With Tropical Storms Laura and Marco both forecast to be in the Gulf of Mexico together early next week, you might wonder if they could potentially collide or perhaps form one huge hurricane. “Thankfully, any worries about the two storms merging into a ‘super-hurricane’ are unfounded,” noted weather.us meteorologist Jack Sillin in his blog Friday. “When tropical cyclones arrive in close proximity to another tropical cyclone, the interaction is detrimental for both storms.”

Sillin said that if one storm is much stronger than the other, the weaker system will usually weaken substantially or dissipate as a result of the interaction. If Laura and Marco are close enough together – which may or may not occur – what could happen is something called the Fujiwhara effect, which describes the rotation of two storms around each other. It’s most common with tropical cyclones such as typhoons or hurricanes, but it also occurs in other cases.

A good way to picture this is to think of two ice skaters who skate quickly toward each other, nearly on a collision course, grab hands as they are about to pass and spin vigorously around in one big circle with their joined hands at the center. The effect is named after Dr. Sakuhei Fujiwhara who was the chief of the Central Meteorological Bureau in Tokyo shortly after the first World War. In 1921, he wrote a paper describing the motions of “vortices” in water. Water vortices, such as whirlpools, are little water whirls that spin around.

When two hurricanes spinning in the same direction pass close enough to each other, they begin an intense dance around their common center, the National Weather Service said. The effect is thought to occur when storms get about 900 miles apart. Storms involved in the Fujiwhara effect are rotating around one another as if they had locked arms and were square dancing. Rather than each storm spinning about the other, they are actually moving about a central point between them, as if both were tied to the same post and each swung around it separately of the other. Yet, the Gulf of Mexico has its limitations when two storms vie for dominance. Some experts said Friday that the watery crater created by plate tectonics (the Gulf) is too small for the legendary Fujiwhara effect.Instead, one storm typically dominates another in such a confined space, either pushing it away or tearing it apart with tendrils of cirrus clouds marking its own cyclone-toppling wind shear. –USA Today

Multiple waterspouts were spotted swirling simultaneously off Louisiana’s coast on August 20, as severe storms battered the region with hail. This footage shot by Frank Leday in the Gulf of Mexico captures at least six of the watery vortexes spiraling skyward against a blanket of dark storm clouds.

The storms came as the US National Weather Service predicted two tropical depressions — one in the North Atlantic and another in the Caribbean — could develop into hurricanes upon hitting the Gulf. According to US media, it would be the first instance of two separate tropical storm systems in the basin in over 60 years.  –Fox News NY

An asteroid discovered in 2018 will fly very close to Earth on Nov. 2 according to The Center for Near Earth Objects Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Astronomers spotted the object from Palomar Observatory in San Diego County in 2018 followed by a 13-day observation arc and has not been detected since. Asteroid 2018VP1 is currently projected to come close to Earth sometime during the day before the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 3, according to NASA.

The asteroid will likely come as close to between 4,700 miles and 260,000 miles of Earth, according to Forbes. The good news is there is only a 1 in 240 (0.41%) chance of the asteroid entering earth’s atmosphere and because the asteroid is only around 7 feet in diameter, if it does manage to enter the Earth’s atmosphere, it would appear as an extremely bright meteor and break up into tiny pieces.

For the past 290 million years, large asteroids have been crashing into Earth more than twice as often as they did in the previous 700 million years, according to a 2019 study in the journal Science. Asteroids still only hit Earth on average every million or few million years, even with the increased crash rate. NASA’s list of potential big space rock crashes shows no pending major threats. The biggest known risk is a 4,200-foot wide asteroid with a 99.988% chance that it will miss Earth when it flies very near here in 861 years.  –WHIOTV

On Aug. 16, a space rock the size of a car zipped past Earth at a distance too close for comfort – approximately 1,830 miles. What’s even more disconcerting is that NASA never saw it until after it had happened. According to a report by Business Insider, it was the closest ever recorded, according to asteroid trackers and a catalog compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy. The report said the space rock, because of its size, most likely wouldn’t have posed any danger to people on the ground had it struck our planet. But it noted that “the close call is worrisome nonetheless, since astronomers had no idea the asteroid existed until after it passed by.”

“The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun,” Paul Chodas, the director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider. “We didn’t see it coming.” The space rock was first detected, about six hours after it flew by Earth, by the Palomar Observatory in California. The record-breaking nature of the event was confirmed by Chodas: “Yesterday’s close approach is closest on record, if you discount a few known asteroids that have actually impacted our planet,” the report quoted.

