Tryin' to Reason With The Hurricane Season

[Sasquatch]

Getting ready here for Tropical Storm Hanna and sure hoping the winds don't re-intensify. It looks like it's going right up the coast so we're all going to get a good blow and a soaking. And after 2 autumn-like days in a row (temps in mid-80s F, lower humidity) all the heat and humidity that a storm brings will be miserable.
sasq

[Since1982]

~~~~singing~~~~~ Hurricane Hanna with the red bandana is a whale of a tale of a girl~~
Hurricane Hanna with the red bandana is a go for the blow doncha know~~~

These are verses from a real Calypso song from the 60's, except that song had Hanna spelled with an extra H...as in Hannah..I guess Hanna is the latin spelling. The National Hurricane Center uses Cuban and English surnames for hurricanes...the names like Katrina came from when the Russians were in Cuba. There are lots of Cubans named Katrina and Igor and Olav and Vladistok etc now. I knew an Igor Yustovanovich Gomez...that's a mix.

My computer has been out since Sunday, I'm using my spare comp. It stinks. wayyy slow, I've ordered a new dell and will get it next week. My power supply poofed in a thunderstorm along with the spare backup supply. ruined everything BUT my hard drive and all my info...Thank the Invisible man in the sky. I don't think we're supposed to talk about religious things so I'll just refer to him as the invisible MUG wearing MAN in the sky.

[SportSkirt]

Thank the Invisible man in the sky. I don't think we're supposed to talk about religious things so I'll just refer to him as the invisible MUG wearing MAN in the sky.

Interesting to note how many deities from different cultures wear MUGs. Simply Divine!

On a more serious note I wish you guys the best of luck with your storms this season. We have a hurricane in the UK, but it's diluted over the entire year so it's nearly always wet and windy.

[crfriend]

Thanks for the well-wishes, SportSkirt, 'cause we're going to need 'em. Sasquatch is staring the storm in the face, and it's going to pass over Sapphire and I in the wee hours of Sunday morning. In the meantime, It'll be making (at least) SkirtDude's, AMM's, and Bob's lives a bit miserable. Fortunately (or not, depending one one's vulnerability to wind) it'll be passing through our area quite quickly.

[Sasquatch]

Thank you all for your thoughts and well-wishes.

I'm way less worried about Hanna than about Ike. Current projections send it Skip's way but that can quickly change. The big high pressure circulation ("Bermuda high") is still in place and could send Ike in right behind Hanna. That would mean some bad damage and a lot of flooding, with the soil saturated from Hanna's rains. If it stays a Cat 3 or worse, we will board up windows and head for the hills. I've got a yard full of 75 ft. loblolly pines just waiting to break off on the house.

Skip, my advice to you is to get your skirted butt off those islands by Monday if Ike's course doesn't change. If it picks up strength, it could be another Andrew.

In any Atlantic hurricane season, you've got trouble when you start getting storms up in the I-J-K name range before the middle of September! Meanwhile, it's already raining pretty good here and landfall is 18 hours away!

sasq

[Since1982]

I'm hoping and praying for the (in Sept.) cool and/or cold fronts to start coming down across the USA from top left to bottom right. These, when they begin, effectively stop Hurricane Season in the Florida Keys. If Josephine starts to look like another Ike, and follows the same track, I may just pack up, rent a car to Miami Airport, take a plane to Vegas and rent an apt until the end of Sept., return after calling to find out if I have a home to return to, and get on with getting on. Wish me luck. I'll probably go offline around late Sunday until the danger is past.

[Gus]

Good luck - it's probably too early too tell but this looks almost like a repeat of the 2005 season. I hope not. I remember it well. I was on contract in Saudi Arabia at the time (where it hardly ever rains and all the local men wear dresses). I tracked the progress of each storm on the internet instead when I was really supposed to working!

I've never experienced a hurricane (we call them tropical cyclones down this end of the world and they spin the wrong way) but fortunately we don't get that many.

[Since1982]

