Hurricane Harbor

A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Arthur Oozes Around. Watching and Waiting to See IF He Survives

This has been one interesting Tropical Show Alma/Arthur has put on for us.

It's like a great coming attraction at the movie before the real show starts. Exciting, entertaining and makes you want more.

So... if you follow this loop here you can see the energy sort of ooze it's way around back and forth and currently it is on the verge of making it's way over water again.

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic2/real-time/atlantic/movies/wg8vor3/wg8vor3java.html

Though you never know, hard to tell until it happens.

So keep on watching.

As for this season...2008?

For those of you trying to keep track of what year it will be like?
No year will be like 1933 exactly, nor will it be like 2005 but it will be like 2008.
That you can rely on so buckle up it's going to be a bumpy ride. Especially if you are flying in a hurricane hunter aircraft!

Besos Bobbi

Tropical Storm Arthur Forms --- 1st Storm of a Busy Season

Tropical Storm Arthur formed today ...over land .. it seems which is a new one for me but am sure it's happened before. Not often, but once or twice. Some storm back in the 1800s I believe.

Short post here with a big thought to think on..

Just how busy is the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season going to be... because the last time a Tropical Storm formed in May in this general area according to www.wunderground.com was in 1933. Similar storm... May, on the edge there and moved in... moved back (as Arthur may do) and then they came... one after another in a year to rival 95 and 96 and that year a few years ago when we ended up doing the Greek Alphabet!!

Below is the storm that Wunderground compared it to for forming in the same area, same time, yadi yadi yadi as some people say:



So... will 2008 be that busy? I think you can bet on it.

Weak shear so far.
Warm water temps that are likely to reach bathtub levels in a few months.
Waves off Africa beginning a wave train.
Dust levels in the Atlantic low compared to the last few years.

And, a strong frontal boundary off the Carolinas and Virginia that could pull storms towards the Mid-Atlantic as well as criss-cross Florida a few times just for fun!

Get ready, cause here they come, because June was not too soon this year!

Only time will tell but I'll be here blogging and tracking online with my weather friends and family.

Besos Bobbi

Ps Neil Frank took one hell of a year to decide to retire!

Check out 1933!

Friday, May 30, 2008

NRL Invest on Area in the Atlantic! 1st of the Year!



As the sun sets.... and as Channel 6 in Miami does there "Start of the Hurricane Special" on TV to show and remind the Miamians "how to prepare for a hurricane" the NRL posts an Invest for the Atlantic... or more specifically the Caribbean ... or more specifically Gulf of Honduras... or well... I got to go and get ready for the Jewish Sabbath!

Check it out yourself!

I know I've been a bit quiet today. Fighting off one of those summer like colds we all get in Miami and probably caught from my daughter but I love her anyway.

Tired. So tired. So looking forward to Shabbos and some good quality rest.

So... check it out. The season has pretty well started officially when the Navy puts up an Invest so... here we go with another round of Tropical Trouble jumping the gun on the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Wave train is already in place off of Africa, water temperatures hotter than I have seen them in a while and shear relatively low. Even the dust has settled down so... could be a hurricane season to remember so get out your hurricane maps, guides and go buy your hurricane supplies because it may just be a very busy year!

Besos Bobbi
Good Shabbos... as the sun sets on my part of the world and on our very first tropical NRL Invest!

http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.htm Click on Atlantic.


For updates go to: www.hurricanecity.com and www.flhurricane.com and the always wonderful Skeetobite for more info, loops, sats and pics. I'll be back after Shabbos on Saturday night and we will see how intense the invest is and where the models think it will go if anywhere. IF it does develop and do something.. kudos to the GFS Model!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Tropical Storm Alma Forms in the East Pacific...



A legendary name. Perhaps it's a sign of things to come this Atlantic Hurricane Season. A lot of moisture down in the Carib right now and an Alma sort of storm is possible this year depending on shear in the region.

Check out Alma of 1966 that formed in a similar area from where this little Alma's rains may enter the Caribbean Basin and with strong fronts still active to it's north it is possible a Tropical Storm could form in the Caribbean in the following week.

Tropical Waves fear shear as it rips the tops off their clouds before they can build into a force terrible to behold.

Great image this morning of a Storm that looks more like a Hurricane or Half a Hurricane. An eye like feature popped out just in time for it's naming ceremony as the NHC named Alma as the 1st storm of the Eastern Pacific Season.

I know there was a lot of talk about this storm crossing over but I would think with it's sudden rapid intensification and slow forward movement (North at 6mph) the chance for it to make it across all the way is not so set in stone. It also will take a path across ALOT of land and that should weaken whatever is there... however, the moisture is going to stream across Central America and feed into an already very wet, messy Caribbean Sea. A passing Tropical Wave may light the fuse for this season's first Tropical Fling in our part of the world several days down the road. IF Alma had developed more it would create more shear which would turn the faucet off in our part of the world but this way.. it's just feeding the moisture flow into an already wet area.



Alma is currently headed up into Nicaragua and flooding can bring a death toll higher than one might think given her relatively weak winds.

Keep watching... and note that something about Alma in a much milder way reminds me of NAKRI in the West Pacific that intensified fast, moved slowly looking very photogenic in the Pacific.

In our part of the world.. look at that moisture sitting there on our beautiful, blue planet. All those oranges, reds, yellows... murky coppery shades of orange just off of Africa (low but there) and that strong impulse sitting in the middle of the Caribbean in an area that a week ago showed a locked in dry, high. Something to think on as we look towards the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season on Sunday!



Personally.. home today playing Mommy taking care of a sick daughter and watching Dave Schwartz on TWC as they do minimal coverage of Tropical Storm Alma. And, making soup... beef vegetable soup. Some sort of Caribbean Soup is cooking though as we speak and after simmering a few days... it may turn into one heck of an early tropical brew.

