Hurricane Season Over?

As we transition deeper into Fall, it becomes less & less likely any hurricane can cross the Louisiana coast.   Oh sure, there was Juan back in late October of 1985, but that is more the exception.   The time for any major (Cat 3+) hurricane historically has passed.  Cold Fronts thankfully will be coming (Egad, was it hot out today!) and the upper air westerlies will increase creating too much shear for tropical development.   Looking at today’s water vapor loop shows upper (TUTT- Tropical Upper Tropospheric Troughs) lows  covering most of the tropics from the western Gulf to way off the East Coast.  These lows create a hostile environment for tropical development and none of the long range computer models shows anything happening for the next 10-14 days.  Ophelia is still churning out in the Atlantic, but that is the only storm on the whole planet.  While this has been a very active hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin, that is not the case for the Tropical Pacific.    I have heard that the “Fat Lady” will be on a flight back here early next week.  By then (Tuesday) a real cold front should be pushing through and it’ll be time for her to sing “Turn Out the Lights, The Party’s Over!!!)  Stay tuned!

 

As I mentioned, we all know how bad this hurricane season has been.  Deadly, destructive with overwhelming damage over vast areas.   But I believe we’ll take the hurricane threat any day over the wildfire threat that is burning thousands of homes out in California.    At least we can prepare for hurricanes.  Watching the videos of the fires showed folks had minutes at best to scramble and flee leaving whole lifetime of memories behind.  It was so sad to hear of the couple (aged 100 & 98) who had been together since grade school perish during the fires.    Yea, hurricanes are bad, but they provide us time to pack up some valuables and flee out of harm’s way.   We need to be thankful that the storms of 2017 only brushed Louisiana.  We’ve been in the deepest, darkest Valley (Katrina) before so we know the pain many people are feeling from natural disasters this year.  Prayers are in order.