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Double in background radiation - US, East Coast, Long Island
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:33 pm
by Nicker
Approximately 20 minutes ago, my little PM1610 Polimaster starts with its audio and visual alarms.
Background radiation for me has always been 009-010 µrem.
Now it seems to have stabilized around 015-018 µrem.
I’m sure it could be detector malfunction, but then I Googled and there seems to be a couple articles published about Fukushima radiation reaching the coastlines in the last couple hours.
http://netc.com seems to show some abnormal spikes in radiation for the CT and NY (on Long Island) detectors.
55CPM/65CPM
Do you think double the background radiation going to be the new norm for a while?
Re: Double in background radiation - US, East Coast, Long Is
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 3:45 pm
by Richard Hull
No! This is a non-issue, but more of a general amusement issue. Changing winds due to major weather patterns, melting snow and heavy rains can easily double background for a bit and very long, hot, dry spells can lower background. I would think a quadrupling of background might be of some moderate interest, but still not very dangerous.
Virtually all such anomalies are due purely to NORM Radon and its daughters.
We had another post last year regarding this that put all of this on Fukushima and no one who credibly monitored here saw any increase over normal background at all.
As bad as fukushima was, it will not mean beans to anyone in the US.
Anyone want to go another round and report?
Richard Hull
Re: Double in background radiation - US, East Coast, Long Is
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 4:11 pm
by Nicker
I came to revise!
You're 100% correct Richard, it's just strange to see backgrounds double for an hour or so due to weather conditions!
Hopefully counts will stay low forever :]
Re: Double in background radiation - US, East Coast, Long Is
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 7:32 pm
by JakeJHecla
No increase here in Boston. Took a look at my Radex 1212BT dosimeter logs, and there has not been a significant increase.
Re: Double in background radiation - US, East Coast, Long Is
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 1:51 am
by Richard Hull
I did a quick check over 10 minutes and got 51CPM outside. This is totally normal here at my meaasuring area out back.
Richard Hull
Re: Double in background radiation - US, East Coast, Long Is
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:19 am
by Jerry Biehler
Nicker wrote:
I’m sure it could be detector malfunction, but then I Googled and there seems to be a couple articles published about Fukushima radiation reaching the coastlines in the last couple hours.
Yes, there have been reports of cesium being detected in the sea water. Around 5Bq per cubic meter of sea water. So you would pretty much have to drink 3 cubic meters of sea water to ingest the equivalent of one banana. Your not going to be detecting that with a geiger counter.