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While my low-standing car can’t get out of our neighborhood without potentially flooding out, “Fickle Fay” finally picked a direction and is starting to move away (and become someone else’s problem). Still not a hurricane, Tropical Storm Fay is defying all attempts to predict her and re-writing the books on how everything they thought about what a storm might do was utterly wrong this time.

As for now, we’re inside, dry, stocked up, and the power is still on here. This is also the first day I’ve had to actually call out EVER at my day job, so I hope they know I don’t take it lightly that I couldn’t risk my only vehicle or myself to get to work today.

Technically, it may never actually become a hurricane before it gets here, but a slow-moving storm battering a city with sustained 65 mph winds isn’t nothing (yes, that’s a double-negative, and yes, I meant that exactly how I wrote it. Prudes!) Everyone I know of is fueled up, stocked, and ready for a few rainy days, so this is our equivalent to a light northern snow; fix a few downed power lines, kids get a day or two off from school, but we tend to stack sand bags down here rather than strew salt on the road. Oh yeah, and those tornado thingies…

Yep. Sure did. Nice and quiet so far, but if Al Gore doesn’t stop talking about it, bad things may happen.

It is just after twelve noon, Eastern Standard Time. Ernesto made landfall hours ago and proceeded to rip what little organization it had to shreds, becoming an ever-widening mass of heavy thunderstorms. Instead of a spending tonight in the dark watching the lights flicker in Jacksonville, Florida, we instead get to play one of our favorite games: re-learning how to drive a car just because water is falling from the sky.

Tropical Storm Ernesto is staying organized and is finally getting some of the energy it needs to intensify. It has done almost exactly as I predicted thus far, though not as far Easterly as I’d hoped. The best news is its speed; at 12 kts in a Northeasterly direction, the Florida Keys will see some rain but Miami will get a reminder of Hurricane Andrew. But if the storm can cross the gap across open water without significantly intensifying, Florida can breathe a sigh of relief even though The Sunshine State remains on full alert vs. Mother Nature.

Update: I do sometimes hate being right ALL the time, but Ernesto will be a powerful tropical storm over Florida for the next two days, followed by a quick exit to the East Coast south of St. Augustine and heading toward the Carolinas.

Briefly a hurricane, Tropical Storm Ernesto is SE of Cuba and about to dart across life-giving waters full of heat and energy, but also wind shear which could cause Ernesto to turn. As of the last update, Ernesto was holding steady at 1004 mb but slowing down to between 7 and 6 mph. Meteorologists are predicting a turn likely to take it over the first coast, but that seems unlikely since it will have to sustain the core of the storm over a large portion of land to threaten the Florida Keys and re-intensify.

My current prediction: with a current lack of power and too little ocean to gather back even a Category 1 intensity, Ernesto may stall, break up, or other wise turn farther faster and sooner. Instead of the Florida Keys, Miami and the East coast of Florida will probably see plenty of rain as Ernesto turns due North and up the coast. If it can find more energy as it passes well East of Jacksonville, Ernesto may become a threat to North Carolina but likely will only be an Tropical Depression.

From a relatively quiet year thus far (last year was the worst hurricane season in 150 years on record), finally a third named storm has appeared: Chris. What’s amazing about this storm is the quickness it’s building intensity ans the speed at which it is moving. Although Tropical Storm Chris is still east of Puerto Rico, it could strike anywhere from North Florida down to Cuba as early as the end of this weekend.

Update: As of Thursday morning, wind shear started tearing into Chris, slowing it down and breaking it up. Chris could possibly downgrade to a tropical depression again unless it can find some new energy to feed on.

Hurricane season has again found the East coast, and eleven days in we have Tropical Depression One. The good news is, this time last year, things were already looking bad. This year, only a lamb thus far, but a lion may be waiting in the wings.

Update: contrary to forecasters predictions, Tropical Depression 1 gots its uncollective arse together and formed Tropical Storm Alberto. Now instead of a quickly passing depression, a hurricane warning is in effect for Florida’s west coast as Alberto is expected to intensify into a Category 1 by nightfall.

There’s always been positive or negative thoughts associated with bright calm skies, dark quiet nights, and roiling weather. What’s funny is that not everyone sees these the same way. Take me for example…

A bright early morning, sun shining, eight in the AM, cloudless blue skies as far as the eye can see. The perfect start to a hot, sweltering day with no wind, no relief, and the sun pummelling you and the finish of your unwaxed car. The afternoon will give way to bloodthirsty insects followed by a sweltering night.

Or, how about a blackened sky spiraling above, lightning flashes illuminating the sky as local arcs branch down and beat the ground with thunder as it shatters the sound barrier, and life giving rain pouring down like a water fall until you can’t see into the neighbors yard. The evening will of course be cool and still, but if I’m lucky, the sky will be ablaze with electricity brightening the sky for miles around.

See? I say bring on nature’s fury and enjoy the show!

