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!
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Hurricane Supplies. Yes, It's That Time of Year. Buy Then Now... One Can at a Time.
So rather than talk about the satellite presentation today as there is nothing going on today in the tropics but know now that the 2021 Hurricane Season IS just about a month away and hurricanes will happen whether you like it or not. That's why the NHC and all the news outlets lead with Hurricane Preparation this time of year and that's wise. Every year people complain they had to run out to Publix at the last minute and stock up on hurricane supplies and then often they complain it was all for naught because the hurricane swerved away and now they spent a fortune "for nothing" and obviously they seem upset. Apparently it's not a good thing to have too many crackers, tuna and peanut butter in the house or they'd rather have been blown away fully prepared. I've never understood the logic of waiting, waiting and waiting til the last minute to make that fast run to Publix where it's a zoo.
After Hurricane Andrew all I could remember was the rush to Publix and Walgreens and the store being mobbed like it was the Super Bowl and placing children in line to wait, older children mind you, while we ran around foraging for anything we could find that was kosher, had a shelf life and we might actually want to eat if we actually lost power. By the way it did cost a fortune, add in diapers for a newborn, a baby and a toddler and yes I grabbed any brand of Baby Wipes I could get. Okay, yes I did that back then as money was tight and Miami hadn't had a real hurricane in over 20 years but now I'm older, wiser and I'm not doing that again!
Know it does NOT have to be that way. And while I am posting the link to Publix's site for Hurricane Supplies below, know that almost all of these can be bought at the Dollar Store IF money is an issue for you. And, many can be bought over the next month one trip to the Dollar Store at a time. If you are anything like me you do make frequent runs to the Dollar Store and rather than pick up things you don't need (don't we all?) grab a box of crackers, cookies or chips and store them away for Hurricane Supplies. You can buy 6 bottles of water for a dollar at the Dollar Store on any given day. Why are you waiting? It's not your style? Maybe your style needs changing???
Also as time goes by, your must need hurricane supplies change over time so update your list regularly. If you are in Florida you can pick up some beer one can at a time but we can talk on that another day soon!
Do what you can when you can to make those hours and minutes before you have to go into Hurricane Lockdown easier, cheaper and more manageable as Lord knows the list of things to do is long and anxiety is rampant. Just do it one can at a time....
Sweet Tropical Dreams,
BobbiStorm @bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram
Really in need of some tropical beaches and a constant breeze these days but taking life here one day at a time.
EPAC Begins Soon, EGOM Stormy. Things to Watch Besides Mike's Facebook Live .. Daily Brew Getting Tropical One Day at a Time. Tropical Links For Hurricane Season.
If you hit that loop (after finishing the blog of course) you will see that area is still rooted down there. What do I mean by "rooted" you must be thinking. When it keeps flaring up after it looks as if it will die out areas need to be watched carefully for possible development. Yes, it's April but we are edging closer to May and this is an area that can be popular for early season development.
Flat front across Florida.
Root of it flaring up in the E GOM.
Down below EPAC wants to start on time this year.
When fronts slide down into Florida far enough for the locals to light up their fire pits and put on a sweater in the evening that's a front even if it's not much cooler. Last week it was close to 90 degrees and in that part of Florida any cool air is a big deal. Late season fronts often produce early season tropical storms. Again it's about the pattern that is setting up vs this front or the last or even the next that goes flat as it enters Florida with it's tail lingering in warm water. Always good to watch both sides of flat fronts; flat being they are dying out and they lay there horizontal across the state weeks before May Monsoons hit and the water only gets hotter. That was probably an improper use of a semi colon but I'm in a mood and can't erase the memory of someone scribbling notes fast at a lecture using a semi colon. Semi Colons kind of look tropical in weird ways if you think on it.... or maybe don't think on it.
