[HN Gopher] M 4.8 - 2024 Whitehouse Station, New Jersey Earthquake
___________________________________________________________________
M 4.8 - 2024 Whitehouse Station, New Jersey Earthquake
Author : theandrewbailey
Score : 426 points
Date : 2024-04-05 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (earthquake.usgs.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (earthquake.usgs.gov)
| EGreg wrote:
| Is it possible that a larger aftershock or swarm is coming? How
| do these things work usually?
|
| Last time something like this happened was 25 years ago...
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/yvo/news/aftershocks-swar...
| ccurrens wrote:
| USGS suggests that this was a main earthquake of a series. I
| guess there was one mid march
|
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?currentFeatureI...
| This event is identified as the potential mainshock of an
| earthquake sequence.
|
| From this URL:
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma74...
| steanne wrote:
| there WAS one follow-up so far this morning, currently being
| reported as a 2.0.
|
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma7c...
| meepmorp wrote:
| It's now 7 km NNE of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, according to
| the linked page
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Thanks, I edited while I still could.
| jameshart wrote:
| This makes it sound like the earthquake is ongoing and moving.
|
| For all our sakes, I hope that's not the case.
| altdataseller wrote:
| Didn't even feel at all? Was in Queens, NY, strangely a couple of
| people around me felt it though
| Keegs wrote:
| My building rattled for a good 15 seconds.
| evanelias wrote:
| Same here in northern NJ just outside Manhattan. It was
| extremely noticeable, my cat also freaked out briefly.
| guluarte wrote:
| 4.7 is literally nothing
| moate wrote:
| It's actually "moderate shaking and light damage expected"[1]
| but go off sis.
|
| (1)https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma
| 74...
| ziddoap wrote:
| It is very obviously not "literally nothing", given the
| amount of people chiming in that they felt it.
| chrinic74929 wrote:
| > 4.7 is literally nothing
|
| 4.7 quake at 1 km depth will shake more at the surface than a
| 6.0 at 30 km depth
| zzleeper wrote:
| 4.7 at 5km depth is still nothing for anyone not
| immediately above the epicenter.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| East coast geology (older, harder rocks) causes earthquakes
| to feel about ten times stronger than a west coast
| earthquake. This is felt roughly the same as a 5.8 in
| California. That's enough to be notable, especially at a
| shallow depth.
| eatonphil wrote:
| I'm in Forest Hills (fifth story) and at first I thought it was
| the usual extreme wind we get because the windows were shaking
| heavily. Then it got worse and I realized what it was when I
| felt it through the floor.
|
| I've felt at least one other in the last year or two here but
| my wife in the other room did not. This one was the strongest
| I've been through though.
| efrank02 wrote:
| Are you in the Kennedy?
| eatonphil wrote:
| Nope.
| pjsg wrote:
| I felt it in Mass -- I was working on the second floor. My wife
| was on the ground floor and didn't feel it. From our internal
| slack channel, this seems fairly common -- people on the ground
| floor don't feel it here in MA, but higher floors, they do feel
| it.
| ishtanbul wrote:
| Im on ground floor and definitely felt it. In brooklyn. All the
| buildings around me were visibly shaking. Felt like a freight
| train going by 10 feet away, but eerily quiet.
| astockwell wrote:
| Felt it in Hartford, CT!
| klysm wrote:
| Also in MA on the second floor. Two of my roommates were
| standing and didn't notice it, but I definitely felt it sitting
| down
| ilamont wrote:
| Felt it too outside of Boston. Thought the heat pump upstairs
| was having a serious malfunction.
| neilv wrote:
| I felt it on an upper floor of a big old brick building in
| Cambridge.
|
| First thought was it was an earthquake, but then no signs other
| than that I could feel it in legs.
| nicwolff wrote:
| I'm in a house up in Chelmsford, north of Boston - one person
| on the second floor felt it.
| Zigurd wrote:
| This was my second minor quake that could be felt in Mass. I
| was driving both times. First time I thought my steering felt
| suddenly rubbery. I was in a rotary. Didn't notice this one.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I'm on the Cape, and I heard some banging around that time. I
| thought my wife was just being loud in the shower.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Strong vibrations in Westchester county
| blueflow wrote:
| Which fault caused it?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Northeastern US quakes are typically the result of post-glacial
| uplift. The land is still rising and stress builds up over
| time.
| moate wrote:
| Likely Ramapo, but what do I know.
| bobo_legos wrote:
| I didn't stay at a holiday in last night, but I can read maps
| and it does seem like this one landed on the Ramapo fault
| line.
| steanne wrote:
| there's a good general description of seismicity in the region
| here:
|
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma74...
| _sword wrote:
| That was eerie! I felt my apartment building start to rock and
| sway as the walls were creaking. Not something I'm used to as a
| NY native, and not something I loved to experience 20+ floors
| above the ground.
| s-kymon wrote:
| I thought it was a train or truck going by
| _sword wrote:
| I thought wind at first because it's been stormy lately
| rdedev wrote:
| My first earthquake experience. I thought maybe I was imagining
| things but when the walls started to shake I got out
| foxyv wrote:
| I remember being in a 4th floor office and feeling the building
| sway. I can't imagine how terrifying 20+ floors up would be.
| 13of40 wrote:
| I was in the one in Seattle around 2000 on the 5th floor of a
| building, and I distinctly remember walking down the hall
| with the building swaying like a boat in a storm, wondering
| when the whole thing was just going to snap and crumble into
| a pile of rubble. Luckily it turns out they make modern
| buildings not do that. I've been back to that building and
| they still have cracks in the stairwell from it, though.
| blitzkrieg3 wrote:
| On the 37th floor of my office buildin I didn't even feel it.
| Others said they thought it was the wind. Tuned mass dampers
| are no joke.
| stonks wrote:
| On the 38th floor in Hell's Kitchen, I felt my chair and desk
| shake. It was like 10 seconds long.
|
| One of my neighbours often close their doors with force which
| causes the wall to vibrate. Then I noticed things not
| attached to the walls also were shaking and understood it's
| an earthquake. I also noticed lots of birds flying near the
| Hudson River. I have never thought I would feel an earthquake
| here.
|
| I also searched Google to see if there's an earthquake, and
| at 10:23am nothing was showing up. I remember a year ago
| Google used to ask "Have you felt your building start
| shaking", and nothing this time.
| kungfupawnda wrote:
| I was at a coffee shop in Astoria and it sounded like the
| subway running under. My first thought was that there is no
| line under this street (been living here forever). Then I
| thought maybe a jet liner flew over too close. But then judging
| by other people's reaction, I realized that this was an
| earthquake. I had no idea that you can hear earthquakes...
| coldcode wrote:
| I experienced a 3.8 (I think) in Dallas some years ago, 30
| stories up. It was likely caused by oil drilling action in the
| area, as Texas is not an earthquake zone if I remember
| correctly. It was not fun, no dampers in that building.
| potatolicious wrote:
| I remember living on the 30th floor in Manhattan during Sandy.
| I grew up in a hurricane-prone area so remembered to fill the
| tub.
|
| Watching all the water slosh around as the building swayed
| was... disconcerting.
| sylens wrote:
| Sorry guys, that was me doing a git rebase
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Spit out my tea thanks lmao
| kibwen wrote:
| $ git config --global alias.subduct rebase
| hk1337 wrote:
| Found the google engineer!
| jmkni wrote:
| skill issue
| ribs wrote:
| I felt in here on Long Island, where I grew up, and am visiting
| from California, where I've lived for decades
|
| Right now in Huntington
| moomoo11 wrote:
| How common is East coast earthquak
| ssijak wrote:
| very rare
| klysm wrote:
| I've lived on the east coast for 25 years and experienced 2
| that were noticeable.
| asveikau wrote:
| I lived there for the first 23 years of life and experienced
| zero. I felt left out when I missed the 2011 one.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Pretty common, but small and rarely noticed [0]. Probably lots
| of construction and geotechnical engineering wouldn't have
| survived anything significant at least in the Northeast
| [0] https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=38.039
| 44,-79.33228&extent=45.75219,-63.86353&range=search&showUSFault
| s=true&baseLayer=terrain&timeZone=utc&search=%7B%22name%22:%22S
| earch%20Results%22,%22params%22:%7B%22starttime%22:%221900-01-0
| 1%2000:00:00%22,%22maxlatitude%22:42.816,%22minlatitude%22:41.2
| ,%22maxlongitude%22:-69.593,%22minlongitude%22:-73.592,%22minma
| gnitude%22:0,%22orderby%22:%22time%22%7D%7D
| pixl97 wrote:
| It is very uncommon that they are very strong, but they can be
| rather severe when a big one occurs.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1886_Charleston_earthquake
| rohan_ wrote:
| My apartment in williamsburg was violently shaking for like 2
| minutes
| christkv wrote:
| I think i remember someone telling me when i was living in nyc
| that your area foundations are a lot of clay. That would
| probably amplify the sensation of a quake.
