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The West Coast is gearing up for yet another round of storms, poised to bring waves of rain and significant snowfall in the coming days. The Sierra region anticipates a substantial snowfall of 6-10 feet. The Sacramento Valley faces the potential threat of severe weather, including the rare occurrence of a tornado, as warm, moist air clashes with cooler air aloft. Southern California, particularly Los Angeles and San Francisco, is expected to bear the brunt of this weather onslaught, with projections of 2 inches of rain in LA and 1.5 inches in San Francisco over the next three days. This...

Meteorologists say the explanation for the robust winter season is not so simple. The current La Niña pattern does have an influence on global weather, but Maue said that is only one factor. Bianca Feldkircher, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said a persistent blocking pattern over the Pacific Ocean plus cold air migrating south from the Arctic have created the conditions for widespread snowfall along the West Coast. Although many regions struggled with the challenging winter conditions, some are welcoming the much-needed moisture. The recent precipitation is a blessing for ameliorating the drought that has persisted in the...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reportedly ordered a full ground stop at airports in the western U.S. on Monday around the same time that North Korea was believed to have launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. It was not immediately clear whether both incidents were related. Flights at California’s Burbank Airport were halted for about 15 minutes after the FAA ordered a temporary ground stop around 2:30 p.m., airport spokeswoman Nerissa Sugars told Fox News Digital. Flights were also halted from taking off for about 5 to 7 minutes at San Diego International Airport after air control...

A huge Pacific storm is poised to unleash conditions known as an “atmospheric river”, with torrential rains and strong winds putting about 10 million people at risk of flash floods in parts of northern California this weekend. The incoming tempest has raised fears of mudslides, especially in areas charred during record-setting wildfires this summer. Some parts of the Pacific north-west, including coastal Oregon, are also expected to see heavy rains and winds, the Bloomberg news website reported. Much of the Bay Area around San Francisco could see 3-3.5in of rain, with up to 8in expected at higher elevations in the...

As Ockham's Razor says, the simplest answer is usually the right one. The simplest explanation for the heat wave is not climate change.Was last week’s record heatwave in the Pacific Northwest caused by a climate-altering buildup of human greenhouse gases? The once-august Scientific American claimed it was, declaring, “Unprecedented Heat Wave in Pacific Northwest Driven by Climate Change.” Other outlets like the Washington Post echoed this narrative. It’s helpful to remember climate change commentators live by two rules: First, everything is linked to climate change. Second, when in doubt, see rule number one. This simple, two-rule test shows up in...

A team of scientists is reportedly working to obtain the sharpest pictures ever taken of the Cascadia subduction zone – a fault line that runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. The subduction zone, which has been the site of some of North America's largest earthquakes and the Earth's past "megathrust" earthquakes, has been strangely quiet, with almost no seismic activity detected. To investigate Cascadia's Oregon and British Columbia portion and the reason for this lull, Columbia University led a team of researchers – including students – from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics,...

A heat wave of unprecedented magnitude and duration is forecast to grip the Pacific Northwest this weekend and bring dangerously high temperatures that could make life miserable into next week for a region where air conditioning is not a fixture in most households. Triple-digit temperatures are forecast throughout parts of Oregon and Washington, which includes the Interstate 5 corridor. Both Portland, Oregon, which could see the mercury crack the 110-degree mark, and Seattle, which is expected to top 100, could experience temperatures around 30 to 40 degrees above normal and challenge daily record highs. Following a cooler stretch of weather,...

Two shallow M5.9 earthquakes hit off the coast of southern Oregon, U.S. at 07:52 and 08:17 UTC on June 4, 2021, at a depth of 16.6 km (10.3 miles) and 14.5 km (9 miles), respectively. They were located around 12 km (7.4 miles) from each other and followed by 5 moderately strong aftershocks over the next 15 hours. 13 M6+ earthquakes have occurred within 200 km (124 miles) in the last 50 years. The largest of which was a M7.2 earthquake on June 15, 2005. These earthquakes occurred as the result of shallow strike-slip faulting within a deformed section of...

Lots of people have been moving away from the west coast over the last decade, but we have never seen the sort of mass exodus that we have seen over the last year. This mass exodus has created some extremely hot real estate markets in desirable areas located away from the coast, and according to the Wall Street Journal the hottest real estate market in the entire country right now is Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Any house in the area that gets placed on the market is likely to spark a bidding war, and according to the Coeur d’Alene Association of...