Speaking of locals, Mike is a local and he knows Florida well. He knows weather but he especially knows Florida weather and that comes in handy during the Hurricane Season. He's been on and off throughout the year and I usually watch him on YouTube when I have the time but now that we are getting closer to Prime Time I'm watching in the morning on Facebook. The beauty of YouTube is you have OPTIONS so if you are busy in the morning when Mike is talking live... you can catch up on it later while relaxing at lunch or while making dinner or whatever floats your boat. He also has a boat so he gives a good heads up to Floridians with boats on when to go out and when not to take the boat out. Speaking of "heads up" he is very into that and he will be the first to question why the NWS didn't put up a Tornado Watch when tornadoes march across Central Florida. Note early season and late season Tropical Storms that come into Florida, especially from the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, can really rip up the landscape both with waterspouts that move on shore and actual tornadoes that spin up fast so keep that in mind.
As for the Eastern Pacific it officially begins on May 15th and there has been a continual stream of moisture that is ready and available to produce systems. It may begin on time this year and that's something we always watch. Also the EPAC has some great links on the NHC site that do a great job of showing what's going on in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan so check them out.
So that's the story on Wednesday. Hopefully I will blog tomorrow and add another link that's good to keep on hand when watching the tropics. Again another cold front IS dipping down this week and that's keeping summer at bay in the Carolinas and parts of Florida. It should also amp up serious weather along the Gulf of Mexico in areas still recovering from last year's Hurricane Season.
Be well and get out and do what you can and enjoy the day,
Thoughts on the Tropics, the Sun and Waiting for Tropical Weather to Begin... in Less Than 30 Days!
Just catching up here while it's still quiet in the tropics and parts of the country are getting dusted with late season snow. I read somewhere that April is the kind of month you never know what you'll get from day to day and that is especially true this year. Definitely not quiet weather wise but in my part of the world it's pretty boring. Nice but boring as we have cool nights and warm days and you really can't complain about that can you? Not really. But for people who love when the weather likes to mix it up more ... it's boring.
In the Florida Keys it's not so boring....
...they have had strong storms daily now.
Every day... another warning nearby.
That's because there's weather lingering there.
That area has been rooted there of late.
Tail end of an old front.
The front is gone but the root remains.
But check that out really.
Doesn't Cuba look pretty in purple?
I digress.. it's April I do that often.
Not my favorite time of year.
We do have early strong action in other basins.
Look at that image....
... fighting back after weakening.
Not as strong as it was but still.
It should make you remember May is around the corner.
Again the NHC is beginning putting out the TWO on 5/15
May 15th...not that far away.
Less than a month.
So what's that saying??
Buckle up buttercup?
Bought some at the Farmers Market on Sunday.
I didn't know they were so small.
You live... you learn.
Yellow... of course.
Venus in Scorpio.
I kind of like the intensity of purple.
Did you know what Van Gogh was thinking?
When he was painting them?
They were the mouths of patients babbling...
..in the hospital locked up he saw mouths babbling.
They do look like mouths a bit don't they?
With purple lipstick?
Okay I'm in a mood.
No Football and no Hurricanes.
April.....
I've had allergy and headaches.
Tho today I'm good!
Cool weather here does that.
That's a sunspot... a storm.
A face on the sun.
My son once asked a big meteorologist who is a friend about Sunspots and the Van Allen Belt and I thought "oh my gosh I can't believe he's bothering him about this" but apparently he also was into that and said there were correlations and well what can I say... you live you learn. I know I have had bad headaches this week but I think it was something I took for my allergy not the energy from the sun but who knows?
Thanks for stopping in.
What do I think about the 2021 Hurricane Season?
I think EPAC may start on time this year and I also think the Eastern Gulf of Mexico will be in play early on this year and throughout the year; also watching coastal threats and worrying a bit on Florida but well I always worry on Florida.
Time will tell.
Til then.... enjoy what gives you joy and ignore the rest if you can.
That's my best advice on life today.
Watching the tropics even though nothing is happening. Not expecting snow in Raleigh so not watching the local weather much and wondering if I will go down to Key West when in South Florida soon. Maybe, it's one of my ancestral ... I even have the naturalization papers to prove true citizenship papers that made my family citizens of Key West in the 1800s! Maybe I'll go light a candle in the grotto... think Key West may need some prayers this year.
Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram
Ps... love this song. It's on one of my favorite Willie Nelson CDs.
Asteroids - Volcanoes - Coronal Mass Ejections CMEs and Other Natural Disasters That Can Happen on Any Given Day But Usually We Get Lucky. How Long Will Our Luck Last?
