A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Funky African Wave
One of the nicest waves to come off of Africa this year so far is about to show it's colors and show us if it has legs and can walk on water.
Most fizzle when they hit the water but this one seems to have a developed system with it, even has what could easily develop into bands and it has been spinning as it danced it's way across Africa all day. I watched on www.weather.com on their interactive radar (hit International) as it wiggled it's way across Mali all the way to the beach at Dakar which is exactly where John Hope used to say they had to come off if they wanted to really be a player.
This one is dead on perfect. The Dvorak image shows it exactly over the spot on the bulls eye. However, it is a huge wave and may have multiple vortexes in it as most do and well... as always time will tell.
Small but visible center there:
My favorite or as I call it the XXXVirginSat
GFS model develops it as does the much teased Canadian that dreams hurricanes in it's sleep.
(shows a significant storm of some sort in the Florida Straits on July 11th going into the Gulf... granted you can go to www.tarot.com and ask a question and a more reliable answer than the GFS 11 days out but fun to watch for disaster freaks)
Seriously... keep watching. Either way... this wave has the definite possibility of being the second Bertha to form this far out this early on...
What is in a name they say? Don't know for sure but we may soon find out.
Keep watching... as for buying water in Miami and New Orleans.. doesn't help to stock up on supplies over the July 4th weekend cause sometime soon you may need them and easier going to a quiet store on your own time than leaving work early in a mad rush to a store swamped with panicky people grabbing everything off the shelf they can..
This is just a wave watch mind you... but it has these delicate fingers sticking down into the water which can help feed the storm and SAL (dust) is low and shear has lessened and the MJO is all moving into place to make a Cape Verde Season a definite possibility for happening.
Pretty Wave with fingers ready to be painted oranges and reds..
Lastly...there is a swarm of red Saharan dust making it's way westbound and now is in the Bahamas.. hoping it goes north and misses South Florida because I am battling a summer cold and sinus infection and the thought of us getting a dust storm now has me not a real happy camper. Then again.. where the dust goes often shows the path for tropical storms later in the season.
Officially on Wave Watch status waiting for the real show to start. Stay tuned..
Besos Bobbi ahhhh chooo! :)
Close your eyes Bobbi... listen to the music..
(hope Sno is reading this ;) and watching... this one's for you!)
This is an interesting loop. Shows moisture over the last few days however it also shows the path the moisture has taken on it's way west from Africa to the United States of America.
Some of the moisture stays south, the possible mid to low level circulations of any waves blown apart by seasonal shear at the entrance to the East Caribbean where waves usually die. Not all do but in most years they die quick deaths.
The other moisture travels north, around the periphery of the building high and moisture oozes west north west up over the islands, hugging the coasts of Hispaniola and Cuba carefully on it's way across the Florida Straits. Sort of reminds me of Georges track. I'm not saying that will happen... I am saying anytime you see such a strong possible high setting in you have to worry on the ones that don't zoom through the Carib on their way to Central America and worry on the ones that seem to want to follow the path around the high. That's what storms do.. stay away from the highs... move towards lows/fronts as simplistically as I can get at this 2am hour.
As for Brian.. he is leaving Channel 4 in Miami however he is not leaving the world of weather.. just our television sets at 6 and 11 during hurricanes. I am sure he will be interviewed on air often just... in a different way.
Things change with time... the one constant in our life that can be relied upon is things will change. We in the South Florida area will have to adapt to a new world without Brian on the nightly weather report.
Old Brian:
New Brian talking on his book and his current projects:
Time marches on...
Out with the old.. in with the new..
I went to hear Bill Read speak this past week with some friends. He was excellent, incredible in ways in that he is the first director at the NHC in a long time that reminds me of Neil Frank. Totally different can of soup mind you but made from the same company and filled with a passion for weather and the need to make sure people have early warning and proper warnings. He has a passion for weather and hurricanes. Funny, folksy in ways yet without attitude or the sense of providing a sound bite to the media. And, he wears colored shirts.. pretty aqua colored ones that match his eyes and allows us to live outside the world of long sleeve white button up shirts. Imagine some will be happy about that...
An individual. He stands out from the rest. Glad he made the trek to Miami from his home in Houston to the Miami area to take the helm at the job.