Peter Lance's new book, Triple Cross, (the complete title is: Triple Cross, How Bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him) is out in bookstores on 11/21/2006. This is a link to the Able Danger Blog's review of the book. Here is the text of the Harper Collins' press release for the book: TRIPLE CROSS How Bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI -- And Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him By Peter Lance In TRIPLE CROSS, five-time Emmy-award...

For decades, scientists say something alarming has been happening in the streams and rivers where coho salmon return from the Pacific Ocean to spawn along the West Coast. After heavy rain events each fall, the fish have been turning up dead in huge numbers before they spawn, a mysterious phenomenon that has been the subject of intense research for years. Now, scientists think they have found a key piece to this morbid puzzle...tires...

2020 has been an incredibly difficult year for the U.S. as a whole, but no part of thecountry has been hit harder than the states along the west coast. It has just been one thing after another all year long, and now unprecedented wildfires have turned the skies bright orange and blood red over vast stretches of California and Oregon. Many are using the word "apocalyptic" to describe what is happening, and others have said that the skies look like something out of a science fiction movie. And even though hundreds of thousands of acres have already burned in Oregon...

In the early 1990s, the population of Bend was around 25,000 and leaned Republican. A lumber mill operated along the banks of the Deschutes River in Oregon’s high-desert country. Today, the lumber mill is an REI outdoor recreation store. The population has quadrupled. And for the first time in memory, the number of registered Democrats in Deschutes County recently eclipsed the number of Republicans. The transformation shows how demographic shifts and the GOP’s tack further to the right are helping push the party into a nosedive along the West Coast. The last Republican presidential candidate that California went for was...

The nation’s homeless population increased this year for the first time since 2010, driven by a surge in the number of people living on the streets in Los Angeles and other West Coast cities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its annual Point in Time count Wednesday, a report that showed nearly 554,000 homeless people across the country during local tallies conducted in January. That figure is up nearly 1 percent from 2016. Of that total, 193,000 people had no access to nightly shelter and instead were staying in vehicles, tents, the streets and other places considered...

Sen. Ted Cruz's victory in his home state of Texas, dubbed huge by many in the media, was the worst showing by a Republican candidate in a home state since 1913, according to a new analysis. On Super Tuesday, Cruz won 43.7 percent of the vote, besting Donald Trump who won 26.7. But the average primary showing by Republican candidates who won their home state in the last 100 years has been 78.5 percent, according to the Smart Politics blog from Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Progress slashing unhealthy ozone in the western United States has largely been undone by pollution wafting across the Pacific from China, according to a study published Monday. Scientists have long suspected this might explain why ozone levels along the U.S. west coast remained constant despite a significant local reduction in ozone-forming chemicals. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, is the first to make the case using satellite observations coupled with computer models of how air-borne molecules travel in the lower atmosphere, the authors said. “The dominant westerly winds blew this air pollution straight across to the United States,” explained lead...

Over the past 48 hours the whole of the West coast of the United States has moved on at least a 4.0 magnitude level or greater. Currently, another mid-4.0 magnitude (4.2 M) earthquake has struck the West coast, off the shores of Oregon, near the Axial undersea volcano (which is currently erupting).

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles County's homeless population has grown by 12 percent during the past two years amid a sluggish economic recovery that has left the poorest residents of the second-largest U.S. metropolitan area falling farther behind, a study released on Monday found. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority's report cited stagnant or falling wages among the lowest-income earners, a local jobless rate that remains above state and national averages, and a worsening lack of affordable housing. "The economy has improved, but not for the persons at greatest risk of homelessness," said Peter Lynn, the authority's executive director.

The federal government will investigate whether the western pond turtle -- found along the West Coast, including in Marin -- should get Endangered Species Act protection. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will conduct a one-year status review on the turtle, which faces declines of up to 99 percent in some areas. "As the West Coast's only native freshwater turtles, western pond turtles are integral to the wild places where they live," said Collette Adkins, biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned the agency for the protection in 2012. "Threats like habitat destruction from urbanization and agriculture are...

The one common element in recent weather has been oddness. The West Coast has been warm and parched; the East Coast has been cold and snowed under. Fish are swimming into new waters, and hungry seals are washing up on California beaches. A long-lived patch of warm water off the West Coast, about 1 to 4 degrees Celsius (2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, is part of what’s wreaking much of this mayhem, according to two University of Washington papers to appear in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. “In the fall of 2013 and...