Recently in Weather Category

EVER!

I swear.  I've never had a summer in which I was so cold!

Last night, around 2:00AM and just now, we have had two earthquakes that shook the house.  These were very short in duration and located out in the bay, just off the coast here in Manhattan Beach.

This is a link to the data about the most recent earthquake.  And this is a link to the data about the earthquake in the wee hours of the morning.

Related articles:

• Hundreds reported feeling Santa Monica Bay earthquake, 3 aftershocks (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• 3.6 Earthquake Strikes Santa Monica Bay (laist.com)
• Los Angeles Earthquake... "Peace, be Still" (beliefnet.com)
• Breaking News: 3.6 Earthquakes rattles nerves in Santa Monica/West Los Angeles area (economy4abc.blogspot.com)

With a recent storm having come off the Pacific, coupled with the Chilean 8.8 earthquake and its ensuing tsunami warning, the Pacific Ocean here in the South Bay Area, has been the most active I've ever seen it.  In this short video I shot yesterday with my iPhone, the sandy beach, which typically begins out where you see the waves starting to break, is completely gone.  No one was in the water.  You could even see some of the currents zipping around as waves would head back out to sea crashing into the waves coming in from the sea.  It was a spectacular site!

Related articles

• BREAKING: Violent 8.8 quake hits Chile, sends tsunami towards Hawaii (crooksandliars.com)
• Chile Earthquake, Tsunami Warnings: Science of a Disaster (abcnews.go.com)

In my earlier post, I mentioned that the surf has been out of control with the storm and earthquake.  The life guard stations had to be moved inland—waaaay inland, and the surf still almost got to them.  Here you can see that the sand was completely eroded away by the surf, creating the sudden drop off that was as tall as me!  (Click to enlarge.)

Normally, along a seashore, one expects to find seashells.  Well, not so here in the South Bay.  Regrettably, the dumping of LA's sewage has long ago killed such sea life.  But what I found even more distressing was the amount of trash the surf brought to the shore line.  It was unbelievable!  Thousands of plastic bottle caps littered the shoreline as if they were the missing seashells! Bits of styrofoam, in various sizes, were everywhere.  This is outrageous!  We have turned the Pacific Ocean into a sewer. Click the image below to see two different pictures.

First it was Ireland: record rainfall and driving through unbelievable flooding. Then it was Arkansas: record rainfall and driving through unbelievable flooding. For the past three days, with more in the forecast, it's now here in southern California!

Stop the madness!

(Actually, I've rather enjoyed the rainfall. And yesterday I heard one of the most virulent thunder rumbles of all time! It was wonderful!)

Below is a 12 second video (without audio: do not adjust your TV set!) of flooding in Arkansas. This was by no means the worst flooding of the trip! Just out of the frame to the left is a heavily flooded cemetery. The flood water was thick with the scent of decomposition.

I'm showing this video as a proof of concept:

• It was shot on an iPhone.
• It was shot and is shown in portrait view. (Odd, I know.)
• It is compressed at 720p as an mp4 using H.264 at only 1500kbps and still looks fairly good.
• At the above compression, the file is 2.2 megabytes.
• Increasing the data rate increases video quality minimally but substantially increases file size.

This picture was shot of a rose picked from the garden yesterday. Only in California!

The storm has passed, meaning we had a slow steady rain here all day. It was wonderful. I so miss the long, dark rainy days of the southeast!

At sunset I went to the Pacific and shot these two little videos with my iPhone. You can't tell how dark and thick the clouds were, or how interesting the fog was. But it was still great fun! Very few surfers as the waves were extreme for these parts! The currents around the pier had also washed away the beach in a most unusual way.