Hurricane!

What’s a country to do when they need to cut greenhouse gas emissions into the air in order to comply with the Kyoto Protocol?

I got a letter from the city telling me if I didn't clean up a property I own that was totally destroyed by Hurricane Ivan, they would clean it up for me and put a lean on said property until I paid the cost of the clean up. What they fail to understand is that I'm letting this property go back to a wilderness. You know... hap-hazard trees and grass with no rhyme or reason. What part of wilderness do they not understand? And what do they have against nature anyway? So I have to hire someone and pay a small fortune to have it cleaned up before the city does. They gave me 8 days to do it. TCHF will be home in 10. Fun. Fun. Fun.

Masters also has a very interesting analysis of Alberto. Among other things, he notes that “the official NHC forecast outperformed all the [computer] models” in predicting Alberto’s track. Way to go, NHC! Masters talks about the Loop Current’s impact, too.

1. Check in with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) when planning a trip to a potential hurricane area.

I’m no expert - in fact I know very little about this space (I’ll know a little more by this evening) - but unless I’m mistaken, advancing aircraft and engine technology leading to less expensive (to buy and to run) and more reliable small aircraft are key facilitators for this emerging market. But having read the recent report in the Economist on the challenges that CO2 emissions might pose to the global commercial air travel business over the coming decades, I have to wonder if this might not be a key success factor in the medium to long term for air taxis.

Lesson: Don’t believe everything that is out there on the web, even from resources such as NOAA. Standards have changed and we learn more from every disaster. Make sure you have the most up to date information possible to protect yourself and your family.

A convention was held recently in Houston on the upcoming 2006 Hurricane season. The document is a PDF that goes over the highlights from that convention. It mainly talks about the plans for evacuating Houston, if needed, this year and any upcoming years.

Getting back to The Storm Track, Moyer notes in the same post that, contrary to my previous alarmism, the sea-surface temperatures in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are actually now lower than what they were last year. (About that previous post… Charles Fenwick took me to task somewhat, noting that “SSTs can be volatile on a daily basis” and therefore “it is more useful to look at at a longer term average and compare it to a long term norm” — a strategy which produces a less alarming result. Fenwick’s visual evidence of my error was not entirely accurate, but his overall point was sound.)

Alright, no evidence supports the theory that CO2 is raising the earth's temperature.

We need the rain, folks, and after four hurricanes in six weeks two years ago and Wilma last year, this isn't much and even if it becomes Tropical Storm Alberto, won't be by the time it gets to this part of the state.

Well, it's all part of my job! The weekend is here, and yes, I am "off" duty. However, it is hurricane season, and that means 6 months of always being on duty is some way. Hot pretty much sums up the local weekend forecast. A few coastal t-showers could occur Sunday. The system near the Yucatan has my full attention. A surface low pressure is forming and pressure levels are steadily falling. It looks as if it could become a depression Saturday. The hurricane hunters are scheduled to investigate this system if necessary Saturday afternoon.

Another summer of Weather Channel watching and browsing to the NOAA site for me. I really hope there’s no need to evacuate like there was last year for Rita. What a royal pain in the ass that was, but also kind of fun once we got off the damn highway and into the hotel we’d booked in ALABAMA.

One of the nice things about living in the northeast is that the only severe weather we usually have to deal with is snowstorms. Although I am sure a hurricane will creep its way up here sometime in the future, hopefully distant future, I was a bit surprised to read that the states hit hardest during last year’s hurricane season have taken the “you are on your own” approach in letting their citizens know what to do in the event of an emergency.

The news was all so depressing. How come none of this gets out? Soaring temperatures and declining rainfalls caused by climate change are wiping two a billion dollars a year off Australia's wheat industry within 30 years, a study shows. Rice yields are also well-down since the Murray stopped flowing. (But at least we can have cheap T-shirts with the cotton we're growing.)

Most of us are likely to be too busy to actually to read the several hundred pages of analysis produced by the Commission (but if you can, start here). Here are some key passages concerning waste from their summary document The role of nuclear power in a low carbon economy (page 7):

Charles Fenwick at Eye of the Storm has a post about a new NOAA map that analyzes the percentage probability of tropical development, at any given time, in 4,000-square-mile blocks of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins. Pretty cool. Currently, the greatest threat area is due south of the Manzanillo area in Mexico, where The Storm Track says Tropical Depression 2E might soon form.

NBC ran a news telecast from the Gulf Coast last night and it appears that the region is still a long way from recovery as buildings and debris still remain strewn all about. Even Punta Gorda in Florida is still cleaning up damaged buildings from Hurricane Charley from two years ago. There appears to be no question that the current system is broken. The ability for society to recover from such a natural calamity is diminishing as resources are stretched to cover larger areas with each storm hit.

The Nesom house burned about a month before hurricane Katrina slammed into our community and flooded the charred home. The family said, what at first seemed to be a tragic “double wammy” turned out to be the providence of God.