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Well, I’ve been gone for a few weeks from this blogging project. Suffice it to say after my last post we saw about two weeks of rain. It didn’t rain the entire time, but it rained pretty much every day for about two weeks. To be honest, it’s the wettest August weather that I can remember having.
Anyway, now we have Hurrican Gustav churning towards New Orleans out in the Gulf of Mexico, and Tropical Storm Hanna just east of the Bahamas just chompin’ at the bit to get a piece of the action.
So how does a local weather forecaster such as myself get a grip on something like a hurricane or tropical storm? After all, these are huge storms that are not seen every day. Can a local weather predictor actually have any hope of predicting these storms in advance?
We’re going to find out! By the time Gustav reaches my area in northeast Texas it will most likely be a tropical depression force storm at best. Predicting what will happen here based on local observations only would provide a pretty accurate picture I am sure: a few days of thunderstorms, rain, etc. Knowing ahead of time that a storm the size of a hurricane is coming your way most likely would require more than just local weather readings and observations. However, on my next post I will be examining local data for several personal weather stations located across the shores of Alabama, Louisiana and Texas - then I will make my prediction based on this data where the storm will hit. About the only way for a weather forecaster with limited info on the ground to predict that it is a hurricane would be knowledge of annual climate cycles for his/her location. In other words, after a few years in the same area you should be able to recognize certain weather patterns such as tornado producing storms and hurricanes based on the time of the year and immediate preceding weather patterns.
OK, next up … a look at some weather data from the Gulf Coast and a prediction about the path of Hurricane Gustav.
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