A Mild Start to Summer & Big Shakes

Summer has come in like a lamb for central Va. with mild temps, some rain and pleasant humidity levels. The temps will begin to rise a little farther into the 80's throughout this week with long range forecasts pointing to the real summer heat building into next week, but still only 90's.  Plenty of rain in the area throughout the spring has kept things green and growing.  All in all a very pleasant spring after a long, cold, nasty winter.  As the planet continues to warm, as current trends show (ice melt being the most noticeable),  cold winters will likely lead to hot summers (ask Australians about their recent summer); extremes being more the norm than the exception as ubiquitous change rolls on.
Plenty of plate change today on the shaky 3rd planet out along the line where the old day ends and the new begins.  A 6.9 and then 6.6 quake just east of the International Dateline along the northeastern edge of the Australian plate rocked things just above New Zealand earlier today.  Not long after those shakes, things got even shakier just west of the IDL but far to the north in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska where a 7.9 quake made adjustments to the colliding plates of the Pacific and North America.  Tsunami warnings were issued with all that sea floor shifting but have since been cancelled with less than a one foot rise spotted anywhere around or across the Pacific basin.  A look at the previous 7 day quake list shows few surprises, subduction of the Pacific plate continues all around the basin.
And, in another no big surprises thought, the volcano list is heavy with eruptions in the Aleutians, the Kamchatka peninsula and the Kuril Islands just to their south.  The Theory of Plate Tectonics sure explained why the shakes and eruptions seemed to happen in the same places...again and again and again and... hang on out there.
Off this planet and into the nearby regions of space, the waning crescent moon and Venus early morning show (viewed from Earth, anyway) peaked this morning with our satellite and nearest planet neighbor very close low in the southeast, especially for North American observers and both just below the Pleiades, the seven sisters of mythology.  The moon will be even thinner and lower tomorrow morning and near Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the bull with Venus now above and right of the moon star pairing.  In the evening sky, not dark with the long days of early summer till well after nine,  Jupiter continues to drop quickly in the southwest with rusty Mars to its left followed by golden Saturn high in the south.  Get out and check it out...if the T'storms and mosquitoes allow...it's lovely out there, Today On Earth.