Veterans Day and Weather...

First off.. in the tropics today nothing is really going on. It's quiet as gray November days often are in our part of the world. It's windy in Miami from a front that passed through and pushed Paloma away. Her remnants are still down near the Cuba and the Florida Straits and though the Hurricane Center did find it important enough to point out that fact in their morning update they are not expecting anything dramatic to come from her remnants immediately anyway. They have painted her remnants yellow which is a heads up to keep watching and a reminder that the Atlantic Hurricane Season does not end until November 30th.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Today's blog is about how weather is intricately tied to every detail of our lives and most especially politics. It rambles a little.. bare with me please I have not had my coffee and I do have work today so time is short.

But... in America... we have freedoms that many in other countries do not possess and today is a day to give thanks to those who fought for to protect our freedom.

Many of those people were people who later after they left WW2 went on to become actively involved with hurricane recon. Many veterans were involved in a project called Storm Fury that was put on hold and stopped for many reasons. Back in the 1960s Fidel Castro complained it was a plot by America to force the storms to turn and hit his country. Reporters in Cuba this year, years after Fidel's early complaints blamed America for running a secret program that forced hurricanes to crash into Cuba and die before hitting America.

Give thanks you do not live in Cuba and other places around the world where there is no freedom of the press and no freedom for the individual. See the comments below from the incredible article that sadly predicted the tragedy that would be known simply as "Katrina" and remember that it has been said by many that Hurricane Katrina left this country with a taste for new leadership.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0111/04/cp.00.html

ZARRELLA: But Storm Fury also had critics. The government of Mexico charged that tempering with hurricanes would deprive Mexican agriculture of rain. Fidel Castro fueled anti-American sentiment with accusations that Storm Fury would divert hurricanes into Cuba. And when Hurricane Fifi hit Honduras, there was immediate suspicion that American research was to blame, a charge that was laid to rest.

SHEETS: Fortunately for us, in 1974, when Fifi occurred, we did no flying into hurricanes, period.

Note that this was in 2001 and Landsea's warning of a hurricane to would come to be fulfilled sadly in less than 10 years when Katrina hit New Orleans.

"CHRIS LANDSEA, NOAA SCIENTIST: I think we will see a $50 billion hurricane in the next 10-20 years, without a doubt.

And, remember again that so powerful was the fall out from Katrina that many analysts have attributed the sea change in the country against Bush and the Republican party to his reactions and handling of the Katrina crisis. Despite the anger over war in Iraq and the downturn in the economy many social historians attribute the anger directed towards Bush and the old order with the socio-economic problems that Katrina brought into our living rooms during the long, media coverage. The flooding of New Orleans, the failure of the levees and the failure of the system to protect a large group of relatively poor people to get out of harms way highlighted the question to many whether there were two Americas and whether the system needed changes.

The total dollar cost in 2005 dollars of Katrina was said to be over $80 billion, way above the figure that Landsea suggested in the CNN article.

Weather changes everything. Weather changes people's lives and as it changes the landscape of the country. When people feel that the government cannot help them in times of need or maintain it's structures such as levees or bridges it affects us deeply. When the man who was put in charge of running Fema and eventually dealing with the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina had a resume that mostly spoke of raising Arabian Horses American's felt something was wrong. Whether this was a perceived wrong and he took the blame for a bigger problem or whether it was the problem... something was obviously broken in our system beyond a levee or how to rebuild New Orleans.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1103003,00.html

Weather is that great common denominator. People differ on religious beliefs. People differ on politics aligning themselves as a red state or a blue state. People differ on music and some like New Orleans Jazz and others like Jamiacan Reggae or old fashioned rock and roll. But EVERYONE is affected by weather and everyone can be affected by weather. Whether a tornado takes your farm or a storm surge rolls through your neighborhood, weather is the great equalizer. People sitting at home watching on CNN or FOX see a 100 year flood roll through a town it is everyman's disaster... it affects everyone.

Know that on Veterans Day we have much to remember and many to honor. There have been many wars and there will be many wars to fight as the struggle to live in peace free from war has been going on since time began it seems.

Know that the Hurricane Recon program grew out of war itself and a desire to gain information to give our troops an edge in the Pacific arena during WW2. Many veterans flew on those planes and continued on to fly for Noaa with it's many names over the last 50 plus years.



When remembering veterans today who fought in our Nation's wars you might want to think on the meteorological heroes who flew into storms to help us fight in World War 2 and later flew into storms to give us early warning and a better understanding of how hurricanes evolve.

http://www.hurricanehunters.com/aboutus.html

One of the biggest problems the Americans in World War 2 in the Pacific arena had to deal with was weather itself.

This link tells of the damage both to property and loss of life of those fighting that war.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurricane/history/typhoons-ww2-navy.htm

"Dr. Robert Sheets and Jack Williams discuss these two storms and their affects on the decision to begin using military airplanes to help track typhoons and hurricanes in their book, Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth, published by the Vintage Books Division of Random House in 2001."

You want to celebrate the life of an American Hero and Veteran today in your own tropical way you can celebrate and remember John Hope's life as he was one of the best meteorologists to work in the field of hurricane research. He began this career when he worked as a navigator in the US Air Force and after the war was over he went back to school and studied meteorology at the University of Illinois. Weather it seems changes everything and it changed his life and ours for the better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_(meteorologist)



So... go to a parade today! Wave your flag! Have a picnic with your family and enjoy one beautiful Autumn day before Winter descends upon our land with blizzards and Nor'easters and Snowmen on our lawns and in Miami snowbirds descending upon our sands.

Be proud of this country, be happy we live here and not in a place like Cuba where they are told that the five hurricanes that hit their island were a plot by the U.S. Government to weaken their government. Seriously... give thanks that we live in a country where "change" is effected by going to the polls and voting for the person we want to lead this country and where freedom rains. :)

Besos Bobbi