Hurricane Aletta in EPAC Cat 4. Surprising Rapid Intensification. Suicide of Anthony Bourdain Surprising and Sad. Surprise Tornado in Wyoming & Volcanoes Erupting. Been a Surprising Few Weeks.

Today's weather surprise.

Rapid intensification of Aletta.

Oh look Bud is about to form also.

Hurricane Aletta.

Eastern Pacific.

South of Baja.

Cat 4

Track and visible below.

Another view below.

Very impressive.

Surprising.

Very surprising.

Rapid Intensification.

Few saw that coming....

I said it a month or so ago and I meant it when I said that this Hurricane Season will continue to surprise us in ways. A surprise is something unexpected and often happens fast the way flash flooding brought torrents of water racing down into Ellicott City last month. Surprising in the way some volcanoes suddenly blow their top and rearrange the landscape in different, often deadly ways. One flows in intense orange and red shades down into once suburban paradises and the other covers everything in it's path in deadly ash. 

Good article. 

Explains the why behind the death toll.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/science/volcano-guatemala-hawaii.html

Speaking of deadly it's been a horrible week for surprising, shocking, sad news stories about suicides of individuals who seemed much loved and living the dream on top of the world. I say "seems" as we really don't know what is below the surface in someone's life in the same way we don't always know when a volcano is about to blow or the ground is about to shake. These sort of "events" leave us shaken to our core as it's not normal to feel the ground shake, rattle and roll and it's not normal to see someone who "seemed" to be so happy and alive take what seems to be his incredibly, beautiful life. 

About 6 years ago my daughter-in-law insisted I sit with her through the last few weeks of her pregnancy and watch one documentary after another on TV. We learned how they made jelly beans and candy canes and then we watched episode after episode of Anthony Bourdain living the dream. For me in reality it was a dream show as he found a way to combine geography, history and politics into episodes where he ate Oxtail Stew or Scotch Eggs. Whether he was in Vietnam or Peru or New Jersey he brought the flavor of the place as alive as he did the dish he was sampling. I have to be honest I always got Kate Spade mixed up with Kate Landry, so it took me a minute to figure out who took her life before I began to wonder what could cause a mother to bring such horror into her child's life. I know suicide is a short term solution to a long term problem and people who kill themselves rarely are thinking clearly. Sometimes a person at the end of a horrible disease chooses to pick the time they will die, but usually it's related to an overdose of drugs or an overdose of emotion. I was so stunned when my husband walked into the room this morning just a few minutes after Buzz Feed sent me a text of "Breaking News" that I couldn't say the words as it seemed incomprehensible that such a thing could happen. I simply showed him my phone unable to say Anthony Bourdain committed suicide.

Sometimes a surprise is a birthday party that someone tries to pull off or a sudden trip to Charleston that wasn't planned. Good surprises are way better than terrifying ones like a tornado on a clear day with nothing in the forecast mentioning a possible tornado or a volcano blowing while you are on your dream vacation in Guatemala. 

Bourdain told it like it was whether you wanted to hear it or not. He did a segment on Jamaica that told it like it is in ways and in ways it's a similar reason that it bugs me when people go to Cuba and stay in a State owned resort while going on a State approved excursion, spend money, take selfies and are clueless how the average Cuban lives. Living in Miami in Overtown or Little Haiti is not the same as living in Bal Harbor or Coral Gables and few of the locals party on South Beach yet on Ocean Drive the party goes on and on all night. It's like those "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" signs painted on the windows of stores for the tourists to race in and buy "Miami Vice" tee shirts for every relative they have back home because the "store is going out of business" but that painted sign gets touched up every few months as the tide of tourists goes on and on. 

I know I sound a bit down but really the double dose of sad is heartbreaking and you wonder whether things really do come in 3s and I hope anyone who is even considering such a sudden, impulsive act reaches out and gets help before rushing into what seems to be a way to stop the pain when in fact it creates endless pain for those left behind who loved them. I know a friend who lost someone very close to him from suicide and I know it colored their world in dark, shades of stormy gray for a long time until they found ways to bring back some color and life back into their world.

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org

I'd rather deal with a rapidly developing hurricane any day (like Hurricane Andrew was) than deal with a sudden 7.0 Earthquake or a flash flood or the loss of a friend or relative by someone who thought there was no other way...  Someone told me recently I was "always a strong girl" and that's true but no one really knows the fears going on inside your head and heart in the darkest of moments. My children have always kept me grounded as well as several incredible friends, as well as a husband who tries to make me happy with a sudden trip to Charleston or Southern Pines. It's the little things in life really. My secret? I never want to leave a legacy like that to my children, I never want to totally lose it and be on the cover of the National Enquirer and when my son sends me a video to a new trailer like Bumblebee (as he did just now) I take it with a huge sense of humor............ 

Life goes on if you keep trying to pull yourself out of the deep holes we so often fall into and sometimes we have friends who reach down and try to help us out and back into life. I wish you all the pleasure of having someone who is there for you when you need it the most. 

As for weather..........this is typical of a normal hurricane season. Epac percolates in June and we wait our turn until the water gets warmer, the wind shear dies down and the waves get stronger. While waiting on those Westbound waves we watch the tail end of cold fronts that linger too long around on either coast of Florida. Right now the tropical news is in the Eastern Pacific where it should be the first week of June. I do believe this will be an Average Hurricane Season meaning we will have a good amount of tropical storms, hurricanes and some sudden rapid intensification in our basin. It's splitting hairs to say above average or below average because when a hurricane like Andrew suddenly goes from a weak, barely there Tropical Storm to a Cat 5 Hurricane taking aim at your town it's a huge hurricane season you remember forever. 

If you ever feel sad or bad or as if the only way out is suicide think again. No one, no amount of money lost or even just a crappy day is worth forgetting that tomorrow IS another day and you could be on top of the world just days after feeling down in the dumps. Turn off the sad love songs, turn off the scary news, go for a walk, smell a magnolia or go to sleep and tell yourself tomorrow will be better. Make it better. Reach out if you need to talk. 

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps.. In retrospect while looking for happy, smiling pictures of Anthony Bourdain it was hard to find one to use. Some of the "happy faces" look forced and that wry grin where you can tell he has deep thoughts he is debating on saying remain on his face in most of the pictures online. He will be very missed. 

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org