July 21, 2006

Gulf Goes Nuts

Filed under: Tropical — Erin @ 3:22 pm
July 19, 2005

July 19, 2006

That, I think, says it all.

This is exactly what worries me about this hurricane season. The entire Gulf can support a Category 5 now, and the East Pacific, despite being slightly cooler than the Gulf, has already produced the powerful Category Four Hurricane Daniel.

The rest of the ocean isn’t quite this warm, but it doesn’t really matter. As an example, Katrina entered the Gulf as a minimal hurricane and became a Category 5 as a direct result of low shear and boiling temperatures without entering any other body of water. Here is what the water temperatures looked like before Katrina’s entrance (using the same scale as the previous pictures):

The Gulf is clearly well on its way to this level.

The Gulf Coast, as battered as the infrastructure may be, must do something in preparation, and soon. There are people who still need housing. There are communities still struggling after Katrina. Parts of New Orleans remain a war zone.

Unless this season is extremely unusual, some spot on the Gulf Coast is likely to take a major hurricane strike in 60 days or less.

Please. Nobody wants to see yet another catastrophe.

July 11, 2006

First East Pacific Hurricane.

Filed under: Tropical — Erin @ 7:54 pm

Hurricane Bud, currently in very rapid intensification. (Who picks these names anyway? That is such a non-threatening name.)

Satellite.

This one’s fun to watch because it’s harmless. East Pacific storms, unless they develop very near the coast, usually are; they head west into open sea. So there’re no feelings of guilt associated with the thrill of watching a storm explode.

Powered by WordPress. This theme is a heavy modification of the WordPress Classic theme planned to match the layout of ErinThead.com. Because of its very specific and personalized nature, it is not available for public download. Content copyright ©2005-2015.