Elemental Invasion Has BegunFollow

That's a really good point. Plot loophole?

I think they just figured it was more important to have elementals in level appropriate zones for everyone (which means Outland for levels 60-68 or so) than to stick with the story and keep the invasion confined to Azeroth. A lot of the special events in the game don't make 'sense' (like the HH being in multiple places attacking towns all at the same time and the Black Knight's story quest line taking Alliance and Horde to totally different places) but sometimes they have to suspend continuity to make events more accessable to a larger number of players.

I've gotten the buff from destroying lower level rifts but I haven't been able to interact with the item when the rift was too low of a level. I tried this on my 80 Rogue in STV and got the buff but no quest daily.

You don't have to even tag an elemental, let alone kill it, to get the buff. It seems like you just have to be there close to the action when the rift gets destroyed.

While the rifts seem to appear about an hour apart, over the course of the evening, the Northrend rifts on my server were more like 45-50 minutes apart so the first ones I was hitting were close to the hour mark, the later ones were 15 minutes before the hour and 25 minutes before the hour by the time I quit camping them for the achievement (got it on three characters last night). After seeing how many more rifts seemed to be in the lowbie zones, I think I will work on the achievement for alts in those less-populated areas and just go to one in Northrend for the daily if I feel like it. Also, there were active rifts in Azeroth a good 10+ minutes before they became active in Northrend so it seems like they spawn across a continent at the same time but each continent is on a different timer.

Ah yes the "it was always there you just never noticed it" line, one step above "a wizard did it."

Well, there was the whole "The Hand of Gul'dan" questline in Shadowmoon Valley.

"The elements need your help, <race>! Shadowmoon Valley has been subject to unspeakable evils. The spirits remain tortured to this day. Many are enraged and unwilling to commune with the Earthen Ring.
Help this world heal, friend."

The end of the chain has you kill Cyrukh the Firelord, the Outland equivalent of Ragnaros.

They're not just predicting it. They're trying to help it along.

Some more observations from last night...

It appears that every zone except for the starter zones, Moonglade, Deadwind Pass and Wintergrasp has rifts in it. The rifts seem fairly numerous in the old world zones though some that are in or really near towns get closed quickly.

If you're only looking to get the achievement, lowbie zones work great and I was able to get three buffs in a single outbreak period and was really close to getting all four simply because there aren't many people in those zones closing up rifts unlike in Northrend where the rifts get closed within second (it seems) of their opening.

The rifts in a continent all seem to be on the same timer but it seems like the timers are separate for Northrend, Old World and Outland. I suspect Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms are separate too but on my server last night, they seemed to be showing up at around the same time.

You must be in the rift area to get the buff when it is closed. There seemed to be some confusion last night with people thinking they only needed to kill or tag an elemental to get credit. You don't need to kill anything to get the buff nor do you need to be there when it closes to be able to loot the quest thing (assuming you are the right level for that rift).

I found that rifts that aren't on the various lists on the sites are more likely to be around until the end of the outbreak. The ones in towns get closed really fast so unless you are camping one and waiting for it to start, you shouldn't expect to hit those while trying to get as many done in one outbreak period. If you take flight paths during an outbreak, keep an eye out for rifts as you fly overhead and try to note their locations in case you need that type on an alt later. I've spotted many rifts that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere while on flights over a zone.

I did see at least one glitched rift that was present but there were no elementals around to kill to destroy it. I found this one after the end of one of the outbreaks so it's not like I was expecting to find a rift active so I wasn't too surprised that it wasn't working. Someone told me they thought the rifts and elementals were phased so maybe just that one was coded slightly wrong since I did think I saw elementals as I approached it. I have seen a rift despawn so I know what that looks like too and have never seen one where the rift remained after the elementals despawned.

I have no idea if that one is the same (though it is likely).

I do know that the robe is the same as the Twilight Cultist robes you get as drops out in Silithus that let you summon stuff out there. That doesn't help a bank alt (since the level required is higher than the average bank alt) but it could be an option to a high level character who wants to keep the 'look'. The robe looks great on female characters. :)