| philip1209 wrote:
| I experienced a 4.8 earthquake about a month ago in Tokyo, and
| noticed the shaking significantly. In Manhattan this morning, I
| didn't notice the 4.7 earthquake at all.
| wumeow wrote:
| Japan, Taiwan, New York, this is apparently the year of the
| earthquake.
| seydor wrote:
| 4.7 is not really a strong earthquake, it s routine in
| earthquake-prone zones
| chrinic74929 wrote:
| > 4.7 is not really a strong earthquake, it s routine in
| earthquake-prone zones
|
| NYC quake was at shallow depth.
|
| 4.7 quake at 1 km depth will shake more at the surface than a
| 6.0 at 30 km depth
| neogodless wrote:
| In this case, it's a 4.8 mwr at 4.7 km depth.
| renewiltord wrote:
| USGS shows it as 4.8 at 4.7 km
|
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?currentFeature
| I...
|
| The Belden quake is 4.4 at 7.8 km, and 4.2 at 5 km.
|
| It's a log scale so the Whitehouse quake is much larger,
| but the significance of the quake seems to be more than
| just these numbers because Belden quake is irrelevant
| (didn't make the news really).
|
| Sarupathar was a 5.8 (huge comparatively) at 10 km. Hualien
| was 5.1 at 15.9 km and talked about more than Sarupathar.
| So the defining aspect appears to be how many people are
| within range of the epicenter rather than just raw depth
| and magnitude. Which makes sense, I suppose. We care about
| how population centers encounter the movement!
| ylyn wrote:
| > Hualien was 5.1 at 15.9 km
|
| That's just an aftershock.
|
| The main quake was three days ago. M 7.4 according to
| USGS: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/u
| s7000m9g4...
|
| So for an earthquake that's almost 1000x as strong, you'd
| think it'd be talked about more.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thank you! Yeah, a 7.4 is humongous. I did wonder about
| this because my wife's family reported quite intensive
| shaking and I've been in a 6-something before and that
| was quite disruptive. I can't imagine a 5.1 being that
| much.
| kube-system wrote:
| The hurricanes are coming soon. Oceans are warming up at record
| speeds this year already.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Dogs and Cats Living together.
| lxgr wrote:
| Solar eclipses, even!
| postalrat wrote:
| Fire and brimstone!
| JALTU wrote:
| Sharknadoes
| bregma wrote:
| Locusts (or at least Cicadas)!
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Show us your failed 3D prints!
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Well tuned 3d printers are somewhat surprisingly mostly
| unaffected by earthquakes. People have even done stuff like
| hanging a printer and printing without any significant issue.
| It'd just show as a slight imperfection on that specific line.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Makes sense, as long as the force creating the vibration is
| acting on both the extruder and the bed so they don't move
| relative to one another it shouldn't really matter.
| caretak3r wrote:
| Was on a call with my boss reluctantly explaining how kubernetes
| works. I felt the rumble, thinking it was just my discomfort with
| the state of affairs in my company. Might as well have been a
| fart in the wind.
| sethammons wrote:
| A number of years ago, in SoCal (where earthquakes are nothing
| too special), we had a similar sized quake (maybe a tad bigger).
| One guy from Denver was out and his eyes went big and wasn't sure
| what to do -- everyone else just kept talking and moved away from
| the big glass windows haha.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| For my first quake in CA, I was peeing. (I'm a man and I pee
| standing up.) The shower doors next to me started to rattle, so
| I thought the people above me were jumping around. I didn't
| realize it was a quake! (The stream kept going where it was
| supposed to go.)
|
| I came out of the bathroom and my roommate was terrified.
|
| It was even funnier when my mom called me in a panic and I told
| her what happened.
| spopejoy wrote:
| I'm in Brooklyn and felt it while on a call with an NJ resident
| who was the first to say "are we having an earthquake??"
|
| Do earthquakes have a propagation speed? Might she have felt it
| before me?
| pxx wrote:
| Yes, the speed of sound (through the earth, so faster than the
| speed of sound in air); yes.
|
| In California, typically usgs has earthquakes posted before I
| can feel them. They didn't have this one a few minutes after I
| felt it, so I feel like automatic earthquake detection is off
| in this area of the US.
| andrewla wrote:
| Same experience -- felt a shaking; thought maybe a heavy
| truck had passed by for a second, then saw that all the
| monitors were swaying. Checked USGS and saw nothing, so
| figured it was nothing, because on the west coast they have
| the reports up lickety split. Half hour later everyone's
| phone started buzzing with the automated alert.
| gcr wrote:
| I received the earthquake alert about 45 minutes after it
| occurred.
| cj wrote:
| The Apple alert came in at 12:05pm warning of aftershocks
| but not the primary event.
| Lance_ET_Compte wrote:
| In the Bay Area, everyone gets an SMS message that says an
| earthquake is coming. I've felt/heard the shaking 10-20
| seconds later.
|
| Some industrial equipment shuts down to avoid damage.
| nashashmi wrote:
| We felt it at 10:26 am ET. And an alert was sent to
| everyone at 11:24 am that an earthquake is coming. And then
| another one alerting for possibility of aftershocks. No
| aftershocks felt.
| pmx wrote:
| They travel in waves through the rock!
| atrus wrote:
| Everything has a propagation speed :P, but yes she probably
| felt it before you, then her signal made it to you faster than
| the Earthquake did.
|
| https://xkcd.com/723/
| jedberg wrote:
| Yes. There is an excellent XKCD on the topic:
|
| https://xkcd.com/723/
|
| But in summary, the speed is slower than light, so yes you can
| find out through telecom faster than it getting to you.
| pseudolus wrote:
| The earthquake was centered in NJ.[0] Propagation speed would
| be a function of the depth. [1]
|
| [0]
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B040'58.8%22N+74%C2%...
|
| [1] https://www.britannica.com/science/seismic-wave
| aragonite wrote:
| > Might she have felt it before me?
|
| Surface waves yes, body waves not necessarily. But surface
| waves are more destructive.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The west coast states have the MyShake early warning system,
| which sends out automated alerts for 4.5+ quakes.
|
| https://earthquake.ca.gov/
| hi wrote:
| Same thing happened to me. I was on a facetime with someone in
| Brooklyn, but I was a 2 hour drive north outside of NYC and it
| took what felt like 30 seconds to propagate over that 200km.
| paxys wrote:
| Earthquakes propagate very slowly (around 2-8 miles/sec).
| That's how systems like ShakeAlert can send out early warning
| notifications. This one, for example, happened 40+ miles from
| NYC proper, so residents could have had like 20 seconds notice
| if the service operated here. People further up or down the
| coast could have had multiple minutes.
| slingnow wrote:
| Do you think that earthquakes transmit instantaneously? Why
| would they not have a propagation speed like everything else in
| the universe?
| umanwizard wrote:
| I assume they meant "propagation speed that is substantially
| slower than light in a vacuum" since that is less than 50ms
| between any two points on earth.
| triceratops wrote:
| On the earth the speed of light as is good as instantaneous.
| quesera wrote:
| > _On the earth the speed of light as is good as
| instantaneous._
|
| Frustrated network architects would disagree!
| eggy wrote:
| Sure given the epicenter was in NJ and closer than Brooklyn. I
| am from Brooklyn, but live in Nyack, NY, and I felt it here.
| Nyack is 40mi from epicenter, Brooklyn ~60mi. But your
| experience could be different based on the structure you are
| in, floor elevation, and existing soil and ground conditions.
| Glant wrote:
| People in my town in southern NH reported feeling it about 20
| minutes after it happened
| spike021 wrote:
| Yes. Last time there was a fairly large one in the SF Bay Area
| I happened to be on the phone with some relatives about 40
| miles away and I felt an earthquake a moment before they did.
| cossatot wrote:
| Earthquake waves have several propagation speeds, because there
| are different types of waves. The fastest is called the P-wave,
| which is a compressional (longitudinal) wave, similar to a
| sound wave, with a velocity of ~5-8 km/s for typical
| continental bedrock. The second fastest is the S-wave, or shear
| wave, which is about 65% of the P-wave speed. These waves
| produce relatively little displacement at the surface (except
| for close to the epicenter of large earthquakes) but are
| important seismologically. Then, there are the surface waves,
| which are caused by the interaction of the S-waves with the
| surface (in a way that I don't 100% understand). These travel
| about 90% of the S-wave speed, but they have the biggest
| displacements at the surface and therefore are the main ones
| that you feel and that cause damage.
