Earthquake activity Kuril Kamchatka trench. High speed solar wind is hitting the planet.

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]How's it going out there, folks? Welcome back here to a Friday, Friday night, 10:22 PM California time. Here it is.

[00:00:10]April 17th, 2026.

[00:00:13]Welcome to the weekend. Here, see what we got for earthquake activity. Uh, latest quake here shows a 3.7. Well, there's a 2.6 here in the green flag.

[00:00:24]3.7. Uh, looks like that's hiding. Where are we hiding at tonight? Oh, looks like in the mix as well. I see that red flag into the uh Indonesia area. It looks like maybe pretty close to the Philippines. Decent cluster of some uh some uptick going on there. Also some deeper activity. Notice those uh quakes raised well off the globe in this area.

[00:00:47]Also some deeper activity back here building up. Uh that's over around the eastern Afghanistan area with a 5.3 and a four-pointer coming in earlier this evening.

[00:00:58]deep activity uh kicking up right now.

[00:01:00]Also some newer activity around the Curl Islands, the Curl Campa Trench, right about the center portion here. That's the area that has not had a big rupture in a little while. Of course, back in July of last year, we had that 8.8 here along the Croam Chat to the northern end that ruptured a fairly lengthy uh subduction zone area, but it didn't quite take the entirety here. So, uh, this segment, uh, is, uh, I feel it's fairly well primed for some big earthquake activity. We do have to watch that closely.

[00:01:35]Uh, that five-pointer, by the way, 5.2 originally coming in as a 5.8 5.2 by the US USGS there. Pretty good downgrade. Uh, through the Pacific Northwest, smaller earthquake activity.

[00:01:49]Uh, we can run over and double check the um Mount St. Helen's earthquake activity. But before we do that, let's check out the Cascadia trimmer or slow slip events which are non-existent once again. Zero, a big zero after we had a couple weeks there of some elevated trimmer counts. Really kicked up here in the first week of April and then it just dropped off like a rock.

[00:02:19]That's the Cascadia slow slip events there into the deeper area of that subduction zone.

[00:02:26]Uh let's go ahead and double check the uh St. Helens area real quick. See what we got on the recorded seismograph station here this evening where there is uh looks like a couple smaller earthquakes there.

[00:02:37]These little dots pretty easy to see.

[00:02:39]Maybe I can even amplify that a little bit more so you guys could see maybe even some smaller ones in there as well when you really turn up the sensitivity to that. Uh they are reporting see what we got here. Well, two earthquakes from this morning, but none none of those that are happening right now are being reported. So these are just very small earthquakes. Nothing big. No major swarm going on there across Mount St. Helens for now. Uh the Cascadia pretty quiet.

[00:03:07]One earthquake here into the um uh northern California area. This one about nine miles deep towards a locked area.

[00:03:14]It's underneath there underneath this land into the locked area of the Cascadia subduction zone. Uh 2.1 nothing big far as the Nevada activity goes.

[00:03:28]earthquake activity uh fairly consistent through the um excuse me through the day.

[00:03:37]Um I'm wondering here if they've uh turned off the reporting again and I say that because if you look here from the time that it started kicking up this morning which was about uh let's see here let's go back and see oh that's 2.5 and above. Let's go to all magnitudes. I was like, where'd they all go? They they removed them all. But that's not the case. So, it looks like something happened in between yesterday at 17:23 and today at 6:30 a.m. Notice that there wasn't even a single earthquake being reported here. That is a little suspicious considering that we've had consistent activity prior and consistent uh consistent activity uh since that time. So, we're missing a number of earthquakes, and I'm wondering why that is. You know, there you're telling me there was no earthquakes in a in a fairly lengthy time period. We're looking at 12 hours or or so, not even a peep or a squeak. So, something happened. Why that got turned off or why they stopped reporting that, who knows? I don't like that. I just I don't like when things go unreported, but I can notice it. I'm not I'm not gonna not notice the uh the time gap there. That's a significant time gap.

