$32 Billion in New England Property At Risk From Flooding; Sea-Level Rise Tool Lets You Check Risk

 

 

PRINCETON, N.J. – Today, Climate Central released a sea-level rise and coastal flood risk tool for coastal New England states. The organization's research in this area was recently highlighted at the launch of The White House's Climate Data Initiative.

The tool is available at sealevel.climatecentral.org.

According to the Surging Seas analysis, the risk of an extreme flood is increasing in coastal cities throughout New England as sea levels rise due in large part to climate change. After accounting for potential protections from dams and other flood control structures, more than 84,000 people and $32 billion in property across New England are at risk of extreme coastal flooding.

An extreme coastal flood in New England ranges from 4 to 6 feet above the high tide line depending upon the area.

Here's a snapshot of what this means for New England coastal states, based on a moderate-to-high sea level rise scenario:

• In Massachusetts, 47,888 people reside on land that is exposed to 4-f floods. Of this total, 17,662 are considered highly vulnerable, based on social and economic criteria. There is a 67 percent chance of a flood this high in Boston by 2030.
• In Rhode Island, more than $4.3 billion worth of property lies on land less than 5 feet above the high tide line. There is a 1-in-3 chance of a flood this high in Newport, R.I., by 2040.
• In New Hampshire, $1.08 billion worth of N.H. property lies on land less than 4 feet above the high tide line. There is a 40 percent chance of a flood this high by 2040.
• In Maine, 58,379 acres of land are situated 4 feet above the high tide line. There is a 40 percent chance of a flood this high in Portland, Maine, by 2040.
• In Connecticut, $14.9 billion in property and 53,406 people are situated on land that is less than 6 feet above the high tide line. There is a 1-in-3 chance of a flood this high in Bridgeport, Ct., by 2040.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/sea-level-rise-tool-unveils-massive-flood-risks-new-england-property-20140423

Since First Earth Day, U.S. Sees Rapid Warming (INTERACTIVE)

 

 

 

It’s been 44 years since the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, and since that time, average temperatures have been rising across the U.S. This Climate Central interactive graphic shows a state-by-state analysis of those temperature trends.
Average temperatures across most of the continental U.S. have been rising gradually for more than a century, at a rate of about 0.127°F per decade between 1910-2012. That trend parallels an overall increase in average global temperatures, which is largely the result of human greenhouse gas emissions. While global warming isn’t uniform, and some regions are warming faster than others, since the 1970s, warming across the U.S. has accelerated, previously shown in our report The Heat is On. Since then, every state’s annual average temperature has risen accordingly. On average, temperatures in the contiguous 48 states have been warming at a rate of 0.477°F per decade since 1970.
Delaware and Wisconsin are tied as the fastest-warming states since 1970, warming at a rate of 0.67°F per decade. Average annual temperatures in the two states are about 3°F warmer than they were 44 years ago. Vermont, New Jersey, and Michigan are warming nearly as fast, and all are warming about twice as fast as the global average. The slowest-warming states are Washington, Georgia, Florida, and Oregon – warming just more than 0.3°F per decade since 1970 — and are on pace with average global temperatures.
For detailed information on individual states, click on any state in the interactive graphic above.
On a regional scale, the fastest-warming areas are the Northeast, Midwest and Southwest, while the Pacific Northwest and Southeast are warming more slowly. Of the lower 48 states, 26 have warmed more than 2°F since 1970, and 16 have warmed more than 2.5°F.
The data in this analysis came from the National Climatic Data Center’s Climate at a Glance database.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/1st-earth-day-us-temps-marching-upward-20140421