|
| The surface wave displacements also get amplified in wet or
| loose soil, so the ground shaking and seismic damage is also
| much greater areas on top of sediment rather than bedrock.
| Areas on a river, lake or coast where the land has been
| extended into the water by dumping fill dirt are the worst--
| ground shaking is really bad and they are very prone to
| liquefaction.
|
| The difference between the arrival times (at any given point on
| earth) of the different phases of seismic waves is a function
| of the distance from the earthquake itself (the hypocenter) and
| the observation site. It is close to linear in Euclidian
| distance relatively near the earthquake hypocenter, but becomes
| more nonlinear farther from the earthquake, because the wave
| speeds are faster at depth (denser rock) so the travel paths of
| the wave fronts (the ray paths) are nonlinear. These
| differences in arrival times are one of the main ways of
| locating the hypocenter of an earthquake given observations
| from seismometers at multiple sites. It's essentially
| triangulation, except with time differences instead of angles--
| this is done through solving a system of equations.
|
| Additionally, S-waves can't pass through liquids, so there is
| the 'S-wave shadow zone' that occupies a large fraction of the
| side of the earth opposite an earthquake where there are no
| primary S-wave arrivals--S-waves are blocked by the liquid
| outer core. This is how we found out that the outer core is
| liquid!
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Early warning systems also work by detecting P and S waves as
| close to the epicenter as possible.
| neurostimulant wrote:
| Ground liquefaction is scary. Happened in Palu, Sulawesi a
| while ago. You can see houses moving as if they're on wheels:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_egBKj1W08
| mannykannot wrote:
| Three and a half hours later, a collective yawn from the west
| coast passed over the epicenter.
| usernamed7 wrote:
| I was laying in bed and thought I'd sleep a little bit more. the
| earthquake wasn't violent, but certainly noticeable. It was
| similar to someone walking on my roof, without the banging.
| melling wrote:
| I thought a tree fell on the house. It was loud. We
| occasionally get branches that make a bang on the roof.
|
| I'm about 15 miles from the epicenter.
| aragonite wrote:
| I distinctly remember the first time I created a Twitter account
| (& probably became aware of Twitter being a thing) was the day
| when a similar earthquake was felt in NYC back in 2011...
| ModernMech wrote:
| Yes! It was in the fall. The epicenter of that one was near
| Virginia though I think.
|
| Edit: Here it is. It was the end of August which I consider the
| Fall cause that's when the Fall semester starts for me ^^
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Virginia_earthquake
| gabeio wrote:
| I remember this earth quake! I missed it lol. I happened to
| be driving and we got out of the car to see a tv telling us
| how we got hit with an earth quake and my friend and I
| looking at one another like "what did we miss". This time I
| happened to be on the second floor of a small office
| building. I was about to run out of the building if it
| started to get worse I wasn't sure it wasn't the building
| having an issue.
| SamPatt wrote:
| I worked in northern Virginia at the time, fairly close to the
| epicenter.
|
| Our office building shook violently. A poor woman I worked with
| was quite panicked, dove under her desk... and admonished me
| afterward for staying calm?
| ajdude wrote:
| I felt it in Delaware!
| ModernMech wrote:
| This is the second quake I've felt in Pennsylvania. The first was
| in 2011. I was born here and lived here for my whole life except
| for 4 years when I lived in CA, where I didn't feel any
| earthquakes.
| jvolkman wrote:
| Yeah, since I moved to Seattle in 2011 there have been two
| largeish quakes in the northeast. I have yet to feel one in
| Seattle.
|
| Of course now I've jinxed myself.
| davidjhall wrote:
| In Connecticut - rattled the windows and shook books off the
| bookcase.
| sunshine_reggae wrote:
| The marketing team at Rumble.com is really innovating these days,
| getting people to switch over from Youtube.
| tomrod wrote:
| I hadn't heard of rumble yet. But after reviewing it, of course
| this exists...
| tombert wrote:
| I actually do use Rumble (there are some more controversial-
| but-also-left-leaning creators that got banned from YouTube
| that I like), but man the ads on there are insane.
|
| COVID conspiracy theories, vaccine "alternatives", political
| ads for obscure Republican candidates, stuff like that.
| Fortunately, at least for now there's not a lot of ads (I
| suspect that they can't find a lot of mainstream
| advertisers), so generally I only got to watch one of those
| ads before the video starts.
| sunshine_reggae wrote:
| I don't know - for example, here is a video of a couple of
| scientists who explain in detail how they have analyzed the
| vaccine contents and how authorities then have reacted to
| their complaints:
|
| https://rumble.com/v4n6hsn-analysis-on-covid-19-vaccines-
| per...
|
| Would you still call such content a conspiracy theory?
| nielsbot wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| The subtitles open with "so-called vaccine against
| COVID-19" and "with all this fraud that is which is being
| carried about by the WHO".
|
| These vaccines have been seriously studied for year and
| now billions of people have taken them. Safe enough, ok?
| tombert wrote:
| I made it clear that these were the ads, not the direct
| videos.
|
| That said, the COVID vaccines are safe and saying
| otherwise is kind of intellectually dishonest. Just
| because you can find one video where they "analyzed the
| vaccine contents" doesn't discount all the research and
| sampling data that has been taken.
|
| If you haven't gotten the COVID vaccine, you probably
| should.
| tomschlick wrote:
| Everyone should be able to appreciate a dad joke like this...
| even if it was a bit shaky.
| cozzyd wrote:
| It's hard to fault someone for slipping loose everyone once
| in a while
| luxuryballs wrote:
| way to go Frank https://ssgeos.org/
| radres wrote:
| well, potential regions do not include east coast US at all.
| jedberg wrote:
| For those of you who didn't grow up in earthquake country, some
| tips:
|
| DO NOT get into a doorway, that's a myth. It's not a terrible
| place to be if it's a doorless frame, but if there is a door,
| it's more likely you get injured from the door smacking you than
| the earthquake.
|
| DO get under a strong table. That's the safest place to be in a
| quake if it happens when you are indoors.
|
| If you're outside get as far away from trees and power lines as
| possible (and glass), but if the ground is shaking too hard to
| maintain balance, stay in place. Again, you're more likely to get
| injured falling down than from whatever may be nearby.
|
| If you're inside and not near a table, at the very least cover
| your head if possible and move away from bookcases and other tall
| or top heavy objects.
|
| Also, if you did feel it, please help the USGS study earthquakes
| by filling out a Did You Feel it survey:
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma74...
| duxup wrote:
| I suppose depending on the structure and the individual's
| inclination strong table might be a good call.
|
| But in my single family home situation it really doesn't take
| more than a few seconds and I can be out the door provided I'm
| not knocked off my feet entirely type situation.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Being out the door is usually riskier than being inside a
| wood-frame SFH. You're exposed to falling trees, branches,
| power lines, and roof debris, as well as unsecured cars or
| other loose items. Wood-framed 1-2 story SFHs almost never
| collapse in an earthquake; the wood can bend to absorb the
| shock, and there's a lot of redundancy in the studs, and not
| a whole lot of weight on floors above you.
| duxup wrote:
| I guess I'm fortunate / unfortunate that my outdoors ...
| doesn't have a lot of that.
|
| It might be interesting to somehow determine earthquake
| injuries / ability to get in or outdoors and measure the
| real risk from actual events.
| sensanaty wrote:
| You really shouldn't run out the door during and immediately
| after (as in, as soon as it seems to have stopped) large
| earthquakes. The building, structurally, will most likely be
| fine (unless it's a truly massive one in an area that doesn't
| get massive earthquakes normally), however the _facade_ and
| whatever else is on the outside of the building probably won
| 't be. Think roof shingles, billboards, windows, planter
| boxes, trees, powerlines, antennae...
|
| Plus you'd be surprised how hard it is to even stand straight
| during particularly strong quakes yet alone walk/run, there's
| no possible description I can give to explain adequately how
| strange it is to feel the ground underneath your feet shaking
| violently, _especially_ in buildings.
| nostrademons wrote:
| The standard advice now taught in California schools is "Duck,
| cover, hold." Basically everything that parent poster said, but
| in a pithy 3-word aphorism you're more likely to remember.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sure, but at some point, you have to be told what "duck,
| cover, hold" actually means. Your comment as the first
| comment someone hears is like a news article using acronyms
| throughout the article without ever expanding the acronym.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's the first thing we teach new arrivals to California
| along with "stop, drop, and toll" and what real Mexican
| food tastes like.
| alexb_ wrote:
| > "stop, drop, and toll"
|
| In California, even saving yourself from being on fire is
| taxed.
| coolspot wrote:
| Guys, calm down, it is actually an ok pun joke. "Toll",
| get it?