Storm #21 ties the most active hurricane season on record set in 1933. Not only will one additional storm break the record but also be the first to use the Greek alphabet to continue naming storms (letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are skipped).

What REALLY sucks is that I’ve got tickets for Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights for this Sunday evening, so assuming that the storm forcast is correct, it doesn’t stall, it stays far to the south, nobody in Orlando panics and shuts down the parks, MAYBE I’ll still get to go. Just maybe.

Update: As of 7am EST on Wednesday, Oct 19th, 2005, the pressure plummeted to 882 mb to become the most powerful Category 5 hurricane on record . But how long can it hold?

Here’s a little known obscure fact making headlines. Only 21 names per year are reserved for hurricance as they form, and at only the halfway point, the Atlantic is very close to running out. According to this Live Science article, there is an official answer to the question, “What happens if we run out of names?”

The answer: Greek letters (and if we run out of those, it may be time to start colonizing the moon).

Perhaps still a bit insane over the Prince of Denmark, now her fury is boiling off the coast of Florida in that mad, nonsensical way the most indecisive person on the planet always seems to step ahead of you before picking over the value menu at McDonald’s. Well, at least it’s nice and cool outside, right? And wet, and rainy, and slick, and…

Couldn’t resist! Looks like a mystical, magical tropical storm has mysteriously started to form off the coast of Florida, and while it may not become a hurricane before it slams into the southeastern coast, it may pick up enough energy afterward on the west coast (in the gulf) to actually become dangerous. For now, PLEASE let the wind and rain rid us of this awful HEAT!

Update: After skipping across southern Florida barely a Category 1 hurricane, Katrina now has New Orleans in her sights. Even though she’s weakened from a Category 5, there may not be much of the Big Easy standing after this. Whether you believe in the Man upstairs or not, these people deserve your prayers right now.

Welcome to “sunny” Florida, lightning capital of the world and recent disaster area after four named hurricanes demonstrated what the most powerful natural phenomenon on the planet can do to you when you fail to take it seriously. How many will come after us this year? Only the next five months will tell… stay tuned!

I know more than a few people who’ve heard conspiracy theorist and UFO expert Art Bell hard at work, and it was a short time ago that he predicted a shift of the magnetic poles that would throw the world’s weather into turmoil (he’s not far off either; check out the website for the television program Nova: Magnetic Storms).

Still, one can only hope that the shooting script for The Core was better than what hit the screen, but it was The Day After Tomorrow that finally made Mother Nature look like the all-powerful badass everyone used to think she was. Is anyone really surprised that hurricanes popping up like daisies and Mt. St. Helens getting all grumbly again has finally got people thinking about the environment again? It doesn’t matter, of course; we’re all just hoping not to get spun off into the big black while we’re clinging to this rock until someone buries us in it.

Aren’t I just happy today?!

After stalling for a day in the Caribbean, Hurricane Frances made landfall in Florida last night. In Jacksonville, Florida, too many days of boredom waiting for Frances to make up her mind has driven droves of people to the beaches to see what’s happening. For those 50,000 not in shelters, almost 75,000 in Duval County. At one time, 5 million Floridians were in the dark.

But hey… we’re still here!

Looks like Charley wasn’t alone, and we’re only halfway through this hurricane season. While Jacksonville no longer appears to be in the crosshairs, after Charley’s surprise turn for the worse, no one’s taking any chances. With landfall predicted sometime noon Saturday south of Melbourne, Florida, D-cell batteries, bread, plywood, and bottled water are already becoming scarce, not to mention gasoline and cash from ATMs.

Looks like all of Florida got the wake up call, but Orlando’s paying the price.

Hurricane Charley bypassed the Jacksonville area with relatively little flooding or wind damage, but the small city of Punta Gorda, a place 100 miles south of Tampa, Florida, is now receiving the worst kind of national attention: it was ground zero for Charley’s coming ashore party.

Thousands are homeless; mobile homes don’t hold up well in 145 mile-per-hour wind gusts. Some only the have the clothes on their back, and many of the homeless include the elderly and retirees. For everyone who didn’t live in Miami when Andrew wreaked havok, this was a stern wake up call to heed the warnings and be prepared, because the hurricane season is just getting started.

Be prepared. Be ready.

Two simultaneous tropical storms, Bonnie (which is hitting Florida’s panhandle today) and Hurricane Charley (which is right behind it to the south and forecast to follow a similar track once it crosses the state) is a rare phenomenon. That two such storms hit Flordia within a day of one another hasn’t happened since 2000, but within 12 hours of one another hasn’t happened since 1906 (funny all the things that happened globally that year, hmm?)

There is also a rare possibility of Charley catching up to Bonnie, and if that happens, the two storm systems could collide, join forces, or just all around wreak havok. The possibility is still slim, but close enough to think about… either that, or I just like hearing the word, “Fujiwara.”