Besos Bobbi

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Is a Tropical Storm Forming in the Epac? Or the Carib?



Could be but the real question is where is it headed as the current forecasted track would have it crossing over Central America and bringing it into our basin as a named storm.

I did not make this up.

Will it be Alma or Arthur? Or both...two, two..two storms in one?

Nope... not that creative today.. been a long day, I'm just posting what I'm reading...

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, you know??

So... make up your mind little Tropical Entity without a Name...




Text from those in high places...

"TROPICAL WEATHER DISCUSSION
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
0405 UTC WED MAY 28 2008

TROPICAL WEATHER DISCUSSION FOR THE EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN
FROM THE EQUATOR TO 32N...EAST OF 140W.

BASED ON 0000 UTC SURFACE ANALYSIS AND SATELLITE IMAGERY THROUGH
0315 UTC.

...TROPICAL WAVES AND LOWS...

A TROPICAL WAVE ALONG 7WW HAS BEEN MOVING W AN AN ESTIMATED 12
KT AND THIS MOTION SHOULD MOVE THE WAVE INTO THE EPAC WATERS
ALONG THE COAST OF COLOMBIA TONIGHT.

A BROAD AREA OF SURFACE LOW PRESSURE DOMINATES THE SW CARIBBEAN
AND THE E PAC ALONG THE COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA. ALTHOUGH
SEVERAL CYCLONIC SWIRLS ARE NOTED WITHIN THIS AREA...THE OVERALL
PATTERN SEEMS TO SUGGEST SLIGHT ORGANIZATION CENTERED ON ROUGHLY
09N89W. THIS IS WHERE OUR MARINE PRODUCTS HAVE SUGGESTED A
SURFACE LOW...POSSIBLY A TROPICAL CYCLONE...WOULD DEVELOP. MODEL
GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO SUGGEST THAT THIS LOW PRESSURE WILL
MEANDER IN THIS AREA FOR THE NEXT DAY OR SO...AND PERHAPS DRIFT
NE LATER THIS WEEK. THE UPPER PATTERN IS ALSO NOT EXPECTED TO
CHANGE TONIGHT AND EARLY WED BUT THEREAFTER SEVERAL CHANGES ARE
FORECAST. AN UPPER LOW WILL SPIN UP OVER THE BAY OF CAMPECHE...
OR CUT OFF FROM AN UPPER TROUGH...AND DRIFT S FRI WHILE AN UPPER
ANTICYCLONE DEVELOPS OVER THE SW CARIBBEAN REPLACING THE UPPER
TROUGH CURRENTLY DISSECTING THE CARIBBEAN. THIS WOULD ALLOW A
SURFACE LOW TO MOVE NW ACROSS CENTRAL AMERICA OVER GULF OF
HONDURAS. SHOULD ALSO MENTION THAT GUIDANCE SUGGESTS A SECOND
LOW PRESSURE WILL DEVELOP OVER THE SW CARIBBEAN AND MOVE NW
THROUGH 72 HOURS. THE APPROACHING TROPICAL WAVE MENTIONED ABOVE
MAY ADD THE NEEDED LOW LEVEL VORTICITY TO GET ALL OF THIS
SPINNING.
NOTE THAT THE GRADIENT S OF THE E PAC LOW PRESSURE IS
ALREADY SUPPORTING A SW TO W 20 TO 25 KT WIND AND SEAS TO ABOUT
11 FT. THESE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO PERSIST S OF THE LOW
THROUGH 48 HOURS."

My bigger point here is that a few days ago there was no moisture anywhere in the Carib and today.. it's covered on sat imagery with moisture. Again.. a reminder of how fast things can change in the tropics this time of year.

Might happen.. happens rarely and there is always a lot of discussion. Back in 1997 there was discussion on Andres as seen here:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1997andres.html

Whatever is going on is not exactly clear as the song goes but someone will be right and someone else will be wrong... and possibly everyone on this one :)

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Miami Round Up of Hurricane News...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUKN2531234020080526

Good article on the whole subject of drones being used... however there have been problems with the FAA I believe. Politics on a governmental level I would think could get worked out but ... well, something to read if you need to catch up on your Shakespeare weather wise...

Next... the possible system in the Carib is still possible later in the forecast period. In People Speak that means.. watch just south of Cuba for something to spin up suddenly around May 30th or May 31st just in time for some good media coverage!

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_loop.cgi?area=ngp_troplant&prod=usf&dtg=2008052618

Watching this loop for the last half an hour.. my world seems blurry for some reason ;)

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic2/real-time/atlantic/movies/wg8vor4/wg8vor4java.html

Epac aka Eastern Pacific has it's very first Invest of the Season..check it out.. Shear from that should keep things in the SW Carib quiet for a few days anyway!

http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.htm
(Click on East Pacific 90E.Invest)

And...in my world.. I'm HOME! Really HOME!
Palm Trees! Clouds and a view of the horizon!!

The Outer Banks were beautiful, really beautiful especially standing on Kill Devil Hills on top of the monument and feeling the air and wind and imaging what it must have been like way back when a team of Brothers set the world upside down by flying right side up and out across the dunes. I saw friends, spent quality time with loved ones and had a good time. North Carolina is as always a warm, friendly place with genuinely nice folks who enjoy talking about a real diversity of weather. But...nothing like Biscayne Bay on a May day when the water is aquamarine and beautiful.

So..that is it for me... heard a lot about Isabel and enjoyed the view from the Black Pelican http://www.blackpelican.com/ and enjoyed the Bodie Lighthouse immensely...and of course those Noreasters that are soooo much worse than hurricanes.

Oh...and I had someone there tell me how that area really doesn't get hit that much as they either curve off shore or they slam into South Carolina... :) giggle.. right, like Savannah and Jacksonville I guess.