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's relatively self-explanatory. The full expansion would
| be " _Duck_ under a table or other rigid object. _Cover_
| your head. _Hold_ on. "
| Etheryte wrote:
| Yeah no, unless someone has previously told you what it
| means there's no way of guessing that, that's just
| wishful thinking.
| cbsks wrote:
| I bet you'll remember it now though :)
| brewdad wrote:
| It really isn't for anyone whose native language is
| American English. Unless you plan to quack, while singing
| a Mariah Carey song, and waiting to speak to customer
| service rep instead.
| rprospero wrote:
| Even more self-explanatory is " _Duck_ into the bathroom.
| _Cover_ the toilet seat with toilet paper. _Hold_ your
| bladder until you 're on the toilet."
|
| I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to be holding onto.
| Do I briefly cover my head with my arms, then stop
| covering my head to _hold_ onto the table? Do I _hold_
| onto my head while I cover it? Do I cover my loved one 's
| head and they cover mine, sharing our last moments in a
| loving _hold_?
|
| Now I'm beginning to wonder if I made a massive
| assumption that I would be covering my head with my
| hands. That's what I would do during a tornado, but maybe
| I'm supposed to be covering my head with a blanket so my
| hands are free for the _hold on_ part?
|
| Honestly, my facetious _hold_ my bladder advice seems
| more apropos than anything I 've managed to come up with
| for part three.
| Aloisius wrote:
| It's:
|
| _DROP_ or _DUCK_ down to your hands and knees
|
| Take _COVER_ protecting your head /neck with an arm and
| crawl under a sturdy table/desk possible or to a nearby
| interior wall away from potential falling objects
|
| _HOLD ON_ to your shelter if you have it or head /neck
| with both hands if you don't
|
| It's not as obvious as stop, drop and roll which is why
| drills are a thing in schools.
|
| It's also not terribly far from duck and cover drills for
| nukes or tornadoes as I understand it. The hold on bit
| was added to keep people from tripping and breaking a leg
| while running around while the ground is shaking.
| jjulius wrote:
| What a strange comment - I strongly doubt that schools are
| teaching that phrase without simultaneously expanding on
| what the phrase means. Introduce the phrase, explain it at
| the deeper level, then move forward with using the phrase
| once the students have been taught its deeper meaning. Why
| flippantly assume that that's not being done?
|
| I grew up on the west coast and that's exactly how it was
| taught to us in public schools.
| gorlilla wrote:
| Midwest and we have a similar process for tornadoes.. and
| nuclear bombs.
| whartung wrote:
| Another hot tip.
|
| The weak ones don't prepare you for the strong ones.
|
| I've been rocking and rolling in So Cal for decades. I've
| felt most of the major quakes that have made the news. I've
| seen stuff fall from my walls, transformers short out and
| explode. Felt rollers, thumpers, shakers.
|
| We've had four of note at my house this year alone so far.
| One of them felt like it picked the house up and dropped it
| several inches.
|
| Each time, they were never severe enough to get me to dive
| for anything. It's just like that dinner scene in LA Story,
| where they just grab their glasses and carry on.
|
| Then, you see videos of "real quakes". Stuff out of movies.
| File cabinets sliding across the floor. Bookcases falling.
| Heavy things tossed like they weigh nothing, not to mention
| the larger damage.
|
| Having been through my series of quakes, I can see they're
| nothing like a major one. But, right now, my gumption when
| one shows up is wait and see. Perhaps not the best habit. But
| when you're in bed at night, and a small roller hits and it
| feels like you just dropped a quarter in the slot to turn
| your bed on, hard to get motivated to get up and out and duck
| and cover.
|
| Better just to roll over, say "it's ok honey" to my wife, and
| go back to sleep.
| aerojoe23 wrote:
| You forgot the advice of "don't run outside from a building."
| In the US, most buildings are going to be fine structurally;
| however, the facade of the building or glass, etc., may fall
| off.
|
| In other parts of the world, it'll depend on the local building
| codes and their enforcement.
| rob74 wrote:
| The scaffolding-covered sidewalks in front of many buildings
| in NYC are a good reminder of that actually. I wouldn't trust
| the scaffolding to protect me if major parts of a building
| were to fall off in an earthquake however...
| MisterTea wrote:
| Holy shit what a ride!
|
| Sitting at home in my office in Ozone Park NYC and I hear what I
| think is a low flying plane coming in to JFK. Happens when
| weather is bad and they come in lower they can rattle my windows.
| But the intensity grew suddenly and my entire house was shaking
| and everything was rattling.
|
| At first I froze for a few seconds as I could not make sense of
| what I was experiencing - but it was clear this was not normal so
| I ran like hell downstairs and outside. While running I was
| trying to make sense of the shaking: did a truck or plane crash?
| no not this long - maybe the elevated A train up the block is
| collapsing? An explosion? some kind of cataclysm? WTF is
| happening! But after I reached the side door and the house was
| still shaking I realized this is an earthquake. Earthquake was
| not the first thing on my mind for sure as I have lived in NYC
| all my life and never felt anything like this.
|
| Fucking nuts
| noman-land wrote:
| Thanks for the exciting first person account.
| swozey wrote:
| I've never been in an earthquake it's got to be such a strange
| thing to experience the first time.
|
| Hearing tornado sirens for the first time was wild, especially
| as a Silent Hill fan.
|
| On the other hand my friend moved to Brooklyn from Haiti after
| their terrible quake so he's in a mood right now.
| pixl97 wrote:
| A number of decades ago I took a trip out to California for
| the first time and we had reached our friends house pretty
| late. After driving for 12+ hours straight I passed out on
| the floor.
|
| In the middle of the night I was awoken by what I thought was
| a large truck out front, like a garbage truck or something.
| But it kept getting closer and more intense and everything
| started shuffling around in the house with a shik-shik-shik-
| shik noise and the blinds started rapping off each side of
| the window sill. When you experience something new like this
| where your brain kind of spins around in circles not knowing
| what to do, then it came back with the answer of Earthquake!
| which I involuntarily yelled out loud. My next thought was
| "Is this going to get worse, and what do I do if it does". I
| was in a new place that I had barely even looked at before
| falling asleep. Thankfully it subsided after 20 seconds or so
| without any major incident. Was hard to fall back to sleep
| that night.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| My only earthquake experience was also in NYC. In the 80's I
| was awakened by what can only be described as feeling as if
| someone had picked up the entire apartment building a couple
| inches and dropped it. Sudden and severe and over in a second
| or two.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| Early morning on a weekday in 1985?
|
| Yeah, I slept through that.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| My only earthquake experience was also in NYC. In the 80's I
| was awakened by what can only be described as feeling as if
| someone had picked up the entire apartment building a couple
| inches and dropped it. Sudden and severe and over in a second
| or two.
| chasd00 wrote:
| when all the fracking quakes were happening a while back i
| felt one in Dallas. I was sitting outside at a coffeshop
| working. It felt like a big truck drove by but when i looked
| up there was no traffic at all. very strange sensation.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > At first I froze for a few seconds as I could not make sense
| of what I was experiencing
|
| i hate that feeling, a few weeks ago i was walking my dogs and
| surprised by a pitbill and some other mix that immediately
| attacked my two small dogs. It took like 5-10 seconds for me to
| even figure out what was happening and what to do about it.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Unless familiar with such situations you can't react to them
| - especially when it's a total surprise with violence or a
| threatening situation (like your house shaking). Next time we
| should be able to react faster because of these experiences.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I got alert after 10 mins of earthquake .....:(
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| Yeah I found that pretty strange. I felt the earthquake, and
| searched Google for "earthquake nyc" results in the last hour -
| found nothing.
|
| 10 or 20 minutes later my phone starts buzzing informing me
| that there had been an earthquake. Seems rather pointless.
| devb wrote:
| I think the alert is to try to get people to stop calling the
| police to ask/inform them about what they felt.
| dzdt wrote:
| Phone alert came here 1hr40min after the quake. [shrug] yes
| pretty useless
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Yep - felt it here in northern NJ, as did friends in NY and CT.
|
| Working from home - all windows rattling/etc - first thought
| something was happening inside house, then looked outside
| expecting something massive driving by perhaps!