My Caribbean satellite image of the day above.
The non tropical kind as we are all about geology today!
Caught in the wind flow....
2 sides of a natural disaster.
Gray, caustic ash covering everything...
..beautiful colorful satellite imagery.
What do you focus on?
I took this picture years ago storm chasing.
It was the place to be....
...TWC was there as were all the media and chasers.
Not the worst storm but fun to be out in...
Most people look at the palm trees.
To me the wild part was the water.
In South Florida it only gets that nasty color...
...when a bad storm is brewing.
Where do you focus?
On the colorful imagery from the volcano?
Or the gritty natural disaster the residents are facing?
And many had to evacuate.
Those cruise ships are busy now!
Link to Weatherboy's article below.
Kudos to their help in evacuations!
Yesterday there was an odd incident.
What looked like a meteor or asteroid fell to the Earth.
Looked like a scene out of Starman to me.
Asteroids happen. Meteorites fall.
But what was that shooting star like glow on the horizon?
Looked a lot like the scene in Starman.
Great movie ...by the way.
Maybe NetFlix?
Apparently it was expected but.........
....it came much closer than expected.
Well THAT happened!
What would you think if you saw that?
Aliens or Asteroids?
As I wrote in the previous blog about our Caribbean volcano ... sometimes those things you worry on happening actually do and the list is long for what could happen, yet blessedly does not happen very often. It was predicted that asteroid would come close to earth (close being a matter of perspective, close as in "you won't see a thing" vs "oh my gosh WHAT IS THAT???!!!") and it does make some wonder what would happen had it been worse! Well, the good news is the partying on South Beach is still going on (good or bad from your perspective) and no dinosaurs were killed off in this encounter of the close kind. Years back part of the Caribbean was carved out... rearranged by a large asteroid credited with getting rid of those huge previously mentioned dinosaurs. And that begs the reminder that if it happened once, it could in theory happen again.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/we-finally-know-how-much-dino-killing-asteroid-reshaped-earth-180958222/ Excellent article. If you want to know what it was like before the asteroid and you're in LA may I suggest you go to the La Brea Tarpits, not in the depth of summer mind you but otherwise a wonderful educational, peaceful attraction near where I once lived!
Open again... with precautions.
Seems the dinosaurs had more to fear than the plague!
Who knew an asteroid would knock out their world??
Do you ever worry or wonder on rare natural disasters?
I know many of you do while obsessing on hurricanes.
Many meteorologists are obsessed with the Northern Lights.
We watch the sky, we study the atmosphere.
It's on everyone's bucket list.
Some also obsess on a possibility of a CME.
Why you ask?
Read below.
Like Volcanoes they can be mesmerizing.
Yet they can also be disastrous!
Yet people Google them all the time...
...or watch them on YouTube.
Some volcanoes are bright and colorful.
Others gray and gloomy.
And yes it's still erupting in the Caribbean.
(on it's anniversary....
..astrologers must be having a field day!)
Anyway read on about CMEs and see....
...why so many obsess on them especially today.
Imagine........
Not even being able to go online to see if #FACEBOOKDOWN
The devil IS in the details. Can you imagine reading the paper by the glow from the Northern Lights? Can you imagine all you might be able to read is old newspapers, because IF such an event happened today it would be hard to go online and get your breaking news. We could be thrown back into the past if such an event occurred until everyone could get back online and how long would that take I wonder. Read the details... down to Havana Cuba ... click on that link and read the many details not shown below that came from such a natural event that rarely happens. First there were sun spots... then telegraphs didn't work and back then that was the main form of communication. Does your latest iPhone or Galaxy have an App to stay online in the case of a Coronal Mass Ejection aka CME? I wonder...
The truth is whether it's an asteroid from outer space or a volcano rearranging your trip to the Great Northwest or the Caribbean or a rare Cat 5 Hurricane slams into Jacksonville Florida where they rarely see hurricanes and yet these events can happen. CMEs aren't just for the paranoid but then again if you have never checked them out you may never know what happened to your phone, internet and possibly what caused your power outage which obviously would be freaky not to be able to go online and find out why your lights were out. Yes, it could shut down not just cable but Roku and NetFlix... "oh my!"
