to hit our Earth today or tomorrow thus prompting the Hermanus Space Weather Warning Centre (SWWC) to issue a Solar Flare warning for the Southern Hemisphere.
Interesting to note in all of these events is the United States Army announcing this week that it is holding a rare training event involving the US Military, the CIA, Canadian officers, US Treasury and State departments, the US Agency for International Development, the Defense Threat Readiness Agency and the International Red Cross between March 21-25 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and which should the worst happen they will certainly be prepared for it.
As this report concludes, that as of yet, “no firmly reliable” method for predicting earthquakes has been scientifically recognized, it is well worth noting the too many to be ignored anomalous coincidences leading up to catastrophic mega-quakes are breaking out all over the World and should only be ignored at ones peril.
In other words, it is always best to be prepared should disaster strike, wherever the warning comes from.
US Mega-Quake Coming Warn Russian Scientists
A new report released today in the Kremlin prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Institute of Physics of the Earth, in Moscow, is warning that the America’s are in danger of suffering a mega-quake of catastrophic proportions during the next fortnight (14 days) with a specific emphasis being placed on the United States, Mexico, Central America and South American west coast regions along with the New Madrid Fault Zone region.
This report further warns that catastrophic earthquakes in Asia and the sub-continent are, also, “more than likely to occur” with the 7.3 magnitude quake in Japan today being “one of at least 4 of this intensity” to occur during this same time period.
Raising the concerns of a mega-quake occurring, this report says, are the increasing subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in the Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World, with the most intense being over the US Western coastal and Midwest regions.
Important to note are that Russian and British scientists are at the forefront of predicting earthquakes based on these subtle electromagnetic signals and.......more
** NO CURRENT ADVISORY IN EFFECT **blazin3596 # Tuesday, March 15, 2011 2:30:57 PM
Shinmoedake Volcano, seen here in a file photo, added to Japan's problems on Sunday
Earthquake, tsunami, nuclear plant meltdowns -- as if the people of Japan didn't have enough to cope with, a volcano began erupting Sunday.
Hundreds of people were forced to flee when the Shinmoedake volcano on the southern island of Kyushu began spewing ash and boulders.
The explosion from the eruption could be heard miles away and an ash plume extended two miles into the sky.
Shinmoedake, one of several volcanic peaks in the Kirishima mountain range, is 950 miles from the epicenter of Friday's earthquake and scientists weren't sure if the quake triggered the eruption.
Eruptions and quakes are common in Japan's "ring of fire."
The volcano erupted in January - the first major seismic activity on the mountain in 52 years. Scientists say lava had been building up in recent weeks.
Shinmoedake is famous for standing in as the villain's secret rocket base in the 1967 James Bond film, "You Only Live Twice."
Troy Frame Chief Meteorologist/Hurricane Specialist writing to Robert Felix:
"14 Mar 11 - You may have pointed this out already but it certainly does not appear to be a coincidence that we are seeing an increase in earthquakes and volcanic activity at the present time while a prolonged solar minimum has been occurring and may continue to occur for years to come. This may be related to changes in the magnetic field of the sun due to fewer sunspots and the sun’s magnetic field interacting with earth’s magnetic field. You certainly seem to have much more knowledge on this subject than I do. The Tambora eruption in 1815 occurred during the Dalton Minimum. Explosive eruptions of Mount Vesuvius began in 1631 during the long Maunder Minimum. Coincidence…maybe but I think not. Given the magnitude of the Japan quake I fear that a major volcanic eruption is likely sooner rather than later."