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“Diablo Winds” Are Ferociously Whipping “Out Of Control” Wildfires Across Vast Stretches Of Northern California

“Diablo Winds” Are Ferociously Whipping “Out Of Control” Wildfires Across Vast Stretches Of Northern California

Why does this keep happening to California year after year?  As you read this article, enormous wildfires are ravaging large portions of northern California, and Governor Gavin Newsom has already declared a statewide emergency.  An extreme wind event that began on Saturday evening is pushing the fires along at a staggering rate, and when the winds are howling this ferociously it is exceedingly difficult for firefighters to keep the fires from spreading.  It was being reported that on Sunday morning there were sustained winds exceeding 90 mph in northern California with “gusts that topped 100 mph”.  It was the strongest wind event in several years, and it came at an extremely unfortunate time.  These “hurricane-force Diablo winds” will continue into Monday morning, but that doesn’t mean that things will start to get better.  As you will see below, another extreme wind event is in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Kincade Fire is the largest of the wildfires, and according to ABC News it has now “grown to 85 square miles”…

California Fire officials say a rapidly moving fire in Northern California wine country has grown to 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) and destroyed 94 buildings.

Cal Fire spokesman Jonathan Cox called the conditions throughout California “a tinderbox” Sunday and asked people to continue being vigilant in helping to prevent fires from breaking out.

That is an absolutely massive wildfire, and the extremely strong winds are picking up embers from the Kincade Fire and starting blazes in new areas.

The following is what Cal Fire Captain Robert Foxworthy told reporters on Sunday morning

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Floods And Drought Devastate Crops All Over The Planet – Could A Global Food Crisis Be Coming?

Floods And Drought Devastate Crops All Over The Planet – Could A Global Food Crisis Be Coming?

It looks like global food production could be well below expectations in 2019, and that could spell big trouble in the months ahead.  In recent weeks, I have written extensively about the problems that we have been experiencing here in the United States.  As many as a million calves were lost to the flooding that hit the state of Nebraska in March, farmers have planted less than half of the corn that is normally in the ground by this time of the year, and a lot of the crops that have been planted in the middle of the country are really struggling due to extremely wet soil.  But it isn’t just the United States that is facing a very troubling year.  Earlier today, one of my readers sent me an article entitled “Global food crisis ahead as extreme weather events devastate crops and fields around the world”which I would encourage everyone to read.  In that article, we are told that after the worst drought in 116 years Australia has actually been forced to import wheat.  And according to the Guardian, this is the first time in 12 years that this has happened…

Australia is planning to import wheat for the first time in 12 years after drought across the eastern states saw grain production fall 20% last year.

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources confirmed this week it had issued a bulk import permit to allow wheat to be brought in from Canada to be processed for the domestic market.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Which SHTF situation is most likely to actually happen?

Which SHTF situation is most likely to actually happen?

Image: Which SHTF situation is most likely to actually happen?

(Natural News) The prepping lifestyle can be overwhelming for most people but at its core, preppers prioritize readiness in all aspects of their lives. But amid all the talk about prepping skills, survival gear, and food supplies, how do you know which disaster event has the highest chance of occurring within your lifetime? (h/t to TheSurvivalistBlog.net)

How to prepare for possible SHTF events

For this article, an “SHTF” event is defined as “any event that upends your life” after it occurs, such as flooding in a major city. These events would be classified as major disasters or catastrophes, not personal emergencies.

On the extreme end of prepping are those who will do whatever it takes to get ready for apocalyptic events like EMP attacks or nuclear world war. However, more realistic preppers are concerned about events that may likely occur in their lifetimes, such as hurricanes or tornadoes.

No matter where you land on the prepping scale of SHTF-readiness, the important thing is to get ready for disasters that happen yearly worldwide.

Take note that the events detailed below are more or less likely to occur depending on your location. According to the U.N.’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the single most likely natural disaster to occur anywhere in the world is flooding.

Flood preparedness

Rising water is “the most likely disaster to befall you anywhere in the developed world,” with about 30 percent of all disasters categorized as flooding. This coincides with data gathered by U.S.-based disaster response agencies and insurers.