More on Bill Read later but one thing he said that was funny was that he is sure man is descended from Sheep not Monkeys, because given any natural emergency without a plan they begin to do what everyone in their neighborhood is doing. So, so true. I have seen people who never were going to buy generators rush out to the store because the guy next door did. Imagine they figured if the noise was going to keep them up at night.. they may as well be running one too!
I have been at Publix buying water for my fish tank in August and watched people watch me nervously to see if I knew something they didn't and with no storm out on the horizon they reached over worried like and grabbed two half gallons and smiled and moved on. I had a manager who knows I do hurricanes walk over and ask me if there was something he needed to know...
Yep..sheep. So true... funny, but true.
So... now instead of counting sheep I will count my blessings and go to sleep, leave the loops for later.
:)
For Mr. Sandman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DARnIsN2bc
(you knew I'd go there didn't you... cause you don't miss a thang)
What I would like to talk about tonight during this lull in tropical activity which is climatologically normal for this time of year..... is simply this.. I am tired of Global Warming being used to explain away every weather event and used as some sort of litmus test for scientists to get the Al Gore Seal of Approval or be bullied and booed by people as being out of step with the seriousness of Global Warming.
It degrades the whole discussion on the concept of Global Warming and the different discussions from The Greenhouse Effect to Conserving Water and the dangers to our environment of Pollution to scream "The Sky is Falling" every time some big, huge weather event happens. It is wrong. It scares people who are going through hard times because of our over dependence on foreign oil and the high cost of commuting which has no affected everything from the price of gas to toilet paper to the cost of a can of tuna that had to be shipped to your local grocery store.
I have spoken to people in banks, in grocery stores and in restaurants who look up with hollow eyes and a fatalistic sense of fear on the future because everything they read in the MEDIA leads them to believe we are headed towards some end of days when hell will freeze over and the part of the world that is still warm enough to produce hurricanes will wipe their town off the map with a Category 7 Hurricane or a F6 Twister. They are scared and misinformed. Not about the dangers of the earth's climate constantly changing as it has done since the poles flipped and the inland ocean that covered Oklahoma dried up into a beautiful, tall grass prairie land. This is a natural event which we have no doubt made worse just as we made the dust bowls of the Dirty Thirties when hundreds of dust storms hit Guymon, Oklahoma on a daily basis for months.. years until we realized we destroyed the beautiful prairie with poor farming methods. I would imagine if they had happened now they would be further proof of Global Warming.
We are not being solution oriented but starting a witch hunt in the scientific community where scientists engaged in the scientific process must agree with reporters or politicians such as Al Gore and others or they are branded as heretics who deny the obvious end of the world as we know it. Crucifixion at 11!
I am a historian who loves weather and has made weather the focus of history and the evolution of political and economic events in a specific area. And, those who do not study history are forced to repeat it sadly. Knowledge is power. History is a guide to learn from so as not to repeat our mistakes.
In the 1950s people were afraid of the Red Menace and there were Senate Hearings that were basically Witch Trials where if you didn't name someone you knew as a communist then you would be accused of being a communist too! We have raised McCarthyism to a new level in the meteorological community if a scientist does not agree with some reporter that a tornado outbreak was influenced by global warming he is branded a heretic. This is pathetic and as dangerous to scientific process of discovery as it was to creativity by writers and directors in Hollywood.
In the 1950s and 1960s people in America were building bomb shelters to protect against the day some Red country would drop a bomb on us and if we were lucky enough to be at home and not school with our head down in the proper position we could survive nuclear destruction by hiding in a bomb shelter. The fear of nuclear war was so real this commercial was attributed to helping LBJ win the White House. We won the battle against nuclear war it seems and lost the war on involvement in Vietnam..
In 1997 when I first enjoyed playing online with a few of my weather friends the story of El Nino was all the rage. It was called "the Mother of All El Ninos" by some news article and it was written that because of Global Warming we would see many other El Ninos such as that one that came on suddenly and showed up as a tongue of red colors on sat imagery all the way from Mexico west almost to Australia. It was a bad, bad El Nino but since that one we have yet to have one that came on as strong or as fast with such devastating results on a global level ... yet in 1997 it was said to be the first and forerunner to many more influenced by Global Warming.
Before that was the Super Storm of 1993 called by some as The Storm of the Century:
Before that there was the time snow fell in Miami in January of 1977! And, the avalanche of snow that buried Chicago that same winter underneath record snow falls.
