There was an 8.3 earthquake late last night off the Alaskan peninsula. I've seen no reports of damage, but that's a darned big one. Prayers sent out for the safety of @Don Alaska and any other friends & family we may have up that way.
Felt little or nothing here. I have not heard of notable damage out there either. We were still awake after arriving form our toe-week sojourn to Indianapolis. We exchanged nid-90s (F.) high temps tp mid-60s (F.) high temps. Weed crop has done extremely well in our absence. Thanks for the thoughts though.
After “losing you” for almost 2 years because of an earthquake, and you just disappeared; we all sort of panic when you don’t show up for a few days, especially when we see earthquake reports. Who cares if the earthquake was in Tonga, we still worry. You just need to post in the forum and let us all know when you are going to be gone, so we know you haven’t been “earthquaked” again, @Don Alaska .
We had another earthquake today, but I didn't feel it, as I was out on my tractor plowing snow. Neighbors reported that it felt like a truck hitting the side of a building. There was little or no damage reported. It was initially a magnitude 6.0 but was downgraded to a 5.0 for paperwork reasons. You will notice that from the USGS. They downgrade earthquake magnitude to make their jobs easier. Apparently the amount of work they have to do increases when they cross an integral magnitude, so a 6.0 will be reduced to a 5.9, a 7.0 will be downgraded to a 6.8 or 6.9, etc.
Are they saying, by their actions, that their job is only short-term quake warnings, not long-term data collection? https://quakewatch.qvsdata.com/2011/08/25/do-usgs-downgrade-earthquakes/
This was the one that was terrible, I have seen one film of a freighter at the docks with men looking over the rails and taking pictures and you could actually see people on land being just swallowed up in the ground.
They generally downgrade the quakes if they cross an integer magnitude. If they upgrade it is because of international measurements of the same quake putting pressure on the USGS. They will occasionally upgrade, say to a 5.8 if their original measurement is 5.6 and Europe measures it at 5.9.
I have several friends who were here for the 1964 quake, and they said that in some ways, the 2018 quake was scarier even though it was much smaller and did less damage. The 2018 quake was lateral movement and we got shaken severely, whereas the 1964 quake was like being on rough seas with more up and down wave motion.