On This Day in History --- Deadly 1925 Tri-State Tornado Happened. Slow Hurricane Season Followed. 1926 Hurricane Season Very Deadly.
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!
Let's go back to 1982. I lived in LA in West Hollywood and wasn't tracking hurricanes. I did follow geology and watched the Pineapple Express send storms into the LA Basin and I'm talking the rainy kind not any other kind.
1982 was part of an El Nino Cycle and it was a very slow hurricane season. Slow, as in all over slow, and only one real strong hurricane.
The problem with long range models is that they make promises they don't keep. If I had printed out every model that hit South Florida with a direct hit by a hurricane on the 9th or 10th day of a long range run I'd have an interesting Coffee Table Book of What Ifs...
Sandy was a contender as was every hurricane coming up from the Caribbean as a vigorous wave looked to be a contender. Matthew and Bertha to name a few. Then there's the long range snow storms promised a few days ago that showed the Raleigh area was going to be slammed with over 7 inches of snow.. maybe 10 inches on one model run as the snow melted fast in the real world and the promised rain even evaporated in real time.
I say this today as it's early March where we are almost out of Winter, not yet into Spring and 86 days away from Hurricane Season. Time moves quickly in 2023... use it wisely to prepare early!
This year the NHC is going to be working within the 7 day time frame vs the 5 day, something they have wanted to do for a long time. Over time we have gotten better at nailing down development in the tropics, Ian being the Poster Child for the incredible job the models did sniffing out a Major Hurricane that would impact some part of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico when it barely looked viable as a tropical disturbance. While models bobbled a bit on a hit in the Florida Panhandle or closer to Tampa, to have models be that good when a system was barely an entity in a slow year of weak storms insisting on it becoming a Major Hurricane is fantastic. I say fantastic as years ago.... storms hit unsuspecting towns along the Gulf of Mexico and the towns, the homes and all of the people were washed away in the Storm Surge. So it's good to applaud the improvements we have made, we can't stop hurricanes from moving towards landfalls in populated areas but we can and do provide early warnings that give people time to pack up their priorities and evacuate inland away from the deadly winds and storm surge.
I have a confession to make. I love Cold Air Damming. It reminds me of quiet mornings in Southern California before the marine layer evaporates and the sun finally comes out. It's a touch of winter in an odd year of see saw, roller coaster weather. It's calm. There's barely a leaf moving. I lit a candle, sipping tea and smiling because this may be as much winter as I get in Raleigh in 2023! We have a bit of cold air damming going on here.
Thanks for reading. Have a good day. Hope you get the weather you want, but remember if you are getting suntanning weather in late February the flora may be getting mixed messages and your harvest may not be as good as you hoped. And, for gosh sakes .... we are far from the last frost possible so stop rushing the tomato crop! It's not over, til it's over and it's not over!
Sweet Tropical Dreams,
BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram
Twitter mostly weather and Instagram whatever I'm in the mood to post.
Ps... not proofing this as my head hurts, my eyes hurt and going to go offline and take a nice walk around the neigbhorhood while it's beautifully cool and serene.