Love you all.. stay tuned for more news on the first storm of the season possibly in the Epac and more news on possible development in our neck of the woods.

Speaking of Shakespeare..did you ever notice that man was one heck of a Weather Nut!

Besos Bobbi
Ps.. pics tomorrow..

Monday, May 26, 2008

From Kill Devil Hills... Watching Nogaps & Possible Tropical Storm in Florida to Kick off Hurricane Season




Okay... this is far from a sure thing but the GFS model has been hanging on to the dream of tropical development in the Gulf of Mexico for the last few days. Suddenly the NOGAPS jumped on board and I have heard whispers that the Canadian may also be looking south.

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_loop.cgi?
area=ngp_namer&prod=500&dtg=2008052600

Nice loop. Watched it 50 times. I know that because it has this neat little thing on it that says "you have looped 50 times do you want to keep going" lol or something like that..

Notice the trail of moisture that goes up the West Side of Florida in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico... that would be similar to the path for the possible storm the NOGAPS wants to develop.



What I have mentioned and have been watching is the stream of moisture coming up out of the Carib being sucked north by the system that has killed many and destroyed so many homes along a swath from Oklahoma through Minnesota over the last few days. Where there was a strong high and dry air down in the Carib..there is now a stream of moisture that looks like a AAA Road Map for Tropical Trouble for the Florida Keys and the Naples/Tampa area to kick off the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season on June 1st. Far out still and that could mean anything from "some heavy rain" to a Tropical Storm or even a most, minimal hurricane. I only bet on sure things so ... I'm betting the sun will set tonight not on Arthur on June 1st but it begs watching carefully to see if the next few runs are consistent.

Boy...wouldn't the media love that! A named storm to kick off Media Week and hype the start of the hurricane season?

Personally...so would I. Forces people to remember that storms happen not only in September and to start thinking about their hurricane supplies and needs for this coming hurricane season. An ounce of preparation ... and that old saying any publicity is good publicity as we need to remember that there is a reason the season starts June 1st and not September 1st.

Love you all... have a longer response to global warming and the Twisters that I posted on www.hurricanecity.com early this morning. I am annoyed beyond words that so many good mets out there jump on the Global Warming band wagon every time there is some big outbreak and pretend that this only started happening the last few years. Yesterday's tornado outbreak had NOTHING to do with Global Warming which is climate related but with WEATHER and if you think strong outbreaks started since we had The Weather Channel.. think again... and check out the Tri-State Tornadoes that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about way back in the Roaring 20s..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Tornado

It is as bad for meteorologists to try and grab headlines by screaming "Global Warming" every time something wicked this way comes and as bad as Accuweather trying to hype a hit on Rhode Island with some 15 day weird model of some Cape Verde Storm that everyone knows will re-curve somewhere near Hatteras. Seriously.. let's get real guys and girls and worry more on where we throw our beer bottles on memorial day weekend and making sure the Styrofoam cups go in the garbage cans on the beaches and not on some spate of beach where some little sandpiper does not want to dart in and out of people debris.. Let's get our priorities straight.

Twisters happen..that is why they are called "The Finger of God" and if a ships captain wrote an awesome description of some Category 2 Hurricane in his Ships Log in 1733 you have to take into consideration the fact that it may have been near an eye wall and the ship that went through the REAL storm that may have been a Category Five did not survive and his captain's log is at the bottom of King Neptune's Watery Tomb.

Love you all.. watch the models and prepare for some possible hype on the Hurricane Season big time if the model's verify and something named comes on the scene just in time for the Official Start of the Season..

Enjoy the pics from Kill Devil Hills... Besos Bobbi
Ps... I still think some remake of Alma with a slightly different past but who knows...







Sunday, May 25, 2008

Forget About Dry May and Worry on Wet June...



Want to talk about something I brought up on www.hurricanecity.com that is almost like being peer reviewed as people there love to share thoughts and try and add to or shoot down any theory that doesn't sit right. I've learned so much from the gang there, love it... but here I want to add a few things.

First though... a note of interest in the Tropical Weather Discussion this morning.
Says... AN ATLANTIC OCEAN TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 40W SOUTH OF 11N
MOVING WEST 10 KT.
Time to smell the coffee gang.. this is big news. Waves at 11N.. NORTH... not down around 5N or near the equator like in some years but up in healthy places where the Coriolis effect starts to work and things start to spin and move west. Interesting... makes you wonder if it will be an early Cape Verde season. Something IMPORTANT as there has been talk (just talk for now) that later in the season we could switch from our current almost neutral phase to an El Nino phase that could bring an early end to the normal Cape Verde Season.. Wishes if you ask me and not facts by people who want to right off a season when it hasn't even started. We deal in realities..not 15 day forecasts, not predictions in May for October and if we were all that good at such predictions we'd all have won the lotto by now as I am sure it's mathematically possible to figure out by someone..

So... look at picture I posted. Why did I post it? Because that is one strong wave that is on the African Wave Train Highway.. the one that Dr. Hope loved to talk about on his Road to the Virgin Island Movies he put out on the Tropical Update.. that wave is set to pass over the beach at Dakar and when they start to do that.. they are players, not wannabes but real players.

We might have a Bertha Player this year and we have had a lot of cold fronts and I think this will be a wet June and I think South Florida will get hit by storms from the SW and South... whereas with all those fronts up the coast and the strong pattern west to east... anything out there that gets past a break in the high that can recurve up the Atlantic may.. just may threaten the Carolinas during a September to Remember in 2008.

Something to think on...

Check the stats.... wet Junes also correlate with WET Tropical Events in Florida on a frequent basis.

Love you all... cool front made it through on Saturday, had some nice drizzle on a gray morning, cool evening so that I could wear my jeans and now the sun is out...

