A very deep and strong earthquake registered by China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) as M6.4 hit Mudanjiang city of northeast China's Heilongjiang province at 04:22 UTC on January 2, 2015. CENC is reporting a depth of 580 km (360 miles). USGS is reporting…
A long duration solar flare measuring M2.3 at its peak time erupted from departing Region 2473 at 00:11 UTC on January 2, 2016. The event started at 23:10 UTC on January 1 and ended at 01:01 UTC on January 2. A Type II (estimated velocity 1019 km/s) and a Type IV…
We start the year with our planet reaching perihelion – closest point to the Sun – which will happen at 22:49 UTC on January 2. At the time, Earth will be 146.6 million km (91 million miles) from the Sun. The first meteor shower of the year – Quadrantids – will…
A very strong low pressure system developed over the past couple of days in the North Atlantic. It deepened to a very intense central pressure of 928 hPa at 06:00 UTC on December 30, 2015, and is one of the strongest systems to have impacted the Atlantic in recorded…
December 2015 is one of the worst months of weather on records for the United States, with some areas not seeing a break in rainfall for several weeks. Currently, 17 million people are living in areas with flood warnings. Although the storms are now gone, the…
New activity/unrest was observed at 2 volcanoes from December 23 – 29, 2015. During the same period, ongoing activity was reported for 9 volcanoes. New activity/unrest: Kanlaon, Philippines | Tengger Caldera, Eastern Java (Indonesia). Ongoing activity: Chirpoi,…
Widespread flooding across Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil over the last 7 days forced more than 150 000 people to evacuate their homes and claimed 6 lives so far. The floods are the worst to hit the area in the last 50 years, according to the local…
December 2015 is already a record breaking month for rainfall in parts of the UK. The spell of wet weather spread across portions of north Wales and northwest England on December 26, 2015 brought flooding to the area already saturated with water. The highest amount…
The leak of natural gas observed by the Southern California Gas Company in its facility in Porter Ranch on October 23, 2015, is now the largest natural gas leak ever recorded in California, and it might be the worst environmental disaster since BP's Deepwater…
A long duration solar flare measuring M1.8 at its peak time erupted from central Region 2473 at 12:45 UTC on December 28, 2015. The event started at 11:20 and ended at 14:09 UTC. The flare produced a full halo CME heading directly toward Earth. A type IV radio sweep…
