Big Earthquake Near Full Moon Again!

Loyal readers of my blog should recall my frequent mention of large earthquakes and the lunar cycle. It does appear to have some gravitational connection, and had been on my radar since the December 26th Indian Ocean/Sumatra earthquake. This morning a 5.4 magnitude quake hit the Indiana/Illinois border. It's rare, but still an active fault area. This may be the first since 1984, but here is a link to the history of earthquakes in Illinois, and Indiana. Here a neat widget that plots and follows recent global earthquakes. It is completely interactive. Below is my daily weather post.


Back to the weather and the warmest day of the year- so far:
First the stats:
Today's Record High is 94F set in 1896
My theory holds: These spring warm ups often end up warmer than expected. I was the first in town to call for an 80 degree day back on Tuesday. So as we aim for temperatures even higher (my call this morning is for 83F) it will pale to the long standing record. Still a cap to a beautiful week. Now we need some rain, since my new grass seed has been battling low dew points. I do not have much hope for this weekend to give us that rain. The system out west will be delayed a day and weaken a lot when it reached us. I am downgrading our chances of rain to 30% or less for Sunday, and will leave the radars up on this blog to watch beginning tomorrow.


TV Date:
Weather Myths on 20/20 tonight. I may have to Tivo this one...

Earth Day and the Sea...
The Polar Bears are fine:
Earth Day in the sea today moves the attention to the arctic sea and fear of dwindling sea ice. First of all, this past winter resulted in a dramatic recovery of ice in the northern hemisphere. There has mean recent reports that it is young ice and will melt faster.. but nonetheless it has also enhanced the snow pack and ice on many glaciers in the Rockies. In fact, that source of cold air has led to the latest freeze and start to the crop season in Iowa.
The Polar Bear has been the mascot of Climate Change since Big Al's movie and that poor neglected cub Knut in Berlin's Zoo. However there has been a dispute from scientists that argue accusations made in 'The Movie' and by environmentalists. The Polar Bears are doing pretty well. Professor Scott Armstrong announced to Senator Boxer that his joint effort paper has been accepted by his peers to be published. There are two sub populations of bears that have had trouble, but most are doing well. Overstating or misleading information that has scared many. Unfortunately it may backfire as facts such as this and MIT's Tropical Expert Kerry Emanuel state a reversal on their positions. Monday's post below has the link to Emanuel's announcement opposing his earlier beliefs that Global Warming would increase Hurricane numbers and strength. Will National Geographic publish this?