Late Twisters... Wet Junes... I'd worry more on that than Dry Mays.

The Dry May Theory is only half of the picture and it is usually seen as a set up where there is a strong high over Florida and the Bahamas that if it stays in place... brings in Hurricanes later in the season.

It is one of many theories...

Truth is...it's less about the high locked in over Florida which happens often but in August and September sometimes does funky things and allows storms from the East or ESE to come in under the high or be propelled at the state faster than a speeding bullet like Andrew when turned West ...

The reason South Florida is often DRY going into the season is because frontal systems are not making it down the state and we are not getting winter rain...

Dry fronts or weak fronts that die out are not the same as those that barrel through the south causing strong twisters and then hang and drape themselves over South Florida.

When the slightest weakness in a ridge opens the storm grabs the weakness..there is a lack of troughs acting like a magnet pulling, tugging the hurricanes further north and wnw or nw towards our wonderful shores.

Years that have wet winters combined with many constant fronts set up a zone of weather activity that later in the season .. attract storms from the Caribbean up into Florida from the SW and South.

Every year in April and May the moisture begins to get scarce in Florida.. fronts stop parading down, heat sets in, high builds in.. you go to the beach and feel the breeze.

WET JUNES... years where the monsoons begin in May and continue through June.. often coincide with years when South Florida got hit later in the year from the backside by some wet, watery, strong hurricane or strong tropical storm pumping in tons of moisture from the Carib traveling the same wet highway that years where late cold fronts gave South Florida lots of Winter Wetness.

As far as I am concerned. South Florida gets hit MORE in October (and I would say early strong waves with borderline TS status) than we do in those Septembers we love to Remember.

So... a Wet Winter... and Junes with rainfall are to me something that makes me sit up and pay attention.

Hurricane Andrew did not hit us because we had a dry May or because there was a strong high... It hit South Florida because the front that was supposed to catch it and tug it north...died out... and only THEN did the high shove it west.

It's a two part scenario.. yes the high built in but if the front had been strong, the low pressure system driving the front had been wound up like a pitcher on a hot streak... the dynamics wouldn't have been the same and Andrew may have been a Carolina storm afterall.. or recurved off shore like so many do.

The Dry May is something ominous like Jaws Music that begs you to watch the high and how it sets up in August and September but... a Wet Winter with a Wet June is a stronger predictor that South Florida will get Tropical Weather in any given hurricane season.

I have data at home (in NC on vacation now) but... look at years South Florida got hit by wet, wet, big storms that flooded out the area..and you will see years that had strong rainfall in June earlier in the season.

Often.. not always, nothing in tropical science is a sure thing.. always some quirky kink in the system that throws off the statistics carefully gathered by scientists.

Wet Junes.. late season cold fronts... wet August are often early winter cold fronts. Of course.. if and it's a BIG IF.. El Nino shows his ugly face that may squash the frontal boundaries or mess up the deck of cards...

Love you all.. love to hear your thoughts.
Love and Kisses from North Carolina..
Besos Bobbi

Friday, May 23, 2008

Hot and Relaxed in North Carolina

Very hot here.. Why did I bring jeans? Maybe I will get to use that bathing suit though i've been told outer banks is not so warm yet.

Anyway... on vacation... just saying hello... a lot of pines here, I mean A LOT.
Personally, I think they should cut some down and plant more magnoila but .. well, just my 2 cents...

As for Carib... notice the high down there seems to be oozing around and think the pattern might change in a week or so and could see maybe something.. not much mind you but something could form but... I have never been a big one to predict development in the Carib and see moisture streaming over to the Pacific. If the EPAC pops its 10 days or so before something will get going in our part of the world

In the Pines... in NC
Besos Bobbi

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Something Sexy About The Rain

Watching the clouds build up today, higher and higher and feeling the humidity wash across the City... like kisses on my skin and whispers of summer in the wind.

Rainy Season is right on target in Miami and heard rumors that there was even rain up in Port St. Lucie today. Lightning, thunder, lions and tigers and bears oh my...

Summer is coming. Day by day getting closer. Mangoes are ripe, delicious to eat bite by bite as the juice runs down your chin, summer is here again.

Great song... bought a CD today at Red, White and Blue while browsing for a book I'm looking for..

KENNY CHESNEY LYRICS
Be As You Are CD... Enjoy and if it rains on your house tomorrow, smile a little smile for me.



"There's Something Sexy About The Rain"

There's something sexy about the rain
She said as it came pouring down
It feels like kisses on my skin
She spread her arms and spun around
In a summer island storm
In a field of sugarcane
She taught me how and showed me why

There's something sexy about the rain
And sometimes it rained all night
And everything she did was perfect
And every way we were was right
We loved like there was no tomorrow
Then suddenly tomorrow came
And it was raining at the airport
And kept on raining on the plane

She only loved me for a season
But my heart won't ever be the same
Even now her love's the reason

There's something sexy about the rain
And sometimes when it's pouring down
I feel her kisses on my skin
I spread my arms and spin around
And let that summer island storm
Hit me like a hurricane
It's like she's right here whispering
There's something sexy about the rain

She followed me back to the city
In a picture in my mind
She's still young and she's still pretty
And even after all this time

There's something sexy about the rain
She said as it came pouring down
It feels like kisses on my skin
She spread her arms and spun around
In a summer island storm
In a field, in a field of sugarcane
She taught me how and showed me why
There's something sexy about the rain

She taught me how and she's still why
There's something sexy about the rain
Something sexy about the rain
Feels like kisses on my skin
In a summer island storm
Something sexy

Besos Roxie.. I mean Bobbi ;)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Tropical Roundup... Epac, Global Warming and The Gang At Hurricane City..