Antarctica Was Once As Warm As California, Florida: Study

Today it's one of the coldest places on Earth, but millions of years ago parts of the Antarctic region had a climate that Californians and Floridians would find familiar, according to a study released this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
During the Eocene epoch, about 40 to 50 million years ago, when atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were much higher than today's, temperatures in parts of Antarctica rose as high as 63 degrees Fahrenheit, and averaged about 57 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's about the same as temperatures off the coast of California today, a far cry from the bitter cold found in the present-day Antarctic interior, where temperatures stay well below zero degrees Fahrenheit and even dropped to a record -135.8 degrees Fahrenheit last year.
Temperatures were even higher during the Eeocene in the southern Pacific Ocean near Antarctica, the study found, reaching about 72 degrees Fahrenheit, as warm as the waters off the coast of Florida today.
These findings, which shed new light on just how warm Earth's polar regions can become and the risks of rising global sea levels, come from a newly developed method for measuring ancient temperatures in the fossil record.
Using fossil bivalve shells collected by study co-author Linda Ivany on Seymour Island, a small island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, the scientists who led the study measured the shells' concentrations of a pair of isotopes -- carbon-13 and oxygen-18 -- to determine the climate in which they grew.
Next, the scientists combined the isotope measurements with readings from geo-thermometers and computer model simulations of the Antarctic climate. They call this new technique "carbonate clumped isotope thermometry."
Perhaps what is most interesting for the average reader today is the insight the study provides into how dramatically Earth's climate can change, and how sensitive it is to increases and decreases in concentrations of greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere.



http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/antarctica-was-once-warm-california-florida-coasts-study-20140423

Storm Surge Could Flood New York City Every 4 Years: Report

When a storm, such as Hurricane Sandy, sets waters in New York Harbor rising, those sloshing seas are now 20 times more likely to overtop the Manhattan seawall than 170 years ago, a new study finds.

The increased risk comes from a combination of sea level rise — which has raised water levels near New York City by nearly 1.5 feet since the mid-1800s — and storm tide, or the amount that local seas rise during a storm. Storm tide is itself a combination of storm surge (the water that a hurricane pushes ahead of it) and the astronomical tide.

The rise in sea level and storm tide combined puts the odds of storm waters overtopping Manhattan’s defenses at one in every 4 to 5 years, compared to only once in every 100 to 400 years in the 19th century, the study found. (Put another way, the annual chance of a storm overtopping the seawall has gone from about 1 percent to 20 to 25 percent.)

Allison Joyce/Getty Images

Water floods the Plaza Shops in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, on Oct. 30, 2012, in Manhattan, New York.

The storm tide at Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan, during Hurricane Sandy reached a record 14.06 feet according to the National Hurricane Center’s report on Sandy.

That high storm tide — more than 4 feet higher than the previous record set in December 1992 and the largest since 1821 — was created by a 9.4-foot storm surge and the evening high tide during a full moon, when tides are higher than normal (though the evening high tide was not as large as the morning one).

The extreme rise in water level sent the Harbor flooding into the streets of the Financial District and other parts of Manhattan, as well as other city boroughs at depths between 2 to 9 feet above ground level. An estimated 305,000 houses in New York were destroyed, mostly by storm surge, according to the NHC.

Total damage to the city was estimated at $19 billion, including $5 billion in damage to the city’s subway systems caused by flooding. At least 21 people were killed by the storm surge on Staten Island.

 

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/storm-surge-could-flood-new-york-city-every-4-years-report-20140424

Texas Drought Forces Wichita Falls Residents to Take Desperate Measures to Keep Water Flowing

The bed of Lake Arrowhead sits dry, with vegetation growing, after several years of intense drought in Wichita Falls

It's hard to image a city of 105,000 running out of water, but that's the reality in Wichita Falls, Texas. A crippling four-year drought has taken this community to a place they've never been before.
"It's been awful here. We're entering our worst drought on record," said Russell Schreiber, the city's public works director, and the force behind one of the most controversial plans in Texas: The use of treated wastewater for public consumption. It's a bold move – and a tough sell.
Tim McMillin, a radio host and father in Wichita Falls, is one of the many residents who doesn't like the idea of drinking treated wastewater.
"Just the concept of drinking the water that yesterday you sent along its merry way ... I don't think anybody wants that."
(MORE: Antarctica Was Once as Warm as ...)
McMillin worries about his kids' safety when this new plan is instituted. "I have no way to test it myself," he said.
He won't have to just yet. The Texas Water Commission is reviewing more than 8,000 pages of data to ensure Wichita Falls' new state-of-the-art treatment facility is working.
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/wichita-falls-texas-cracked-20140423

California Drought: Entire State Now in Drought's Grip

California's worsening drought reached a new, ominous milestone this week just as the typical dry season begins for much of the state.
The National Drought Mitigation Center's weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday shows the entire state is in some form of drought for the first time since the report began tracking such statistics at the beginning of 2000.

