I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
Thousands of buildings in New Zealand’s Auckland area are currently unsafe for living after the region was hit by extreme rainfall and severe flooding at the end of January. The amount of rain that fell in a matter of days made January 2023 Auckland’s wettest month in at least the last 170 years. The flooding has put the public’s focus on nature-based alternatives to traditional stormwater systems.
Tropical Cyclone “Gabrielle” has formed in the Coral Sea as the 3rd named storm of the 2023 Australian region cyclone season. The forecast track takes it near Norfolk Island as a severe category 3 before moving toward New Zealand. The cyclone could bring more rounds of heavy rain to parts of North Island, New Zealand, particularly the Auckland area where extremely heavy and record-breaking rainfall amounts were registered recently.
Active Region 3213 rapidly emerged on the visible disk on February 6 as just a few sunspots but has since grown into a mature, magnetically-complex sunspot group, producing several M-class flares, including a double-peaked flare that began at 22:46 and peaked at 23:07 as M6.3. The first peak was registered as M3.8 at 22:58 UTC.
A second powerful aftershock measuring M7.5 (USGS) / M7.7 (EMSC) on the richer scale hit Turkey – Syria border region at 10:24 UTC on February 6, 2023. The quake follows the extremely damaging and deadly M7.8 quake at 01:17 UTC today.
A powerful earthquake registered by the USGS as M7.8 hit the highly populated Turkey – Syria border region at 01:17 UTC (04:17 local time) on Monday, February 6, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 17.9 km (11.1 miles). EMSC reports M7.8 at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). Numerous moderate to very strong aftershocks were registered, including M6.7 at 01:28 and M7.5 at 10:24 UTC.
At least 13 people were reported dead and more than 100 homes destroyed as of early Saturday morning (UTC), February 4, 2023 as a result of the more than 150 wildfires burning across Chile. Most of the wildfires are in Biobío and neighboring Ñuble.
Indonesia has been hit by severe floods in recent days as heavy rainfall pounded the regions of Java and southwestern Borneo. According to the ASEAN Disaster Information Network (ADINet), floods have flooded thousands of homes.
A strong Arctic front will race across the Great Lakes on Thursday, February 2, 2023, and then push through the Northeastern parts of the United States tonight, bringing the coldest wind chills in recent memory.
A significant widespread ice storm is still affecting parts of the U.S. South and Mid-South on Thursday, February 2, 2023, but it’s now slowly transitioning to rain. Despite this, the risk remains high as melting ice may still trigger the breakage of trees and tree limbs. Meanwhile, a life-threatening Arctic blast is moving towards the northeastern regions of the country, with wind chills expected to be the coldest in recent memory.
In a remarkable feat of videography, Adrien Mauduit of Night Lights Films has captured stunning timelapse footage of polar stratospheric clouds, also known as nacreous clouds, in northern Scandinavia.