Regardless of what causes flooding, it is a deadly and destructive event that occurs yearly. In most cases, a local major body of water will overrun its banks due to several days of heavy rain. However, other factors like dam failure, ice or snow melting, or tsunamis can also create severe flooding. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Magma Under The Yellowstone Supervolcano Is “Rising”, And Scientists Warn That An Eruption Would Devastate The Entire Planet

Magma Under The Yellowstone Supervolcano Is “Rising”, And Scientists Warn That An Eruption Would Devastate The Entire Planet

Could it be possible that a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano is not too far away?  All over the world seismic activity has been increasing in recent years, and this process seems to have accelerated during the early days of 2019.  In particular, quite a few once dormant volcanoes are springing to life again, and this has many concerned about what could potentially happen at Yellowstone.  Of course Yellowstone has never been “dormant”, but there have been new signs of life over the past six months.  Entirely new geysers have sprung out of the ground, Steamboat Geyser has been the most active that it has been in decades, and some geysers have even been shooting “debris and rocks” into the sky.  And now we are being told that “a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock” is “rising” directly under Yellowstone

SCIENTISTS are closely monitoring a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock rising below the Yellowstone caldera, a bombshell documentary has revealed.

The supervolcano, located in Yellowstone National Park, has erupted three times in history – 2.1 million years ago, 1.2 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. Volcanoes typically blow when molten rock, known as magma, rises to the surface following the Earth’s mantle melting due to tectonic plates shifting. However, geologists have revealed how Yellowstone’s magma chamber, which sits on top of the magma plume, is slowly rising each year.

Hopefully nothing major will happen at Yellowstone for a very long time.

But experts assure us that another full-blown eruption will take place one day, and when it does, it could potentially create a global “volcanic winter” which would make growing crops almost impossible and ultimately cause horrific global famines.  The following quote comes from Dr. Christopher Kilburn

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We Are Witnessing The Most Destructive Fire In The History Of California, And “Devil Winds” Threaten To Make Things Even Worse

We Are Witnessing The Most Destructive Fire In The History Of California, And “Devil Winds” Threaten To Make Things Even Worse

California has been absolutely devastated by horrific wildfires in recent years, but the state has never seen anything quite like this.  At this moment, three major wildfires are raging, and the Camp Fire in Butte County is already officially the most destructive wildfire in California history.  Thousands of firefighters are desperately trying to contain this fire, but they haven’t had much success.  More than 6,700 structures have already been destroyed, and that shatters the all-time record that was set just last year.  In fact, five of the ten most destructive wildfires in California history have happened within the last two years.  The Camp Fire and the two mammoth fires in southern California have forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate from their homes, and authorities are warning that “devil winds” of up to 40 miles per hour could accelerate this crisis in the early morning hours of Monday.

The death toll from these fires continues to rise, and the numbers are being continuously updated.  At this point, the latest official number of deaths is up to 31

Firefighters battled heavy winds and parched conditions throughout the day in their herculean struggle against the Camp Fire and two blazes in Southern California that have killed at least 31 people, destroyed thousands of homes and forced 250,000 to flee.

But that number is expected to increase, because there are at least 228 people that are unaccounted for right now.

Many of the headlines have been about homes of celebrities that have been destroyed, but that is only a very small part of the story.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Yellowstone Going To Erupt? New Geysers Are Erupting And “Debris And Rocks” Are Being Hurle

Is Yellowstone Going To Erupt? New Geysers Are Erupting And “Debris And Rocks” Are Being Hurled Into The Sky…

I watch Yellowstone very closely, because an eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano could end life as we know it in America in a single moment.  A full-blown eruption of Yellowstone could potentially dump a suffocating layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep on almost the entire country, and it would instantly render about two-thirds of this nation completely uninhabitable.  So yes, when Yellowstone starts rumbling there is a reason to pay attention, and right now Yellowstone is starting to rumble in ways that are unprecedented.  That doesn’t mean that an eruption is imminent, but without a doubt what is currently taking place is more than just a little bit alarming.

Let’s start with what happened on Saturday.  An eruption of Ear Spring sent “plumes of water up to 30 feet in the air”, and it was being reported that “debris and rocks flew into the sky”

On Saturday, Ear Spring erupted plumes of water up to 30 feet in the air, endangering visitors as debris and rocks flew into the sky.

The last known eruption on that scale occurred in 1957, though several smaller eruptions were observed in 2004.

Ear Spring is one of the hottest pools in Yellowstone National Park and contains water above the boiling point up to 200 degrees.

If you are not familiar with this particular hot spring at Yellowstone, you can find the basics on Wikipedia right here.  When a supervolcano that could ultimately kill billions of us starts flinging “debris and rocks” into the sky, that should have made front page headlines all over the planet, but it didn’t.

This was the very first time since 2004 that Ear Spring has erupted, and it was only the 4th eruption in the last 60 years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Record 7 Named Storms Are Swirling Across The Globe – Has ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ Arrived?

A Record 7 Named Storms Are Swirling Across The Globe – Has ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ Arrived?

