Teo Blašković founded The Watchers in 2011 and edited it until 2026, covering seismic and volcanic activity, extreme weather, space weather and near-Earth objects. Articles on this page are his archive.
Just 17 months since launch, and after three orbits around the Sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe – designed, built, and now operated by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) – brings us amazing sounds of solar wind and hints at origins of this…
A powerful winter storm with areas of heavy snow and ice will cross the Pacific Northwest tonight, January 15 into 16, 2020 and drive east across the Plains and Midwest by the end of the week, NWS warns. "A very strong area of low pressure currently focused…
A new planet-hunting instrument has been installed on the WIYN telescope, on Arizona’s Kitt Peak. NEID spectrometer (pronounced 'NOO-id') is one of the first instruments of its kind with the precision to detect small, terrestrial planets around nearby…
Multiple new fissures (cracks) were observed around Taal volcano on January 14, 2020, two days after intense unrest began. Fissures, accompanied by intense seismicity activity, are an indication of an imminent explosive eruption, PHIVOLCS warns. The agency strongly…
A new eruption started at Fernandina volcano (Cerro La Cumbre), Galapagos, Ecuador on January 12, 2020. The last eruption of this volcano took place from June 16 to 18, 2018. The island has no human population. The eruptive activity started between 23:00 and 23:10…
Taal volcano in the Philippines started erupting at 06:04 UTC on January 12, 2020, for the first time since 1977. The volcanic ash cloud is reaching up to 16.7 km (55 000 feet) above sea level, according to data provided by the Tokyo VAAC. PHIVOLCS said it strongly…
Japan's Kuchinoerabujima volcano erupted at 06:05 UTC on January 11, 2020, ejecting volcanic material up to 300 m (984 feet) from the crater of Mount Shindake. This is the first eruption at the volcano since February 2, 2019. Kuchinoerabujima is a volcano island…
A strong and shallow earthquake registered by the USGS as M5.9 (downgraded from M6.0) hit southern Puerto Rico at 12:54 UTC (08:54 LT) on January 11, 2020. The agency is reporting a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). The quake comes 4 days after shallow M6.4 — the…
A bright fireball streaked through the night sky over eastern Germany and Poland at around 03:05 UTC on January 5, 2020. The event was captured on two AMS/AKM cameras. There is a possibility some pieces of the object survived and ended somewhere in far western…
New activity/unrest was reported for 3 volcanoes from January 1 to 7, 2020. During the same period, ongoing activity was reported for 11 volcanoes. New activity/unrest: Kirishimayama, Kyushu (Japan) | Krakatau, Indonesia | White Island, North Island (New Zealand)….