[00:04:56]And I want to know why they stopped reporting those earthquakes for that extended time. So, that kicked off turned off for whatever reason at 17:23 yesterday. Today, looks like we're still getting the earthquakes coming in there.

[00:05:11]Now, I was going to say if that turned off at 1700 again today, I'd be like, okay, come on. Who's having fun with the reporting out here? get. It's not nice.

[00:05:21]But it does look like they're reporting all the earthquakes right now. We'll keep an eye on this. I'm I'm definitely observant. I think we all are when it comes to watching all these earthquakes and the time, right? Can't trying to pull a fast one on us here. Um but far as the earthquakes right now, let's see what we got. Uh number of twos out there today, no threes. the total tally of reports minus the 12 hours that they left out in a time gap, 238.

[00:05:51]Decent uh decent amount of aftershock activity there up around the Susanville. Well, actually this is a kind of a new swarm kicking up here near Lake Davis.

[00:06:08]See all these swarms out here recently really make me think that something bigger is happening out here across the Walker Lane area.

[00:06:17]It's the eastern portion here of uh the California region that you know does see some larger events and a lot of activity has been happening here across this area up around Susanville recently. This is a new swarm though. The Sudan Susanville activity um was in the last couple months or so. They've only had two earthquakes here in the last 30 days, but we'd have to go back further to see that. But this is a new event uh down here. Pretty shallow earthquake activity, but these are not just small micro quakes. These are up in the two range or so. The largest being a 2.5.

[00:06:54]Um it is on the eastern crest here of the Sierra Nevada mountains associated with the Walker Lane area portion of it.

[00:07:00]Anyway, the northern segment.

[00:07:03]Uh, I don't see any fault systems out there. Let's see.

[00:07:14]What do we got out there? These look like some kind of volcanic butes maybe or mounds. It's kind of interesting out there how there's no uh tree growth out here outside of Lake Davis.

[00:07:35]Anyway, yeah, that's a kind of a new swarm of activity down there.

[00:07:39]Seven earthquakes being reported.

[00:07:44]Just have to watch that. Well, I think what I'll do is pull up a uh a um a little bit. Let me look here.

[00:08:01]Okay. So, the they call it a shear zone here, deformation zone.

[00:08:13]It includes quite a few areas out here mentioned in the red. I was seeing if they had any decent maps of uh here's one a simplified image.

[00:08:32]Hey, there's a plate tectonic map.

[00:08:35]Oh, yeah. How can we see that?

[00:08:41]So, the Walker Lane up here. Yeah. all the activity that's been kicking off on the eastern side of Sier Nevada, it does look like it's associated with the uh the Walker Lane.

[00:08:50]Um the Walker Lane takes up 15 to 25% of the boundary motion between the Pacific and the North American plate. The other 75% being taken up by the San Andreas fault. I'm thinking here though, when things are really locked and compacted and loaded as much as they can be, that's when we start seeing the elevated activity across the Walker Lane region.

[00:09:11]That could be a bad sign here for the San Andreas fault, but who knows? Um, several magnitude 7 plus earthquakes have occurred along the eastern California shear zone, including the 1992 Landers earthquake, 1999 Hector Mine earthquake, 2019 Rididgerest earthquake, and the Owens Valley earthquake as well back in 1872, which was potentially up to a 7.9.

[00:09:38]So, we'll have to keep an eye on that. A lot of movement happening out here across this area recently.

[00:09:44]Uh the Bay region, pretty quiet. Not a whole lot happening there. Southern California, let's see, aside from that little earthquake this morning outside of Ledllo, things are all in the microquake range here. Some activity around the San Andreas fall, but really nothing big going on.

[00:10:01]Yellowstone National Park, couple smaller quakes up there, but you know what? We'll double check that and see what we got going on there.