In a sense, the milestone is symbolic, as the proportion of the state's area in drought surged to 98 percent almost a year ago, on May 7, 2013, and has stayed at or above 94 percent since.
The Drought Monitor report uses a five-point rating system to designate dry conditions. The lowest level, D0, indicates "abnormally dry" but non-drought conditions. The other four categories, D1 through D4, designate various stages of drought, with D4 labeled "exceptional" – the kind of drought one would expect to occur about 2 percent of the time (e.g., 2 years out of 100) in any given location.
All categories of drought have expanded to the largest areas yet seen in the 21st century in California. The D4 category expanded into more of the San Francisco Bay Area this week, upping its share of the state's land mass to just under 25 percent, a new high in the Drought Monitor era.
In downtown San Francisco, just 12.20 inches of rain fell from July 1, 2013, through April 23, 2014, coming in 10.34 inches short of normal.
For the water year ending June 30, San Francisco would need 11.45 inches of rainfall just to catch up to normal; but the all-time record rainfall for April 24 through June 30 is just 4.08 inches set in 1953. The city by the bay would need nearly triple the previous record rainfall for that period just to finish with a normal amount of July-to-June rainfall.
The situation is similar in Los Angeles, where 8.91 inches of rain are required to finish with a normal July-to-June total, but the all-time record for April 24 through June 30 is only 3.58 inches. Fully three-quarters of the city's 6.02 inches of rain since July 1 came from a single week of heavy rainfall in late February and early March.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/california-100-percent-drought-monitor-first-20140424

ignificant Severe Weather Threat, Including Tornadoes, This Weekend and Early Next Week for Plains

It's been a relatively quiet start to the severe weather season this year.
To date, not one tornado of EF3 intensity or stronger has been observed anywhere in the U.S. In addition, no tornado-related deaths have been recorded thus far in the U.S. in 2014 through April 22.
(MORE: 2014 Remains Fatality-Free for Tornadoes | Record-Long Wait for Year 's First EF3)
However, the weather pattern is now changing and it appears the threat of severe weather will ramp up through the next five or six days.
If you live in the central and southern Plains, take note: A potentially significant severe weather threat, including tornadoes, is forecast to develop this Saturday and continue into Sunday. By Monday, severe storms may push as far east as the Mississippi Valley.
This is in addition to the severe storms we are tracking with the current weather system Wednesday into Thursday.
Heading into Saturday, a strong, upper-level disturbance will travel east from the Pacific into the Rocky Mountains. As it does so, it will pull warm, moist air ahead of it into the central and southern Plains. Warm, moist air is buoyant, and it will easily rise, especially with a few hours of sunshine. This rising air is called atmospheric instability, and it will provide the "fuel" necessary to sustain severe thunderstorms.
By late Saturday and early Sunday, a surface low will develop within the central Plains. Ahead of this low, moist air will continue to stream into the Great Plains from the south. At the same time, faster mid-level winds will blow into the Plains from the west, resulting in wind shear (a change in wind speed and direction with height). Wind shear allows thunderstorms to tilt as they build higher in the sky, and the result is long-lived, particularly strong thunderstorms called supercells.
With enough wind shear and instability, supercell thunderstorms can produce and sustain tornadoes.
(MORE: The Science Behind Supercell Thunderstorms)
As is typical several days in advance, there remains some uncertainty in the exact details. This includes the magnitude and location of the greatest tornado threat each day. We will provide more updates as we get closer to this potential outbreak so that you can be prepared. If you have outdoor plans this weekend, be sure to have a way to get the latest weather information and make yourself aware of the closest shelter to your location.

http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/tornadoes-severe-weather-saturday-sunday-late-april-20140422