So... going to stay as topically tropical as I can tonight as we edge closer to the start of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

For anyone who wants to participate in a countdown... you can sit like many Hurricane City Fans do and stare blurry eyed at the counter that even if you blink keeps counting down the minutes... you don't have to refresh, you don't have to do anything but sit blurry eyed and count quietly, 60, 59, 58, 57...

Hey.. someone's gotta do it. It's like if you aren't watching the Red Sox play from your perch in bed staring at the boob tube someone in a fancy seat at Fenway Park may burp or have a small seizure and for one brief moment they won't be wishing the Red Sox to win.. so that is where the person at home in their Red Sox jammies rooting for them to win takes over.. It's like there should be a category for "saves" and..

Oh... opps, sort of kind of off topic but well... seeing how there are sooo many weather fans up on the Cape.. waiting for Cape Verde Storms to pop it's all related in some big, strange, larger than life way...and when you sing Sweet Caroline this September know this Carolina that somewhere there may be a Cape Verde Storm with your name on it... so sing away... stare away... obsess with the best of us..

www.hurricanecity.com

Currently, 13 days, 3 hours and 34 minutes and counting

In the EPac... or as some like to call it the East Pacific.. off the west coast of Mexico and Central America (I know that is soooo complicated) there is an area that could become tropical in a few days. Look in the SW Caribbean and see where there is tropical moisture that rather than getting caught up in a really cool Southwesterly flow it will probably cross over to the East Pacific and off the West Coast of Central America it could develop. Are you going cross eyed? If you need a rest... check in at hurricane city to watch the count down and relax your eyes and mind..

But... the GFS model DOES show something forming in the Epac in the short or rather the middle term. It also shows possible development in our part of the world but as I have been trained not to trust models 15 days out... let's concentrate on the part of the world where the party has begun... and storms form and slip slide away to cooler waters rarely causing any real pain anywhere.

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_wv_east_loop-12.html
Watch the moisture, watch where it goes... watch the dark dry high and watch the white rain falling somewhere far away from me today..

Next... look at that picture on the top and notice how HOT and DRY it is over Florida... that is not a Bermuda High as much as a a mid Caribbean/Western Atlantic Tropical High setting up which makes me wonder if this season storms will go over or under...and whether the Caribbean will again be under the gun and possibly... if a storm makes it across at a high enough latitude and on just the right sunday the high moves aside... and trofs keep coming down a storm could get up towards the Carolinas.

Today's high was in competition for the previous all time high for this date in Miami which was back in 1989... can anyone say Victor Hugo and Les Miserables three times fast??

Just something to think on and keep in the back of your pretty little minds.. don't say I didn't warn you.

Lastly, as always...there is a great debate ongoing on global warming that continues to heat up the stratosphere with lots of hot air and angry energy as meteorologists and lay people swear they know everything about birthing hurricanes and why there will be less hurricanes (because of increased shear) and yet..those that make the grade will be Category Six storms..

Someone is right, someone is wrong and in this crazy mixed up world we live in they are probably both wrong and right in different ways.

Stay tuned... lot's of hot air out there and if the oceans heat up as much as this topic we will have something to watch in the Tropics real soon ...

AOL Main Page... one of the most beautiful pictures of a hurricane I have seen in a while.. would make a great poster..

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/scientist-shifts-view-on-global-warming/20080518143309990001?icid=100214839x1202420762x1200096856

Reuters story: http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUKN1640851220080518
(picture NOT as good but who reads articles for the pictures huh?)

And... I bid you adieu so that I can go back to www.hurricanecity.com to stare at the clock and see if Chris or Target or Mike had something more to say on the message board.

A BIG... BIG... BIG Thank you to Jim Williams at Hurricane City for his great coverage of his trip to NC/VA with Bill and good to see footage of Bill at home in his weather studio... holding down the fort as he so often does while Jim is away with his day job ;) You are both amazing...

13 Days, 3 hours and 10 minutes... and counting...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Gov. Crist Declares State of Emergency: Fires In Florida!

Gov. Declares State Of Emergency in Florida because of the wildfires throughout the State. A new fire near Sawgrass Expressway in Broward County yesterday brought home the reality of the fires as the winds shifted and the clawing smell of wildfire filtered it's way down into the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale Metropolitan Area.



South Florida so often set apart from North Central Florida. Culturally, politically and even meteorologicaly but yesterday we had a not so gentle reminder that we all live in the same state and face the same enemy. Fire.. on hot, sunny, dry, windy days and men who set fires the way others toss tin cans out the window of cars as they drive too fast along city streets.

On the other side of the world more rain is falling around the Bay of Bengal taking a heavy toll on a land that has already been visited by tragedy.

An earthquake in China that has killed over 10,000 people.
Yet on our side of the world we worry on homes lost, people's lives destroyed and acres of land destroyed by wildfires. From the Glades to the south to the town of Palm Bay up the road.. Florida is burning today. And, suddenly smoke gets in our eyes..

Sunday, May 11, 2008

African Wave Train?




Okay, it's a little too low... a little too early but that is one healthy little wave train out there just west of Africa in the far Eastern Atlantic! Worth watching... just for fun ... but worth watching. Too early, but the one in the water hasn't broken up yet.. (it will) and there are more where that one came from...what a Tropical Wave Train setting up. Always watch trends, patterns and tropical waves...

Enjoy the music.... hot and humid day, wet and warm tonight in Miami...

Tutorial on Hurricanes

Or As the Hurricane Spins...



Oh..and Happy Mother's Day to any Mothers out there
Besos Bobbi

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Ramma Sun - Up Close and Personal




There is nothing like staring into the eye of a Cane... Cyclone or any other Tropical Storm by any other name especially when it is a Cat 5!