|
| Kids at high school did classroom emergency shelter-in-place.
| poidos wrote:
| TIL that part of the world is seismically active. No idea why I
| thought it wasn't. Funny gap in knowledge there! Hope folks are
| ok.
| scrumper wrote:
| Felt that very strongly in southern Westchester county NY. Not
| like the 2011 earthquake I felt in NYC, which was kind of slow
| and made the building I was in sway violently; this was more like
| the vibrations from a huge truck passing nearby, but more
| intense. Loud and very unpleasant, about 15 seconds duration. Did
| not like that at all, am now inspecting all our services like gas
| and water for disruption, checking for cracks and so on.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| There actually was a large truck coming down my block in
| Brooklyn at the same time it started and it took me a second to
| realize that no, it actually was an earthquake.
|
| And I definitely agree, the 2011 one was more of a sway, this
| felt like a rumble.
| hateful wrote:
| I'm on Long Island and there was a train passing at the same
| time.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| As a native Californian this provokes a bit of a chuckle. Try a
| six plus sometime!
|
| But seriously, I hope everything is fine.
| __loam wrote:
| Buildings a quite a bit older on the east coast and building
| codes are obviously more lax so we should probably have some
| empathy here haha.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Plus the main aqua duct that supplies several million
| people is old and fragile. A simple earthquake could
| possibly turn into a Flint, Michigan level disaster.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| The geology of the east coast makes earthquakes about ten
| times more intense (according to usgs) so this is similar to
| a west coast high five.
| wilg wrote:
| What does "intense" mean?
| nashashmi wrote:
| The shockwaves travel further. The 2011 earthquake was in
| Virginia and everyone felt it on the eastern seaboard. It
| was only 2.4 M too. Still.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| As an easterner who lived in California for many years, the
| breathless news coverage of a tiny thunderstorm in CA which
| had a bit of lightning provoked a bit of a chuckle. The
| report was accompanied with statistics about how rarely
| lightning injured people and there was no real cause for
| concern.
| cocochanel wrote:
| it's a 4.8 lol
| chrinic74929 wrote:
| > it's a 4.8 lol
|
| Equivalent in lateral motion/shakiness to a California 6.0
| due to the shallow depth of the 4.8
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Lol, now you are making stuff up.
|
| Most local magnitude scales are
|
| >>> determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves
| recorded by seismographs. Adjustments are included to
| compensate for the variation in the distance between the
| various seismographs and the epicenter of the
| earthquake[1].
|
| So unless people in the East have seismographs located
| farther underground with scientists staffing them really
| deep underground -for reasons beyond me- "Shallow depth" is
| irrelevant.
|
| Also, there's no such thing as a "feels like X magnitude"
| earthquake [2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_scale
|
| [2] https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/22348/
| what-...
| jpalawaga wrote:
| From your stack overflow link:
|
| >"Feels like" is measured on seismic intensity scales
| such as the Mercalli scale. These measure the peak
| acceleration or velocity at a given point, or the damage
| done by the earthquake. Intensity is influenced by many
| things, such as the depth of the earthquake, the distance
| to the ruptured section of the fault, and the local
| surface material.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Mercalli_intensity
| _sc...
|
| NYC has had 5.x earthquakes that have caused e.g.
| chimneys to collapse, something unheard of in california.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| The Mercalli scale you cite is defined in roman numerals.
|
| The parent posted decimals.
|
| As you said, they are not the same thing.
| jpalawaga wrote:
| Are you intentionally being pedantic? The point doesn't
| have anything to do with whether decimals are used or if
| conversions are direct. The point is that a 4.8
| earthquake can feel different given numerous factors. The
| Mercalli scale attempts to capture the surface-level
| disruption, rather than the inherent force at the site of
| the quake as the Richter scale does.
|
| Depth IS relevant to how an earthquake feels (as opposed
| to your assertion it isn't)--even the usgs publishes
| depth information. If you go back to the stack overflow
| link you posted, you can clearly see that a lower
| magnitude earthquake can be much more damaging.
|
| The point is, richter measurement doesn't tell the whole
| story, and yes, you could say that a 4.8 would feel like
| a 6.0, even if we don't have a good way beyond the
| mercalli scale of discussing that. That's because the
| original output energy is only partially relevant to how
| someone experiences a seismic event.
|
| tl;dr: your pedantic assertion that there's no conversion
| between the two is correct. your assertion that depth
| doesn't matter for feeling quakes is incorrect.
| adolph wrote:
| Yes, the Roman geologists did not use decimals but
| fractions. "S**** or S[?] | Dextans, dextantis or decunx,
| decuncis" would be the equivalent of .8 since they used
| "a duodecimal rather than a decimal system for
| fractions."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals
| reddit_clone wrote:
| >earthquake I felt in NYC
|
| I am getting anxious just thinking about this. With all those
| sky scrappers..
| zaptrem wrote:
| They thought of this!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuned_mass_damper
| q1w2 wrote:
| Sky scrappers are the safest buildings to be in during an
| Earthquake. The most dangerous are the oldest much smaller
| masonry multilevel buildings.
| cpersona wrote:
| I was explaining the same to my wife. I think the last one was
| in D.C. and it felt the room was spinning slightly. Today was
| quite a different experience and truly scary for a moment as it
| started to ramp up and seemed like it wouldn't stop getting
| more intense.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I felt that (I live on Long Island).
|
| I thought it was construction vehicles. We've had a lot of heavy
| construction around here.
|
| What made it clear it was different, was my cat didn't like it,
| and he ignores the construction.
| floxy wrote:
| Speaking of cats and earthquakes, I just watched:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ-p9qOhBv4
|
| ...again. This is a Cat Cafe in Japan, and you can clearly see
| the cats get alerted to something ~10 seconds before the
| shaking starts. Do we have an idea of what they are reacting
| to?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Huh. You do hear about animals reacting before earthquakes.
| My cat did alert before the quake, but didn't really scoot,
| until the shaking started.
|
| He was sitting on my lap, at the time. I'm glad he didn't
| extend his claws.
|
| I suspect some kind of subsonics that come before the shaking
| really gets going. It can take a bit of time to get a rhythm
| going, so the earthquake may actually be under way for a bit,
| before we really feel it.
| devb wrote:
| They are feeling the p-wave, which arrives just before the
| s-wave that you feel as shaking:
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-
| institution/ask-s...
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| Live 25 miles South West of epicenter.
|
| It went on for I guess 30 seconds or so. Everyone in the house
| completely confused as we had never been in a quake before. Very
| low level vibrations, very very loud sound. Very foreign to New
| Jersey folks!
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| In NYC. This was much stronger than in terms of local shaking
| than the others of the last 25 years. Living on the 4th floor of
| a 90+ year old building. My fridge was trying to walk across the
| floor.
| eggy wrote:
| Were you always on the 4th floor for the others?
|
| You would feel it more the higher up you are as the building
| resonates.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| The last larger one in, iirc, 2011 I was. Same apt.
| Definitely stronger.
| ylee wrote:
| My father is a very light sleeper. During my childhood in NYC,
| more than once an earthquake woke him up.
| markbnj wrote:
| We're almost exactly 10 miles north of the epicenter near
| Oldwick, NJ. We experienced several sharp jolts that sent some
| items tumbling off shelves and shook my ember full of coffee off
| its charging coaster (or I spilled it in reacting to the jolt,
| idk really), followed by a gentle shaking that lasted 30 seconds
| or more. This is the first one I can recall feeling since we
| moved here in 1995.
| geophile wrote:
| Lots of "was that an earthquake"? discussion in r/somerville (MA)
| jmspring wrote:
| Earthquakes are apparently rare on the East coast. We had a
| 4.8/4.9 here near the census designated place of Belden in Plumas
| County CA yesterday evening. Others farther away felt it. I
| didn't. Cats didn't react either. Unless it's a sharp quake, or
| in the mid 5s, I mostly don't notice them.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| I legit slept through this?? Had to take an ambien last night
| because of my insomnia. Who knew insomnia could potentially be
| fatal?
| tombert wrote:
| Felt this all the way in Brooklyn. My wife and I thought it was
| just some heavy sustained road construction nearby; it was a bit
| shakier than usual for that, but the last thing we thought it was
| was an actual earthquake.
|
| Fortunately, at least in our area, there doesn't appear to be any
| kind of damage.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| I'm near epicenter, felt the foreshock a few weeks ago too:
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000mix0...