This also begs the question would you prefer aliens to an asteroid? Personally unless I knew if they were good aliens or bad aliens I might prefer Mother Nature problems to those of the other kind.
From far away volcanoes are beautiful, but close up they are deadly at worst and difficult at best.
I'll take hurricanes you can track for days and models sometimes properly predict ten days out to something sudden that comes out of nowhere and you aren't sure what hit you! Again, everyone made fun of the models that showed the Houston area getting epic amounts of rain and then Harvey did even worse than the models predicted! Go figure the models won that one though Houston lost the ongoing battle with the bayous creeping up across the concrete landscape where people live good lives except for when a Harvey comes to visit!
Stay tuned....... 2021 just started kicking.... one can only wonder what else Mother Nature has up her sleeve this year! Maybe it's a good surprise!!! You know like everyone can see the Northern Lights without having to go to Norway and our power grid stays on so we can share videos and talk about it!
And thanks to Sandman for always reminding me about things I forget from "the year without summer" to what could happen if a CME hits!
Sweet Tropical Dreams,
Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram
Ps I used so many Google images today to remind y'all how reliant we have become on being able to quickly Google anything from asteroids to volcanoes!!
More Eruptions.... More Discussion on Volcanoes and Hurricane Season So Many Intangibles. From St. Vincent to Barbados a Cloud of Ash
The world is watching....
...but especially South Florida.
Home to many from that part of the world.
Colorful headlines for a gray, ashy disaster.
Looks like a nuclear blast in ways.
An ongoing disaster on a beautiful colorful island.
If not for the bright pink house....
...you'd think it was a black and white photo.
One bright red dot.
Colorful on satellite imagery.
Not rain. Not a storm.
Not a micro hurricane....
That's the heat from the explosion...
...from the eruption.
Explosive eruption....
...The ash made it's way East to Barbados today.
Shrouding the beautiful tropical paradise in gray ash.
As every tropical tracker knows...
..Barbados is just East of the volcano.
Every time a Volcano in the Caribbean or near the Caribbean begins to hum songs in a hushed tone accompanied by mild tremors and small earthquakes tropical weather people wonder how this will impact the hurricane season. I remember one year when it looked as if a volcano was going to blow and most people insist it would kill the season before it got started. That volcano quieted down just blowing off a little steam and nothing much happened other than geologists and meteorologists debating online in private groups as to how they interact and if they do interact. We like to chit chat like that.
Obviously hurricanes usually prefer warm water and in theory an epic explosion would lower the temperatures somewhat though in late August the ocean would still be hot and hurricanes would still happen. It's one of those topics that professionals will say in public view that it shouldn't matter much and then they stay up til 2 AM discussing it in a chat room, or on a message board, on WhatsApp or a back alley somewhere shooting the tropical breeze. I've never met a meteorologist, not a good one, that isn't interested in geology and often oceanography. It's all one planet and Earth Science is intricately tied together with numerous intangibles that make it that much easier to sit outside on a hot humid night drinking beer or bourbon and bickering about how the volcanic ash or lack of sunshine could impact sea surfaces temperatures and well the list goes on and on. Been there and they have been some incredible conversations usually backed up by "well in 1816... in the Year Without a Summer..." and anyone who specializes in the hurricane history along the East Coast knows 1816 was a busy year along the whole East Coast. You know Florida, Carolinas ... New York and do not forget Virginia.
So what happened in 1816 that made snow in the summer seem like a good idea?
A volcano in the East Indies far from the Atlantic Ocean not to mention Northern Europe impacted the climate of the world, the whole world. Temperatures plunged, crops failed, people died and it snowed in the summertime and that's why it's called "the Year Without Summer" and yet there were hurricanes. Note the volcano began early in 1815 and that was also a wicked hurricane season remembered in some parts of the East Coast as one of the worst storms that came along in September.
The storm is legendary all along the coastline as it sunk ships all the way to New England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer Google it, you can stay up all night and into the dawn reading one story after another. As much as I worry on Global Warming I worry more a huge volcano or two going Kaboom over and over or an asteroid crashing into the earth somewhere and we suddenly have a year without summer and a winter to remember. So many intangibles that can seriously happen but luckily rarely do more than litter the realm of the possible disaster scenario you study in college yet generally only hear about late at night on some YouTube channel. In general we get really lucky on Planet Earth, and despite all the disaster movies California has still not broken apart and LA and San Francisco have not yet become Islands in the Pacific.
