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marinessThe National Hurricane Center informs us that Tropical Depression One has just swirled to life just before the official start of the hurricane season, apparently feeling the need to get an early start, in what most of us would consider an unnecessary gesture of enthusiasm.
This also not coincidentally starts the period in which I begin to spend far too much time watching satellite pictures going round and round. Since I am notoriously bad at predicting hurricane seasons (my worst remains my cheerful prediction for 2005 - "Can't be worse than last year!") I will once again restrain from making any sorts of predictions for this year, but I will reintroduce you to some of My Favorite Sites Ever for hurricanes:
The National Hurricane Center, which lets you watch satellite feeds of clouds going round and round and round. This is actually far, far more intriguing than it sounds, especially since the site lets you chose which sort of picture you want to look at (water vapor, infrared and so on).
Weather Underground, which has a special Tropical/Hurricane section which covers all of the oceans, and gives you more satellite feeds of clouds. This also includes Dr. Jeff Masters' Wunder Blog, which chats about different hurricanes and depressions and so on.
Wikipedia's page on the 2009 hurricane season which is a useful gathering of stats. Unlike many Wikipedia pages, the recent hurricane season pages are fairly well edited and maintained. On a related note:
Accumulated cyclone energy which allows you to quickly compare the strength of various hurricane seasons, and provides proof that it wasn't just your imagination that 2004 and 2005 were unusually bad hurricane seasons.
And on a related note here, note that this century has already seen four above normal/hyperactive hurricane seasons: 2000 (above normal), 2003 (hyperactive), 2004 (hyperactive), 2005 (seriously hyperactive and something we don't need to repeat again), 2008 (above normal).
This means absolutely nothing for 2009. I just find it interesting.
This also not coincidentally starts the period in which I begin to spend far too much time watching satellite pictures going round and round. Since I am notoriously bad at predicting hurricane seasons (my worst remains my cheerful prediction for 2005 - "Can't be worse than last year!") I will once again restrain from making any sorts of predictions for this year, but I will reintroduce you to some of My Favorite Sites Ever for hurricanes:
The National Hurricane Center, which lets you watch satellite feeds of clouds going round and round and round. This is actually far, far more intriguing than it sounds, especially since the site lets you chose which sort of picture you want to look at (water vapor, infrared and so on).
Weather Underground, which has a special Tropical/Hurricane section which covers all of the oceans, and gives you more satellite feeds of clouds. This also includes Dr. Jeff Masters' Wunder Blog, which chats about different hurricanes and depressions and so on.
Wikipedia's page on the 2009 hurricane season which is a useful gathering of stats. Unlike many Wikipedia pages, the recent hurricane season pages are fairly well edited and maintained. On a related note:
Accumulated cyclone energy which allows you to quickly compare the strength of various hurricane seasons, and provides proof that it wasn't just your imagination that 2004 and 2005 were unusually bad hurricane seasons.
And on a related note here, note that this century has already seen four above normal/hyperactive hurricane seasons: 2000 (above normal), 2003 (hyperactive), 2004 (hyperactive), 2005 (seriously hyperactive and something we don't need to repeat again), 2008 (above normal).
This means absolutely nothing for 2009. I just find it interesting.