This week: warmer with a solar eclipse

Update #596

👋 Hello there…

I enjoyed writing that title — it’s not one you’ll see again for a long time!

April snow. An earthquake. An eclipse. What will Mother Nature throw at us next? Two weeks worth of 70 degrees and sunshine? In your dreams 😏

The good news is that the week ahead will be warmer and superintendents can take comfort in the prediction that they won’t be scrambling to call a delay at 5:00 am.

Furthermore, I can announce that the snow-related school closing and delay season (aka BenNollWeather season) has come to an end:

My weekly newsletters will continue to flow in the off-season, in anticipation of next winter which is a mere 258 days away! If you had fun following along this winter, please consider a donation.

I must also regrettably report that there will be more rain this week 🤦‍♂️

🌕 ☀️ Eclipse update: Although the day will start sunny, eclipse observers on Monday can expect a veil of mid and high clouds to increase from late morning into the afternoon, potentially obscuring the phenomenon, which will peak around 3:25 pm. Cloud forecasting is notoriously difficult and pinpointing exactly where there will be breaks is even more challenging, so don’t lose hope that you’ll be able to catch a glimpse. Remember to never look directly at the sun without special eclipse eyewear! For more information, see my post from Friday:

Hudson Valley eclipse-cast 🌕 ☀️

Monday: comfortably mild in the 60s with increasing clouds

🌟 Tuesday: warm (mid 70s) with a mix of clouds and sun 👍

Wednesday: rain returns — cloudy with showers likely

Thursday: mostly cloudy and becoming breezy with periods of rain 🌧️

Friday: partly sunny and windy with showers and maybe even a thunderstorm possible, mainly early 🌬️

Saturday-Sunday: probably drying out but remaining windy

Looking ahead to the week of April 15th, signs are that it will be relatively warm but I don’t think it will be rain-free as southerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico continue (thanks El Niño).

💥 On an unexpected, but not unprecedented, earthquake

Note: I’m not a geologist, but have assembled this based on information from experts and other sources.

A magnitude 4.8 earthquake over north-central New Jersey was felt by millions of people in the Northeast U.S. on Friday morning, including the Hudson Valley. This was followed by a magnitude 4.0 aftershock on Friday evening.

The two quakes were captured on the seismograph operating in Binghamton, New York. The first was felt much more significantly than the second, at least in central New York:

A possible, but not fully confirmed, source for these quakes is the Ramapo Fault Zone, a series of faults, or fractures between blocks of rock, that span Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York.

This fault zone is visualized in red on the map below, with other area faults shaded white and the earthquake epicenter the black star:

Let's get a little more familiar with this fault zone:

• Spans more than 185 miles across PA, NJ, and NY

• Initially blamed for the 1884 NYC quake (magnitude 5.2), but it wasn't the source

• The last period of heightened earthquake activity in it probably took place during the Triassic, 200 million years ago

• A 2008 study [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna26361143] said a quake of magnitude 7 probably comes about every 3,400 years, but no one knows when the last one of that magnitude hit

• In the 330 years to 2008, the biggest NYC-area quakes that reached magnitude 5 occurred in 1737, 1783, and 1884

• The fault line crosses near the now-defunct Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which was a source of concern

• Despite the rarity of strong earthquakes in this part of the country, when they do occur, the areas affected by them are, on average, ten times larger than western U.S. events of the same magnitude

• The cooler rocks in the Northeast U.S. contribute to the seismic energy propagating up to ten times further than in the warmer rocks of California

• While Friday's event at least made the region more aware of its seismic risk, let's hope this fault doesn't unleash a magnitude 7 anytime soon!

So there you have it. If you would have told me that I’d be writing about fault zones, earthquakes, and aftershocks this week, I would have thought you were crazy!

Wonder what I’ll be writing about next week…

Until then, please have a snow-free and earthquake-free (🤞) week!