Is something extremely unusual happening to our planet?  At this moment, Hurricane Florence is just one of seven named storms that are currently circling the globe.  That matches the all-time record, and it looks like that record will be broken very shortly as a couple more storms continue to develop.  Back in 2004, a Hollywood blockbuster entitled “The Day After Tomorrow” depicted a world in which weather patterns had gone mad.  One of the most impressive scenes showed nearly the entire planet covered by hurricane-type storms all at once.  Of course things are not nearly as bad as in that film, but during this hurricane season we have definitely seen a very unusual number of hurricanes and typhoons develop.  As our planet continues to change, could this become “the new normal”?

As I mentioned above there are currently seven named storms that are active, but an eighth is about to join them, and that would break the all-time record

The Hurricane season is causing devastation from the Pacific to the Atlantic as seven active storms are currently swirling across the globe – with high chances an eighth powerful storm will soon develop to break an all-time record.

And actually there is an additional storm that is also developing in the Pacific which could bring the grand total to nine.

Overall, there have been 9 named storms in the Atlantic and 15 names storms in the Pacific since the official start of the hurricane season.

That is not normal.

In fact, one veteran meteorologist has said that he has “NEVER seen so much activity in the tropics”…

Far from being the biggest threat facing the US coastline this hurricane season, Florence will be followed by several other storms that rapidly strengthening in the Atlantic.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Meteorologists Expect Florence To Stall And Hammer The East Coast “For Days”

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Meteorologists Expect Florence To Stall And Hammer The East Coast “For Days”

The bizarre story of Hurricane Florence just keeps becoming even more strange.  The good news is that meteorologists are telling us that the storm is expected to lose intensity as it approaches the east coast, but the really, really bad news is that it is now being projected that Florence will slow down and finally stall just off the coastline.  In a worst-case scenario, the Carolinas and Georgia could be pounded with wind and rain “for days”, and some areas of North Carolina could end up being buried under nine feet of water.  And even though the peak wind speed of Florence has diminished some, the storm just continues to expand in size.  That means that it will ultimately hit a larger portion of the east coast than originally anticipated, and the overall economic cost will also ultimately be worsethan the experts were forecasting.

The word “unprecedented” is being used a lot in conjunction with this storm.  It is behaving in ways that it shouldn’t be, and this “strange stall” along the east coast is absolutely baffling the experts.

While discussing this “stall”, Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Postel stated that he had “never seen anything like this”

The weird saga of Hurricane Florence, which has already carved an unprecedented path across the Atlantic, is forecast to persist with a strange stall and trek along the Southeast coast.

Instead of roaring ashore and quickly heading inland and weakening, as most storms do, Hurricane Florence should instead “stall near the coast and then parallel southwestward toward Georgia,” Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Postel said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

People Are “Fighting For Food” As Authorities Warn Florence “Could Produce A Disaster Comparable” To Hurricane Katrina

People Are “Fighting For Food” As Authorities Warn Florence “Could Produce A Disaster Comparable” To Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Florence is about to make a “direct hit” on the east coast, and public officials are making one ominous declaration about this storm after another.  Florence is being called “extremely dangerous”, “a monster”, “the worst in 60 years” and “the storm of a lifetime”.  By the end of this week we shall see if this storm lives up to the hype, but at this point it is definitely an immensely powerful storm.  Hurricanes of this magnitude very rarely come this far north, and panic is starting to set in all across the mid-Atlantic region as people realize that this is really happening.  Over a million people are in the process of evacuating, and it is being reported that there is “fighting for food” at the stores that still have some supplies left…

“It was chaotic! Oh my goodness, long lines!” said Fatimah Spivey.

Reilly Norman described it as “a mess in there; it’s wiped out clean.”

The water aisles were especially bare — empty shelf after empty shelf.

“We came around 1 and all the waters were gone,” said Blake Swain. “Now, it’s just people fighting for food.”

Interestingly, federal officials actually conducted a “simulation” that involved a category 4 hurricane hitting the mid-Atlantic region back in late April and early May

Just months ago, disaster planners simulated a Category 4 hurricane strike alarmingly similar to the real-word scenario now unfolding on a dangerously vulnerable stretch of the East Coast.