| whycome wrote:
| What if this is just another foreshock?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Considering the aftershocks are way less intense, probably
| not. I've felt 2 now, last one was just a few minutes ago,
| parents confirmed (they are about same distance from
| epicenter but I'm northwest, they are southeast of it)
|
| EDIT: waiting for usgs to update with latest but here's all
| the ones associated with event https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ea
| rthquakes/map/?currentFeatureI...
| neogodless wrote:
| Curious about the 4.7 vs 4.8. Official source here says 4.8 but
| title says 4.7.
|
| APNews did something similar showing 4.8 in the headline but 4.7
| in the text.
|
| Coincidentally the depth is 4.7 km. Wonder if there's just a
| transpose error and a lot of copy/paste.
| jedberg wrote:
| Earthquake magnitude usually changes a bunch in the first hour
| or two as new data comes in.
|
| For example some of the data comes from stations on the other
| side of the planet, and it takes a while for the wave to
| propagate that far.
| neogodless wrote:
| That's one possible explanation, though I've been on usgs.gov
| a lot from the first I heard of this, and I've only ever seen
| 4.8 on it. Odd, also that the OP sharing this shared a link
| to 4.8 but put 4.7 in the title. But the text on that page
| might trick your eye, between "M 4.8 - 7 km N" and "Magnitude
| 4.8 mwr Depth 4.7 km".
| asveikau wrote:
| Those of us in California are used to this. We feel the
| shake and look it up, and see one number. News articles get
| written with one of those numbers. After a while it
| changes, possibly a few times, to some number close to the
| initial report.
| ccurrens wrote:
| I've been watching USGS since I felt it. It was originally 4.8,
| then it was 4.7 for a little bit, and they brought it back up
| to 4.8.
| neogodless wrote:
| That helps. I must've just missed it when it said 4.7. Most
| articles just state 4.7 (or 4.8) though a few are now saying
| "preliminary magnitude of 4.7." By the time I saw it, it said
| M 4.8 mwr with uncertainty +- 0.0.
|
| Also interesting is the list of two "catalogs" with mostly
| similar data but very different depth reports: https://earthq
| uake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma74...
| trashface wrote:
| Felt it in western philly suburbs near valley forge. My roof was
| shaking but it was weird, thought it was a helicopter overhead.
| Didn't even realize it was a quake. Over in seconds.
| MarCylinder wrote:
| That was fun. My folks place is essentially a 5 minute drive from
| the epicenter. I'm about an hours drive. Our experience was
| pretty similar.
|
| Looks like reported depth was 5km, making this a very shallow
| earthquake
| recck wrote:
| Felt it in Southwest CT for a solid 15-20 seconds. Definitely
| thought it was a very large truck going by, but also felt like
| our solar panels were falling off the roof.
| busyant wrote:
| Didn't feel it at all in central CT. My brother in northern NJ
| said he was briefly evacuated from his building.
| bitwize wrote:
| I once experienced an earthquake in Connecticut.
|
| The weird thing was, just before it happened I heard/felt a very
| peculiar thrumming in my ear, like the air was exerting vibrating
| pressure.
|
| They say that animals can detect earthquakes before they happen.
| I think I might have an idea as to how.
| benraz123 wrote:
| Felt a slight shake. House was unaffected however.
| cushychicken wrote:
| Felt it and I'm in MA. Boston area.
| jcims wrote:
| Just saw this a few days ago:
|
| https://stationview.raspberryshake.org/
|
| Not a ton of coverage in the area but it was picked up.
| megous wrote:
| 40 such earthquakes happen daily in the world. So?
| bee_rider wrote:
| We don't get this kind of stuff in the Northeast and it is a
| relatively population-dense area of the US. Also it is sort of
| the news center of the country.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Earthquakes are not evenly distributed, and quite rare in New
| England.
| thakobyan wrote:
| I was in jersey city and our building literally shaked. It was
| very scary to say the least.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| I felt that one too in upstate NY, more of a rumbling that
| anything more violent. Doesn't even come close to the one I
| experienced in Peru one time, where everything felt like a ship
| on rough seas... never want to live through that kind of quake
| again!
| hhshhhhjjjd wrote:
| I prefer living through an earthquake than not!
| exegete wrote:
| M 2.0 aftershock?
|
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma7c...
| always-open wrote:
| Several aftershocks apparently:
|
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=40.4809,...
| flakes wrote:
| Both me and my girlfriend were working from home today. Randomly
| our dog started crying and a few seconds later we felt the quake.
| Was pretty wild. Lots of rattling of furniture and plates in the
| cabinets. I guess my dog must have noticed the more subtle
| rumbles beforehand.
| habibur wrote:
| 5 km depth. That's of concern. Will shake a small region more
| violently than what a normal mag 4+ quake would have.
| bertil wrote:
| Is that deeper or shallower than usual?
| habibur wrote:
| Shallower than usual. Very shallow quakes happen at 10 km to
| 20 km depth. This one is at 5 km.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If any west-coasters are confused as to how this is news: the
| Northeast is sort of geologically unusual for the US in that we
| have almost no surprising, sudden weather thingies.
|
| No tornados, mild thunderstorm, occasional hurricanes (but they
| are usually weakened a bit compared to, like, Florida by the time
| they get up here and they've spent a long time going up the coast
| so they tend to be well tracked by forecasters), some flooding
| but not much, and no earthquakes. Our bad weather events are
| usually blizzards, which you can see coming and which take a
| while to accumulate.
|
| We're right in the middle of the North American plate and the
| area is covered in gentle old hills and mountains.
|
| So, we're all just not used to the planet surprising us!
| tzakrajs wrote:
| What is a Nor'easter?
| renegade-otter wrote:
| A lot of cold water and maybe snow.
| vlan0 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_1992_nor%27easter
| hijinks wrote:
| its a lot of warm moisture that comes up the coast from the
| southeast and slams into cold air from canada and can drop a
| lot of snow/wind. It can cause bad storms in the ocean and
| high seas.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > What is a Nor'easter?
|
| Literally: a cold hurricane.
|
| Some people misuse the term to mean "a blizzard affecting New
| England and/or the Northeast", but it actually specifically
| refers to a storm that's been pushed inland by sea winds
| coming from the northeast, off the Atlantic Ocean. That
| specific pattern results in a particularly cold and brutal
| storm.
|
| Nor'easters are technically cyclones, just like hurricanes,
| and the two are very similar in many regards. The difference
| is that a Nor'easter forms further north, in cold water, and
| it is actually strengthened by cold air, whereas hurricanes
| form further south and are diminished in strength as they
| cool off.
|
| https://scijinks.gov/noreaster/
| baq wrote:
| Weather nerds will get very confused by 'a cold hurricane'
| since hurricanes are tropical cyclones and tropical
| cyclones have a warm core by definition.
|
| ...but they'll be fine with a 'a big cold cyclone' I guess
| ;)
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Weather nerds will get very confused by 'a cold
| hurricane' since hurricanes are tropical cyclones and
| tropical cyclones have a warm core by definition.
|
| Well, it's literally true: a hurricane is a tropical
| cyclone, and a nor'easter is an extratropical cyclone. A
| nor'easter is literally the "cold" counterpart of a
| hurricane!
| foobarian wrote:
| So like, the Nor'easter is a cryo-cyclone and the regular
| hurricanes are pyro-cyclones!
| streblo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nor'easter
| bee_rider wrote:
| It's just a hurricane in the winter, no biggie. We would
| enjoy the snow and check out the surf (from a safe distance).
| I think you aren't officially supposed to suggest the latter
| though.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I mean, it really isn't a huge deal, but the nor'easter
| that just came across us here in southern maine left about
| 350k people without power in a state of 1.6 million people.
|
| That's not nothing.
| low_common wrote:
| I throw on a dry suit and go surfing. It's awesome.
| cmollis wrote:
| we've had tornadoes in NJ..
| saalweachter wrote:
| The East Coast gets microtornadoes that deshingle roofs or
| tip trees over.
|
| The Midwest gets MS Paint eraser tool tornadoes.
| jrockway wrote:
| The East Coast gets EF3 and EF4 tornadoes.
| itishappy wrote:
| We get about one a decade in upstate NY.
| mtreis86 wrote:
| We're also on a shelf of hard rock, so a quake in NJ is felt by
| all of New England. Keys on the wall were shaking here 100mi
| away.
| mvgoogler wrote:
| I felt it in Boston, albeit very faintly
| chimeracoder wrote:
| Also, earthquakes on the east coast travel further, and are
| more likely to damage structures than earthquakes of the same
| magnitude on the west coast[0]. That's due to underlying
| geological differences.
|
| The magnitude is one immediately-available measure of the
| strength of an earthquake, but it's not the only measurement
| that's relevant to determining the size or impact of an
| earthquake. Depth, duration, location - there are many other
| measurable (and also immeasurable) factors which parameterize a
| seismic event.
