Steve's blog

When I went to school, back in the Paleocene, students memorized a list of phrases spoken by famous Americans.

                  “Don’t give up the ship.”

                       “I shall return.”

If you live in California and conversation drifts to earthquakes, the “BIG ONE” always surfaces.

 ‘Hey Steve, when’s the next BIG ONE coming?’

For out-of-towners, a BIG ONE refers to a ~M8 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. The last BIG ONE was the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Everyone knows that. The BIG ONE before that was the 1857 Ft. Tejon earthquake in the southern part of the State. Virtually nobody knows that. No surprise, in 1857 Los Angeles was a dusty backwater, home to about 4,000 townsfolk.

Rocks from space.  Most of us have stepped out into the backyard and looked up at the night sky to witness a wonderful, but brief, streak of light from a falling star. Hardly star size, those streaks originate from space bits as big as grains of sand. Larger things happen however. About once per year, a Volkswagen-size rock crosses Earth’s path. These zip from horizon to horizon, burning bright for 10 or 20 seconds --- long enough maybe, for someone with quick hand on a camcorder to catch the show for appearance on the evening news.

 Switzerland.

 What do you think of when you hear, Switzerland? 

 Swiss Chocolate?  Swiss Cheese? Swiss Steak? Swiss Army Knives?

 How about Swiss Earthquakes?  or Swiss Tsunami? 

I recently attended a scientific meeting and listened to a well-known geologist discuss new findings about earthquakes near Ventura, California. He suggested that several faults buried under the mountains north of town might "link up" to make an earthquake far larger than would separate quakes on the individual faults. Turns out, the uppermost arm of the link lies under the Santa Barbara Channel parallel to the coast west of Ventura. As visualized, an earthquake on this multi-fault monster could uplift the sea floor and coast north of the fault by

Okeechobee’28.     No,      it’s not a classic car by Oldsmobile.

Okeechobee’28.     Nope,  it’s not a pricey French Burgundy.

 Most everyone can recall the names of some recent hurricanes -- say, Katrina or Andrew. Being from Pennsylvania, I remember Hurricane Agnes way back in 1972. She still ranks as the State's worst natural disaster. Weighed in terms of casualties however, no storm compares with the Galveston Hurricane of September 8, 1900. 

As I blogged last time, Tropical Storm Debby defied catalog odds. She broke apart and, after buckets of rain, faded away. Suppose however, that things turned out differently.  

Update--   Below is my current (6/26  1500 GMT ) wind forecast for Debby. 

Clearly the (6/24 2100 GMT)  prediction further down did not pan out so well. Anyone who's ever made a less than stellar forecast would prefer the evidence of it to just fade away, but this deserves a word. 

FACT: The 100+ year hurricane catalog says that ON AVERAGE storms over Debby's part of the Gulf of Mexico  should strenthen with time and accelerate toward the north or northeast.

I hear that the Mayor of New York wants to ban Super Size sodas in the City.  Seems silly to me, but just maybe he will get his way. When it comes to Super Size natural disasters however, even the Mayor of the Big Apple can’t dictate terms.

I’ve blogged about dam break floods several times now --  What do you say if we Super Size That?