Ramma Sun is out there spinning tonight in the far away Pacific Ocean. It has hopefully peaked out at 150 mph winds as it spins in the sea almost perfectly ... a very beautiful and powerful storm. Hopefully... no guarantees .. it will stay to the north of the Philippines and to the South of Japan and re-curve gracefully out to sea or die a cold, quiet death in cooler waters. You never know for sure but personally I'm glad it's over there and not over here bearing down on Key West or some other closer tropical port of call.

The world could use a rest this week from volcanoes and hurricanes and twisters that go bump or pop in the middle of the night.

Been a long week for Planet Earth and something tells me it's not over yet.

I've always said that Category 3 Hurricanes are the most photogenic but in the cast of Ramma Sun I may make an exception... stunning.

Friday, May 09, 2008

RAIN... I was right, real rain in Miami this afternoon!!


Just like I knew it would it rained today...this afternoon, late in the day sort of like it does in May when the rains begin...

Was awesome...

Sharon and I drove back from Miami Beach and the rains came down, thunder and lightning off in the distance and after the rain....hot, humid and steamy.

Moving along towards that time of year commonly known as The Rainy Season in Miami.

Rain is a blessing they say especially in the right season and am sure the grass will be greener in a few days and maybe even the bougainvillea will be brighter and the poincianas will start to bloom.

Good Shabbos from Miami... Bobbi

I can feel it...

The Miami Rainy Season is going to come on real soon... any day, perhaps next week while some lady is out doing carpool or getting her nails done or reading about some new hot Dolphin Player who actually signed a contract and is in mini camp or training camp or some camp other than "holding out camp" and... soon the rains will begin.

It's 8am...there is this tickle of heat on the back of my neck and a blazingly, bright sun and little attempts by clouds to form before they get blown away on an eastward breeze.

Soon... trust me. First comes rain, then comes waves... then comes the Hurricane Season.

Will look for some graphics and songs to illustrate my point later.. right now I am listening to the birds chirping outside telling me it's Spring and Spring has pretty darn near sprung into summer.

Hot Besos Bobbi

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Cry? Donate? Give Thanks We Live Here in America and not in Myanmar



A few things to say tonight before I try and find something else to talk about ... perhaps the political drama that is making a horrible situation worse if possible as the Military Junta that terrorizes the region refuses to let aid in from unacceptable sources.. IE America, the West... any place but there. Hard to believe in this Global Village we are trying to build that a group of soldiers and military police that rule a country would refuse help to save the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people who will die if they do not receive help. Injured survivors in shock, starving to death and deprived of medicine and supplies or even just enough food to help them make it through the long, dark night of recovery that will include famine and pestilence.. disease and contaminated water, food... homelessness.

It's sad... The Sun says that up to 500,000 could die when this is over. Half a million people gone ... Hard to believe. Enough to make a grown person cry if they stop to think of all the lives, all the people, the families, the babies, the old and injured that are being left out of the loop because so far they have been denied help.

Yes...they may let food in, they may let people help but as every day passes more people will die and the death toll will climb higher and the few children who were lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time and survive the storm and be delivered to a safe place to rest will grow to be the future of that country.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080508/D90HORAO0.html Slowly, some help will trickle in.. but will it be in time to save another 100,000 people from dying?

It's like watching some historic tragedy you only read about in history books... Pompeii or perhaps the destruction of Atlantis for those of you who believe.. Krakatoa, The San Francisco Earthquake, the Biblical Flood for those of you who believe. Many of you don't know about the 1933 Yellow River Flood that when all was said and done killed 1.3 million and possibly even 3 million. Yes Virgina.. disasters happen... both natural and the not so natural like Hiroshima. It's a scary world and back in 1933 or when Krakatoa blew you couldn't Google it or read about it on Drudge or watch it unfold on the nightly news.

Now... we are all so connected and as a sinkhole grows in Texas and a volcano blows it's top in Chile we wonder what is going on in the world that the world seems to be convulsing at all it's corners at once know that over and over in history dramas like this have played out over and over. Sad but true... makes you want to cry or wish you could do something to help.



Well...Google has a way so if you feel you can help feel free to go to www.google.com and click on the link below the search bar. This is the world we live in ... where people who care and don't have a lot are willing to share what little they have to try and help someone's pain so far away on the other side of the world. Be glad and give thanks we live here..not there.

List of natural disasters people over time...
http://www.livescience.com/history/080506-natural-disasters.html

Amazing the juxtaposition of news stories.. In Chile a group of people have gone into abandoned towns to try and rescue pets that were left behind when families had to flee the recently erupting volcano. Yet, in Burma... as I like to call it still we cannot seem to drop food and medical supplies to people and children who will die without it. What a world.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/photogalleries/volcano-photos/

Read it and weep..

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-33462120080507

http://www.humanrightsactioncenter.org/blog/blog.html

Go ahead and cry if it helps.... great song, great singer, sad that one beautiful lost soul could touch so many people and yet not save herself... poor little Capricorn Janis... man could she cry .... wow could she sing..

Lessons Learned from Nurgis, The Dust Bowl and Other "Weather" Tragedies...

Why did so many die?

Was this simply random chance and just the way natural disasters go or did mankind have hand in making a bad situation worse?

To understand this question and the answer you first have to understand the geography of the river delta where Cyclone Nargis made landfall.

Check out the deltaic topography by reading more about river delta's to better understand how this happened. It is sorry to say it is a natural occurrence for a delta to flood, however it is not a natural occurrence for people to try and farm these regions or build them up into densely, populated cities.