But that wasn't the only time we had a record snow fall... here is a list of the some of the record makers
And, before this century by just a year was a wild, blizzard that buried Wall Street.
If the Long Island Express happened this year it would be blamed on Global Warming.
Global Warming is real as is Global Climate Change but what is causing it and what do we do about it is a real question that begs a real solution... not witch hunts nor Media Headlines proclaiming the end of the world as we know it happening in a few years if we don't wake up and smell the coffee now. Mind you that coffee I love is brought here from all parts of the world.
Easy to scream Global Warming yet I don't see many people taking the bus or buying smaller cars or doing their part to not pollute out beaches by walking all the way over 20 feet to a good old wire garbage basket instead of throwing their beer cans and cigarette butts away properly instead of onto our beautiful beaches. People may start taking the bus but it will only be because of the high price of gas and not because they are really worried on Global Warming.
I am worried yet I believe in the power of the human mind to find the solution to problems when the process of scientific discovery is not thrown out with the proverbial baby and the bathtub. A closed mind is unable to learn new things and discover solutions to our problems.
As for the tropics..they are sort of quiet tonight. A west bound wave is moving through the Caribbean on its way to possibly moving into the Pacific and forming into something there.. maybe.. or maybe not. A new wave rolled off of Africa and there is rain in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the quiet time of waiting for the real season to kick in and start in a few weeks.
So there isn't much to talk about of a Tropical nature tonight other than Post Game Analysis on why the forecast was so badly blown on Typhoon Fengshen and there is a lot to say but the jury is out on that one. They kept insisting it would re-curve at the last minute much as they did with Floyd in Miami when it did in fact keep going past Miami ... some last minute Hurricane David sort of turn just off shore which so often plays out but this time not only did it not re-curve but it slammed into the Philippines and kept going all the way to China.
Who says what happens in China does not affect our world? It does... all those butterflies being blown apart by Typhoon Fengshen or as I like to call it Bad Fengshui will have big repercussions in our world if a hurricane threatens an area and all the models seem to agree yet forecasters see otherwise. They may think twice this year going with a forecast based on a models that might not be all right. Garbage in.. garbage out is the old adage and it only after the fact that we figure out why the models did such a bad job with such a devastating loss of life and an unfolding tragedy.
You can't always believe models as we saw in Hurricane Debby... that didn't do Miami but so often the models are right on the money and we are lucky and blessed they are right more often than not.
Doing my rights of summer and the hurricane season and taking a break from tropical tracking and staying down the block from the NWS lol.. I can see the balloon launch at 7! Winds 2mph out of the SW and was 92 degrees when I rolled into town.
Figured I'd do Shabbos and the Summer Solstice. Go to my favorite Temple and then go by the Grotto and say a prayer to protect this island from a damaging storm this year!
And.. seeing friends and relaxing and being myself.. which would mean I'd be in Key West :)
The wave is acting up a bit.. will probably act up more but how much can it really do? Keep watching it and all other waves and relax a bit cause in a few weeks I promise you'll have way too much to track and think on... hot water and what most impresses me is the distance between the waves coming off of Africa as well as the size. Nice big waves, far apart not bumping into each other on the Tropical Highway from Africa to the SE Coast. Wouldn't be surprised to see a Donna like storm this year, maybe.. keeps nagging at me the thought.
Poinciannas are more red and full than I ever remember.. gorgeous here in paradise!
Got to go get some things to make Shabbos and relax and take a swim.
According to The Weather Channel there is nothing out there to disturb the weather in the Tropics tonight.
That's a good rewrite of the NHC's "FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC...CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO...TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS. FORECASTER AVILA" but it doesn't quite tell the whole story.
The story is unraveling in bits and pieces like a winter knit scarf that is shredded at the edges and piece by piece of the yarn begins to become undone.
Tropical weather doesn't just happen suddenly over night. It evolves in an ever changing patchwork of clouds and rain and wind flow and jet streams and upper level lows and changes in the patterns and patterns that create the drama that will become the 2008 Hurricane Season.
A wave that didn't crash into South America but mostly lifted up into the NW Caribbean and made its way into the Caribbean mixing with moisture from South America flowing north is now still alive and kicking up midnight rain showers in Cuba. See the radar though it might be gone or moved on by morning.
