A Death In the Hurricane Community - Victor Wiggert

Not many people know who he was but they all know what SLOSH charts are ... and refer to them often for advice and preparation.

Victor Wiggert passed away this week..he was a hurricane researcher who helped create those charts and spent his life working on hurricane research.

http://www.miamiherald.com/512/story/382651.html

The world is made up of many people doing jobs, doing their job carefully with dedication and you don't read about them when Hurricane Allison or Alexander is threatening your home town. You know who the director of the Hurricane Center is and you know one or two guys who take over the camera while he is sleeping but it takes a village to really compile all the details of hurricane research and they sometimes do their hardest work in the off season when they have time to work through ideas or re-evaluate past storms. It's all about maps and math and history and analysing data and men like Victor Wiggert added to what we know and what we have learned and we keep on learning...

He will be missed by many friends, co-workers and his family.

And, like most weather people.. he was a weather person 24/7. In the article his daughter is quoted as saying, "There was really no way to separate it from him,'' she said. ``He was our weather man. We'd be out for a walk and he'd be telling us what kinds of clouds were up there and what they mean for the weather.''

We all know weather people like that... yep, well.. I do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOSH
From Wiki:
Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) is a computerized model developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the National Weather Service (NWS) to estimate storm surge depths resulting from historical, hypothetical, or predicted hurricanes by taking into account a storm's pressure, size, forward speed, forecast track, wind speeds, and topographical data.

SLOSH is used to evaluate the threat from storm surge, and emergency managers use this data to determine which areas must be evacuated. SLOSH output is used by the National Hurricane Program (NHP) when conducting Hurricane Evacuation Studies as a hazard analysis tool for assisting with the creation of state and local hurricane evacuation plans or zones. SLOSH model results are combined with roadway network and traffic flow information, rainfall amounts, river flow, or wind-driven waves to determine a final analysis of at-risk areas.

One of my favorite weather guys is always talking SLOSH... loves to complain about this or that or refer to them.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/F7.html

We all pay attention to them... we owe him and others our thanks!

May you all be well and be blessed to be reading this with the person you love near by.

Besos Bobbi