It's a simple math equation.. delta plus storm surge equals a great tragedy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_delta
+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_surge
=
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24497236/



Understand that again this was a real worst case scenario because storms in this part of the Bay Of Bengal usually RE-CURVE... off towards the NNW but this time... Nargis didn't follow the game plan or follow the paths of past storms and it hooked east straight into a river delta area that had not seen such a storm in many, many, many years and as there hadn't been one people there.. like here think they are safe and they build and feel safe, a false sense of safety. But, we do it here too! I here people tell me all the time that Jacksonville and Savannah never get hurricanes. Yeah...right... sure.. well, sometimes they don't re-curve and sometimes they do but they re-curve way too late to save "Savannah" as happened in 1893 when possibly as many as 2,000 people died in the Sea Islands Hurricane. Happens.. Andrew was supposed to re-curve too and catch a front but hey... it didn't happen and it turned West and plowed into Miami in the same way that Nargis turned and plowed east into the fragile river delta area of Rangoon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1893_Sea_Islands_Hurricane

This post should be titled "Why I am not a Global Warming person vs being an Ecologist and Environmentalist?"

Global Warming we cannot yet prove however the way man farms and lives on Planet Earth we KNOW can make a big difference. We know without a doubt that the farming practices in the first part of this century led to the Dirty Thirties and the Dust Bowl. We learned the hard way that when you change the natural way the land is for short term benefits you reap untold misery and misfortune down the line.

The Dust Bowl taught us what early biblical texts taught people years ago...... that land needs to have a rest at times from being sowed. You farm one part of the field, then another, then another while letting one part rest. The Dust Bowl also taught us that if you denude the land of it's natural habitat the soil in Oklahoma and Kansas will get blown away and be gone with the wind. People came, plowed the dirt, sowed seeds.. had bumper crops and then when there were no more natural grasses to hold the dirt down in times of trouble..the topsoil blew away into the dark sky and little was able to be reaped but misery and tragedy.

The great little boomers with their surreys with the fringe on top had no idea there eager beaver farming practices and hard work wrought hard times upon the area until they learned how to farm in concert with the land's own natural habitat. Time has taught us much about something that should have been a "duh" and that is understanding geography is more than a bunch of maps and boring books.



A region is a river delta for a reason.. you can't fill it in and make it an industrial center or farming region. Prairies exist for a region and you have to work with them not against them. There is a reason that the early settlers of New Orleans lived where they did in the French Quarter as it is not as prone to flooding as other areas now known as the "9th Ward" and that area does not lend itself to being a big, large sprawling suburb. A bayou is a bayou. A river delta is a river delta. A prairie is a prairie.

This is not about Global Warming, we are blaming the wrong culprit here.. it is about an over population of a delicate, fragile, ever changing region known as a River Delta and it's over industrialization combined with poor farming practices. Since time began civilization has crowded into such areas and since time began I suppose there have been tragedies such as this but we have to look at Planet Earth a little more carefully and try to work with it and not against as we have learned much from such tragedies as The Dust Bowl, Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levee system, Nargis and even the deforestation of Haiti and the poverty level that has risen because of the vicious cycle that has set in there.

And, we must know that if we continue to build mega cities in regions that are barely above sea level we will continue to have tremendous loss of life as well as financial losses in the dollar amount that is almost inconceivable to imagine.







Hindsight is 20/20 and there is an old great saying that is sadly all too true "We are too soon old and too late smart"

Monday, May 05, 2008

Politics and Problems Getting Aid to Myanmar - Burma

Amazing animation of Nargis hitting land and please note the tremendous amounts of moisture being pulled up into areas where mudslides may have wiped out whole towns... much the way Hurricane Mitch killed so many people in small towns.

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/marti/gallery/galleryNargis1.html

Again.. amazing how a small storm can do so much damage... a story of how Central America lucked out last year when a small, strong storm hit a low populated area vs the very densely populated delta region where this storm hit..

There was little warning, nothing like the massive notifications people here in the States complain about as "trying to alarm us" when in fact the NHC does one bang up job of keeping us abreast of what is going on in the tropics that could hurt us... and go bump in the night...

It is a very repressive regime, unfriendly to the outside world and we can only hope and pray they will open their country up a little for the help that is so badly needed.

We take mass evacuations for granted. We take warnings, advisories and nonstop around the clock live hurricane updates on television for granted. We should take a moment to realize how blessed we are to be living here and not there.

They were supposed to have elections soon... not sure what will happen politically but this is a situation that could get worse as the aftermath of a storm... disease runs rampant, contaminated drinking water, an unstable economy and a break down of structure. Even with the government just allowing in a few flights from Thailand or other countries aid too late insures the death toll climbs higher and higher as help is needed NOW.. not later.

Beautiful image of a spinning storm... that wrought utter havoc to many who were not warned or prepared.

And, a big thank you to Laura Bush for bringing the conditions in Burma and the area politically out into the open. A woman who despite her title as First Lady rarely makes big public appearances or press conferences but for this.. a private cause of hers for some time (conditions there) she spoke out today.. kudos... thank you and she is indeed a First LADY to be proud of...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/06/2236366.htm?section=world

Lastly.. unrelated... 3 students on the March of the Living from South America were held hostage in a hotel in Warsaw today before being released and the man responsible from Kuwait taken captive. My kids have been on the March of the Living.. the security is HUGE, massive... yet again, bad things happen.. thankfully this time it wasn't a tragedy. Just a "crazy person" ... what a world we live in... the world is so small that we worry on events on the other side of the globe and we learn to appreciate all we have in America.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980901.html

Nargis - A Worst Case Scenario to Learn From...



A beautiful color satellite image of Nargis.. nestled in the Bay of Bengal just before it hit land... prettier to show than the pictures of the people dead and dying from this horrible disaster that will probably have the highest death toll of any Tropical event this year.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis that hit the heavily populated city of Rangoon or as it is more commonly called these days Yangon. To understand what a massive event this is you must understand that it is the rice belt.. an area similar to what is known as Rice Country in parts of Louisiana.. a delta, low land, low swampy sort of rice bayous with large population centers clustered through an area.