[00:10:12]across the uh Yellowstone area tonight.

[00:10:16]And really not a whole lot happening.

[00:10:18]There's a couple of those earthquakes this morning. Uh maybe one little spike of an earthquake or two uh since then, but really not a whole lot going on there at Yellowstone.

[00:10:30]Oil fields of Texas still the same. Two earthquakes out there in North Carolina from this morning. Really nothing new to report. Uh, a lot of uptick going on here across the Illutian Trench. Once again, notice that cluster of quakes kicking up. Nothing big. Let's see what we got. Oh, quite a few of these are above 2.5.

[00:10:50]Bunch of movement happening here.

[00:10:53]No major quake activity, but still kind of keeping an eye on this on this section here. And also the curl cam chaka trench here, the southern portion.

[00:11:04]There's that cluster of activity there around the Baluca Sea region. Quite a few fives. So, what's the biggest earthquake so far today? Let's see what we got. Wow. Whoopde-doo. I mean, we have some decent uptick going on far as, you know, certain areas.

[00:11:23]Um, and the multitude of counts out here little bit elevated, but there's nothing big happening. Um, and that 5.4 four occurred early this morning had a 5.3 in Afghanistan and the Crow Islands right now. So, you know, this is pretty much your what you would see on on a typical day. Yes, there's some some elevated minor activity, but nothing broad scale, you know, nothing of Whoa, check out all this activity.

[00:11:58]And I'm wondering here, have we got hit with that uh CME yet? Yes, we're getting hit right now. In fact, look at that. The Aurora is starting to stir up. KP index spiking. Um let's see. Yeah, looks like potentially might have auroras in the in the viewing area tonight.

[00:12:21]Not at a G2 G2 class storm yet, but it supposed to. Let's see what we got here for the high-speed solar wind stream.

[00:12:29]Yeah, there it is kicking up here in the last couple hours. Really ramping up uh but not significant. I mean, it was at 350. We're up above 45500 right now. Uh the BTBZ component is definitely cooperating wide open there, meaning that the auroras are going to stir up.

[00:12:48]Uh the temps increase a little bit as well. So, if you are an aurora watcher, get out there and uh uh do your thing. You know, if you like looking at the northern lights, I'd love to get out there and check them out. But we got cloud cover right now. Not going to see them here northern California at this uh level, but it could spike up to a G2 class storm, maybe even stronger pending the BTBZ component. Uh but that that's what I was wondering here. So that chronal hole is now facing away from the planet in terms of the Earth's sun uh direction. It's not center disc anymore facing us. It's moving off to the west. We have gotten hit here with the high-speed solar wind stream right now. And you know, I I don't really see any major uptick in earthquake activity.

[00:13:35]You know, no uh nothing that's going to say, "Wow, look at this. This has to be the reason why, you know, we're seeing all this activity because the CME or the uh high-speed solar wind stream is hitting us or the chronal hole is facing us. So far, I have yet to see it. Um, I'm going to give it by morning. Uh, if it's not here by morning, far as any uptick goes, then I will mark that down in my book that I'm keeping track of and mark that as a nay. Not a yay, but a nay in terms of whether this event created elevated earthquake activity or not. I just right now I don't see it. But that could change. You know, maybe in the morning I'll be eating my words. Who knows? I'd prefer to eat, you know, some cereal or some some oatmeal, something like that. Something somewhat healthy.

[00:14:22]But, uh, yeah, let me go back here and see.

[00:14:26]Flaring activity way down, way down in the B flare category. And I expect that continue to continue. Uh 4419.

[00:14:35]Yeah, see it's getting a clear-cut separation here. That is normally a sign of weakening unless we got building. Uh and those those areas in there have definitely degraded quite a bit uh since this morning. So I think 4419 is dying.

[00:14:51]There's an area back there on the northeastern limb. uh a little disorganized area that is probably not going to be even anything. Uh so the flare threat will remain low. I'm thinking 1% chance for X flare. Uh we'll be lucky if we get any kind of M flare activity. I really don't see it.

