Sunday, May 14, 2006

A Little Shakey

About ten minutes ago, a very small earthquake made its way through my apartment. At first I thought it was a train and then I realized that it was too late for the trains. The shaking lasted only one or two seconds but it was most definitely a little earthquake. All of the flooring creaked along with the cabinets and fixtures. My chair started shaking too, like I had just dropped a couple of quarters in or something.

As soon as it finished and I realized what that it was indeed an earthquake, I went to the Japanese Meteorological Agency website and checked for seismic activity and found that I wasn't going crazy and that there was a small earthquake a couple of prefectures away from me. This was the pic that was first on the site:



It looked like it was a 4.5 magnitude quake in one of the prefectures to the South of me. What I had felt was a weaker version of that, probably a 1 magnitude judging by the monitoring stations closest to me.






After I checked it out, I figured this was newsworthy enough to call Karie and Reid and wake them up (sorry guys) and see if they felt anything. They hadn't, but judging by Reid's groggy voice, he was sleeping pretty hard. Sorry you two, but I had to tell somebody. :)

After hanging up with Reid, I checked the website again and found this:



The seismic monitoring stations throughout the area had reported in and the website was updating with information in real time. I originally checked the site maybe thirty seconds after the tremors and it had already updated. Within four minutes, all of the monitoring stations had reported in and the website made the appropriate corrections. That is cool, these guys are on the ball.



Anywho, that was the excitement of my night. If you want to check out the website I went to to get the info and screen captures, it is the Japanese Meteorological Agency at the following URL: http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/menu.html

This is also the site I go to for weather information as well. I am not sure how long they keep this info on the site but just go to the "Earthquake Information" section and it should be there. You will be able to see the prefectures it was felt in and all of the counties and monitoring stations affected and the magnitude quake felt at each station.

To people that have been through quakes before, I know this was nothing but I still got an adrenaline rush from it.

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