What would happen if the Earth abruptly stopped spinning for 42 seconds?

1. If the earth stops spinning suddenly, the atmosphere will continue to spin. This means very high speed winds, i.e., approximately 1670 Km/hr which is earth's rotational velocity. The winds will also cause erosion to the earth's crust.

2. A sudden stop of the spin will have a similar effect to when you press brakes on a moving car. You guessed it right, you (and every other object on this earth) will fly with a speed of earth's rotational velocity, around 1670 km/hr. This is a very high speed but not enough to launch the objects in space, so no space trip for any of us.

3. The earth will become a perfect sphere because the bulge in the earth is due to its rotation. This bulge is along the equator and the oceans as they are now are due to this bulge. If there is no bulge and the earth is a perfect sphere, the oceans will redistribute resulting in one massive supercontinent that circles the equator and the north and south poles will become oceans. See the image below:

But since the earth will stop spinning only for 42 seconds the bulge will not completely disappear before the earth starts spinning again. However, the effect will be enough to cause flooding (in fact, gigantic tsunami) but only for 42 seconds after which the bulge will reappear and the flooding will retreat (causing more havoc).

4. You will have a day 42 seconds longer.

#fact

Source: Quora and Esri