And, showers are moving north through the Straits of Florida towards the Florida Keys. Showers are popping up everywhere caught up in a strong flow out of the South.
Maybe a part of this wave will make it's way into the Gulf of Mexico or simply rain itself out over the Everglades or move off of the Florida coast into the Bahamas.
Don't know. Can't say. It's an ever changing tapestry of a meteorological masterpiece.
And we watch the waves as they move across the beautiful planet we call Planet Earth. One of my favorite sites... hit animate and watch the moisture ooze around the planet.
What Steve Lyons means on the Tropical Update is there are no named, official storms or areas about to be named. There are no advisories. There are no warnings or watches. But there is most definitely weather my friend. Somewhere, someone tonight is sitting on a beach or near the sea wall in Havana or maybe in a boat and is having one heck of a thunderstorm as there is a bright orange dot hovering and doing the Cha Cha on the radar.
Tomorrow I will get rained on or someone will get stuck in severe thunderstorms agitated by the passing tropical wave.
Across the ocean in the Atlantic is an African Wave that is struggling to survive as it makes its way across an unfriendly ocean that is climatologically not ready for the most excellent waves that are moving off of Africa too early in the season.
What we need to watch is the waves ...
We need to watch the patterns that are becoming set this June as we move into July and it is not too early this year for a Cape Verde Storm to form. Unless something big changes, some TUTT out in the Atlantic causing a break in the high or some upper level lows reminiscent of last year or cooler than normal water temps suddenly cooling off the already warm water the waves that form will follow this little wave over Cuba's track and follow the high all the way to Florida or Texas or maybe skim the Gulf stream and slide through the Bahamas just off shore like Floyd did..
Watch the Waves... watch and see if any somehow develop but more so watch the unfolding pattern that will tell the story for this years Atlantic Hurricane Season coming to a theater near you... and then suddenly Steve Lyons will look agitated and excited and on top of the story explaining how the Bermuda High is in place and a rotation has been found on satellite imagery and a hurricane hunter found a west wind and the NHC has decided to issue advisories on Bertha or Cristobal or Dolly and the cone will show parts of the South East coastline in it's path and we may get lucky and we may not.
But that's the way things work in the Tropics. We watch the Waves as the full moon rises over Miami and Havana and we feel the moist, humid air hanging heavy over our Tropical Cities.
May not happen in 2008 nor did it happen in 2007 but it did in 1960 when Hurricane Donna formed from a Classic Cape Verde Wave and it will happen again, this year, next year or in ten years but history does repeat itself when it comes to Climatology!
Sweet dreams, sleep tight and know that somewhere, some weather person working to provide a forecast for your area is watching a wave tonight.
Besos Bobbi
ps.. anyone ever notice how much Steve Lyons looks like Avila?? Did I just type that :) Nite..
Very hot in Miami and elsewhere this Father's Day so... figured I'd post a cute dance routine with a very young Ann Miller in a really cool pair of tap shoes, tapping her way through the hearts of men way back then and my father... LOVED her always so..
This is for you Daddy and...
for Jim at Hurricane City because he puts up with all of us acting like children on a regular basis, every year while we wait for something to twist and track across the basin and personally I think we all owe him a present for putting up with us and all the work he does for his fans at Hurricane City :)
So while we are down memory lane here... another song from a movie my father liked and I used to love to dance to below... gosh so many of Marilyn's songs that we knew from movies on TV played by Channel 6 incessantly over and over in the old days were so much fun to dance and sing to on hot summer days growing up in Miami when we would make Summer Theater shows in the carport for the neighborhood boys when they weren't playing baseball in the street or hiding from Afternoon Thunderstorms.. I wasn't much of a singer but the guys always enjoyed watching me dance :)
Love you all and a special shout out to CJ for being getting to enjoy Father's Day and to all the men and great guys at Hurricane City!
Rainy Miami Day - Tropical Beach Ball Blown Away But the ITCZ Remains
Rained all day in Miami today. Off and on or should I say on and off?
Drove to work towards the rain.
Saw some pretty poinciana trees in bloom
Got to work.. went to the post office and saw Round Two building again...
Got home... brother called there was a cell with a tornado warning to my south..
