M 6.1 Quake Strikes NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN

EQ Details

Magnitude: 6.1
Region: NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN
Location: 24.70N, 171.54 E
Depth: 10 km
Date time: 2015-06-19 14:51:17.1 UTC
Distances:

• 1,949 km N of Majuro, Marshall Islands / pop: 25,400
• 2,591 km N of Tarawa, Kiribati / pop: 40,311
• 2,890 km NE of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands / pop: 48,220 2015-06-20

Source parameters provided by:
GeoForschungsZentrum (GEOFON) — Potsdam, Germany (GFZ)

Crop Disasters Declared in Three States

Crop disasters declared for 26 counties across three states

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated a total of 26 counties in three states: The Carolinas and Idaho—as crop disaster areas due to losses caused by the worsening drought and Freezing condition.

Disaster Designation due to damages and losses caused by a recent drought

• Idaho. Blaine, Cassia, Camas, Elmore, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka and Twin Falls counties.

Disaster Designation due to damages and losses caused by freezing conditions that occurred from Jan. 8,, 2015, through March 29, 2015

• South Carolina. Abbeville, Anderson, Cherokee, Chester, Fairfield, Greenville, Laurens, Newberry, Pickens, Spartanburg, Union and York counties.
• North Carolina. Cleveland, Henderson, Polk, Rutherford and Transylvania counties.

Crop Disasters 2015

Beginning January 7, 2015 USDA has declared crop disasters in at least 1,259 counties across 19 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington.

About 99 percent of the 2015 crop disaster designations so far are due to drought.

Crop Disasters 2014

In 2014, USDA declared crop disasters in at least 2,904 counties across 44 states. Most of the designations were due to drought.

Those states were:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan. Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. [FIRE-EARTH has documented all of the above listings. See blog content.]

Notes:
i. USDA trigger point for a countywide disaster declaration is 30 percent crop loss on at least one crop.

ii. The counties designated as agricultural disaster areas, as listed above, include both primary and contiguous disaster areas.

iii. Some counties may have been designated as crop disaster areas more than once due to multiple disasters.

iv. The U.S. has a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents.

v. The disaster designations posted above were approved by USDA on June 17, 2015 (posted on their website on June 19).

Related Links

• Drought Disaster Declared for Counties in Two States June 12, 2015
• Drought Destroys More Crops in Idaho, Oregon, Utah June 4, 2015
• Crop Disasters Declared in Nevada, Utah May 28, 2015
• Crop Disasters Declared in 4 States  May 21, 2015
• Drought Destroys More Crops in CO, ID, OR, TX, UT May 14, 2015
• Drought Destroys more Crops in ID, NV, OR, UT May 7, 2015
• Federal Disasters
• Drought
• Agricultural Disasters Index

State of Emergency Declared in Missouri amid Widespread Flooding

Tropical Depression BILL batters central U.S. bringing torrential rains, and causing deadly flooding

Gov. Nixon has declared a state of emergency in Missouri as extreme rain events and flooding continued to affect large portions of the state.

“With more heavy rain in the forecast, we will continue to remain in direct contact with law enforcement and local officials as we work to protect lives and property,” Nixon said.

The storm has claimed several lives so far including those in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

BILL  hit in Texas on Tuesday, and is forecast to move northeast into West Virginia, dumping as much as 30cm (12 in) of rain in some areas, forecasters said.

Earth’s Fever Continues: Warmest May on Record

Year-to-date also record warm: Report

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was 15.67°C (60.17°F), the highest for the month since record keeping began in 1880. Globally averaged temperature for March–May and the year-to-date (January–May) were also record highs, according to the State of the Climate Report.

• The combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for May was 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20^th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F)—the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, topping the previous record set in 2014 by 0.08°C (0.14°F).

• The globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 0.72°C (1.30°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.3°C (61.3°F)—the highest ever recorded for the month, topping record set in 2014 by 0.07°C (0.13°F).

• The average global temperature across land surfaces was 1.28°C (2.30°F) above the 20^th century average of 11.1°C (52.0°F), tying with 2012 as the highest May temperature on record.

• The average Arctic sea ice extent for May was about 1.89 million km² (730,000 square miles), or 5.5 percent below the 1981–2010 average, making it the third smallest May extent since records began in 1979.  [The smallest sea ice extent occurred in May 2004, when the cover shrank to about 1.82million km² (703,000 square miles,) said the report

• Antarctic sea ice during May was about 1.3 million km² (500,000 square miles), or 12.1 percent above the 1981–2010 average. The May extent was the largest Antarctic sea ice extent on record, exceeding the previous record set in 2014 by about 52,000km² (20,000 square miles).

January – May 2015

• The first five months of 2015 were the warmest such period on record across the world’s land and ocean surfaces, at 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20^th century average, surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.09°C (0.16°F).

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, State of the Climate: Global Analysis for May 2015, published online June 2015, retrieved on June 19, 2015 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201505.

Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters – 2014 Update

Eight weather and climate mega disasters in 2014 caused more than $17 billion in losses

In 2014, eight weather and climate events across the United States, each with losses exceeding $1 billion, caused  a total of more than $17 billion in losses.

In 2013, there were nine events with over $24 billion in losses (CPI-adjusted). Since 1980, the year 2011 had the most billion-dollar events (16) while 2005 was the most damaging year with more than $200 billion in losses (CPI-adjusted), according to the official Scorekeeper, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

The greatest economic impact of the weather and climate events have occurred since 1980 [and are ongoing.] The U.S. experienced 178 weather and climate mega disasters during the 1980-2014 period, with overall damages/costs of each event exceeding $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2015). The total cost of these 178 mega disasters exceeds $1 trillion, said NCEI (NOAA/NCDC).