Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
6.5 earthquake hits Fiji.
5.9 earthquake hits Tonga.
5.4 earthquake hits Tonga.
5.2 earthquake hits Guatemala.
5.1 earthquake hits Kepulauan Talaud, Indonesia.
5.0 earthquake hits the Indian Ocean triple junction.
Storms and Floods
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
In the Western Pacific Ocean: Tropical Storm 24w (Halong), located approximately 768 nm north-northwest of Wake Island, is tracking eastward at 13 knots.
Tropical Storm 25w (Nakri), located approximately 442 nm east-northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is tracking westward 10 knots.
In the Indian Ocean: Tropical cyclone 23w (Matmo), located approximately 122 nm south-southwest of Kolkata India, is tracking northward at 08 knots.
Nature – Images
Interesting Images
Smooth balls of ice rolled ashore on a beach in Finland and piled up like a gigantic clutch of turtles’ eggs. Although fairly rare, these ice eggs form similarly to sea glass or rounded stones that wash up on the beach, said BBC Weather expert George Goodfellow. Chunks of ice break off from larger ice sheets in the sea and either taxi to shore on the incoming tide or get pushed in by gusts of wind at the water’s surface, he explained. Waves buffet the ice chunks as they travel, slowly eroding their jagged edges into smooth curves. Seawater sticks and freezes to the forming eggs, causing them to grow like snowballs do as they roll across the ground. Once the ice chunks reach shore, pounding waves tend to buff out any lingering kinks on their surfaces, leaving behind nothing but sleek and shiny “eggs” for curious tourists to happen upon.
Wildfires
Wildfires – Australia
Three people have died, four are missing and at least 150 homes have been destroyed as bushfires rage across eastern Australia, authorities said on Saturday. There were 81 fires burning across the state on Saturday afternoon, 36 of them uncontained, with an emergency warning on four of them.
Further north, in Queensland, thousands of residents near the resort town of Noosa, on the Sunshine Coast, spent the night in evacuation centres.
This is one of Australia’s worst bushfire seasons and it is occurring even before the start of the Southern Hemisphere summer, with parts of the country already crippled by severe drought.
Disease
Measles – New Zealand
The number of measles cases reported in New Zealand this year has topped 2,000 cases. According to an update from the New Zealand Ministry of Health, from 1 January 2019 to 8 November 2019 there have been 2014 confirmed cases of measles notified across New Zealand. 1631 of these confirmed cases are in the Auckland region.
Dengue Fever – Sri Lanka
To date, 65,583 dengue cases have been reported this year, including more than 80 fatalities.
Measles – Lesotho
The measles outbreak in Lesotho is the first in nearly 10 years. The WHO has encouraged health officials in Maseru, the capital city, to improve their disease surveillance.
Hepatitis E – Namibia
In Namibia, over 6 000 cases of hepatitis E have been reported since 20 October 2019. The outbreak started in Windhoek’s informal settlements in 2017.