- It is the most devasting two weeks I have ever reported on in my 10 years as a blogger.
Two weeks of Nature on steroids
It's less than two weeks since Hurricane Harvey battered Houston.
Hurricane Harvey was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005, ending a record 12-year drought in which no hurricanes of Category 3 intensity or higher made landfall in the country.
In a four-day period, many areas received more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) of rain as the system meandered over eastern Texas and adjacent waters, causing catastrophic flooding.
With peak accumulations of 51.88 in (1,318 mm), Harvey is the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the contiguous United States. The resulting floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, displaced more than 30,000 people, and prompted more than 17,000 rescues.
Then came Irma and then Jose and then Katia, the first time three active hurricanes have formed at the same time in the Atlantic region since 2010.
Irma was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic
and has virtually destroyed several small tourist islands in its path.
Almost six million people have been asked to evacuate Florida re-enacting scenes from a disaster movie before Hurricane Irma arrives early Sunday.
"Irma is only one of five known hurricanes during the satellite era to have reached sustained winds of 185 mph or higher," claims AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski...
The system is the strongest hurricane ever recorded outside of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico with 185-mph winds.
Irma is now tied for the second strongest hurricane in the entire Atlantic Basin with Wilma (2005), Gilbert (1988) and Florida Keys (1935).
Irma sustained 185-mph winds for 37 hours, the longest any cyclone in the world has maintained such intensity.
Hurricane-force winds extended 100 miles wide.
Irma maintained Category 5 strength for the fourth longest duration in history, holding its top intensity for 2.75 days.
As Mexico was bracing for Hurricane Katia off the Gulf coast, a mag 8.1 hit it's West coast, the biggest quake of 2017 so far.
It was the biggest Mexican earthquake in 100 years and If confirmed it will be the biggest quake in Mexican history.
As well as a tsunami warning, the area has been hit by more than 50 aftershocks.
As of Friday 8/9/17, 82 wildfires were ravaging the U.S. destroying almost 1.5 million acres across nine states in the West.
The largest wildfire in Los Angeles history was controlled by officials early this week.
Nearly 1,500 people had to evacuate their homes near La Tuna canyon.
At the same time Hurricane Harvey was hitting Houston, the worst flooding in 10 years had claimed more than 1,200 lives and affected 40 million people, washing tens of thousands of homes away in northern India, southern Nepal and northern Bangladesh.
Throw in a X9.3-class solar flare--the strongest solar flare since 2005 and the equal 14th biggest flare ever recorded and the first time since 2014 three x-class flares have been recorded in a week, which solar winds of 800km/second battered the Earth's magnetic field causing a severe G4-class geomagnetic storm producing arouras as far south as New York.
The massive flare is even more extraordinary as we are now entering Solar Minimum.
Gary Walton
AP NEWS
AccuWeather
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