This Week
Hurricane Watch
Map of the Caribbean
Hurricane Watch Friday, November 12, 2010 am PDT
Atlantic Basin, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico have no tropical storm activity at the present time.
Hurricane Watch Thursday, November 11, 2010 am PDT
No tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Basin, Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico.
Best weather report of the day is the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Northern Mexico and Southern California.
Calm seas and clear weather in the area allowed an embarrassed
cruise ship Carnival Splendor to be towed into San Diego Bay.
Without power, following an engine room fire, for three days the stranded cruise ship, with the help of the US Navy, and two Mexican tug boats, arrived at a safe harbor.
The several thousand passengers and crew will debark with no one the worse for ware. The dining experience was challenged as the US Navy, on short notice, could only deliver Spam for dinner.
Hurricane Watch Wednesday, November 10, 2010 am PDT
Cloudiness and thunderstorms over Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Northern Leeward Islands. Heavy rains are expected to continue over these islands for the next day or two before the system moves out to the north.
Hurricane Watch Tuesday, November 9, 2010 am PDT
Satellite pictures give no indication of tropical storm activity within the Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
It's all clear folks.
Hurricane Watch Monday, November 8, 2010 am PDT
Tomas has faded out of existence leaving the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean without a storm system. There is some wet weather in the northeastern Caribbean, but other than that the Atlantic basin is quiet.
Hurricane Watch Sunday, November 7, 2010 am PDT
Tomas continues to produce heavy rains over portions of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and northern Lesser Antilles even as it moves away from land into the open Atlantic Ocean.
Hurricane Watch Saturday, November 6, 2010 am PDT
Tropical Storm Tomas with its strong winds, thunderstorms and rain bands moved across Haiti leaving more grief for that land of earthquake victims.
Moving at about 15 mph the storm continued north and away from Haiti bringing its wind and rain to the Turks and Caicos Islands before bending to the northeast into an open Atlantic.
Follow the map pointer around the Caribbean.
The commander was generous with his time and answered another dozen questions. To finish off his presentation he went back to the map, and gave us an idea about where we would be flying. “Generally speaking it will be in the Caribbean area heading out to the southeast where we might cross the Dominican Republic toward the Lesser Antilles. A little farther east we'd cross Puerto Rico into the Leeward Islands and Barbados. If our mission takes us west we'd cross over Cuba maybe toward Honduras and Belize.” Then he held up his hand to shut off any further questions. "Now I suspect that this one briefing didn't answer all your questions, but that's all the time we have for now. If you have any further questions put them in writing and pass them along to your chief and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Once the briefing was officially over I walked out of the auditorium with Bill Hurley and he asked, "What did you think, Tom?"
"I don't know where to start, Bill. I can say this though, I've done a one eighty on the overall project. I now think it's a good idea."
"I agree with you, Tom and I suspect we're not the only ones the commander converted this morning."
“The basic premise seems to be solid," I said. "And there is no doubt that we need some kind of hurricane warning system."
"What do you think they could do even if they get a warning?"
"Well," I thought for a moment and said, “ I guess they could start by boarding up their windows and take stuff out of the yard that might blow around. Then if a water surge is predicted it would give them time to move up to higher ground."
"What did you think of that map?" Bill asked.
"Well, there's one thing for sure, it gives us a huge area to cover, which brings up a point I've been thinking about. With all that vast amount of ocean out there I just hope Squadron 114 has drawn a compliment of good navigators."
The briefing gave us lots of information about search patterns and the like, but little about hurricanes. I went to the library intending to fill in that gap. There were a number of books on the subject and as I began to read about hurricanes I realized that climatologist’s had been studying and writing about hurricanes for hundred’s of years. I was struck by several phrases they used a lot, tropical waves, storm surge; high and low pressure systems as well as the instrument used to measure those systems, the barometer. That's a gauge that measures barometric pressure - 29.53 inches at sea level seems to be the norm. Anything above that reading portends fair weather ahead and below seems to indicate foul. The point was made that when measuring storm potential the lower the pressure the stronger the storm.
Tropical storms form out of the warm waters near the Equator. And due to the earth's rotation storms spawned north of the Equator spin in a counter-clockwise direction while only a few miles south of that imaginary line the storms develop and spin in a clockwise direction. Hurricanes are fueled by warm ocean waters from below and steered by winds high above. Danger to sea-lanes and shipping is caused by high winds and tall waves moving ahead of the hurricane. When the storm is nearing landfall, the right front quadrant relative to the storms direction of travel is undoubtedly the deadliest part of the storm. Just by its presence, the hurricane is a force of intimidation and whether its winds are extremely high or not, the tall ocean waves forced by the storm surge preceding the hurricane is deadliest when it makes landfall during a period of high tide. Those wind whipped waves can cause flooding that is far more devastating than winds generated by most storms.
While looking at a chart of past hurricanes I spotted the one, the commander mentioned at the briefing, which probably got the attention of the folks in Washington. It was a category 3 that killed 390 people as it rumbled north along the Eastern Seaboard of the United states. And I suspect that is the reason we are in Miami preparing to search and locate some of those storms - and work toward some kind of warning system that will eventually save some lives.
Fully loaded with aviation fuel, our Privateers were capable of reaching all of the Eastern or Western Caribbean and then return to base in one non-stop flight. To the East the outer range was the vicinity of the Leeward Islands, the Lesser Antilles near Guadeloupe. In the west it would be the north shore of Honduras and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
The crews, down from Jacksonville, were familiar with most of the geography we were assigned to cover. Our regular navigation training flights were routinely charted into those same areas. A typical navigation problem might be to fly from Jacksonville past the Bahamas as far as Turk Island, turn west to Cuba and from there head northeast to base. And of course that was good practice, but once you throw a hurricane into the mix your navigation problems become a bit more complicated.
Squadron 114 was made up of six Privateers equipped with turbo supercharged engines and the best radio and radar equipment available. Most of our personnel below the grade of lieutenant were multi tasked. Flight crewmembers not assigned to fly on any given day had to report to the flight line for routine maintenance duty. The one constant in aircraft maintenance is unbuttoning engine cowling, changing spark plugs and adjusting or replacing a faulty carburetor. Keeping busy, even doing menial tasks, had its own reward in that it was a temporary distraction from our overall mission. Most of us had a sense of anxiety and some trepidation as we eased toward our first face-to-face confrontation with an actual hurricane.
The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle book page Click Here
Tom's Books and Blogs:
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