NHC at 7:21 AM "Nothing Happening for 7 Days" so Posting a Blast from the Past... Late July 2005. Mind of Hurricane Trackers & Chasers. As for the Tropics...when the EURO Sees Something There'll be a Yellow Circle. Truth.

 

 

You're thinking 

"Hey what about those waves???"

Yes everyone thinking that.

NHC sure rushed to put this out at 7:21AM

(Yes we notice stuff like that)

I'm going old school and just writing today. In truth models vaguely pick up on a signal of moisture.. let's call it a tropical wave up over the Islands approaching Florida at the end of the forecast period. On some GFS runs it threads the Florida Straits into GOM, of course on other runs it slams into Texas or flirts with iCyclone in Mississippi. Some models show a fast coastal spinner sliding up offshore along the coast that no one cares about. 

Mike asked on the Morning Brew what's with the MJO no one is talking about it. That's true currently but a few weeks ago there was a lot of MJO talk and then nothing really happened and everything got quiet like crickets. 

Invests fizzled out and didn't pan out the way they were expected to...expected to based on model veification so not totally trusting the models for a while. 

Mike is talking on Dorian, he's so right that was a year when models were off. Dorian a weak, small system maybe would become a hurricane but very little discussion in official media about possibility of it becoming a Catgory 5 Hurricane until it began kicking up waves in the Virgin Islands East of PR ... ships in the harbor were rocking and clocking hurricane force winds and then suddenly the NHC upgraded it to Hurricane and the whole forecast began to change. Went from a weak TS approaching Florida to dropping anchor for days in the Bahamas as a violent Category 5. 

So while it's quiet today I'm going to repost a post from 2005 in late July when it was relatively quiet yet busy, but all the systems were out to sea or fast hitting weak BOC systems. What happened to the BOC? Huh? Been quiet, as has the Gulf of Mexico. Way too quiet.

Been online a long time. Friends with many people from regular storm trackers to On Air Mets to friends who work at the NHC or who have even retired from the NHC. Collaborated with Academic Mets and Historians on papers, research... spent golden hours at the NHC Library doing research (views from AOML better) and learned so much. Sat in a car once listening quietly not saying a world as the other 3 people 2 directors of the NHC and the other a Deputy Director shot the breeze talking about the tropics. Learned how to fix a toilet in real time (after going to Home Depot and buying what they told me to) and learned how to make great Potato Salad (printed that recipe out) watched 911 happen in real time while tracking Hurricane Erin with friends online, stood at the beach watching a storm and looking back at all the Media Trucks lined out like it was a football game with On Air Mets lined up closely but not so close that you couldn't see how many were standing along the same spot of picturesque sand giving their 5 PM report on the Nightly News and I have spent hours with Mike and others online. Drawn maps with Jim on paper napkins while drinking a Hurricane or two. Spent hours sitting in a safe spot with Sharon in a hurricane behind some boarded up hotel watching waves, sea foam and other chasers dance in the wind. Spent hours in school looking out the windows at the huge thunderstorms that would form and break at 3 PM as we ran home in the rain, between lightning strikes and sometimes standing on the catwalk that crossed the Palmetto staring North into the storm  while debating with other old Miami kids if that was a funnel cloud or not. Sat upstairs in my old Roaring 20s Mini Mansion on Miami Beach during Hurricane Andrew listening to the roar of the wind and occasionally hearing the sound of the surf pounding a few blocks away. My ex-husband stood mesmerized at the window facing West (we didn't board up that one) watching "purple lightning" nonstop over Miami as transformers blew like fireworks on the 4th of July. 

It's hard to explain the mind of a storm tracker/chaser. But I was told often as a child that my ancestors sat on the porch in Tampa looking out of the Tampa Bay at the thunderstorms building in the distance and yeah that made sense because that's what people do that love weather and before that they watched the storms in Key West. 

Tropics quiet today.... kind of.. Wave Train ignored for lack of model support but that could change if the EURO suddenly shows development from one of them.