That “simulation” produced “catastrophic damage” along the east coast, and as a result some experts are now concerned “that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina“…

A fictional “Hurricane Cora” barreled into southeast Virginia and up the Chesapeake Bay to strike Washington, D.C., in the narrative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Yellow Alert Has Just Been Issued For 2 Major Volcanoes In North America

A Yellow Alert Has Just Been Issued For 2 Major Volcanoes In North America

Massive eruptions of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano and Guatemala’s Fuego volcano have captivated the entire world in recent days, and now it looks like even more volcanoes are starting to wake up.  In fact, yellow alerts were just issued for Mexico’s Mt. Popocatepetl and Alaska’s Great Sitkin volcano.  Mt. Popocatepetl and Great Sitkin both sit along the “Ring of Fire” that roughly encircles the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean, and many are becoming concerned that we may be witnessing some sort of “chain reaction” as volcanoes all over the globe begin to exhibit signs of increased activity.  This even includes some unusual happenings at Yellowstone, and we will cover that near the end of this article.  But to start with, let’s take a look at the yellow alert that was just issued for Mt. Popocatepetl.  The following comes from a government website in Mexico

In the last 24 hours, through the monitoring systems at Popocatépetl volcano, were registered 30 exhalations with emissions of steam and gas (image 1). At night was possible to observed incandescence that increase with some exhalations (image 2).

At the time of this report the emission are dispersed to the south-southwest direction (image 3).

CENAPRED emphasizes that people SHOULD NOT go near the volcano, especially near the crater, due to the hazard caused by ballistic fragments (image 4) and in case of heavy rains leave the bottoms of ravines by the danger of landslides and debris flows.

The Volcanic Traffic Light Yellow Phase 2.

The scenarios foreseen for this phase are:

1. Explosive activity of low to intermediate level.

2. Ash fall in nearby towns.

3. Possibility of short range pyroclastic flows and mudflows.

Any signs of activity at Mt. Popocatepetl should always be taken very, very seriously.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Strong Earthquakes Hit San Francisco And Mount St. Helens And Experts Warn They May Be Foreshocks For ‘Something Larger’

Strong Earthquakes Hit San Francisco And Mount St. Helens And Experts Warn They May Be Foreshocks For ‘Something Larger’

Just when it seemed like things may be settling down, two very unusual earthquakes have hit the west coast within the past couple of days.  A 4.4 magnitude quake struck Berkeley, California just prior to 3 AM on Thursday morning, and a 3.9 magnitude earthquake hit Mount St. Helens in Washington state on Wednesday.  Overall, there have been 68 earthquakes in the vicinity of Mount St. Helens since New Year’s Day, and there have been a total of 629 earthquakes in the state of California within the last 30 days.  Could it be possible that all of this activity is leading up to a historic seismic disaster on the west coast?

The 4.4 magnitude earthquake along the Hayward fault very early on Thursday jolted people out of bed all over the San Francisco area

A strong 4.4 magnitude earthquake has rattled the Bay Area shortly before 3 a.m.

USGS is reporting the quake was centered in Berkeley. On KRON4’s real time earthquake map it shows the epicenter.

The quake struck at 2:39 a.m. and was centered near the Claremont hotel. The earthquake had a preliminary depth of 8 miles, according to USGS.

This wasn’t a soft and gentle earthquake that everyone kind of laughs about after it is over.

Rather, this was the kind of extremely intense earthquake that puts the fear of God into people.  In fact, one Bay area resident said that it “felt like a truck hit my house”

“I was actually awake putting my shoes on for work. It felt like a truck hit my house from the back which pushed my against the staircase railing, the walls were cracking and threw my cell phone and keys down the stairs. Pretty scary”

If this was the worst quake in this particular swarm, it won’t ultimately be that big of a deal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Change – Is this an OMG Event?

1709 Deep Freeze

 

QUESTION: Is it in your view a minor cold blip or “OMG we’re all going to freeze to death and run out of food ?”

BR

ANSWER: We are looking at an unbelievable decline in the energy output of the sun which appears to be the most rapid decline in nearly 10,000 years. The Global Warming crowd may be setting society up for mass famine and death because they are deliberately pointing everyone in the opposite direction to get their portion of the $1 billion grants. Natural disasters are the most disastrous when the energy output of the sun declines. There has been a fatal interaction of ecological, agricultural, economic, and political factors that seem to be setting the stage for at least a repeat of what is known as the Great Famine of 1315-1317. The Great Famine started with bad weather in spring 1315. Crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317, and Europe did not fully recover until 1322. The period was marked by extreme levels of crime, disease, mass death and even cannibalism and infanticide. The crisis set in motion the great economic collapse that began during the fourteenth century. In our arrogance, we seem to believe we have conquered every aspect of the planet and many argue we can even alter the climate of the planet.

The collapse from the Medieval Warm period was rapid, but also deadly. When the climate turned down, what followed was suddenly bitter cold winters and drenching rains which then froze. Europe had expanded as the society always does in warm periods. A study has shown that desert rodent populations of many species tend to “fluctuate synchronously owing to pulses of primary production and seed availability during rainy years, and reduced seed production during droughts” (PLOS 2013).

