Turkish Earthquake Tragedy Brings Cold Weather Risks; Strange Lights, And Weird Conspiracies

A still from a video taken during the giant earthquake
in Turkey earlier this week. That blue in the sky is
a large power flash, as either a transformer or 
transmission line failed during the quake. 

The news, as most of us know, has been gawd awful coming out of Turkey and Syria.

A 7.8 earthquake, and a series of powerful aftershocks has left widespread devastation and thousands of people dead. It's one of the world's worst earthquake disasters in memory. At last count, 11,000 people were thought to have perished. 

An earthquake isn't a meteorological or climate issue, so it's not a topic I usually cover in this blog thingy. But there are weather-related issues that further endanger victims. And there's questions about some odd phenomenon people saw in the sky. 

Plus, this calamity is bringing out the nut jobs, as disasters tend to do. We'll get into that in a bit. 

BAD WEATHER WORSENS THINGS

The biggest worry I have is how cold it is in the earthquake zone. Since the earthquake hit, daytime temperatures have generally been just above freezing, while nighttime lows have been close to 20 degrees.

People awaiting rescue beneath the rubble are already under extreme physical stress, as you might imagine. The cold makes it worse. Remember, the earthquake hit before dawn. People were in bed, certainly not dressed for winter. 

These survivors can easily die of hypothermia, or freeze to death under these conditions. 

Hope is obviously fading for finding more survivors.

The cold can slow down rescue efforts, too.  Even worse, as Fox Weather reports, patches of freezing rain and sleet are roaming the heart of the earthquake zone. The northern part of the disaster area is experiencing moderate snow.

The ice that's accumulating can only make the rescue effort more difficult. It could also slow down the aid flowing in from foreign nations, including the United States. 

In the second half of this week, precipitation should end in the disaster zone, but overnight lows will continue to drop to near 20 degrees, while daytime highs only get up to the 35-40 degree range. 

Thousands of survivors are also outdoors in the frigid weather, since emergency shelters are lacking and so many buildings are destroyed. There could be additional deaths because of inadequate shelter in the aftermath of the quake. 

This is as bad as a situation can get. 

ODD LIGHTS

Video taken during the first and strongest earthquake, at 4:17 a.m. local time,  show frequent flashes of light in the sky as the earth shook violently. 

I'm quite sure all, or almost all of those flashing lights were power lines snapping, transformers collapsing and power substations suffering damage during the shaking. 

Those power flashes look like lightning, but it was the power grid collapsing. You can see in some of the videos neighborhoods losing power at the time of nearby flashes.

You see the same sort of thing in the United States and elsewhere during nighttime tornadoes or extreme winds. 

Still, it's possible some of the flashes could have come from other sources. 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey:

"Phenomena such as sheet lightning, balls of light, streamers and steady glows reported in association with earthquakes are called earthquake lights (EQL). Geophysicists differ on the extent to which they think individual reports of unusual lighting near the time and epicenter of an earthquake actually represent EQL; some doubt that any of the reports constitute solid evidence for EQL, whereas others think that at least some reports plausibly correspond to EQL"

Whatever might or might not be going on with lights during earthquakes remains a mystery.  

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

The earthquake was really dumb, awful luck. 

Like almost all earthquakes, this one occurred along a fault. Plates of the earth crusts beneath the surface are ever so slowly grinding past each other. Sometimes, parts of the fault get stuck. Pressure builds and builds, and finally the sticking point breaks. And you get an earthquake. Some of them are huge, like this one.

It's all basic geology and physics, tragic as it is. 

This one hit in an area that doesn't have a recent history of enormous quakes. Building codes weren't up to date. So a lot of structures collapsed. This just made everything worse.

 Lots of people have intense anxiety about the state of the world. Institutions they should trust have let them down. So, as Scientific American states:

"In such situations, a conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem more straightforward and controllable,"

There's apparently no limit to how outlandish these conspiracy theories can get. People will believe anything. 

Against that backdrop, grifters gotta grift.  

These scammers get on social media to promote the most outlandish conspiracies, knowing that will generate tons of clicks. Which means revenue. And they're convincing emotionally vulnerable people to believe the conspiracies, alienating them further from friends and families.