According to the report, NASA is aware of only a fraction of near-Earth objects (NEOs) like this one, as many do not cross any telescope’s line of sight, and in recent years, several potentially dangerous asteroids have snuck up on scientists. If the wrong one slipped through the gaps in our NEO-surveillance systems, it could kill tens of thousands of people, the report noted. This recent near-Earth asteroid, initially called ZTF0DxQ, is now formally known to astronomers as 2020 QG. The Business Insider report said it first learned about it from the creator of the website orbit-simulator.com, Tony Dunn.  –Penn Live

Some of California’s largest ever fires raged across the state Saturday, forcing tens of thousands from their homes as forecasters warned of further blazes sparked by lightning strikes. Several thousand lightning bolts have hit California in recent days, starting fires that left thick smoke blanketing the region. “The western US and Great Plains are shrouded under a vast area of smoke due to ongoing wildfires that extend from the Rockies to the West Coast,” the National Weather Service said Saturday. “With severe drought and exceptionally dry fuels present, dry thunderstorms could spark additional wildfires this weekend.”

The two largest blazes — dubbed the LNU Lightning Complex and the SCU Lightning Complex — have burned about 600,000 acres (240,000 hectares) and destroyed 565 structures. The LNU fire covered 314,207 acres by Saturday morning, making it the second-largest fire in California history. About 2,600 firefighters are tackling the two blazes, which were described by officials as 15 percent and 10 percent contained, respectively. “We simply haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday.

Wineries in the famed Napa and Sonoma regions, which are still reeling from blazes in recent years, are under threat. “Many of these firefighters have been on the lines for 72 hours, and everybody is running on fumes,” Assemblyman Jim Wood of the Healdsburg district in Sonoma told the Los Angeles Times. “Our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have.”

Five deaths have been linked to the latest flare-ups, with four bodies recovered on Thursday, including three from a burned house in a rural area of Napa County. But many residents have refused evacuation orders. “At least if we’re here, we know exactly what’s going on,” Napa resident John Newman, 68, told the San Francisco Chronicle as he sat in a lawn chair in his driveway. “Family is worried, but it’s a little different if you’re here firsthand.” – Yahoo News

The heat wave and lightning-sparked barrage of California wildfires continues to escalate, with one of the blazes now ranking as the second-largest fire in state history, while another also occupies a spot in the top five. The fires have claimed hundreds of homes and threaten tens of thousands more, forcing more than 100,000 to flee amid a coronavirus pandemic that makes evacuation decisions fraught with challenges. Although firefighters have seen a letup in the high winds and heat that plagued Central and Northern California for much of the week, another round of thunderstorms that will deliver little rain but lightning discharges that could start even more blazes is anticipated as early as Sunday and lasting through Tuesday.

The fires have been blamed for at least six fatalities. In seven days, the California blazes have charred nearly a million acres, according to Cal Fire, more than tripling the area burned during a typical fire season (a little over 300,000 acres). The area of land burned is larger than Rhode Island. – Washington Post

A gigantic fleet of floating rocks, spewed up from an underwater volcano in the Pacific Ocean, floated across the waves for thousands of miles. Eventually, it made it all the way to Australia, then started on a new project: revitalizing the world’s largest (and very threatened) coral reef system. This unlikely chain of events may sound somewhat incredible, but it’s an entirely true story – one that has played out dramatically over the last year, while highlighting the surprising, largely unseen ways in which Earth’s natural environmental systems intersect with one another.

Stranger still, it’s not the first time this has happened. An eruption in 2001 from the same submarine seamount – a nameless volcano, simply dubbed Volcano F or 0403-091, located near the Vavaʻu islands in Tonga – produced a similar rocky flotilla, which also voyaged on the currents to Australia over the space of a year. When this phenomenon occurs, it creates what’s called a pumice raft – a floating platform composed of countless chunks of buoyant and highly porous volcanic rock. Each one of these small rocks attracts marine organisms, including algae, barnacles, corals, and more. These tiny travelers end up hitching a ride across the ocean, and they can help seed and replenish endangered coral systems at their ultimate destination: for many, the Great Barrier Reef.

“Each piece of pumice has its own little community that has been transported across the world’s oceans – and we have had trillions of pieces of this pumice floating out there following the eruption,” says geologist Scott Bryan from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.”Each piece of pumice is a home, and a vehicle for an organism, and it’s just tremendous. The sheer numbers of individuals and this diversity of species is being transported thousands of kilometers in only a matter of months is really quite phenomenal.” Bryan knows a thing or two about these pumice migrations. He’s been studying the volcanic rafts for 20 years, investigating the 2001 eruption, its 2019 successor (which started washing up on Australian shores in April), and other underwater eruptions as well.

