A Terrible Tropical Storm

By terrible storm, I mean if this was supposed to be a storm, it did a terrible job of it. We woke up this morning and the sky was blue, the sun streaming down, light breeze and birds chirping. If this is a storm, I'll take more please.

We've been watching the approach of Tropical Storm Karen for several days, with warnings and alerts and predictions of where it would make landfall. It's late in the season, and Louisiana has not been hit by a hurricane after Oct. 1 since 1898, and as the last days of September flicked by, I was feeling better and better. But you have to keep alert. And you can certainly understand why people here would be nervous about a storm starting with the letter K. So when Tropical Storm Karen formed up in the southern Gulf of Mexico, we went on heightened alert.

We checked our supplies, cleaned up a few things in the yard, and waited. At first the predictions were that it would veer east and make landfall somewhere along the Florida panhandle, but as the weekend approached it seemed to be holding steady for the mouth of the Mississippi.

But it was doing some odd things. All the activity seemed to be to the east of the "center" of the storm. A cold front moving across Texas seemed to be pushing dry wind in from the west. All day Saturday Karen seemed to be stalled just south of Grand Isle on the Mississippi delta.

And then about 10 last night, it just disappeared. I've been watching hurricanes with a personal interest since 2008 and I've never seen anything like this. On the TV weather report, the radar showed a big blob, big blob, big blob, and then practically nothing. It just sort of disappeared.

This morning the weather map showed a clear gulf, with just the letter L indicating some lingering low pressure.

All spring we'd been reading predictions about what a difficult hurricane season this was likely to be. All the signs were there for one cataclysm after another. The reality has been very different. Here in Louisiana we've had a couple of systems start to spin up in the gulf, then sort of peter out and turn inland over Mexico or Texas, drop some rain and die. In the Caribbean, there have been a few near misses to the V.I. as storms steamed across the Atlantic, then veered sharply north and died out at sea. I could be mistaken – I know, it's shocking, but I could – but I don't think a single storm has caused any trouble for the U.S. Atlantic coast.

And it's crazy, because ocean surface temperatures are still high, there's plenty of energy out there. I was talking to one weather watcher on St Croix last week who said September was actually warmer than August, and there's still concern that with the high temps the season could linger on into December.

But from where I'm sitting, it seems like an unusually quiet hurricane season is all but in the books. Still, we won't break into our supplies until Dec. 1. Because you never know, except sometimes you do.

Kind of Cool

There is still no storm activity in the Atlantic basin. With the hurricane season down to its last six weeks, it's been unbelievably mild. Not that we're complaining.

We've had a couple of alerts. This time of year - basically June through November but mostly August and September you keep one eye always on the Atlantic, and try to keep plenty of hurricane stores on hand. We even got a small generator this year.

But so far, nothing. Nothing at all. between the wind shear coming off South America, the heavy Saharan dust and dry air, no big storms have formed up and come marauding into the Caribbean, despite the warm surface temperatures of the ocean.

But this is kind of cool (since it's about a hundred miles away. Otherwise it might be anything from worrisome to terrifying.) The volcano on Montserrat has started erupting again. This is a photo taken by the International Space Station (where they sometimes talk like pirates!) The picture is from the NASA Web site.

To help orient yourself - the ash plume is drifting west, the narrow end of the island points almost due north. Montserrat is south of St. Kitts & Nevis, and Nevis is about a hundred miles due east of us here on St. Croix - where we're still keeping an eye on the Atlantic Basin.

Omar III

Landlord came back with more plywood and we're all buttoned down now. Then he headed off to take care of his own home. He mentioned that this house was built about 1964, so it's been through Hugo and others. "This is built right, not like the stuff they're building now," he snorted.

Virtually all the houses in the Caribbean are built of cement and/or cinderblock. You know what you call a stick-built house in a hurricane? Toothpicks. You know what you call a mobile home in a hurricane? A box kite.

In laying in supplies, we thought far enough ahead to include a case of Heineken. Gotta keep your fluids up! This seems like the wrong place to mention, but I'll mention it anyway, that I've been very surprised to discover that people here think Coors Lite is beer. There are a few local beers, and the brewpub in Christiansted does a dark ale called Blackbeard's Ale. It's good, but it's no Dead Guy Ale. And Coors Lite is the top selling beer on the island. I can't fathom it.

We're just hoping that the power stays on long enough to let us see the presidential debate. That ought to be entertaining. But the latest look at the Wunderground (weather underground) maps show Omar making straight for us, I mean like we're the head pin in a bowling alley and Mother Nature is trying for a strike. So we may not get to watch the fun.

Tori's midly disappointed that she couldn't go snorkeling today. When school was cancelled yesterday, first thing she did was wake Alex and take her down to the beach for a swim with the fish. She's gotten hooked on it, and she's been swimming with rays, squid, sea turtles, octopi and lots more. But the swell is up today, the water's choppy and looks turbid. Not even Tori is THAT fanatical to try swimming in this. It'll be a couple of days, and that'll be the first time since August (when we moved into this house) that she's gone more than three days without hitting the sea.

Speaking of which, I wonder how the vacation house we stayed in when we first got here will fare. It's on the north side of the island so might be okay, but it's right on the water, and there's an awful lot of glass.

But that's not for us to worry about today. Today we're hunkered down and staying so for the near future.

Still raining, but not much wind yet. That'll change, I'm sure, as we get closer to nightfall – and landfall.

jb

No news is good news

Just in case anyone was wondering or worrying about us, there is still no trouble from hurricanes here on St. Croix. As I write this, Ike is 340 miles almost due north of the island, heading west. We're told there might be some sea surge, maybe a little extra rain, but that's about it. I can honestly say I Like Ike, because it's not coming here.

A few days ago we had another pretty good lightning storm over the water, and some torrential rains that evening. But it wasn't enough to knock out the power, and on this island it doesn't take much to do that. That was the very edge of Hannah brushing past on its way northwest.

It's all a matter of perspective. While the TV was full of Gustav about to touch down, that was old news here. Gustav had passed a week earlier. When Hannah started filling the news, we were already looking at Ike and Josephine. Now Ike is safely past us and Josephine (as of now) appears to be a non-factor, angling out into the Atlantic basin, we're tentatively breathing easier. Of course, there's still plenty of time in the season for a K storm, an L, M, N and maybe an O. But they're not actually on the ocean's surface yet.

It's a little like being a bowling pin You know a bowling ball is going to come hurtling down the lane. you're just sitting there, watching and wondering exactly where it'll hit, and there's nothing you can do but get ready. We're preparing for the worst and hoping it won't come to that. But I sure never thought The Weather Cannel would become one of my favorite TV stations.

jb