PenguinSix

The net is a great source of information in storms like this.  In fact, sometimes you get too much data, but you can eventually sort through it to come up with a pretty good picture of the current situation. This weather map from WeatherUnderground shows the potential wind speeds from Hurricane Irene. Starting from the [...]

I’ve been quite busy over the last 24 hours tracking Irene. Well that’s not entirely accurate–I’ve been tracking Irene for days, but I’ve gotten quite worried about Irene in the last 24 hours. The “Oh Crap” moment came yesterday when I took a look at the computer models that showed a distinct Western track of [...]

Some interesting videos have come out in the last month or so now that the hype and Tweeting about ‘watch this video’ has subsided. First up is the ‘in car’ camera version of what it was like to be in one of those thousands of cars floating around in the water.  A driver had an [...]

This video explains better than any class lecture how soil and sand can turn to mush during an earthquake. Filmed in New Zealand but applies to many places that are built on silt (i.e San Francisco and Oakland). Great map here of the liquefaction risk in that area.

UPDATE: Wed. March 23. 8:00 PM. We’ll be meeting to put together the remaining kits at Boot.hk offices. Last night members of the Hong Kong Hackerspace, aka Hong Kong Hackjam, got together at the Boot.HK offices to undertake a quick project to help victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. With electricity out in many [...]

In an effort to keep people in Hong Kong from panicking and buying up all the salt, soy sauce and seaweed in the territory (and then kill themselves from eating too much of the above), the Hong Kong Observatory now is publishing maps detailing the wind patterns for possible radioactive releases from the Fukushima nuclear [...]

The massive earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan has unleashed a torrent of coverage on the net. THIS WILL BE UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE DAY– TBS News has a MASSIVE collection of videos online Warning maps of the Tsunami throughout the Pacific Live Coverage NHK World Service has an NHK iPhone app. You can watch coverage [...]

A massive 6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch New Zealand today, with some pretty heavy destruction. This was followed by a pair of 5.5 aftershocks. Thanks to the power of the Internet you can now “watch” the television coverage from New Zealand basically as it happens. This second video is raw footage. At minutes 2:53 and 5:42 [...]

Don’t drive through a flash flood.  And don’t park your car near one either.

So I was watching BBC this morning and the British Airport Authority spokesman (who is basically being tortured this weekend) was on talking about efforts to remove the snow and how tough it was and how they were doing all that they could, etc. Here is a picture of him. Ok, now here is a [...]

Did you know the UK has a Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, on constant duty to protect the skies from the threat of volcanic ash? Well, they do.  And those guys are working pretty long hours today to keep up with a volcanic eruption in Iceland which is causing havoc with European flights.  Here is a [...]

update 3/11/11: For those looking for the Japanese Tsunami Map. Amazing what the Tsunami researchers can create in just a few minutes after a major earthquake. Here is a potential impact map from the 8.8 Chilean earthquake this morning. ETA to Hawaii is about 11:19 am, which is 14 hours after the first earthquake. Pacific [...]

As one who looks at power outage maps frequently (living in the boonies) I can really see the total pain in the ass that restoring power to Houston will be over the next few weeks (yea, weeks). Centerpoint Energy has a good outage map in PDF form here, but I’ve taken the big bit and [...]

The Washington Post is reporting that residents of Galveston face ‘certain death‘ if they remain in their homes for Hurricane Ike. Unlike recent storms like Katrina, Ike is going to hit Galveston and Texas at full force, somewhere around Category 3 (135mph). “This water as it comes in could be almost like a tsunami,” Dewhurst [...]