BlackDeath-10

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Global Disasters Wreaked Havoc In 2017 – Total Economic Losses Top $300 Billion

According to a new reinsurance report issued by the Swiss Re Institute, total economic losses from natural and man-made disasters have soared 63 percent in 2017 to an estimated $306 billion, up from $188 billion in 2016.

1

Globally, insurers lost $136 billion from natural and man-made disasters in 2017, up from $65 billion in 2016, the third highest on record. This is “well above the previous 10-year annual average, and the third highest on sigma records,” Swiss Re said in its report. Natural disasters accounted for $131 billion of 2017’s insured losses, and man-made disasters for the remaining $5 billion. The human loss totaled around 11,000 deaths, similar to 2016.

 

Martin Bertogg, Head of Catastrophe Perils at Swiss Re said, “in recent years, annual insurance losses from disaster events have exceeded USD 100 billion a few times. The insurance industry has demonstrated that it can cope very well with such high losses.”

“However, significant protection gaps remain and if the industry is able to extend its reach, many more people and businesses can become better equipped to withstand the fallout from disaster events,” he added.

According to Swiss Re, “extreme weather in the US in the second half of 2017” has been the primary driver for high insured losses:

In August and September, three category 4+ hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Maria (HIM) – made landfall in the US. Destruction from the three hurricanes stretched from the Texas coast (Harvey) through West Florida to the Caribbean (Irma and Maria), together causing insured losses estimated to be almost USD 93 billion.

Given the vast geographic footprint of the hurricanes, which affected multiple locations in quick succession and impacted multiple lines of business, a full assessment of the insured losses is still ongoing.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America Not Immune from Chaos

America Not Immune from Chaos

“Exceptional” America views itself as largely immune from devastating storms and the violence that infect much of the world, but recent weeks show that there is no protection against natural and human catastrophes, writes Ann Wright.


Over the past two months – between natural disasters and the actions of a heavily armed gunman firing from a high-rise hotel – citizens of the United States have faced the kind of havoc and violence that people in other parts of the world have been enduring routinely.

Hurricane Irma as seen from space. (NASA photo)

Sunday night’s mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 59 and left more than 500 wounded. In previous weeks, American citizens have faced loss of life and massive property damage in Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands from Hurricanes Maria, Irma and Harvey.

Of course, other places in the Caribbean suffered their own devastating blows from these major hurricanes: Cuba, Barbuda, Dominica, Antigua, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Island, St. Martin, Monserrat, Guadaloupe, St. Kitts and Nevis.

In other parts of the world, one-third of Bangladesh has been under water from monsoon rains; parts of Nigeria have been flooded; Mexico has endured killer earthquakes.

And then there is the politically driven violence, such as is occurring in Burma/Myanmar with Rahingya villages burned, thousands murdered, and over 400,000 people fleeing into Bangladesh to escape Buddhist Burmese/Myanmar military attacks.

There is also the seemingly endless devastation from wars waged or encouraged by U.S. policymakers. People in Afghanistan have been enduring war and destruction for 16 years; in Iraq for 13 years; and in Syria for five years.

Afghan, Pakistani, Somali, Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni civilians have been murdered by U.S. killer drones whose pilots, ironically, are trained 60 miles from Las Vegas, raining hellfire missiles from above in the same sort of sudden violence as people in Las Vegas suffered Sunday night.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Opinion: No, hurricanes are not good for the economy

Yes, GDP may get a temporary boost from rebuilding, but there’s nothing positive about destruction

REUTERS/Adrees Latif
Think of the increased production of motor vehicles to replace all those flooded trucks!

Once the immediate danger of a natural disaster subsides, and the loss of life, property damage, cost of rebuilding, and degree of insurance coverage can be assessed, attention generally turns to the economic effect. How will Hurricane Harvey affect the nation’s gross domestic product?

You will no doubt hear assertions that the rebuilding effort will provide a boost to contractors, manufacturers and GDP in general. But before these claims turn into predictable nonsense about all the good that comes from natural disasters, I thought it might be useful to provide some context for these sorts of events.

Over the years, I’ve observed a tendency among economists and traders to view such events through a demand-side prism. They see lost income translating into reduced spending on goods and services, which might even warrant some largesse from the central bank.

Of course, that is precisely the wrong medicine. Supply shocks reduce output and raise prices. The Federal Reserve’s interest-rate medicine affects demand. Lower interest rates will increase the demand for gasoline, among other goods and services, but they have no effect on supply. An easing of monetary policy under such circumstances would increase demand for already curtailed supply, raising prices even more.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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