This Week
Hurricane Watch
Needed: Hurricane Warning System
Hurricane Watch Friday, October 8, 2010 am PDT
While remaining far away from any landmass, strengthening Tropical Storm Otto is located over the Atlantic but will continue to inundate Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with flooding rainfall today.
Otto is located some 300 miles at sea and while the rains will continue over the northeast Caribbean Islands high winds generated by the system will not reach those islands.
Hurricane Watch Thursday, October 7, 2010 am PDT
Heavy rains continue to fall on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and they are expected to continue into Friday.
No other systems or waves to report in the Atlantic basin.
Hurricane Watch Wednesday, October 6, 2010 am PDT
The tropics are alive and becoming active with the formation of a tropical depression. The depression took shape early this morning north of Puerto Rico near the central Caribbean Islands and east of the Bahamas. The movement of this system is to the north and has little chance of effecting the U.S. East Coast.
Hurricane Watch Tuesday, October 5, 2010 am PDT
Islands in the northeastern Caribbean are still getting rain and thunderstorm activity due to the low pressure system hovering in the area.
Farther out in the Atlantic satellite images show two systems moving west. Forecasters haven't seen enough of these systems to make any solid predictions. So we watch and wait.
Hurricane Watch Monday October 4, 2010 am PDT
The 2010 Hurricane Season has had a few mid Atlantic hurricanes, but so far this season the headlines are being made with Rain. Matthew brought its heavy rains and thunderstorms out of the northeast Caribbean into Central America and southern Mexico. Rain thunderstorms, floods, mud slides and washed out bridges were the hallmark of Matthew. Then the almost tropical storm, or maybe it should be called wet Nicole was spawned in in the western Caribbean and headed north past central Cuba, the Florida Keys and crawled up the U.S. East Coast more or less duplicating the heavy rains and thunderstorms Matthew had taken to Central America.
Now just as Central America and the U.S. East Coast begin to dry out here comes a low pressure area out of the northeast Caribbean bringing heavy downpours to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands today and will likely move on to Haiti and the Dominican Republic tomorrow. Since we are definitely in a soggy season all I can do is suggest that you keep the rain gear handy.
One more thing, there's another system farther out in the Atlantic. Will this one be a tropical storm with high winds or can we expect more rain?
Hurricane Watch Sunday, October 3, 2010 pm PDT
No tropical activity at the moment although there are several areas of concern on the watch list.
Stay tuned.
Hurricane Watch Saturday, October 2, 2010 am PDT
Weekend in the northeast will begin to dry out just in time for another storm that is likely to move up the coast from the Carolina's.
In the western Caribbean, tropical activity is churning up thunderstorms and rain. Will the system develop into a tropical storm and move north? Something to keep an eye on, but so far it's wait and see.
Hurricane Warning System needed.
Seasonal predictions of hurricanes as to where they will originate and where they will travel – in general is a wasted effort. There is no science to back up long range hurricane forecast predictions although there is probably some value in using past performance records and current ocean temperatures to come up with a historic norm. Still forecasting a dozen tropical storms with four or five hurricanes thrown into the mix doesn’t tell you a thing about the origin or track of any one storm.
Of course we are way ahead of the game today with satellites spotting early tropical waves and systems alerting us to potential storm activity.
It wasn't always that way as we indicated in last week's post. Those early twentieth century hurricanes illustrated that unchecked and unannounced hurricanes can be devastating with respect to loss of life and property damage. Those facts were known for years but it wasn't recognized how an alert population could prepare and prevent much of the loss of life and even some of the property damage.
It was impossible to tell how a civilian population would react to a hurricane warning. There is the wind and rain factor as well as the powerful surge that is capable of wiping out coastal communities. However, some general rules had to be formulated and sent out to the population.
And while all that was true an advanced warning system that could advise residents in the landfall area when to expect the storm and the miles per hour wind strength of the storm had to be part of the warning.
It was that fast moving 1944 hurricane and a few good thinking heads in Washington that finally focused on the problem and came up with the basic idea for a warning system that hopefully could save lots of lives.
To act on the plan Washington orders military to develop a hurricane warning system:
Navy crews back from Pacific war chosen for task.
Scuttlebutt has it that a half dozen PB4Y-2 Privateers and crews will move from Jacksonville, Florida to Miami and form Squadron 114. The mission will be to fly around the Caribbean to places like Nassau, San Juan, Barbados, Jamaica and Cuba.
“Sounds like good duty to me, but what’s the catch?’
“You fly over – you don’t stop over.”
“Give me a break. You mean we can’t even fake engine trouble and stop by Havana for a bottle of rum and a case of gin?”
“Nope.”
“Then what the hell are we doing, passing out leaflets.”
“No. You’ll be searching for hurricanes.”
“Hurricanes! That is the dumbest idea I ever heard.”
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels Tungee's Gold, The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
Www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com
http://thehurricanehunter.blogspot.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment