Hanna and Josephine bow out -- Ike finds Gulf

A satellite view taken late last week of the South Atlantic and Eastern Caribbean gave a somewhat distorted picture of the storm situation. Three potential hurricanes were all moving in the direction of the United States. Hanna, Ike and Josephine all had the potential to cause havoc on the East Coast, Florida and all along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. As it turned out though Hanna made landfall at North Carolina but not as a hurricane. It was a tropical storm carrying winds of between 50 and 60 miles per hour. Of course there was some storm surge, rain and flooding which increased the misery index all along the East Coast. In the meantime Josephine, far out in the eastern Atlantic, was in the process of self destructing, which it did. Sunday September 7th while Hanna was spreading rain over New England Hurricane Ike was nearing the Turks and Caicos Islands as well as the southeastern Bahamas carrying winds of 135 mph and moving west at 14 mph. The Turks and Caicos took the brunt of Ike's fury and according to the Drudge Report 80 percent of Grand Turks homes were destroyed and people were cowering in their closets. Ike left death and destructions in those islands that will be long remembered, and the survivors of that storm need our help. By Monday it was Cuba that felt the sting of Ike. And while the storm took its toll on Cuba the land mass reduced the wind speed from 135 mph down to 80. The citizens of Key West battened down the hatches again and some headed north, this time it turned out to be a false alarm – Ike pass them by.

On Wednesday morning September 10th Ike was located 125 miles north of the western tip of Cuba and 430 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Ike is traveling northwest at 8 mph with wind speeds of 90 mph. Those wind speeds are expected to increase as the storm moves over the warm gulf waters. According to the Miami Hurricane Center, it appears that the Corpus Christi area of Texas is Ike's likely target. A hurricane's life begins as a tropical disturbance, which may be defined as an area of enhanced cumulonimbus cloud activity. Looking at a clear sky with those puffy clouds piling up on a summer afternoon they appear to be nothing more than beautiful cloud formations. And they are just that until the swirl begins. North of the equator winds spin counter clockwise - and when south of that imaginary line they spin clockwise. Once those winds sustain the speed of 34 miles per hour for 24 hours the system is called a Tropical Depression and when that criteria reaches 45 miles per hour it is called a Tropical Storm. The next step is when the wind speeds exceed 74 miles per hour, and the system can be called a hurricane. Hurricanes are then ranked on the Saffir-Simpson Scale into storm categories based on their maximum 24-hour sustained wind speed.

Category 1 - 74 to 95 mph
Category 2 - 96 to 110 mph
Category 3 - 111to 130 mph
Category 4 - 131 to 155 mph
Category 5 - 155 mph and up

Those Category 5 monster hurricanes can wipe the earth clean if they make landfall. Only three Category 5 hurricanes have made U.S. landfall since the dawn of the 20th Century. The Unnamed, Florida Keys Labor Day, Hurricane in 1935 and Hurricane Camille that tore up the coast of Mississippi in 1969. Then there was the infamous Hurricane Andrew that devastated parts of South Florida on August 24th of 1992.

Back to Hurricane Season 1945: Excerpt from The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in The Bermuda Triangle.

Tropical storm VII was first reported north of the Swan Islands in the northwestern Caribbean on September 3rd. The light tropical storm moved along a path toward Cuba. On the following morning, in the vicinity of Havana winds were clocked at 45 miles per hour with gusts to 55 miles per hour. The storm continued on that northern path past Key West and touched the Florida coast near Naples. The storm moved in a northerly direction along the Florida coast tracking past the Tampa, St. Petersburg area to Port Ritchey. There it veered out into the Gulf of Mexico and took a west by west northwest heading and didn't make landfall again until nearing the mouth of the Mississippi River where on September 6th the storm dissipated into a tropical depression.

Writers Notebook

I have copies of a collection of letters written by Gustave Flaubert -- of Madame Bovary fame. The letters were written between 1851 and 1857 at the time he was writing Bovary. In the letters Flaubert writes about his problems in writing the novel. This letter to Louise Colet was written just before he started work on Bovary and he gives us some thoughts about his tenacious approach to writing.

"Read, do not dream. Plunge into long studies; there's nothing continually good but the habit of stubborn work. It releases an opium which lulls the soul. I have gone through periods of bleak despair and have turned endlessly in a void, desperate with boredom. This can be overcome by force of persistence and pride: try. Keep trying -- keep writing."

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com
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