This is the Calm before the Storm. 

Today is a day for run on sentences and no real punctuation.

Sorry on typos this laptop's keyboard is so broken I can't even fix it and there's a new one waiting in a box to open in the other room. I'll probably travel with this one, but looking forward to the other one. I said online the other day "I'm either getting a new phone or a new laptop" and know you know the rest of the story. Maybe I'm feeling nostaligic because we've had some awesome time together me and my laptop. Maybe it's the odd air hanging over Raleigh today, not a leaf moving, hazy, lazy and pregnant with the feeling of something going to happen soon. 

Sweet Tropical Dreams... remember nothing is as it seems. The tropics wake up when they wanna wake up, til then not even a double Nespresso will wake them and once woken like a wild lion that was once a lazy ole cat sleeping.... you can't put the genie back in the bottle once it's out of the bottle.

Today is a day to look back a bit and remember.

I remembered I used to write more, show pictures less and well life was not always easy for me then but I took refuge in writing my heart out in my little diary online. 2005 was a good year, not just a busy year tropically, the genie was out of the bottle, the party never ended and it's good to look back and smile. Key West was my refuge from Miami, I'd go walk down Whitehead Street and sit on my ancestors porch where I'm guessing my Grandma was conceived and feel the breeze and the heat, stare at the flowers on the poincianna tree my Great Uncle Morris prob.ably planted and feel at peace. The curent owner didn't mind, we became friends and I'd lay on my back floating in my friend Tom's pool staring up at the sky and I swear I could feel and hear the ghost of my Great Grandma Ida talking to me... telling me how to move on with life when the time comes along and I did. Now I live in North Carolina and Pawley's Island in South Carolina is my happy place as well as some of the smaller towns nearby and I watch the waves as I do when I'm home in Miami watching the waves and the boats, ships and yachts moving up the Miami River near where some of  kids live.

Thoughts from an Old Time Floridian......living in the Carolinas.

I wasn't even on Facebook yet.... it was a different world, blogs had just become popular and I never thought I'd still be blogging in 2023! If you're an old timer thanks for coming along for the ride here ;)

No song today but the song Peace Train hangs in my mind today... gonna take a shower, wake up totally and open up the new laptop.

****

Thursday, July 28, 2005

The Mind of Hurricane Trackers

Trying to make reason of hurricane season. To understand, control and accept what is unraveling before our eyes.

Why do people track? Watch? Chase?

Some people say we are not normal.. sort of like that Rusty character who was so funny in Twister..the one who kept talking about the Suck Zone or something funny. Believe he was in Leap of Faith too .. should check www.imdb.com but too late in the day for me to check anything but a water vapor loop.

Why?

Some love maps.. like me. Nothing more fun than a hurricane map. You get to draw on it, think about it. Though in 97 I drew someone's astrological chart on a hurricane map because well..there was nothing to track and had so many of them. Told them that their Venus was in the Bermuda Triangle. Smiling. Gosh those were fun days, we were so nuts. Poof.. gone.

So.. why?

Someone online said it was in their blood. I didn't ask if their father or mother was a forecaster but almost did. Could it be genetic? Both my baby brothers became trackers.. then again, was that genes or nurture.. as in big sister Bobbi's nurturing them?

Superman comic books and the 60s... Lex Luthor always trying to change the weather and take over the world. All those disaster movies with special effects and lightning?

The Wizard of Oz... whoosh up into the suck zone of the Twister.. the Professor would have told Dorothy that and he would have been arrested for soliciting a minor for sex most likely or at least... contributing to the destruction of some poor little girl's mind. Suck Zone indeed.

Weather is sexy. It's filled with so many allusions, illusions, references to sexual things. Twisters are phallic. Haven't you heard that one? If you dream of a twister it is supposed to mean either you fear your life is out of control or your sex life is.. psychology 101. Rain is sexual. Have had more men talk to me about rain than any woman who ever noticed it did much but make your hair soft. Heat..hot summer night and Body Heat..who can forget that scene in that movie? Every soap opera on tv has shown some famous super couple who broke up years before locked up lost in the woods in a blinding blizzard finding their heart again and coming back together ...

