Posted on 11/27/2006 2:12:33 AM PST by beyond the sea
It was not the hurricane season we expected, thank you.
With cataclysmic predictions that hurricanes would swarm from the tropics like termites, no one thought 2006 would be the most tranquil season in a decade.
Barring a last-second surprise from the tropics, the season will end Thursday with nine named storms, and only five of those hurricanes. This year is the first season since 1997 that only one storm nudged its way into the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, Florida was hit by two tropical storms, Alberto and Ernesto. But after the pummeling of the previous two years, the storms barely registered on the public's radar.
So what happened? Lots.
Storms were starved for fuel after ingesting masses of dry Saharan dust and air over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists say the storm-snuffing dust was more abundant than usual this year.
In the season's peak, storms were curving right like errant field goals. High pressure that normally hunkers near Bermuda shifted far eastward, and five storms rode the clockwise winds away from Florida.
Finally, a rapidly growing El Nino, a warming of water over the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifted winds high in the atmosphere southward. The winds left developing storms disheveled and unable to become organized.
As they say about the stock market: Past results are no indication of future performance.
This year's uneventful season provides no assurance that next year will be as calm:
•The Atlantic remains in a 20- to 30-year cycle of high hurricane activity that started in 1995. Water temperatures are above normal.
•El Nino probably won't be around to decapitate storms.
•There's no promise that the Saharan dust will be as abundant.
"As they say about the stock market: Past results are no indication of future performance." –- so quit pretending you know what’s going to happen.... might as well just take a poll.
;-)
****
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.
"But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!! no wait...
The predictions resulted in big business down this way ... Katrina has become a cash cow on multiple levels.
;-)
Now that the Democrats control congress, there will be no major hurricanes for at least two years.
lol ................... and no temperatures under 0 F. in the lower 48.
--- how about that headline? The season is "wafting" away.
lol
I guess it wafted in too.
Al Gore's new movie on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," opens with scenes from Hurricane Katrina slamming into New Orleans. The former vice president says unequivocally that because of global warming, it is all but certain that future hurricanes will be more violent and destructive than those in the past.
****
Hmmm.
s/ Rhetorical question:
Reckon the Drive-By Media will devote the same hysterical coverage to the end of the Hurricane season that they did at the beginning this year?
/s
The infallibility of science again. Are these the same people who believe in global warming now being called "climate change?"
LOL - thanks.
Other than AccuWeather's routine silly hype of hurricanes hitting the Northeast, there actually weren't any seasonal predictions such as the article claims. Most predicted an above-average year in terms of activity; nobody predicted a record-breaking year or a year with activity even approaching 2005.
"Now that the Democrats control congress, there will be no major hurricanes for at least two years."
Nice.
"ingesting masses of dry Saharan dust and air over the Atlantic Ocean"
but...but...I thought the dust was supposed to help increase storms by allowing more condensate to form around the increased amount of dust particles....or does that increase cloud cover and there-fore cool the oceans....I'm so confused...where is the global warming or cooling...oh my the humanity...!
Well of course future hurricanes will be more destructive than those in the past. We've been building on sand in coastal regions like crazy for the last couple of decades. The fact that there are more targets, means there will be more destruction!
LOL ..... somehow I doubt it.
Yes they did.... when and if I have time, I will prove it.
LOL....... more clouds, more carbon dioxide, more dust, they're all basically guessing.
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