So what 4-year Colleges are there in the Virgin Islands?

And are any of them hiring?

Here’s our regional weather map from weather.com.

Sometimes a Depression is Just a Depression

Looks like the National Hurricane Center is drawing fire for a “rush” to name tropical depressions storms. This year we had a large number of storms, but the majority of storms were tropical storms, and critics are now wondering if some of those tropical storms even deserved an actual name.

Just to give you a bit of background, there are three types of Atlantic tropical systems (the Indian and Pacific storms have different names): depressions (wind speeds of 0-39 mph), storms (40-74 mph) and hurricanes (75+). The wind speeds are determined by hurricane hunter aircraft which drop probes into the storm to determine wind speed at the center of the low. A system is only “named” (give a proper first name) if it reaches tropical storm strength.

Four of this years storms (and possibly another two) may have never progressed past tropical depressions. While hunter aircraft determined the speeds of the winds, another telltale sign of storm strength is the internal pressure of the storm system. Surface lows like tropical cyclones cause a decrease in atmospheric pressure as they spin. (The sea-level pressure of the atmosphere is 760 mm of Hg, or 760 torr, or 1 ATM– the Atmospheric Science definition is typically “bar”, where 1 bar = 760 torr = 1000 milibar, or mb.) Hurricanes can cause dramatic decreases in pressure. Hurricane Andrew hit in August of 1992 with an internal pressure of 922 mb. Hurricane Humberto which formed this past season was only a category 1 hurricane at its peak with winds of 80 mph and an internal pressure of 985 mb at its lowest point.

Now, some storms reached 40 mph with their winds but the internal pressures never dropped below 1000 mb. Some see this as a sign that there was no clear organization and the storm was “upgraded” to pad the season to match forecasts. If that’s the case, it’s horribly irresponsible because insurance companies are calculating their rates based upon the activity of the hurricane seasons. If you’re worried that you’re not going to get close to your 15-storm prediction and you’re fudging your results, you’re increasing the insurance rates of people all along the gulf coast! Now you can see the concern.

Now, I’m not going to call the people at the NHC liars. Each of the storms mentioned is a borderline case for a tropical storm. I know how exciting these storms can be to track and monitor. But would getting concrete proof it’s a tropical storm to save a few million people billions of dollars in insurance premiums be that much of a hassle?

I’m Your Huckleberry

When it comes to hurricane prediction, anyway.

I was more accurate than the hurricane guys with a blind guess.

I’m not going to get on the hurricane forecasters case (as people like Drudge do), as they’ve been given a job and they do one heck of a job with a world full of variables.  But it just illustrates how little we know about hurricanes and hurricane forecasting, and just how limited our grasp of the future weather of the planet is going to be.

But climate prediction is far more accurate, because it’s weather over a longer period of time, which is more accurate and weather over a short period of time.  Especially if it’s done by a computer.

The City-Boy Guide to Tornadoes

All I know is that if the sky is green, bad things are happening.

But if you send your tornado-ignorant folk to this website, they might know when to stop filming and get out of Uncle Jed’s trailer.

It’s Quite Hurricaney Out

John Gray has predicted 17 named storms, 5 of which will be major hurricanes, for the Atlantic Hurricane Season.

He does pretty well, but last year was an aberration due to an unexpected El Nino. And they’re thinking we’ll get a La Nina season this year, and that will feed hurricane formation.

I’ll predict 16 named storms, 5 of which will be major, and we’ll see 3 hurricane landfalls on the US, only one of which will be a strong Cat 2.

That’s a total guess on my part. So don’t go raising insurance rates just because of what I am guessing.

The Hurricane Fizzle

We’re three days away from the official end of hurricane season, and there’s no development in sight. After a rough 2004 and 2005, looks like we’ve gotten a pass for 2006, which is more than welcome.

Here’s a roundup of 2006.