_______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ The ShieldsWeather Natural Disaster E-zine _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Publisher: Jerry Shields Date: June 15, 2008 Issue: Volume 1, Number 4 Home Pages: http://www.ShieldsWeather.com Circulation: Close to 30 now! _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ What's in This Issue 1) Welcome to the ShieldsWeather Natural Disaster E-zine! 2) Iowa Disaster. 3) Weather Review and Outlook. 4) Forest Fire Update. 5) Earthquakes. 6) What's New At Shieldsweather.com 7) A Look Ahead to next week's E-Zine. 8) Steal This E-zine! 9) Reprint Rights _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 1) Welcome to the ShieldsWeather Natural Disaster E-zine! Those of you who have joined in the past week, welcome to my E-zine (electronic magazine!) Canadians are not only obsessed with their weather, but with natural phenomena everywhere. I hope to provide a brief look at the highlights of events from Ontario, Canada and sometimes around the world. You should be on this list only if you signed up for it on my web site. If you no longer wish to hear from me, don't be shy -- there's a link at the bottom of this e-mail that will put you out of your misery. If you missed a back issue, remember that all previous issues are archived on my web site at: http://www.ShieldsWeather.com/ezine What's in this issue: Tragedy stikes in Iowa as a boy scout camp is caught off guard by a killer tornado! Next we'll look at this past busy weather week and take a peak at the week ahead. Forest fire season continues to be slow but I'll take a quick look at current conditions. Lastly I will go over some recent Canadian earthquakes and a quick look at recent deadly quakes around the world. Are you reading my blog? The blog has been extremely busy . Check it out here: http://www.Shieldsweather.com/blog _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 2) A tornado ripped thorugh a Iowa Boy Scout camp on Wednesday. 93 Scouts and 25 adults on a weeklong outing at a Scout camp in Iowa late Wednesday afternoon. A tornado watch was issued but the camp’s tornado siren sounded just seconds before a funnel cloud was sighted, coming right at them. The F3 tornado hit the camp packing 135 mph winds. Reports confirm a chimney fell in the main building that crushed some victims and another report tells of a car being thrown across the camp. Four Scouts died in the trajedy; two 13 year old boys and two 14 year olds. I am concerned that these shocking incidents are on the increase.....and why? People are becoming every more reliant on technology and assistance from others to provide information about safety concerns. Years ago people paid more attention to darkening skies and took cover. There was no doppler radar, forecast models and warnings scrolling across your high definition satellite big screen. Common sense took hold and you took some accountability in your own safety. You didn't know how severe a storm would be an so you took cover, to be on the safe side. I find people's attitudes have changes. They assume the opposite - if it was dangerous, someone would have warned us. That's a dangerous game to play. The complacency is all around us. I am shocked to know that schools in Ontario do not practice severe weather drills and few even have a plan on how and where to take cover when severe weather threatens. I know of no schools that have any system in place to even be warned if a severe warning is issued. That's dangerous when tornado warnings in Canada are not issued until one is on the ground. Nothing happens until something happens. I just hope it doesn't come down to a school having to have a weather related disaster in order to raise awareness and plan to survive. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 3) This past week's weather was highlighted by lots more rain. Over 50mm of rain fell for most regions in Northern Ontario. The wettest day being Friday when 30mm fell in most locations. Temperatures were close to normal all week with a cool Wednesday morning that was a couple degrees above the frost mark. The wet weather looks to continue for the start of this upcoming week. A cold front moves in early on and bring unseasonably cold weather for Monday thru Wednesday. Lows in the single digits are expected for all these days. By week's end the high temps should recover to normal and next weekend looks rain-free with afternoon temperatures in the mid-20's. The extended long range shows even warmer weather for end of the month - and possibly drier! _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 4) Ontario continues to have a low wildfire risk. The Ontario fire crews that were in Manitoba are now home. Fires in Ontario have been at records lows this spring. Still, nder 100 Ha of fires have burned compared to almost 40,000 Ha, last year at this time. As of Sunday there wasn't a single fire burning in the province. The highest risk regions are reported to be Cochrane and just south of Ottawa - elsewhere is low risk. Conditions continue to be conducive to a low fire risk for most of the province, for the coming week, with cool temps and recent rainfalls. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 5) Another earthquake strikes this week, on the other side of the world. At least nine people died and 13 are missing after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck a rural area of northern Japan on Saturday. About 231 people were injured. The quake truck at 8:43 a.m. Television footage from helicopters showed mountains collapsed in landslides, The earthquake follows a 7.8 magnitude quake in central China in May that killed about 69,000 people and left 17,000 missing. Ontario also experienced an earthquake this past week. The quake occurred just Northeast of Gatineua/Ottawa region on Wednesday at 00:36:34 EDT. The strength was a Magnitude 3.2. No damage was reported. You might be surprised to hear that Canada has had 25 Earthquakes this Year! The strongest a 6.5 magnitude between the Queen Charlotte Islands and Vancouver Island on Jan.5th. Northern Ontario has a very low level of seismic activity. From 1970 to 1999, on average only 1 or 2 magnitude 2.5 or greater earthquakes have been recorded in this large area. Two magnitude 5 earthquakes (1905, northern Michigan, and 1928, northwest of Kapuskasing) have occurred in this region. The Western Quebec Zone, where this week's Ontario quake occurred, is Ontario's most active earthquake zone. It was the site of at least three significant earthquakes in the past. -In 1732, an earthquake estimated at 5.8 on the Richter scale shook Montreal, causing significant damage. -In 1935, the area of Temiscaming was shaken by an earthquake of magnitude 6.2. -In 1944, an earthquake of magnitude 5.6, located between Cornwall, Ontario and Massena, N.Y., caused damage evaluated at two million dollars of the time. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 6) What's New At ShieldsWeather.com The Blog continues to grow and gain popularity. I enjoy the user feedback and involvement. Check the Blog out at http://www.shieldsweather.com/blog/ This month is on pace to record the highest number of visitors ever! Thousands of people are on the site everyday...and summer is usually the sites quiet period. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 7) A Look Ahead to next week's E-Zine. Waiting for disaster to strike. If there are no disaster occurrences this week then I will take a closer look at the seasonal outlook for this coming summer and fall. Also a look at the most recent projections for the 2008 Hurricane season. Why does that matter?? Gas prices. A severe season could easily send us up toward $2.00 a litre this winter. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 8) Steal This E-zine! This E-zine is free, and I personally guarantee it's worth at least 176 times what you paid for it. I invite you to "steal" it, but only if you do it nicely . . . Distasteful legal babble: This E-zine is copyright Jerry Shields, 2008. Extremely tasteful postscript: I encourage you to email this E-zine to any friends of yours who might benefit from it. I only ask that you email the whole thing, not bits and pieces. Otherwise, you'll be getting desperate calls at midnight from your friends asking where they can get their own free subscription. At the moment, there is one place to subscribe: My site: http://www.ShieldsWeather.com _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 9) Reprint Rights Permission is granted to use any of the articles in this e-zine in your own e-zine or web site, as long as you include the following blurb with it: Jerry Shields publishes the ShieldsWeather Natural Disaster E-zine every week. If you want to learn more about weather, natural disasters, global warming, climatological events, wildland fires, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.ShieldsWeather.com. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Jerry Shields Publisher, ShieldsWeather Natural Disaster E-zine _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Jerry Shields President and CEO of 1531038 ONTARIO LTD. 2932 Hilton Road, Box 122 Hilton Beach, ON P0R 1G0 If you no longer wish to receive communication from me: jerry@shieldsweather.com To update your contact information: jerry@shieldsweather.com