Hurricane!

Improvisation saved a vacation during Hurricane Emily.

You can view our Playa pictures from last August here. We were delayed a month because of hurricane Emily, which blew away the hut at the all inclusive Xpu-Ha Palace we were to stay at. Everything actually worked out for the best because we found an awesome small hotel in Playa called the Playa Maya which is right on the beach, actually the only way you can even enter the hotel is if you walk on the beach! Mmm they had the best shrimp tacos and chips, guacamole and “Mexican salsa”. I can not wait to lay under an umbrella with some munchies and a bucket of beer. We also explored the area on our own and did a lot of things we probably wouldn’t have done had we stayed at some mega-resort.

And another strange thing about the 2005 hurricane season ...

Indeed, the electric fields above Hurricane Emily were among the strongest ever measured by the aircraft’s sensors over any storm. “We observed steady fields in excess of 8 kilovolts per meter,” says Blakeslee. “That is huge–comparable to the strongest fields we would expect to find over a large land-based ‘mesoscale’ thunderstorm…”

Hurricane Emily ended up causing thunderstorms in the normally dry southwest.

We made a stop at Double Eagle in ABQ to check the weather ourselves and the southwest was a disaster area. Starting at about ABQ and going to what looked like California was filled with thunderstorms everywhere, lots more than the one or two isolated small cells that were there earlier. I called a briefer to see what was up, and he said that moisture from Hurricane Emily ended up getting thrown into the southwest, and with the heat that is in that area it turned the entire region into the breeding grounds for thunderstorms. This happened yesterday between the time we left and the time we got to ABQ because the briefer that we talked to when we left Arlington told us that the area was espically dry and that we shouldn’t have a problem making to Phoenix. So much for forcasts.

Reports keep coming in about damage from Hurricane Emily.

This is from the youth pastor of the church I attend. He was part of a missions trip to the Laguna Madre region, and the village of La Posa, more specifically. You might remember that the Laguna Madre took a direct hit from Hurricane Emily.

I have a preliminary report that all the houses in Media Luna have been destroyed along with most of the buildings in La Posa. In addition, Don Victor’s home (all but one wall) has been destroyed.

Click through for the funny picture.

We might as well kick off our weekend with a laugh. Below is an AP photo of a shelter in Cancun, Mexico, containing tourists stuck there as hurricane Emily blew threw.

More good links on Hurricane Emily here as it moves past Cancun and on to Texas.

Hurricane Emily hits Yucatan Peninsula. “It’s Mayhem” says Miami Herald. “Slams Yucatan” say CNN. “Pounds Mexico” says Bloomberg.

Temperatures are about 1-1/2 degrees (F) warmer in the Atlantic which is giving tropical storms more energy.

Locals report last night was very strange. The island normally has the wonderful tradewind breezes constantly blowing off the coast of Africa, but last night the air was reported as being still and humid. Many locals report the lack of noise from birds and the whistling frogs.

I can't imagine a night in Barbados without the musical sound of the whistling frogs. That alone would be enough to make me feel a bit apprehensive.

It looks like Emily will take a southerly course towards Cancun.

Grenadian police ordered people off the streets and businesses closed Wednesday as Tropical Storm Emily threatened an island still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Ivan last year.

Tropical Storm Emily is expected to become Hurricane Emily as it moves towards the U.S. this week.

The fifth storm of the 2005 hurricane season has formed in the Atlantic — (un)welcome Emily.