The third winter storm to slam the Northeast coast last month reached its height on Friday, February 26, impacting nine states in the mid-Atlantic and New England through Saturday. The storm, a powerful low pressure system, originated off the mid-Atlantic coast, intensifying as it came ashore. It moved slowly into New York Friday morning and gradually dissipated over New England over the weekend before moving out to sea. AIR Worldwide estimates that insured losses from this storm, which occurred between February 23 and 28, will be between USD 150 million and USD 350 million.

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck south central Taiwan this morning at 8:20 a.m. local time (just after midnight GMT). The epicenter was located about 40 km (25 miles) west northwest of the city of Taitung (est. pop. 200,000) on Taiwan's east coast, and 60 km (40 miles) east southeast of the city of Tainan (est. pop. 800,000) on the island's west coast. Focal depth has been estimated at 23 km (14.3 miles) by the U.S. Geological Survey, but at just 5 km (3 miles) by Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau (CWB). It is still in the early aftermath of this event and these estimates may well be revised as additional information comes in from seismic networks worldwide.

Four days after the devastating Mw8.8 earthquake struck off of Chile’s central coast, communications and access are slowly being reestablished to the remote towns and villages in the hardest-hit regions of Bio Bio and Maule. With a fuller understanding of the scope of destruction, officials have reported that as much as 80% to 90% of some towns in the epicentral region have been destroyed in the quake, reduced to rubble by violent ground shaking or, in coastal villages, overwhelmed by tsunami waves that arrived half an hour later.