Aside from the phenomenal loss of life (tallies coming in that could possibly go as high as 10,000 people dead) the rice crop is gone and that crop feeds people throughout the entire region. It is devastating from an economic point of view aside from the mind boggling death toll that is reminiscent of what is now referred to as the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. That part of the world suffers huge losses of life when something goes wrong and it so often does be it meteorological or geological... people die in huge amounts that are hard for us in the West to comprehend.

Learn more about the area here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangoon

Hurricane Katrina is the only disaster in recent times that we can even begin to compare it with in our time.

The storm.. a very small, intense storm that fluctuated wildly in it's intensity went through an eye wall replacement cycle and pretty much exploded just as it was plowing into the heavily populated delta region. The storm surge was tremendous, the winds intense and the rainfall heavy. The rice ...whether destroyed by the high winds or the heavy rain fall is gone... and so are the people and the general infrastructure of life in an area remote to many and known only in story books or travelogues.

In the Bay of Bengal water can pile up in the same way it does in the Gulf of Mexico..and there is no where for the water to go but inland when the storm makes landfall. A beautiful place to visit and sightsee but not to be during the cyclone season when the worst case scenario turns the area into a disaster zone.

So often storms do a bobble just before landfall or they go down a drop in intensity such as Opal that could have been an even bigger disaster.. they bobble south just a drop enough to plow into the farming/suburban area of Homestead instead of plowing west up Flagler Street as Hurricane Andrew could have done but didn't.

So often I have said that Hurricane Andrew was "kind" and people get upset when I say that but they don't realize how it bobbled just enough south on a due west track to hit the area in Miami Dade County where people live but is LEAST heavily populated... filled with farms, nurseries and empty land.. Andrew could have been so much worse.

We get so lucky with these storms so often that we have come to trust that something will save us at the very last moment, some dues ex machina will come down from heaven and save some heavily populated city that hovers at sea level at the very last minute. It doesn't always happen that way.. and Nargis should be a lesson to learn from that sometimes, sadly the worst case scenario really does play out in the very worst way.

Look at Miami.. sitting beautifully at sea-level, basking in the warm sunshine at the edge of beautiful, blue Biscayne Bay and think on what might happen should some small intense Category 4 Hurricane like the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane should go through an eye wall replacement cycle and slam into Downtown Miami as a Category 5 and do not think that disasters only happen far away or in the movies.

History is about learning from the past... it's time to learn a sad lesson... it can happen there as well as here. Sometime over history a hurricane did.. it may not be in our recorded history but trust me.. sometime, maybe once long ago but at least once... some strong, small category five hurricane created deep scars in the mangroves that used to be an area populated only by a few tribes of scattered Seminoles and other Caribbean Indians... oh what stories their ghosts could tell...







Sunday, May 04, 2008

27 Days and Counting til the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season

oh help me Lord...

Trying to pull things together in my life a bit so that when the season starts I can hit the ground running and be prepared for long nights kept awake by some named storm that is not behaving as we thought it would... or is...

There is so much to talk about and yet...there is nothing I can really say right now other than... I'm almost late for a breakfast date with my best friend Sharon. There you go... new movie title. My Best Friend Sharon. Breakfast with Sharon. Buying water with Sharon and I am not talking a thin, small bottle of Iceland water or a pretty pint of Fiji Water. Nope.. talking the real thing.

This year may be a transitional season for me... as my life feels like it is sort of in limbo in between here and there and everywhere.

So... seriously, can we get this show on the road.. on the list of things I cannot wait much longer for.. one is the Hurricane Season.

And..yet.. it's cool today, almost cool and a bit dry ... and to get to there we have to hit the start of the Miami Monsoon season so.. do I really want the hurricane season??

Birds are chirping, it's spring... saw two birds going at it yesterday and smiled.

Newspaper articles are out complaining and making fun of the Hurricane Center. Guess reporters are antsy too for a storm to write about.

I'll post my thoughts on the wonderful men who work at the National Hurricane Center later.. after consulting with Sharon. Yes...they do get a little crazy in the off season, don't we all...

http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/517900.html

Favorite line from above article:
" breakdowns tend to occur during the off season,'' said the study, commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which runs the world-renowned hurricane center in West Miami-Dade County."

Yeah...really, trust me I know how that feels... I'm getting close to a breakdown myself... 27 days and counting. Watching tropical waves in the SOUTH Tropical Atlantic, cold core lows near Brazil and a storm far away named Nargis. A lot of people died from Nargis...sad, so far away... yet I'm watching, my friends are watching and always learning from mistakes. Such is the way of the world.

A big mistake to learn from in our part of the world was the devastation caused when Katrina hit Mississippi and killed thousands in New Orleans far from the point of landfall. Seems there was a problem with the levees... that funneled all the water down into New Orleans. And..we had to have court cases to prove what we all already knew...

You want to see a REAL scandal on how badly the government operates? Had to have a massive inquest and court trial and who knows how many people got paid on this one...
Just to show what we all already knew...that they were responsible for the flooding of New Orleans. Can't blame everything on hurricanes. Katrina did not hit Nola dead on and this was not the worse case scenario but an inherent problem with the whole design of the levee system. A Hurricane Channel.. go figure. No.. not one to compete with The Weather Channel but one that funneled the water into the city and killed thousands of people in our life time... Galveston 1900 you can blame directly on the hurricane..


Check out the article below
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080503/ap_on_re_us/katrina_flood_lawsuit


I'll give my thoughts on the NHC later, after I have had breakfast and planned out my life with Sharon...

For an up to the minute clock on time left before the Hurricane Seasons starts..

Check out www.hurricanecity.com as Jim as posted a countdown clock.

27 Days, 14 hours and counting...

Besos Bobbi