Plus, the conspiracy theories are endangering innocent people by making them targets of people who believe these whacked out stories. 

I don't know how to combat this, other than mock these scumbags. 

So, apparently, the "globalists" are mad that Turkey wasn't thrilled with the idea of Sweden and Finland  joining NATO.

Which inspired the "globalists" including the United States to trigger the earthquake, through HARRP, whatever that is, or a nuclear detonator deep within the ground to trigger the quake.

The wacko grifters don't explain how the U.S. or somebody else would insert a giant nuclear device beneath the ground in Turkey and Syria without somebody in  either nation noticing. 

The HARRP crowd seems to be let on Twitter by some moron who goes by the name of Snezhina Boahen.  

Here's their genius post:  

As even the now loose-goosy Twitter alerts us after that post, those lightning flashes are, as noted above, the power grid failing in the earthquake. 

I'm also comforted by the fact that this post was met with tons of derision in the comments. 

The conspiracy theories get tragic-comic.  The most outlandish one is that God killed all those people in Turkey and Syria because he was mad at Sam Smith for performing a song with a satanic theme during the Grammys.  I wish I was making this up. 

The God I believe in doesn't do mass murders because he gives two thumbs down for a brief awards show performance. But maybe that's just me. 

Greece, Turkey, Other Mediterranien Areas Hit By Rare Heavy Snow

Cars stuck in one of the worst snowstorms in Greece in
decades this week. Photo by Thanassis Stavrakis/AP

As occasional very light snow dusted us here in Vermont this week and we await news on whether it'll be our turn to get nailed with a snowstorm this weekend, Greece and Turkey are buried in white.  

Some of the worst snowstorms in years, even decades focused their fury on those two nations this week. 

It snows a little in Athens pretty much every winter, but this was quite a bit bigger than usual. "The height of the snow is unprecedented in some areas, Christos Stylianides,the Greek Climate Change and Civil Protection Minister told the AP.  

Echoing that Interstate 95 disaster in Virginia earlier this month, thousands of motorists were trapped on highways in Greece during the height of the storm. The Greek Army was removing the cars from the highways as the storm waned.

In one strange moment in the Greek storm, a waterspout on the Mediterranean managed to make landfall, throwing snow into the air. 

Istanbul,  Turkey received 13.4 inches of snow, with thunder mixed in.  Like Athens, it snows at least a little most winters in Istanbul, but this was much heavier than they usually get. The city's airport closed, and the snow was heavy enough to cave in the roof of a cargo terminal.

Some higher elevations around Istanbul received more than 30 inches of snow. 

The snow extended to places where it almost never gets dumped on. Antalya, Turkey on the Mediterranean coast, had its first snowfall in 29 years. 

The same was true on some Greek Islands.    Local media said the snow was a "once in a lifetime weather event" on the Aegean Islands, including Syros, Naxos, Tinos, Mykonos and Santorini.  

A bit of an editorial here: I'm pretty stunned by the explosion lately of highly unreliable, doctored or fake YouTube videos of weather events lately. You really have to wade through lots crap posted by bots to find actual credible videos. That's sad of course.

I think I've found a few videos that reflect reality, though. As usual, if you don't see the video in this post, click on the hyperlink instead. 

Here is a nice walking tour of Athens during the pretty but also messy snowstorm: 

Here's a Reuters report of the snow in and around Istanbul, Turkey:

This one is the most dramatic. It shows the collapse of a cargo terminal under the weight of the snow at an airport in Istanbul, along with other scenes of chaos at that airport. 

Istanbul, Turkey Rocked By Strongest Winds In Memory

A roof flies off a building in Istanbul, Turkey earlier this
week as extreme winds hit the region

 As we head into winter, large wind storms get increasingly common. 

We're awaiting our own wind storm here in Vermont, set to begin late tonight and continue most of Monday.

Ours won't be super destructive, with just some scattered power outages and tree damage expected. 

But some storms really go off the rails. 

Such was the case in Istanbul, Turkey last week. The wild winds killed at least six people, injured dozens and caused extensive damage in city of 16 million people, according to CNN and other news sources.