His most recent study, published last month, examined the 2012 eruption of the Havre Seamount, also in the South Pacific – estimated to be the largest underwater volcano eruption ever recorded, broadly equivalent to the most powerful volcanic eruption on land in the 20th century. That event produced a gigantic raft of pumice rock that ended up dispersing over an area twice the size of New Zealand – in addition to littering the seafloor with giant chunks of pumice the size of vans. –Science Alert

It’s going to be a hot one…  More than 80 million people are under excessive heat alerts this weekend with record temperatures possible in over 10 states. Excessive heat warnings are in effect for California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Texas. Heat advisories are in place for some surrounding states, including Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. “Nearly 100 daily record highs are in jeopardy over the weekend, and even more record heat is expected next week as the heat remains locked over much of the western half of the country,” said Haley Brink, CNN meteorologist.

Some cities like El Paso and Abilene, Texas, will likely only have record-breaking heat one day this weekend. However, Las Vegas and Yuma, Arizona, could break temperature records for the next 3 days straight. We know it’s simmering in the Southwest, but Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, aren’t exactly known for being hot places. This weekend, however, they both have a chance to break records. Excessive heat alerts are in place for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana this weekend. Seattle will peak on Sunday with highs in the 90s. Portland may hit triple digits both Saturday and Sunday.

Many people retreat to the mountains to seek relief from the heat in the Northwest, but extra precautions may be needed if you go there this weekend. “It’s going to be hot this weekend!” The Mount Rainier National Park Service warned on its Twitter page. “Hot weather can make park rivers run strong and cold with melting glacier ice & snow. Please practice water safety during river crossings.” Basically, when temperatures soar, snow and ice melt at faster rates and can fill the rivers up more quickly than usual. So, people who may retreat into those rivers, creeks, and streams may be surprised by how swift the current is, compared to normal.

This week has been a bad one for western wildfires. Fires have destroyed more than 90,000 acres across three states and continue to spread rapidly. Evacuation orders have been issued for Los Angeles County, California, Wasco County, Oregon, as well as Garfield and Larimer counties in Colorado. In Los Angeles County, there are two active fires — the Lake Fire and Ranch2 Fire. The Ranch2 Fire has forced over 300 homes to be evacuated. The Lake Fire has destroyed at least three structures so far and is threatening another 5,000.  –CNN

Sweltering California heat led to high demand on the state’s power grid Friday, prompting rolling blackouts across the state that left more than 350,000 homes and businesses without power in the evening hours. Officials warn the outages could continue in the coming days. The California Independent System Operator, which manages the state power grid, declared a stage 3 emergency Friday night, which sets off rolling power outages when the demand for electricity is higher than the supply. It was the first time since 2001 that such an emergency was declared.

Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility provider, said in a news release that power was shut off for a couple of hours Friday night to about 220,000 customers in El Dorado, Marin, Napa, San Mateo and Sonoma counties. Southern California Edison shut off power to about 132,000 customers, company spokesman David Song told the Los Angeles Times. “Extreme heat is really the driver behind this,” Anne Gonzales, spokeswoman for the power grid operator, told The Associated Press.   –Weather

A top federal health official is issuing a dire warning: Follow recommended coronavirus measures or risk having the worst fall in US public health history. For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against Covid, I’m asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I’m not asking some of America to do it,” he told WebMD. “We all gotta do it.” Without following the recommendations, this could be “the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we’ve ever had,” he said.

Some officials are already preparing for the coming months. Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, Missouri, extended the city’s coronavirus state of emergency order until January 16, 2021. The order requires most people to wear face coverings in public places and limits crowds at bars to 50% capacity. “It is now obvious to everyone that Covid-19 is not going away over the next five months,” Kansas City Health Department Director Dr. Rex Archer said in a news release Thursday. “As we move out of summer and into fall and winter, we will still be confronting this health emergency.” The flu season also occurs in the fall and winter, the CDC said.

