So far, so good...
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 11:56 am
Hopefully, forum members don't subscribe to the causally challenged notion that talking about a good thing runs the risk of "hexing" it, but I can't help note that this hurricane season has been a cakewalk for the Lesser Antilles. 2013 came within a few hours of setting a record for the latest first hurricane ever, and the typical August and September pattern of a succession of storms forming off the coast of Africa and heading towards the VI has been nearly completely absent this year.
Opinions differ as to just why we have had such an unusual season, but among the potential causes is Sahara dust, which blocks sunlight from reaching the sea surface, and warms the normally cold air higher up, where this thermal inversion denies developing thunderclouds their upward impetus. There have also been steady and strong upper level winds this season, which shear the tops off thunderclouds that make it that high. For all I know, storm formation could shortly reverse course and regress towards the mean, but there are grounds for thinking that this won't be the case.
A couple of years ago, we put up all of the aluminum storm panels at Coconuts for Hurricane Irene, and I presumed that the panels would then be left up through the storm season (bookings were much lighter then). I was startled when our contractor sent us a photo at the beginning of October that showed them all taken down. He replied to my concerned phone call with a comment that October 1st is generally considered the end of the VI's hurricane season. I was initially skeptical of such local knowledge, but as the NOAA plots in this informative article from last weeks Times-Picayune show, October hurricanes do tend to to occur well west of the VI:
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf ... et_bu.html
So we will continue to keep an eye on the NHC website, but as for now, my favorite tropical image is this one:
All the best,
Kevin
Opinions differ as to just why we have had such an unusual season, but among the potential causes is Sahara dust, which blocks sunlight from reaching the sea surface, and warms the normally cold air higher up, where this thermal inversion denies developing thunderclouds their upward impetus. There have also been steady and strong upper level winds this season, which shear the tops off thunderclouds that make it that high. For all I know, storm formation could shortly reverse course and regress towards the mean, but there are grounds for thinking that this won't be the case.
A couple of years ago, we put up all of the aluminum storm panels at Coconuts for Hurricane Irene, and I presumed that the panels would then be left up through the storm season (bookings were much lighter then). I was startled when our contractor sent us a photo at the beginning of October that showed them all taken down. He replied to my concerned phone call with a comment that October 1st is generally considered the end of the VI's hurricane season. I was initially skeptical of such local knowledge, but as the NOAA plots in this informative article from last weeks Times-Picayune show, October hurricanes do tend to to occur well west of the VI:
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf ... et_bu.html
So we will continue to keep an eye on the NHC website, but as for now, my favorite tropical image is this one:
- Favorite image
Kevin