Many buildings were unroofed, walls collapsed, minarets blew over, as did an iconic clock tower in the city.

Although wind storms happen pretty much every winter in Turkey, this one was the most extreme in memory, with winds gusting to 80 mph.  Since the city was not built for winds that strong the damage was extensive.

Video (Click on this link to view this one if using a mobile device).

Another video of the destructive Istanbul winds. Again, click on this link if your device doesn't allow to see it embedded in this post).

Extreme Flooding, Storms Keep Popping Up

Extreme flooding in Zhenghou, China this week.

 Massive storms and flooding keep popping up in various parts of the world as extreme weather events become the new normal.  After the cataclysmic flooding in Germany, new big water disasters occurred this week in China, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Turkey and Arizona. 

CHINA

Enormous floods in China this week killed at least two dozen people, mostly in Henan province, In that regions capital, Zhengzhou,   The amount of rain that normally falls over the course of a year came in just three days, the BBC reports.  

Two feet of rain fell there just on Tuesday, which is the same amount as Zhengzhou's normal rainfall for an entire year. Eight inches of that coming within just one hour.  

According to meteorologist Minghao Zhou on Twitter, it's a record for any of the 2,400 reporting stations in China, and might be a world record for the most intense downpour in a city of more than 10 million. Zhengzhou is home to about 12 million. 

This is another case of extreme weather this year far exceeding previous records. Happening a lot, isn't it?

 The inevitable result was a catastrophic flood that sent deep water through most of the city.   There's harrowing video circulating on social media of subway passengers in Zhengzhou trapped in chest and neck deep water inside rail cars. 

Twelve people died in the subways and stations, though another 1,000 or so were rescued from train cars and underground stations, according to The Guardian. 

As the Guardian notes, China has pretty bad flooding every summer, but rapid urbanization, paving over farmland and climate change have all conspired to create a worsening, deadlier trend in the nations' flooding issues. 

TURKEY

Extreme flooding also hit the Black Sea region of Turkey over the past week or so, causing at least six deaths. Video showed deep rushing water swirling around high rise buildings and cars bouncing along in the rapids. Other video showed houses toppling into raging rivers. 

Floods are common in this part of Turkey in the summer, but again, these were much worse than usual. 

NEW ZEALAND

Parts of New Zealand have also been afflicted by record setting floods this month. Rivers in the Marlborough region of the nation hit record crests after nearly a foot of rain fell over two days last week. 

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the floodwaters.  New flood control walls and dikes did help prevent damage in some areas along the flooded rivers. 

ARIZONA

Flash flooding is also common in Arizona in mid to late summer, as monsoon moisture flows into the state, setting off intense desert thunderstorms. 

The state was looking forward to this year's monsoon season, as the area was deep in severe drought and monsoons in recent summers have been lackluster at best.  

Now, Arizona is getting too much of a good thing. 

Deep in drought, Arizona welcomed a more robust monsoon season this month which has dumped rain on the parched state. But suddenly, parts of Arizona are getting too much of a good thing. 

Flash flooding has really become a serious issue out there. You might have seen the video of the Prius being swept away in a dramatic Flagstaff, Arizona flash flood last week, for instance. The city of Flagstaff has declared a state of emergency because of the flooding. 

It's going to get worse today. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center says there's so much moisture pooling in Arizona that rainfall rates could reach two to four inches per hour in the worst thunderstorms.  This would cause some pretty extreme flash flooding in a part of the nation where an inch of rain can set off pretty big floods and debris flows.

A weather disturbance moving westward from Texas will help intensify today's desert rains. 

The flash floods that have already hit the Flagstaff area were made much worse by debris flows from areas hit by flooding. 

Today, the areas at biggest risk are in and near where large wildfires burned this year and last. Massive debris flows are likely. 

Floods have always occurred and will always occur.  But in general, they're generally worse than in the past because of climate change. 

Warmer air can hold more moisture. That means, if other factors come together to produce storms, chances are the rainfall rates will be higher than if climate change were not a factor. 

For us Vermonters watching all this bad news, at least we have nothing exciting coming up in the next few days.  It might rain, especially Saturday night and maybe Sunday, but no flooding is in the forecast.