Where Tornadoes Strike Around the World (INTERACTIVE)

The United States averages the most tornadoes of any country in the world annually. But where else do they occur?
Areas shaded in red on the interactive map above show regions of the world that have an increased likelihood of experiencing tornadoes, according the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) branch of NOAA. As you would expect, some locations have a greater density of tornado occurrences than others. For example, the Plains region of the United States sees a much higher number of tornadoes each year than the West Coast.
The NCDC says that tornadoes are most common in the middle latitudes, between about 30 to 50 degrees north or south latitude. Tornadoes have been documented on all of the world's continents, except Antarctica.

http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/tornadoes-around-world-20140329

 

Is Climate Change to Blame for the Mount Everest Avalanche?

Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. (Wikimedia/Shrimpo1967)

The icy slopes of Mount Everest have seen hundreds of deaths in the years since 1922, when seven people perished during the British Mount Everest Expedition.
An April 18 avalanche claimed at least 12 lives, in what may be the single deadliest climbing event in the history of the world's tallest mountain (29,029 feet). The death toll may rise, because other climbers are still missing, according to the BBC.
All of the deceased were guides from the ethnic Sherpa community, who were securing ropes for the start of the spring climbing season. And many Sherpas insist that Mount Everest and other mountains in the area have become more dangerous because of climate change. [Ice World: Gallery of Awe-Inspiring Glaciers]
"In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice, but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rock falls, which is a danger to the climbers," said Apa Sherpa, a Nepali climber, as quoted in Discovery News.

"Also, climbing is becoming more difficult, because when you are on a [snowy] mountain you can wear crampons, but it's very dangerous and very slippery to walk on bare rock with crampons," he added.

Avalanches and climate change

Avalanches have been around for centuries, of course, and researchers can't blame any single event on climate change. Some evidence exists, however, that a warming planet and changes in precipitation may increse the likelihood of certain types of avalanches at certain times of the year.
A 2001 study from the Annals of Glaciology found that increases in temperature and precipitation could slightly decrease the risk of avalanches in mid-winter in France, but could significantly increase the risk of spring avalanches.
Those findings were echoed in a 2013 report from the journal Applied Snow and Avalanche Research, which found that in Canada's Glacier National Park, an increase in rain (instead of snow) during the winter could result in greater instability in the snowpack, leading to more late-winter avalanches.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/climate-change-blame-mount-everest-avalanche-20140421

Washington Mudslide Update: All 41 Victims Identified

room where examiners take fingerprints, look for signs of dental work and identifying marks such as tattoos. When that work is complete, remains are moved to a refrigerated area where they stay until funeral homes make arrangements for burial or cremation.

Why Does It Take So Long to Identify Bodies?

The process for identifying remains, some of which are partial, is careful work, especially when trauma is involved, Thiersch said.
"This isn't going into a room and saying, 'This is him,'" he said.
Efforts to identify using dental work, fingerprints or tattoos, can take time and if that doesn't work, officials turn to DNA testing. But that works best in cases in which a close family member can give a sample for comparison. They've only needed to use DNA testing to identify one of the slide victims. At the same time, detectives are working to help determine identities by using information from families, social media accounts and belongings from the site.
(MORE: 5 Reasons the West Is More Vulnerable to Mudslides)

How Many People Are Working There? What Do They Do?

The regular staff of about 12 at the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's office has been supported with dozens of professionals from King, Pierce, Skagit and Kitsap counties and members of the Air National Guard. Medical examiners are working with pathologists, dentists and medical investigators to clean bodies, take fingerprints, and note tattoos or other distinguishing features. Detectives and other professionals do online research and call families to determine the identities of the victims.

http://www.weather.com/news/massive-mudslide-washington-community-20140323

Thunderstorms Erupt Over Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska

Thunderstorms erupted across the central and southern Plains Wednesday evening, prompting severe thunderstorm watches and warnings across four states.
The weather created spectacular images. Storm chaser and meteorologist Reed Timmer was on the tail of a rotating wall cloud in the Texas Panhandle. Although a tornado never materialized, the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for part of Collingsworth County.
Chaser Michael Charnick also captured an incredible photo of what he called a hail core in northwest Kansas.