[00:15:13]These guys are showing a 25% chance.

[00:15:15]Seaf flare maybe 75% chance. But I mean we're not even sizzling anymore. We're just flatlining in the low B flare category. That's about as boring as you can get, right? B. Oh, I guess we can go down to A. I'll have to think of a word for Aflare activity.

[00:15:35]Definitely not going to be awesome.

[00:15:38]All right. Uh, let's see what else we got here. Man, some photogenic tornadoes out there today by all the stormchasers.

[00:15:46]Crazy, crazy, crazy. Another day of significant tornado outbreak activity out there. 25 tornado reports as you can see quite a bit up in Minnesota uh in Wisconsin.

[00:16:01]Uh is Wisconsin the new uh tornado magnet up there or what crazy. So a lot of uh tornado activity 171 reports of wind damage. Hail reports 124. So that's a big severe weather event day and that's continuing through the evening as you can see there. areas in the orange.

[00:16:20]Tornado threat overnight here. Um this is uh limited up here across areas of um Illinois, Missouri.

[00:16:30]These regions up here looks looks like they're got that dashed area. That's the 5% chance there. So watch that overnight. 2% surrounding that in the green. Uh there's some wind wind potential as well. and uh the hail limited over Oklahoma as far as the large stuff goes. Uh now for Saturday during the day uh that severe weather shifting further east right now they only have a 2% chance here for some tornado activity and the green wind maybe a little bit of hell threat out there as well. Uh Sunday just some general thunderstorm activity out there. Uh now we do have a pattern change here for the west coast. We're switching back to wet wet conditions here.

[00:17:16]I like that. So, it looks like Monday night, Monday, Monday night into Tuesday, we got a decent weather maker there, bringing some precipitation that's going to probably stir up some further severe weather across the same areas as we head towards next weekend.

[00:17:34]Not this weekend, but next weekend.

[00:17:38]And uh just kind of a an active pattern.

[00:17:44]Quite a bit of uh changes going on out here. I mean, I'll take the rain, that's for sure. I don't know. Let's see how much rain we're going to get out here.

[00:17:56]These guys showing uh probably around the Chico area. Maybe maybe about two inches of rain or so.

[00:18:06]Reading area as well. maybe Sacramento.

[00:18:08]So, that's a decent amount for April.

[00:18:10]April, normally we don't get a whole lot of rain, so that's awesome there. I will take it. That's the GFS model. Um, the E EMC or uh ECMWF about the same there. Maybe a little bit more aggressive in the rainfall totals for the West Coast.

[00:18:31]Uh, these guys don't go out that far.

[00:18:39]Yeah, these guys are a little bit limited though, showing uh some lighter conditions for far as the CMC models go.

[00:18:47]Those are different types of uh weather predicting models, but it does look like we'll get some some further moisture out here, which is all right by me.

[00:18:59]Uh nothing major going on across Kilawea volcano or the Big Island for now. Uh there's a earthquake out in the Atlantic. I don't know. We'll just keep an eye on things here, folks. I I I do like to watch when space weather activity is occurring. You know, we've had that major chronal hole facing us in the last couple days. Um we have the impact of the high-speed solar windream slamming into the planet right now. Um and really nothing's nothing's kicking up here. I mean, no major events. 5.2 too along the curl cam chaka trench can happen on any given day, you know. So, we'll just have to see what happens. I guess we'll check back here in the morning and see if we got any changes going on. Still pretty good cluster across the pile trench there.

[00:19:49]It's kind of clustered in here across the center portion.

[00:20:00]Alrighty. Well, hope everyone has a good Friday night. Please stay safe out there. Enjoy your uh evening. No matter what you're doing, just be safe. We'll catch you guys out here in the morning for the uh Saturday morning update. Have a good one, folks. Take care.