Quick couple things of interest:
1. There was an earthquake in SC this morning... some of you may have
felt it. Although earthquakes are rare in the CASI area they are not
unheard of. Several small ones happened while I lived in Western NC,
which is on a (relatively inactive) fault line. This morning's quake
measured 3.9 on the Richter Scale. The specifics:
Date / Time (Z) / Lat,Lon / Depth (km) / Richter / Q / Location
98/04/13 09:56:11 34.56N 80.39W 5.0 3.9Lg A SOUTH CAROLINA
That specific information was obtained from
http://quake.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/quake/gldfs.cr.usgs.gov
which leads to a map of the location of the epicenter at
http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map/color=1/features=alltypes/ht=2.00/lat=34.56/lon=-80.39/mark=34.56,-80.39,6,5/wd=4.00
Comments from Steve Taylor, a college friend of mine at UNCA :
...EARTHQUAKE FELT ACROSS THE SOUTHERN PIEDMONT...
AT 554 AM THIS MORNING...AN EARTHQUAKE OF PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF
3.9 AFFECTED PORTIONS OF THE SOUTHERN PIEDMONT OF NORTH CAROLINA. THE
TREMOR WAS FELT IN THE CITY OF CHARLOTTE.
THE EPICENTER OF THE QUAKE WAS CENTERED 40 MILES TO THE SOUTHEAST OF
CHARLOTTE AND WAS FELT AS FAR EAST AS COLUMBIA AND PORTIONS OF
NORTHEASTERN SOUTH CAROLINA.
AT THIS TIME...THERE ARE NO REPORTS OF DAMAGE IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA.
2. If you are interested in seeing a documentary and some video from the
Super Outbreak of tornadoes in 1974 (I mentioned that last week in a
CASILIST posting) you can see it on the "Killer Tornadoes"
videocassette, which is usually sold relatively cheaply as a double set
bundled with "The Big Tornadoes." You may find this set where videos
are sold. The release number is KT-3-0390 by Madacy Entertainment. I'm
not sure you can still find this set - I picked it up about a year ago
and I know Powell has it as well. It's not a lot to look at - about an
hour or so of pre-80's video productions (and a very young Al Moller) by
NOAA and Emergency Mgmt. More afros and sideburns than any one person
can handle, agreed, but this tape set has some gems in it. One video
included is an ancient spotter training video which Powell and I both
agree may be better than some of the modern spotter training footage.
The "Day of the Killer Tornadoes" section is a reenactment of the night
which gives some insight into the horror that became known as the
SuperOutbreak.
3. The kind-of-cheesy precursor to the movie Twister, the TV Movie
Tornado! will air again on FOX tomorrow night at 8pm. Though the
effects weren't the greatest I think it was a decent movie. The
details:
Tornado! ** Drama, 1996 A cowboy and a twister change the
mind of a government auditor sent to
shut down a scientist's
tornado research. PG (A,L)
4. If you happened to catch the Discovery Channel's "Storm Warning" show
Friday night, you'd have seen Daniel Brown of NWS-MIA. I knew Daniel in
school - he was a bright, talented, and very lucky (got a job at NHC
straight out of school then went on to NWS-MIA) guy. Glad to see that
he's still with the Weather Service - he was depicted keeping an eye on
the radar and explaining what happened during the Miami tornado of last
year. The show was about real people who survived real weather
events... although the first story about 5 guys sailing to a remote
island in the Pacific made me wonder how that many grown men could do
that knowing a Tropical Storm was to their south then be surprised when
they were stuck in a hurricane!
--
==========================================================
Jesse Ferrell - Meteorologist/Web Dev. - j{at}weatherwatchers.org ICQ No.
136862
Central Atlantic Storm Investigators - www.weatherwatchers.org
"And here a twister comes... here comes the twister." --Talking Heads