From the article above is this interesting tidbit shown below with a fascinating theory. A displaced ITCZ apparently made the Atlantic Coast all the way to New England a target zone for tropical trouble. And, remember this was BEFORE satellite imagery so you can only imagine how many storms would have been found by the NHC with the right eyes in the sky! Again, remember that volcano was not in the Atlantic!
"Records from ship logs have determined both 1815 and 1816 were active hurricane seasons, with at least 12 tropical cyclones ascribed to 1816 alone. This is some evidence that a northward-displaced Intertropical Convergence Zone appears to be partially responsible for the increased tropical cyclone activity in 1816, which was the famed Year Without a Summer.[11]"
Many good articles on this one just pick a city along it's route and there are sites dedicated to the hurricanes of those two years ... special interest to the James River so not just talking about the Outer Banks.
A displaced ITCZ ...displaced to the North possibly ....
Too many "What ifs" to know what will happen this year should our volcano keep putting on wild shows as it did again today as we watch from the ground, from the air and from satellite imagery. What if Iceland goes viral and the two of them pump ash into the International Dateline for months or some volcano in Mexico goes BOOM and well Planet Earth sure has been rocking and rolling the last few months and it doesn't seem to wanna stop anytime soon.
So buckle up, get your hurricane disaster kits ready and hopefully you will not have to use them. After 2020 we have all become pretty good at rolling with the flow of headlines and finding ways to keep on going when a pandemic took many of us by surprise.
Who knows what the 2021 Hurricane Season will have in store...
One thing I know... we are all watching and wondering.
History happens in real time and it often has some curve balls hidden away that are easier to read about on Wikipedia than they are to deal with while they are being thrown at us.
What is in a name? The name La Soufriere literally means sulfur and that is the smell that pervades the atmosphere as caustic ash rains down onto the tropical island famous for having a volcano on it. Hurricanes come and go but a volcano seems to be forever. Sometimes they are quiet most of the time and tourists go near to take photos of both the volcano in the background and themselves standing in the shadow of a volcano that violently erupted in 1979 the same year as Hurricane David left the Caribbean in search of a Florida vacation.
"The ash from a volcanic eruption is MUCH different and is much, much more hazardous than what you would find with the ash from your wood stove or from a wildfire. The composition of volcanic ash is extremely rough and caustic and if you breathe in the ash from a volcanic eruption, it can mix with the moisture in your lungs leading to you to potentially “drown” in volcanic ash"
Think about it.
Open House on Natural Disaster Season.
Wondering what the Hurricane Season will bring?
In Miami and most of Florida today wicked weather.
Waves Matter! Early African Wave Train... Too Soon...Too Low. But So It Begins! EPAC Starts May 15th. Will We Get Named Storms Before June? Stay Tuned.
So let's talk tropics.
There used to be a room online for that...
Looked like Stalk Tropics to me.
Palm Beach Post... great paper.
But I digress...
(punctuation is so important...)
Yes we are watching the satellites.
Watching patterns.
Those too early, low latitude waves.
When they reach South America....
..and splash up on the mouth of the Amazon
We know the Wave Train is beginning.
Takes weeks, months before they are Prime Time.
But it's a start...
..a sign that that time is getting closer.
I have a best friend who always reminds me she doesn't believe in coincidences. I'll add that one coincidence gets your attention, two coincidences really wake you up... trust me. One wave wandering westbound is interesting, two westbound waves is the start of a wave train that begins early, too low to do anything more than crash onto the coast of South America. Ironically, sometimes those early April waves are kick ass waves that look better than late May or early June but again they are too soon but it's the beginning of the pattern switch. Dabuh knows that and he knows I know that so we be watching frequently!
May 15th begins Epac Season.
Note the congregating of convection there now.
To the east is a wave near South America.
An Atlantic Wave.
Too soon yet there it is!
Here's a close up of our wave.
Looks like a scared rabbit.
As in "oh my gosh what have I done??" "I'm running out of ocean!!!"
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