Several severe thunderstorm watches stretch across four states: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska are under alert until 11 p.m. local time Wednesday. Dr. Greg Forbes, severe weather expert for The Weather Channel, has posted a TOR:CON of 4 for the eastern Texas Panhandle, which means there's a 4 in 10 chance for a tornado in the area.
The 2014 severe weather season is off to a record-slow start. According to weather.com senior meteorologist Jon Erdman, there has not been an intense tornado, defined as a tornado rated EF3 or higher, as of April 23. That's the longest stretch on record in the U.S.
The quiet streak is likely to come to a crashing halt soon. The tornado threat ramps up in the central and southern Plains this weekend.

http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/record-latest-first-ef3-tornado-2014-20140408

Lava Lake in Antarctica Offers Rare Glimpse Into Erebus Volcano

 The coldest place on Earth is also one of the rare spots where a roiling lava lake offers a window into the heart of a volcano.

At Erebus volcano in Antarctica, a long-lived lava lake puffs steam and launches lava bombs at scientists who scale its slopes, hoping to unravel the mysteries of how volcanoes work. (Lava bombs are flying blobs of molten rock.)

"We think lava lakes are really the top of a magma chamber, so by studying lava lakes we can see what's happening in the guts of the volcano," said Philip Kyle, a volcanologist at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, who has visited Erebus since the late 1960s.

Erebus has been continuously active since as early as the 1970s. For more than 40 years, researchers like Kyle have climbed its 12,450-foot-tall (3,794 meters) peak during the brief summer, installing a battery of monitoring equipment that transforms Erebus into one of the most intensely watched volcanoes in the world.

In the early decades, scientists gathered just a few precious weeks' worth of data each summer at Erebus. Now, despite the harsh climate, everything from earthquake monitors to infrared cameras perch on the volcano year-round. Instruments also track the swelling and sinking of the volcano's surface, snooping on magma pulsing underground; listen to infrasound(sound below the range of human hearing); and sniff gases escaping into the air.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/lava-lake-antarctica-rare-glimpse-erebus-volcano-20140424

Severe Weather Forecast: Multiple Rounds of Severe Thunderstorms and Possible Tornadoes Through the Weekend

As is typical of spring, the threat of severe weather is ramping up from the Plains into the Mississippi Valley and parts of the South through early next week. In fact, we are tracking two weather systems that will spawn severe weather over the next five days or so.

Central Radar, Alerts 

• INTERACTIVE RADAR

The latest details and updates on the first bout of severe storms from Thursday through Friday are below. In addition, we are closely monitoring a more significant and widespread severe threat starting this weekend in the Plains. Click here to see our full forecast on the next storm system that we'll be tracking this weekend into early next week.

(MORE: 2014 Remains Fatality-Free for Tornadoes | Record-Long Wait for Year 's First EF3)

Severe Threat Through Friday

Thursday's Thunderstorm Outlook

Friday's Thunderstorm Outlook

Thursday: Scattered severe storms possible from northeast Texas to parts of Arkansas, Missouri, northern Louisiana, northern Mississippi, western Tennessee, western Kentucky and southern Illinois. As storms develop and intensify across these states Thursday afternoon they could produce large hail, damaging wind gusts and perhaps a tornado or two.

Friday: Lingering threat of a few severe storms in the coastal Southeast. Localized strong wind gusts and hail possible are the main concerns in the coastal Carolinas.

http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/severe-weather-tracker-page

No tornado Deaths: 2014 Has Longest Fatality-Free Start in 99 Years

Even as we push deeper into the heart of spring tornado season, 2014 has so far completely spared Americans the agony and grief of tornado-related deaths. The year's long early safe streak has put 2014 in rare territory, historically.

The modern era of tornado records began in 1950 with the advent of the storm database maintained by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. This year has now gone on longer than any other calendar year in that era without a tornado fatality.

The previous record belonged to 2002, when the year's first killer tornado struck April 21 -- an F3 that killed a man in a mobile home in a rural area of Wayne County, Illinois.