Everywhere has it's own pitfalls, we have hurricanes, you have pit vipers, what, about 20 different kinds of poisonous snakes? The entire USA only has 4 poisonous snakes, Rattlesnakes, Copperheads, Water Moccasins, and Coral Snakes. Coral Snakes come with their own little ditty...~~Red touch black, good for Jack!, Red touch yellow, Kill a fellow!...~~They have red, white, black and yellow bands on them. So does a harmless Scarlet King snake. On the King Snake, the bands are red touches black touches white touches yellow and reverse, On the killer Coral snake, the bands are red touches yellow touches black touches white touches yellow touches red..etc.

[Gus]

Thanks for that very enlightening natural history lesson Skip

We have a few really nasty ones - the black mamba which can supposedly raise a third of it's body length off the ground bite a grown man in the neck. Its head is shaped like a coffin and the inside of its mouth is jet black. Then there is the Mozambique spitting cobra which can spit in your eyes with deadly accuracy from several feet away. I once stood on one barefoot, but somehow it didn't manage to spit or get it's fangs into me. I seem to recall I was wearing a sarong at the time, not that that has any relevance.

I think we may be getting fairly off topic even for "off Topic".......

Gus

[Sasquatch]

Not so far off topic, and this is the forum to carry on that sort of conversation.

We came through Hanna just fine, with the usual mess of limbs, pine cones and needles to clean up, but it wasn't too much of a storm around here. The center passed about 30 miles to the west of us. It spawned some tornadoes on the left side of the storm but overall it could have been much worse. But the steamy heat that accompanies these tropical systems is miserable.

Skip, I hope you are planning your retreat from the Keys. They still have Ike headed your way, albeit more over Cuba than Florida now. The people here who care about you want you safe and sound.

As for snakes, we are blessed with them a-plenty but mostly the non-venemous sort. I happen upon a copperhead occasionally, but I have an acquaintance who goes into people's crawl spaces to catch and remove snakes and other critters. He was called to a construction site near Stump Sound to remove a large rattler that wouldn't leave. It was an Eastern Diamondback - quite dangerous as rattlesnakes go - and it was nine feet and nine inches long. He took it alive and today it is a guest in the Serpentarium in Wilmington. We have a few alligators too, but they don't do much other than tie up traffic when they take a mind to cross a street or sun themselves in the middle of a road.

Sasq

[crfriend]

Checking in from central Massachusetts I can state that Sapphire and I came through just fine. In fact I slept through the whole thing. We've got the usual litter and tree debris in the yard (that's what rakes are for) and some water in the basement (that's what the sump pump is for), but other than that, I can't see anything unusual in our little corner of the world.

As far as Ike goes, it looks like Skip will get a grazing, if that; the "cone of probability" includes the middle Keys, but just barely. Cuba's going to get slapped around a bit (again), though. Interestingly, (and I forget if I mentioned this already) on a cruise (dinner boat this time -- a work "celebration") on Boston Harbor on last Thursday there were three mega-yachts (150+ footers) in harbour registered in the Cayman Islands. I suspect they wanted to get someplace safe.

[01/01/08]

I had more fun yesterday than Carl&Diana. I drove thru that little bit of inclement weather. Returned home
from my vacation home in Littleton NH. The conditions weren't too bad until I got to New Haven CT.
Combine rain,fog,dark and people who have no conseption of driving,much less in bad weather made
for an absolute fun drive home back to NJ.




john

[SkirtDude]

Deleted.

[Since1982]

I'mmmmmmm hoooooommmmmeeeee!!!! I'm Alivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve too !!! Just got in my house at 4pm et. Been hiding out at Miccosukee Resort and Casino playing poker for 4 days. My house made out better than I did. It got some rain, I got hosed at poker. USUALLY I pay for my hiding out vacation with poker winnings...not this time. Boo hoo I lost $300 beans. I absolutely HATE 2nd best hands.

[SkirtDude]

Deleted.