September 22, 2004

• I had been watching the storms roll through the Caribbean & on into the US in the different areas over the past few weeks. I finally stopped for a few days, only catching brief updates off TheWeatherChannel on TV & local news. It is very dismaying to hear about the devastation that has occurred, not only to property, but also the toll in human life. Hurricane Jeanne has so far killed more people than all the others combined this season. And that's just in the Caribbean... particularly Haiti!

  
  

  I'm back to running the GOES infrared satellite loops in one browser to keep watch. I don't like what I'm seeing. I've already noticed that Hurricane Karl has come further west than what the meteorologists at NOAA had predicted when I stopped monitoring the storms' progress. Currently, their 5-day track prediction has it curling north from its 5PM EST position, to carry on north & east, away from the continent. I hope they're right. Hurricane Jeanne is currently tracking to the southwest, not as their track prediction states of west-northwest.
  

  
  

  Incidentally, the GOES links I put in an earlier blog are RAM hogs. Don't leave the browser on the java loop page for long. Also, the main tropical storms page meta-refreshes (it refreshes itself at certain time intervals), so you can't leave the browser there either. The java loop images will eventually lock-up the browser. (I've had it happen several times.) When that's happened, I hit ctrl/alt/del to open up Windows' Task Manager, to the "Processes" tab. I noticed one IE browser listed utilizing over 125 MEG memory (I had 4 GOES loop pages in the browser history along with the main tropical storms advisory page & one or two storm information pages)! So should you have an issue such as that where a browser locks up, once you get the Task Manager open to that tab, select that application & click the "End Task" button. You'll get the warning stating that closing an application may cause errors... just ignore that warning, clicking ok. You'll have to reboot your computer afterwards to free up the memory again, but once you do, everything should run fine.

  
  

  The former hurricane, downgraded days ago to tropical storm, Ivan, is another matter. After Ivan made landfall, farther west than their original predictions, I checked where they predicted it'd go & found they thought it was going to go only as far north as Tennessee, then curl back to the south-southeast, through the Carolinas. From what I heard in the weather reports, Ivan kept going north, into Maine. BUT... it's made its way back south again, into the Gulf of Mexico. Where's Ivan headed right now? BACK INTO THE DEVASTATION AREA WHERE IT FIRST MADE US LANDFALL!!! The last thing the people of these areas of Louisiana, Alabama & the Florida panhandle need is MORE RAIN & the 'lesser' winds of a tropical depression (up to 38 mph sustained, with gusts of 50+)! NOAA forecast has the remnants of Ivan going into Texas. HAH!!!
  

  One thing I've often wondered... what if 2 deadly storms like these come together & join up? Is there such a possibility? What would the combined storm be called; a Super Hurricane? Is it possible for a storm to develop higher than a cat-5 Saffier/Simpson?
  

  For those in the eastern & southern continental US who've suffered tragic losses, either property or life/health, my heart is with you. My thoughts focus on keeping the current storms out of your lives. You seem to be getting the rains we in Hawaii are lacking.

  • 11:29 pm
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