Coronavirus has infected more than 5.2 million people and killed over 166,000 nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. On Wednesday alone, there were 55,910 reported new cases and 1,499 deaths — the highest number of fatalities since May. Coronavirus continues to spread at high rates across the South, Midwest and West — even as the total number of new cases has declined following a summer surge. The seven-day average of daily coronavirus deaths was over 1,000 on Wednesday, the 17th consecutive day the US averaged over 1,000 deaths per day. “You can’t run away from the numbers,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Diseases, said during a National Geographic panel Thursday. “You can’t run away from the numbers of people who’ve died, the number of people getting hospitalized, the surges we’re seeing.”  –CNN

In Washington state’s new food warehouse, there’s enough Jif peanut butter to make nearly 3 million sandwiches. Barilla pasta boxes stretch to the ceiling, 100,000 in all. Large stacks of TreeTop applesauce, pancake mix and canned green beans sit on pallets, like soldiers waiting to be sent into duty.  Since the coronavirus crisis first rocked Washington in March, nonprofits and state agencies working in food assistance have been forced to draw a completely new road map for getting food to people who need it.

The warehouse in Fife is part of that new model. After seeing food banks struggle to meet demand once the pandemic hit and the economy tanked, the Washington state Department of Agriculture (WSDA) began preparing to buy and stockpile tons of food to ward off a shortage in the months ahead. The new stockpile is driven by two major factors: A nearly doubling in demand for food assistance across the state and a national food supply chain that is bogged down amid an overwhelming surge in demand.

As many as 2.2 million Washingtonians — about 30% of the state’s population — are facing food insecurity, according to Katie Rains, WSDA food policy advisor. That’s more than double the 850,000 state residents who sought help from food assistance programs last November, before the pandemic. “We’ve been in this very desperate situation starting toward the end of March,” said WSDA Director Derek Sandison. “This [warehouse] is a continuation of our efforts to make sure we have fusions of product that will help us to continue to weather the storm.”

The storm took hold in mid-April, Sandison said during a tour of the warehouse on Friday. That’s when the state’s three main food bank distributors — Food Lifeline, Northwest Harvest and Second Harvest — told the WSDA that based on the spike in requests for food assistance, the organizations had roughly a two-week supply of food for hunger relief. “We went into panic mode,” Sandison said. “That’s not an exaggeration. … So we jumped in with both feet and started active procurement on our end.” But as the WSDA was trying to buy as much nonperishable food as it could to increase the state’s emergency reserves, so was everyone else.

Not only was the WSDA competing with other states and large national food-assistance programs, it also faced competition from grocery stores as national supplies of products such as pasta and peanut butter were becoming increasingly hard to come by. “Peanut butter was a very highly wanted and needed commodity,” said Gary Newte, sourcing and product director for Northwest Harvest. “Peanut butter prices have probably tripled in the last three to four months.” – Seattle Times

A swarm of small earthquakes in California, close to the Mexican border, is being closely monitored as to whether it might raise the chance of a much larger event on the San Andreas fault. The largest earthquake on Monday was a magnitude 4.6, reported at 8:56 a.m. under the southeastern part of the Salton Sea, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was among a series that began at 6:33 a.m. with a magnitude 3.2 earthquake. Magnitude 4 quakes struck at 9:03 a.m. and 12:29 p.m. It’s only the fourth time in the 88 years of modern records that such a swarm has occurred in this part of California — a region that raises concern among seismologists for the chance that it can trigger a significant earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

The San Andreas fault’s southernmost stretch has not ruptured since 1680 to 1690. Big earthquakes on this section of the southern San Andreas fault rupture on average every 250 years — although there can be wide variations as to how often they actually do occur. In general, there’s a 20% chance of a magnitude 7 or larger quake on this part of the San Andreas fault over the next 30 years. The last time a similar swarm happened was nearly four years ago. That series of moderate quakes — the worst of which were two at magnitude 4.3 and one at magnitude 4.1 — prompted a rare warning by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The warning convinced San Bernardino officials to close City Hall for two days in 2016; the building was months away from being vacated over longstanding worries about its seismic safety. No bigger quake occurred. Monday’s swarm “does increase the chance of a big earthquake on the San Andreas somewhat,” said USGS research geophysicist Morgan Page. “So, it’s definitely something to watch.”

Still, “it’s not necessarily doom and gloom,” given that the last three similar swarms — in 2001, 2009 and 2016 — did not result in larger, catastrophic quakes, Page said. “But every time it happens, we do worry that this could be the time that it triggers something.” In any given week, there’s a 1 in 10,000 chance of a magnitude 7 earthquake on the San Andreas fault. USGS calculations released Monday night said there’s now a 1 in 100 chance of such a quake in the next week. It’s the same increase in risk that was calculated during the 2016 swarm.  –LA Times