|
| [0] https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/east-vs-west-
| coast-...
| manojlds wrote:
| I am very confused with you classifying earthquakes under
| "weather thingies"
| aaronharnly wrote:
| Natural disaster thingies
| bee_rider wrote:
| We can have natural disasters they just have to schedule
| beforehand.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The thought process was: I know earthquakes aren't really
| weather, so I'll tack on "thingies" to make it clear that I'm
| making up some new more generalized term.
|
| The point was to group _all_ the... I dunno, whatever,
| surprising attacks by the planet into one thing. I can't
| think of a real term for this, I think there might not be
| one, I guess I could call it something like "weather or
| geological surprises" but that's just dull.
| mikeocool wrote:
| Sim City "Disaster" menu items
| graypegg wrote:
| A taxonomy my monkey brain can actually understand.
| tomxor wrote:
| The SC2K siren sfx file just played itself in my head.
| triceratops wrote:
| Natural disasters
| atonse wrote:
| Acts of God as the insurance industry calls them!
| lucky_cloud wrote:
| It just illustrates how people in the NE think about natural
| disasters. Basically any big natural event is weather-
| related.
|
| When the 2011 Virginia quake happened, I was somewhere in the
| Boston area sitting in my parked car, and at first I thought
| it was a strong wind rocking my car side-to-side. It took a
| few seconds for me to realize the shaking wasn't a "weather
| thing"
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Natural phenomena, extending beyond what's strictly _weather_
| , often get lumped into "meteorology", including earthquakes,
| tsunamis, and volcanoes. One fairly well-known case is the
| Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), whose remit includes not
| just weather by hydrology, seismology, and volcanology.
|
| Generally: concerns of an extra-human, non-biological origin.
| E.g., JMA doesn't address pandemics.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency>
| spdgg wrote:
| Eh, there are plenty of areas of the northeast that are
| affected much differently by these events than where you are.
| For example, Vermont has had multiple catastrophic floods in
| memory, including last summer and Hurricane Irene. Mountainous
| and coastal areas magnify these systems, the lowlands and
| developed megalopolis region may be truer to your claims.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Yeah, our reaction to this here is reminding me of what happens
| when Oregon or Atlanta gets an inch of snow. An earthquake
| (that is felt) is just not something that we experience often.
|
| I remember when Atlanta got 2" and people were literally
| abandoning their cars on highways [1], whereas in the northeast
| people are out driving in blizzards.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2014/01/30/268720258...
| lxgr wrote:
| NYC seems to have been taken quite by surprise by a storm last
| September.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I grew up in New England, but have lived in California for 30
| years. _A 4.7 is waaay larger than anything I 've personally
| felt here!_
|
| Plus the Northeast is just not made for quakes. The 200 year
| old house I grew up in would probably have creaked pretty
| alarmingly.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| House I'm renovating here in the northeast had the concrete
| in the basement poured yesterday... Going to head over there
| to see if any weirdness occurred
| secondcoming wrote:
| Good way of removing any trapped air!
| xattt wrote:
| This one weird trick seismologists don't want you to know
| about!
| carabiner wrote:
| You think the west coast has tornados and hurricanes? West
| coast by the _pacific_ ocean has even milder weather than the
| east.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from the post.
| There was no suggestion of tornadoes on the West Coast. It
| was a discussion of relatively isolated meteorological
| phenomena in the northeast corridor.
| dylan604 wrote:
| While not part of Tornado Alley, the west coast does get
| tornadoes. There was at least one when I lived there, and I
| think I heard about another within the past year (maybe
| two). The one when I lived there actually started as a
| waterspout and came across the beach near Santa Monica to
| be reclassified as a tornado.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I'm not sure how this thread got off on this tangent but
| I don't think there was ever any attempt to comment on
| whether there are or are not tornadoes on the west coast.
| The discussion was the lack of extreme events typical of
| the northeast.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's more about the details left out really. I lived in
| LA area for ~5 years, and 1 tornado. In one Tornado Alley
| storm system, you can get multiple twisters. There's of
| course more than one storm system per season. It's also
| just weird knowing that for a tornado to hit places like
| Santa Monica and the knowledge that tornadoes usually
| travel southwest to northeast, and that there is no more
| land west of Santa Monica, that they are going to form as
| waterspouts. That's just unusual for typical experience
| for Tornado Alley folks.
|
| Just another example of how one person's typical
| experience with storms can still be unusual when
| experience some place else.
|
| Sure, my original comment was very ambiguous about what
| I've just posted, but that's how the tangent worked in my
| mind.
| thekevan wrote:
| >mild thunderstorm
|
| What!?! We have some doozies here in the summer. (Finger Lakes
| region of NY.)
| bee_rider wrote:
| We had some allright thunderstorms in MA, but I lived briefly
| in the Midwest and--they have these thunderstorms that are
| still scary even when you are inside. It is bizarre.
| eej71 wrote:
| Agreed! Grew up in Illinois. Live in CT now. Miss those
| summer thunderstorms in the midwest.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i live in dallas, about 10 years ago there was a small
| tornado skipping up and down about 3 miles north of me
| (they typically move SW to NE). I got in the car to "chase"
| it and made it to the end of my street. It was so ominous
| looking I turned around and went back home.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > It was so ominous looking I turned around and went back
| home.
|
| We have a word for that...smart.
| green-salt wrote:
| I think the term you may be seeking is 'seismic event'
| filoleg wrote:
| I cannot speak for California, but in PNW there is even less
| "surprising, sudden weather thingies."
|
| Rain is not pouring, unlike on east coast (speaking from my
| expeirences in both NYC and Atlanta), it is just drizzling at a
| very low rate. It doesnt thunderstorm. I've heard thunder iirc
| only 2-3 times in my 7 years living there. No tornados or
| tsunamis. No massive blizzards out of nowhere. I felt this
| earthquake in NYC today myself, and I remember having a
| similarly strong eathquake in Seattle only a couple of times.
|
| I have no idea where this "west coast and its sudden weather
| thingies" take comes from (again, I cannot speak for
| California), but it runs counter to everything I've personally
| experienced.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I thought California had a lot of Earthquakes.
|
| Oregon is full of volcanoes and about to slip off the
| continental shelf, right? But I guess those surprises just
| exists in potential form.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I have lived in California for something like 33 of my 36
| years. I have actually felt a grand total of 3 earthquakes
| in my entire life. Even out here, quakes big enough to
| shift the wall decorations across a large portion of the
| state are vanishingly rare.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Uh... This is incorrect, and probably largely dependent
| on where exactly you live. Just go look at an earthquake
| swarm map of CA. Near the fault in Los Angeles have been
| dozens if not more of small/midsized/large quakes that
| could produce the effects you're talking about. I had one
| in my office just the other week that freaked everyone
| out.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _in PNW there is even less "surprising, sudden weather
| thingies."_
|
| I'd put the constant wildfires in the weather thing bucket.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| > almost no surprising, sudden weather thingies
|
| I had never been anywhere near a hurricane in my life before I
| moved to NYC. I thought that was just something you worried
| about in the Caribbean or occasionally Florida.
| hackernj wrote:
| We do get tornados in NJ. About 3 per year.
| bickeringyokel wrote:
| Reading this on the toilet now wondering what my priorities would
| be if there was a quake in the next couple minutes.
| fictorial wrote:
| Finishing up!
| bertil wrote:
| That one is easy: You won't shock anyone if you show up at the
| hospital with dirty underwear. You don't want a trauma surgeon
| to say that they have to page the neuro-chir. Get under a
| doorframe, and put your pants up when your head is safe.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| I can honestly say it happened to me. It's a very strange
| experience- lasted about 40 seconds. I'm about 300km from where
| the epicenter was. The main thing i worried about was the
| building collapsing, and my state of dress and 'activity' would
| become the stuff of memes and "did you hear about....?"
| stories.
| nickjj wrote:
| I felt it on Long Island over 100 miles away. I had headphones on
| and thought a really heavy truck was shaking the ground. It was
| enough to make my desk and monitors shake but nothing too crazy.
| fullstop wrote:
| I live about 20 miles from the epicenter and my neighbors said
| that their mirrors were shaking and monitors were wobbling. I
| felt nothing, at all, and my cats didn't move an inch.
|
| I'm pretty observant with that sort of thing, so I'm a bit
| surprised.
|
| Is it even possible for someone a few houses away to experience
| drastically different seismic activity?
|
| Edit: I was on the ground floor, which is likely why I did not
| feel it.