History in the Making?

When compiling historical tornado lists, one way to compare records is to look at four different eras, reflecting the evolution of tornado documentation as described in tornado historian Tom Grazulis' compendium, Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991:

• The modern era, 1950-present. In his book, Grazulis notes that "serious efforts" to document all tornadoes began in 1953, which was the first full year of tornado watches issued by the U.S. Weather Bureau, now the National Weather Service. The bureau began collecting thorough data in an attempt to determine how well the watches were verifying (i.e., how many watches contained tornadoes).
• Since the "middle period"; 1916-present. Grazulis points out that the government began keeping an official count of tornadoes in 1916, but the effort was not evenly executed in every state.
• Since the "early period"; 1880-present. The efforts of John Park Finley, considered America's first tornado climatologist and first forecaster of severe thunderstorms, resulted in a great advance in the collection of tornado reports beginning in 1880. Grazulis notes, however, that the historical record from 1880-1915 is likely incomplete owing to a relative lack of small-town newspapers in what was then the predominantly poor and rural South, as compared to a more robust newspaper and storm reporting network in the Plains.
• Since the end of the Civil War; 1866-present. Very few tornadoes were reported or recorded in the chaos of the Civil War, so attempting to craft a list any farther back in time than 1866 is futile.

Even including what are likely incomplete historical records from the mid 19th to early 20th centuries, 2014 already ranks among the top 10 years with the longest fatality-free start. It's likely that some of those older years in the record had undocumented tornado deaths, which would move 2014 even higher in the rankings if we had perfect knowledge of what happened back then.

http://www.weather.com/safety/tornadoes/no-tornado-deaths-safety-streak-record-20140420

A Great Lakes Oddity: Ice Volcanoes

If there's an upside to this year's invasion of extreme cold, it's this: weird and beautiful things are happening in the Great Lakes.
This winter has included reports of ice balls weighing up to 50 pounds in Lake Michigan, icefoots, and near-record freezing that allowed a plane to successfully land on the frosted-over waters of Lake Huron. But among the oddities, the most exciting winter presence here are the ice volcanoes.

Ice volcanoes (known as cryovolcanoes in scientific circles) form along the shore, and can range in size from 3 feet to roughly the size of a house.
While they look like just an ordinary hill of snow, they're really a hardened hollow cone of ice and snow. Instead of spewing lava, they erupt with a mix of ice, water and sleet as the swell builds up beneath it and waves crash against the shore.
Ice volcanoes can be found annually at sites around the Great Lakes, but they require a unique set of conditions. Ground-level temperatures should be slightly below freezing and the waves need to be several feet high.

This past January, hundreds of ice volcanoes cropped up along the Lake Ontario shoreline, in Presqu'ile Provincial Park. Along with attracting tourists, park biologist Don Tyerman said snowy owls were using them as hunting platforms.
"They just perch on top and watch for waterfowl," he told the Windsor Star. "Sometimes we see them eating ducks on top of the volcanoes."
While they're fascinating to explore, naturalists warn against climbing on top of ice volcanoes since their thickness varies, and they could collapse.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/nature/great-lakes-oddity-ice-volcanoes-20140301

Guatemala's Pacaya Volcano Erupts

The Pacaya volcano near Guatemala City erupted early Sunday, shooting plumes of ash and vapor 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers) high and spewing glowing-hot rock and lava, the Associated Press reports.
The eruption is the latest round of activity at the scenic volcano located just 30 miles (50 kms) south of Guatemala City.

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The ash plume was moving southwest and west, away from the capital.
The BBC reports that flights have been diverted from the area and officials are considering evacuating people who live nearby.
"We are assessing with the National Disaster Management Centre (Conred) whether we will need to evacuate the 3,000 people who live in the villages of El Rodeo and Patrocinio," said the Pacaya National Park director, Humberto Morales.
Pacaya is one of Guatemala's most active and picturesque volcanoes. An eruption in January sent lava flowing down one side of the volcano, leading to evacuations.

http://www.weather.com/news/guatemalas-pacaya-volcano-erupts-20140302