Hurricane Harbor: 1st Day 2015 Hurricane Season. Ironies. El Nino Years Often Have Memorable Hurricanes. Storm Surge Forecast VS Inland Flooding.

Note the moisture oozing up from the Yucatan

Towards Florida.

This MAY become important over the next week ...

...if models verify.

Discussion from the NWS Miami

Another year of GFS VS ECMWF . . .

Today is the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. When you have a chance watch this video to remind you of what a hurricane really is...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pXGXtqKXrQs

A great site to use...very proud to be a part of...

(okay I tend to shop a bit...)

www.spaghettimodels.com

Become familiar with it...the loop at the top is on this site.

Tonight at 8 PM Jim Williams will be discussing the..

Hurricane Season

A rite of passage into hurricane season for many of us..

http: // hurricanecity .com /

Hit the play button and listen in...

I'm going to discuss a few important things to remember today concerning the hype over the "below average season forecast" and why we should always worry when it's hurricane season. "We" being the people who live in Hurricane Country from the Gulf of Mexico to the Coast of Maine and any land up road beyond the coastline that could be affected by inland flooding. To those of you who read my blog from in the Ukraine... keep reading...and thanks...

I'll focus on:

The difference between storm surge and inland flooding, both have their own dangers.

Why El Nino is just ONE important factor, yet in many an El Nino year a Major Hurricane has made landfall and gone into the history books.

Sit a spell, read, listen to the music... learn some hurricane history and begin to think how to best protect your home, your property, your family and your pet frog Floyd!

The irony of today being the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season is that all the talk is on clean up from the flooding in Texas and Oklahoma with some minor flooding in other areas around the country. All the talk leading up to this season was on how we can sit back and relax as El Nino is on his way almost insuring us a "quiet hurricane season" yet Mother Nature threw us a sucker punch with Spring rains that busted the Texas Drought. Water every where seems to be the problem after months of talking on droughts. Things change fast in the weather world. Something worth remembering.

Ironies of ironies is that at a time when we should be warning people on INLAND FLOODING from Hurricanes we are trying to get the horse back inside the gate after the Hurricane Sandy debacle and working on issuing "Coastal Storm Surge Warnings" which is a good idea ...however ...in my opinion the attention must be brought to INLAND FLOODING.

Everyone watches where the storms go and whether you issue a storm surge alert or not it's inherently IN the forecast. Everyone turns off the TV after the storm makes landfall, the reporters pack up and .... then inland..... the creek starts to rise and the National Weather Service does NOT get the play live on air as does the NHC.

A friend of mine years back told me that we always worry about the last big hurricane and get blind sided so to speak by the next one as it's not the same as the last one. I'm paraphrasing, but yes...yes.. YES they are so right. While we worry on another Sandy.... we don't worry on another Floyd as that was a long ago hurricane in our meteorologically messy minds.

Floyd, Isabel and many other NC, Del Marva, Mid-Atlantic Hurricanes have left there mark far inland.

More pictures

Not just about NC

(That's Baltimore....)

And.......back to my home state of FLORIDA

Few people talk on the 1928 Hurricane.

It's often called the Forgotten Hurricane

1928.... Far away from the coastline...

A disaster unfolds.

Great book on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Cane-Deadly-Hurricane-1928/dp/158979298X

Between 2,500 and 3,000 people died.

No one is sure of the total number.

Far Inland... a storm surge on a lake.

Will the NHC issue a storm surge for that scenario?

I hope so

I'm happy they are working on finding new ways to educate and warn.

I'm just concerned that in the Post Sandy era...

...we are forgetting the dangers of INLAND FLOODING

Note I pointed to 1969 in the graph above.

Next topic for today.

There has been so much talk on El Nino that I would not be surprised if he is awarded a special Oscar this year! School children are taught that El Nino means... "no hurricanes" and adults for once are smoking the same stuff their teenagers are...

El Nino means a change in weather patterns that especially affects economics, commodities and sometime politics. It is not a "tropical meteorology" term as much as one large factor in evaluating the intensity and quantity of hurricanes in any given year. It's just one of the big factors, however factors can be mitigated by other factors.

Let's use astrology as an example. Even if you don't "believe" you most likely know what sign you are... say you are a Capricorn with a Leo Moon and a Leo Rising. Your mercury is in Leo, your Venus is on the cusp of Leo. You read a book on Capricorns and it makes you sound like a cross between Mother Teresa and the founder of the Girl Scouts. You are the girl least likely to get drunk and dance naked at a party with a lampshade on your head. However............where your sun sign is ...is just one factor in a person's chart. If the Leo washes out the Capricorn you most likely will be the life of the party ..though most likely you will keep your clothes on and if you are dancing and singing you'll probably be getting paid for it and possibly building your own theme park like Dolly Parton.

As I've said before..

NO 2 Hurricane Seasons are the same.

No 2 Hurricanes are the same

No 2 El Nino Years are the same

No 2 people are the same.....

Like Cabbage Patch Dolls they are different in some way.

Did you know they were 3 years apart? Same day?

Different mitigating factors in their lives affected the end game.

Shame...

Janis was an awesome singer... so is Dolly.

So...how does this affect El Nino?

Great link on El Nino out of Tampa Bay.

One of the best with little hype and more information than most.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tbw/?n=tampabayelninopage

Note by their graph...1969 and 1992 were strong El Nino Years

So how did 2 of the WORST Hurricanes ever...

...come in a strong El Nino Year?

There were other mitigating factors!

We are all different. I'm different. I write long and I use words and songs to tell my story. I love to dance be it in the kitchen on a riverboat or in the rain. I'm conservative yet eclectic and you never really know what I'll do for sure on any given day...until I do it. A lot like an out of season hurricane.

Janis had her story. She was born in Port Arthur, Texas a town very familiar with hurricanes. A town that could seriously be in play this year as a weak tropical storm could blow up fast over warm water, close in to the coast and affect a place that has been slammed with rain for a while now. Patterns exist, patterns repeat and the flow of moisture from the GOM towards Texas, the Sabine River all the way to the Big Bend make this hurricane season one to pay attention to... a season that has already given us one storm and some models show Bill forming off the East Coast of Florida the same way the A and B storm formed in 2012... the year more famous for Hurricane Sandy.

Make a plan.

Learn about your neighborhood.

If you recently relocated to South Florida...

...Google Andrew, Betsy & Irene

Please.

Today is also the start of Meteorological Summer.

Hurricane Season & Summer all in one big package.

What is Meteorological Summer?

It's reality... June July August

For those who don't go by the Summer Equinox

Who don't want to remember dates

For those who like to keep it real...and simple

While Janis was singing her heart out in 1969
An El Nino Year
Hurricane Camille was waiting in the wings.

(note what he says about Tampa Bay area..............)

Post note here... mucho INLAND FLOODING from Camille..