| nickjj wrote:
| If my eyes were closed I wouldn't have been able to tell the
| difference between it and a washing machine running on a
| floor below you. I really only noticed it because my monitors
| were wobbling a decent amount.
|
| > Is it even possible for someone a few houses away to
| experience drastically different seismic activity?
|
| I'm not sure but there's probably variables around how sturdy
| things are (the foundation, floor, walls, desk, monitors,
| etc.). If I tap the side of my desk with the force of a golf
| clap the monitor wobble factor it about equal to the
| earthquake. I know in the US it's funny to measure things
| with weird units but that's the best I can do to associate
| the amount of force.
| fullstop wrote:
| I was at a desk which also has a bunch of my wife's art
| supplies on it. That stuff definitely would have moved.
| renegade-otter wrote:
| I ran out because I thought the boiler was going to go kaboom.
| bloopernova wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/05/earthquake-v...
|
| Thankfully the surgeon wasn't "scalpel deep" during the quake!
| nobody9999 wrote:
| I'm in Manhattan (UWS) and live on the fourth floor of a five
| story walk-up. I felt the quake, but didn't realize that's what
| it was (I was a little confused as to why my building was
| vibrating -- for 40 seconds or so, as big trucks can do that but
| not for _that_ long) until I received an emergency alert on my
| phone ~45 minutes later.
|
| Nothing broken or dislodged, just wondering why my building was
| vibrating fairly gently.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| So since I live near epicenter, there's one thing that changed
| geographically very recently. Nearby round valley reservoir was
| being worked on for years, last fall they got the authorization
| to pump it back to full and it was told it might take years.
| Rainy asf winter though so it's pumped back almost full from
| already 66% to 92% now. I'm wondering if billions of gallons of
| water getting added nearby affected pressure on the fault. Here's
| today's operations data (we just had 3.5in of rain past couple
| days too):
| https://www.njwsa.org/uploads/1/0/8/0/108064771/data.pdf
|
| EDIT: just had another aftershock right after posting this. Felt
| the 2.0 a couple hours ago too
|
| EDIT2: yup usgs finally added it
| https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma95...
| cossatot wrote:
| It's possible. Seismicity has been associated with
| reservoirs[1] (the most well known is probably an earthquake in
| Egypt following the construction of the Aswan High Dam) and
| even rainfall[2]. There are both potential triggers from the
| increase in the stress on the fault, as you state, due to the
| weight of the water; and (probably more important) the increase
| in pore fluid pressure along the fault.
|
| It's a bit complicated, because the increase in stress on the
| fault from the weight of the reservoir can actually be
| primarily an increase in _normal_ stress, i.e. an increase in
| the clamping force preventing the fault from slipping (i.e. the
| crust on either side of the fault sliding, i.e. the
| earthquake), so the weight of the reservoir can actually
| impede, rather than promote, seismicity. However if the
| geometry of the system is just right such that the increase in
| shear stress from the weight of the reservoir can increase on
| the fault, then the reservoir could really trigger the
| earthquake. Typically, though, the increase in pore fluid
| pressure is the most likely trigger as it 's not geometry
| dependent--pumping a fracture with fluids will always promote
| failure. This is what happens with the seismicity associated
| with natural gas fracking and subsequent wastewater fluid
| injection.
|
| The thing that is hard to grapple with all of this is that
| changes in stress and fluid pressure on the fault are really,
| really small compared with the ambient stress and fluid
| pressure. These are tiny changes, but there is good reason to
| believe that many faults, especially those in seismically
| active areas, are very close to frictional failure (i.e.,
| slipping and producing an earthquake) all the time. So
| therefore little things can perturb the system. However, it's
| worth keeping in mind that most of these small changes slightly
| increase or decrease the time to failure (as the primary
| loading that is causing the stress on the fault is probably
| continually happening at very low rates), rather than being the
| ultimate cause of the earthquake.
|
| [1]:
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=dam...
|
| [2]:
| https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200...
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Good shit, this is the kind of answer I hoped for posting on
| HN. I don't know too much about earthquake seismology, but I
| am curious and know where to pull random data.
|
| So I thought, if the ground is moving the aquifer levels
| might change (no clue whether they would go up or down). I
| just pulled the ground water levels for Readington Township's
| well (in which whitehouse station is a place). Sure enough
| can clearly see when the earthquake hit:
| https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-
| location/4035170744525...
|
| So is this expected? Is this a thing that normally happens
| with earthquakes?
|
| EDIT: Japan paper was cool https://sci-
| hub.ru/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...
| apparently they measure increased seismicity at times of high
| inflow. Also just had a big aftershock approx 22:00UTC.
| sounded like a bomb (I am in whitehouse station now)
| q1w2 wrote:
| Does anyone know if there's a real-time feed of Earthquakes
| somewhere? The USGS website doesn't post the Earthquakes until
| 10-15 minutes after it's over - which nullifies any type of
| automated warning for our data centers.
| puzzledobserver wrote:
| Curious: Why might data centers need earthquake warnings, and
| how might they prepare if given a few minutes or seconds of
| heads up?
| dietrichepp wrote:
| I can think of some ideas: parking the heads on hard drives
| is one.
|
| Magnetic hard drives are sensitive to vibration. You can
| _shout_ at hard drives and measure the effects (video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4).
|
| One of the worst-case scenarios is a head crash. A head
| crash will damage the media and may result in data loss.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_crash
|
| My guess is that earthquakes powerful enough to cause a
| head crash are powerful enough for widespread destruction
| anyway, but I'm no expert. I did some quick searches for
| hard drives damaged by earthquake, and the only results I
| got were scenarios where the hard drives or the whole rack
| got knocked over by the earthquake and hit the floor.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Some other thoughts:
|
| - Personnel-level warning to immediately rerack servers,
| close racks, and get off ladders and away from fall
| hazards
|
| - Proactively spin up generators to reduce failover in
| the more-likely event of a power disruption
|
| - Potentially temporarily shut off very large circulation
| fans so that blades don't collide with the housings
|
| - Potentially stop and carefully restart cooling water
| loops, in case there's a rupture in the system somewhere
| dietrichepp wrote:
| Personally, I'd rather have the generators off when the
| earthquake hits!
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Need realtime seismographs, my friend's dad has one he built
| as a hobby up in quebec city that picked it up:
| https://alainmichaud.ca/
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Another great site with a ton of citizen stations (some are
| placed next to USGS seismographs too):
| https://shakenet.raspberryshake.org
| metaprinter wrote:
| 30% is 16.5 Billion gallons.
|
| OP is saying that much rain got into a reservoir that sits on
| top of an ancient volcanic caldera and has no rivers flowing
| into? Unexpectedly? and they didn't think to stop pumping water
| in from the South Branch or release some water?
|
| The math ain't mathing.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| It's not at full capacity yet, they are pumping into it daily
| (around 200 million gallons) until it is. Only spruce run
| reservoir upstream of it fills naturally (and is spilling
| currently).
|
| Operations data for the reservoir updates every morning
| during workdays, so we'll know tomorrow if they paused
| pumping into it after the quakes, I don't have any better
| than daily numbers for it. Letting the water down isn't an
| option, most of the downstream gauges on the south branch
| were just at or near flood stage. River gauges available
| here: https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=phi
| aenopix wrote:
| 4.7 an earthquake? Here in Chile thats more like a simple tremor,
| we dont even feel those.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| Chilean reaction to an earthquake:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5MW1HiuqpM
| flobosg wrote:
| Keep in mind that Chilean building regulations account for much
| more seismic activity than the ones on the US East Coast.
| chasd00 wrote:
| a couple of east coast people on my team (NYC) felt it this
| morning. they were pretty excited about it haha
| froyolobro wrote:
| Central New York here...I was in a basement and missed it :/
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Was it a Bruce Springsteen concert?
|
| Also, do we know if Bruce Springsteen is okay?
| ano-ther wrote:
| First time I see a .gov entity use metric system only (not even
| "x km (y miles)".
|
| > Since 1950, 40 other earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger have
| occurred within 250 km of today's earthquake
| badrabbit wrote:
| What are the chances this was a cascade of the taiwan earthquake?
| artistelynn wrote:
| Our 4.0 earthquake in Youngstown, OH where there are NEVER
| earthquakes was caused by high pressure pumping of radioactive
| fracking waste fluids from the Marcellus shale play in
| Pennsylvania into the Northstar 1 Injection Well
| nunez wrote:
| I was at the Port Authority terminal and felt nothing. My wife
| was in Long Island city and felt it strongly enough to text me.
| Crazy shit.
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