Fear factor? People are afraid of storms, blizzards, ice storms, thunderstorms.. they like to be in control and try to know when they will hit.

We have been accused of all wanting cheap thrills.. thrills=sex again see?

We want disaster... we crave being pushed to the wall, standing at the shore facing the monster storm, taking pictures, measuring winds.. having the waves grab at us and half drown us.. No, I don't think so. But, it is fun.. I'll tell you that.

I really don't think we want disaster and yet many of us are mesmerized by the wild, strong, intense effects of nature on the surface of the earth. To see a day start out gentle, soft blue skies, sun out cheerfully and suddenly a dark, purple-black line of thunderstorms appear in the northwest sky. The temperature drops. Things fall off the tree onto the roof of the house. Leaves go flying. Nothing in the world like watching a front race through Miami on a warm day in the winter... crash, bam.. thank you maam.. its gone, leaving behind strong winds out of the NW that are suddenly, magically cold as if God turned the AC on. Beautiful. Stunning.

I can't say why we do what we do but we do.

And, as Dr. Gray has said.. either you are or you aren't a tropical weather lover. Got the quote somewhere.. two types of people in the world and I know which kind I am.

What I don't understand is why others aren't like that?

How can they go about their day blind to the wonders and mysteries of the planet. They don't notice a beautiful sunset.. the sun is just going down, does it every day they say. They don't pay attention or care about a lunar eclipse. They don't enjoy the sound of the rain and rush to shut the windows even when the rain isn't coming in that window. They grimmace when it pours instead of staring at it magically. They don't have any curiousity to feel what it feels like when a storm is passing by offshore and have no need to drive out to the beach and watch the waves. They don't stand on their front porch staring out at a thunderstorm.

I think we are all a little quirky, even those of us who look staid and boring. Many meteorologists are very boring looking.. on the surface. Math majors even. They don't all run around in flowered shirts or wear baseball caps. They look to many like pencil pushers..though I do think that is changing. They are of all color, sexes, religions.. many were not ever even in the Navy or Air Force even. Just plain old folk in love with the weather, a good head for math and who studied it in college.

But..we are all a little crazy in our own ways.

I've found most to be.. all of these things that seem to contradict.

Serious..Funny
Skepitcal.. Spiritual
Left brain statistical, right brain emotional
Intense.. calm

Like the weather.. we change a lot in ways. Like the water and the waves.. we get churned up high, go crashing down again.

We love when a forecast is blown and a rule broken. Does that make us rebellious too?

Gianmarc posted this today online at hurricanecity.com .. great line.. loved it. Because I know exactly what they mean.

"Posted by Gianmarc on 7/28/2005, 9:20 am, in reply to "Re: sst in the
northern gulf <70383.html>"
User logged in as: Gianmarc
Excellent points, Tim. I am reminded of the January, 1995 "hurricane" over
the Mediterranean sea that achieved 80 kt winds and a plainly visible
CDO/eye on satellite imagery over 65 degree waters. I think Canetrakker
posted something about that storm recently, too. I just LOVE it when these
storms throw grenades at the rule book."

Maybe that says it best in ways how we look at the world.. we study climo and then we laugh like kids when climo is thrown out the window.

We are a fun lot.

I have a friend who I ..........ummmmmmmmmmm care about a lot. A nutty friend. I was walking down the block one day late at night coming home from someone's house and they were visiting in town for a few days. There was a full moon. They were standing in the middle of the street, staring up at the moon with this magical look of wonder. As if they were trying to command the full moon to stay a little longer. I never told them. Imagine, me not tell someone something? :) Same look they had on their face when we were at the beach a few nights later and staring out at the waves, the almost full moon still shining down on the waves, the wind blowing. They were in heaven.

Why?

Go ask birds why they fly or fish why they swim... they won't be able to tell you either.