First One of the Season!

Well, we knew it was bound to happen sometime or other. Here it is, May 12, and this just showed up in my mail box:

Atlantic Special Tropical Weather Outlook

05/12/2012 01:40 PM EDT

000
ABNT20 KNHC 121739
TWOAT

SPECIAL TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
140 PM EDT SAT MAY 12 2012

FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC...CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO...

A NON-TROPICAL LOW OVER THE EASTERN ATLANTIC ABOUT 400 MILES
SOUTHWEST OF THE SOUTHERN AZORES ISLANDS HAS DEVELOPED THUNDERSTORM
ACTIVITY NEAR THE CENTER DURING THE PAST 24 HOURS. THERE IS SOME
POTENTIAL FOR ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT AS THE SYSTEM MOVES LITTLE
DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS...AND THE LOW HAS A MEDIUM
CHANCE...40 PERCENT...OF BECOMING A SUBTROPICAL OR TROPICAL CYCLONE
DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS. ADDITIONAL SPECIAL TROPICAL WEATHER
OUTLOOKS WILL BE ISSUED ON THIS SYSTEM LATER TODAY OR SUNDAY...IF
NECESSARY.

ELSEWHERE...TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE
NEXT 48 HOURS.

$$
FORECASTER BEVEN

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This service is provided by NOAA's National Weather Service.

NOAA National Weather Service Logos

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GovDelivery, Inc. (800-439-1420) sending on behalf of the National Weather Service · 1325 East West Highway · Silver Spring, MD 20910

You can get your very own Weather Blast'O'Gram, or whatever they call it, emailed to you during the season (they cease automatically during the rest of the year) by going to: (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/signup.shtml) and entering your subscription information.

I emailed it to several friends. It's a nice easy start to our hurricane season down here (which runs from June 1st through November 30th of each year) as a reminder that that time of year is fast approaching.

We've started preparations already - removing various bits of wood and other crap from the property so we lessen the chance of missles flying around; making sure that things that shouldn't fly are tied down; and remembering to be ready to put the plywood up on the burglar bars and being ready to remove the pool awning... All that sort of stuff that becomes second nature after a couple of weeks but is hard to remember when the season first comes on us.

You might want to take a gander at our Hurricane Preparedness Checklist (http://winjama.blogspot.com/2010/05/dust-off-plan.html) - it's our hurricane disaster plan. It'll give you a good idea of what we do preparedness-wise throughout the season. But, here's the big tip - don't just copy ours... Take it and make it your own. Modify everything/anything in it to fit your situation - add stuff we've forgotten, delete stuff that doesn't pertain to you. Make it work for you.

You might want to visit (http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=779507) and download Andy Ladner's Hurricane Monitor gadget for Windows. I use it year-round and find it's an indispensable tool. It's free and works really well, plus, it takes up minimal real estate on your desktop. Andy and I've corresponded several times over the past few years as he was developing this gadget. He really listens. It's a great gadget and the price is right too.

Stay safe and have a great hurricane season!

The Price You Pay

We've been waiting the past couple of days for it to stop raining long enough to let the fill dry out enough so we can pour a dry mix of concrete into the pit to create the floor of the septic tank. It finally stopped yesterday morning and the forecast for today is no rain, so maybe, maybe, we'll get'er done. I hope so. Bob is also hoping to put a finish coat of mortar on the electrical tower. Then I'll be able to paint it and wait for the transformer to be installed.

The rain has caused havoc in other ways too. Our laundry has been on the line, under the palapa for a day and a half, trying to dry. Maybe today's the day.

Our other activity that has the potential to occupy more of our attention is Tropical Storm Dean. Here's a copy of Advisory No. 8:

• 000
• WTNT34 KNHC 150831
• TCPAT4
• BULLETIN
• TROPICAL STORM DEAN ADVISORY NUMBER 8
• NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL042007
• 500 AM AST WED AUG 15 2007
• ...DEAN MOVING QUICKLY WESTWARD WITH LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH...
• INTERESTS IN THE LESSER ANTILLES SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF DEAN.
• FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.
• AT 500 AM AST...0900Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM DEAN WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 12.2 NORTH...LONGITUDE 44.2 WEST OR ABOUT 1170 MILES...1880 KM...EAST OF THE LESSER ANTILLES.
• DEAN IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 18 MPH...30 KM/HR...AND THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
• MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 50 MPH...85 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
• TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 50 MILES...85 KM FROM THE CENTER.
• ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1000 MB...29.53 INCHES.
• REPEATING THE 500 AM AST POSITION...12.2 N...44.2 W. MOVEMENT TOWARD...WEST NEAR 18 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...50 MPH.
• MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1000 MB.
• THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT 1100 AM AST.

I get this information a couple of different ways. 1) I have a Yahoo Widget on my desktop that's named "NOAA Hurricane Monitor". With it you can track tropical depressions, storms, and hurricanes for either the Pacific or Atlantic or both. I just look at the Atlantic. It's pretty cool. It'll give you the text info like that above. It'll also give you a one picture satellite image of the Atlantic and Caribbean. It also will do a sort of movie of the satellite info. And finally, it will provide charts of the three-day track and of the five-day track, and finally a hurricane force wind speed probability chart. Pretty cool - and that's always available on my desktop. Yahoo has a bazillion other widgets for your desktop too (http://widgets.yahoo.com/). They're kinda fun.

My home page is a personalized Google page. On it I have all the hot poop from the National Hurricane Center (Atlantic) (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/) with all their charts and info, etc.

I also printed out and keep handy a chart from the NHC of the atlantic to plot depressions, storms and hurricanes, It has a detailed map of the Caribbean, with the islands, and lat and long, so you can plot along with the pros. You can get a PDF copy at: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/AT_Track_chart.pdf.

Back to TS Dean... This one is somewhat worrisome in that it's track so far is due west. I haven't seen much movement to the north. They (the NHC) keep projecting a northward trend but I'm really not seeing it yet. Of course, it's not like we're going to be clobbered in the next day or two there's still a good week or so before we really have to get concerned.

The day before yesterday, Bob and I were talking about how to pre-rig plywood to fasten to the burglar bars to protect windows from flying missiles (debris). I plan to make plywood covers for our windows. Then, all I have to do is bolt the right cover to the right bars and that window is protected. Better to do it before its needed, when plywood is available. I'll keep them in our store room under the house.