Okay...either that or a nuclear device went off.... Haha. Was a joke. Watch the loop fast and you can see for yourself.. Poof.. Gone with the Wind: http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/opdb/aviation/loops/realtime/atlwv_loope.html
Okay so seriously.... the big tropical beach ball bounced away blown off by strong upper level winds.
The whole pattern is very volatile in ways, windy ways... frontal boundaries converging and a whole lot of mixing going on.
So... what lesson do I want you to take from this beautiful, rainy day when the temps cooled off so much that I turned off the AC and opened the windows and am sitting here feeling the breeze or maybe down drafts...
Something to think on... look at the color all around the globe in the region known as the tropics...
The ITCZ inter tropical convergence zone is so alive and kicking that it circles the earth today and when you see such an active strong ITCZ you know storms will form when the water temps warm up in a few weeks and around that time shear lessens at the gateway to the Caribbean and the season will have a fast and furious start this year.
So..hang onto your weather, enjoy your thunderstorms or pray for it to rain or stop raining or just enjoy what you got because when 2008 is over a bunch of people may not have what they got right now after a Cane makes landfall somewhere along our tropical hurricane coastline.
Not hyping but unless something changes soon the stage is set for a wild ride in 2008!
Have a great weekend everyone and check back in a few days when something official may be brewing besides Cafe Con Leche!
Besos Bobbi Ps. since we are doing Johnny Cash this week... it's really a Ring of Moisture but looks like fire on the IR.. so enjoy. And, NO..I am not gonna play a Boy Named Sue! Promise ;)
I came on here tonight to blog about the above pictured wave that was supposed to crash onto the South American coast but that pulled north far enough for us to be using the Puerto Rico option to view the wave.
It's a big, round, ball of convection noticeable from anywhere on any satellite you have chosen for your viewing pleasure. Sort of looks like a beach ball doesn't it?
Did show some signs of rudimentary rotation earlier in the day but has been battling strong head winds that are traditionally in place this time of the year to protect the nice tourists traveling through the beautiful Caribbean islands. If Bastardi's father blesses Haiti for protecting the United States the Chamber of Commerce of Aruba, Jamaica and Oh I Want to Take Ya should bless the seasonal shear for keeping developed storms out of the Eastern Caribbean.
Sometimes though storms pull north enough to miss the shear. Other times.. like now there is shear and mixing of various air masses and an upper level low that is worth watching as I think it has been tugging and nudging the Tropical Wave north and what does not kill it can only make it stronger.
But..the odds are against our fair little Tropical Wave aka Beach Ball but it is worth a mention.
While I am mentioning things late at night I might mention the incredibly, beautiful, big wave over Africa that takes your breath away when looking at the Late Night HIRES Sat... (no... not going to play the rains over Africa song ;) promise... listening to something else but yeah...
When you have this sort of choo choo train coming off of Africa and making it in Mid June all the way to the islands... it is a pattern that compels you to keep watching..
Nice picture... come on SNO.. you remember what John Hope always said about that Beach on Dakar... woo woo choo choo... The Africa Wave Train season does not begin until the waves gain enough latitude that they can come off Africa and roll off the beach just where this early season wave is rollin'
A funky little tune for SNONUT to see what he can remember about Wave Trains! ;)
Yeah.. it's a little weird to watch that video on youtube but.. it's a little weird to see such good quality waves in a year with a strong high, low dust and hot water temps.
Having a small vacation here from hurricanes and the tropics.
Shavous is coming up. It's a Jewish Holiday on Monday and Tuesday when we eat things like Cheesecake and Ice Cream and other dairy delights.
Have to make some sort of hurricane treat... not sure what.
But, the tropics are quiet and the lion sleeps tonight.
Will come on Sunday and say something profound or inspiring, maybe I'll find some music or a good loop for tonight... all's quiet on the Atlantic Front.
Except that wave of course.. crossing, wrong time, right place. Oh well..
Besos Bobbi :) Ps Any suggestions for menus or types of cheesecake feel free to send them. Maybe I'll make some chocolate skippy peanut butter cheesecake .. hahaha! Welcome back to YKW
Location: Miami, Raleigh, Crown Heights, Florida, United States
Weather Historian. Studied meteorology and geography at FIU. Been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & everywhere else... Lecturer, stormchaser, writer, dancer. If it's tropical it's topical ... covering the weather & musing on life. Follow me on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/#!/BobbiStorm
