Friday Funnies

Guest Blogger Margie Kieper


What's wrong with this picture?

a) how many times do I have to tell you, don't clean the machine guns and grenade launchers on my clean white towels.
b) it's correct to camouflage by wearing brown in front of a brown building, as long as you have a tan -- not a sunburn.
c) never grow biceps larger than your head.
d) this man is not forecasting hurricanes.
e) absolutely nothing.



This is a photo of senior NHC forecaster Stacy Stewart on combat duty in Iraq, as detailed by the Miami Herald, "Today's outlook for hurricane forecaster Stacy Stewart: mostly sunny, high of 114 degrees, constant threat of death." Stacy recently deployed to Iraq, where he'll be serving a tour of duty through at least early summer 2008.


And what's wrong with this picture?

a) there's no tropical cyclones in the Caribbean or GOM.
b) there's no tropical cyclones in the Caribbean or GOM; absolutely nothing.
c) oh dear -- there are blobs in the Caribbean and GOM -- should I be worried?
d) those Canadians don't feel the need to hide part of the satellite image under a big round logo




The early morning Tropical Weather Outlook notes:

A TROPICAL WAVE OVER THE CENTRAL CARIBBEAN SEA IS MOVING RAPIDLY WESTWARD AND IS EXPECTED TO BRING CLOUDINESS AND SHOWERS TO JAMAICA...THE CAYMAN ISLANDS AND CENTRAL AMERICA TODAY AND SATURDAY. THERE IS STILL SOME POTENTIAL FOR TROPICAL DEPRESSION FORMATION BEFORE THE WAVE REACHES CENTRAL AMERICA IN A DAY OR SO.

CLOUDINESS AND SHOWERS OVER THE NORTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO ASSOCIATED WITH A BROAD TROUGH OF LOW PRESSURE REMAIN DISORGANIZED. DEVELOPMENT...IF ANY...SHOULD BE SLOW TO OCCUR.

Now that the hysteria over a mere vigorous tropical wave has subsided (somewhat), remember what I mentioned at the beginning of the week -- in a couple of days there could be a chance for tropical development as the wave moves into the Western Caribbean or the East Pacific. Now you can become hysterical.


What's wrong with this story?

Once upon a time there were three little pigs.

The first little pig built his house out of straw. The second little pig built his house out of sticks. The third little pig built his house out of bricks.

One day the big bad wolf came along and said "Let me in, Let me in, little pig or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!"

"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin", said the first little pig.

And he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house down.

Next the wolf came to the house of sticks. "Let me in, Let me in, little pig or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!"

"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin", said the second little pig.

And he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house down.

Finally, the wolf came to the house of bricks. The three little pigs yelled out the window to the wolf, "This brick house was built to withstand 155 mph winds, tested in the Wall of Wind, and you'll never blow it down! We feel quite safe here."

The wolf purchased an ACME Do-It-Yourself Hurricane Kit from his friend Wiley E, and generated a storm surge that washed away the brick house and the three pigs with it.

a) the three little pigs didn't have a hurricane plan
b) the three little pigs didn't evacuate
c) don't build for wind in a surge zone

Every year now, we see news articles about coastal surveys, that seem to indicate a lot of people living on the coast aren't ready for hurricane season. Whether that is the case or not, one of the things from this year's survey noted was, "One out of three (34%) do not know if their home is located in an evacuation zone." Well there are a lot of things that remain to be fixed or improved regards hurricane preparation on the coast, but this is one that can be taken care of!

If you live in Florida, you have access online to the best emergency management website in the country: FloridaDisaster.org. Included on this website are storm surge maps for coastal counties. For instance, if you live in Pensacola, you can pull up the Escambia county map and see, to some extent, what category hurricane would flood your area:




If you live in Mississippi and go to MS EMA, you won't find anything nearly as interesting. However you are fortunate, because a very detailed surge map exists on the USACE website, generated by a Hurricane Evacuation Study that used the results of thousands of SLOSH runs. The flooding that occurred with Katrina correlates very well to these maps. With the Jackson County maps, it can be seen that the surge can travel up the river plain all the way to the county line, and looking at a particular plate shows the surge detail for Pascagoula. That's right, almost the entire city floods in a direct hit from a category 2 hurricane.







So if your county has one of these maps available, you can look at it now, and have an idea of how vulnerable your home is to storm surge from hurricanes. But remember that regardless, your county emergency management will be well-informed via an NHC liason and will be executing evacuation plans based on the information provided by NHC and the local NWSFO. All of the Mississippi coastal residents who died from surge in Katrina were in locations where evacuation had been requested. If you are told to evacuate -- there's a good reason.

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The Colorado State Univeristy forecast will be out shortly and numbers have been reduced from 17/8/4 to 15/8/4.

A tropical depression that formed in the South China Sea is forecast to become a minimal tropical storm, tracking towards North Vietnam. Just an interesting note: this TD developed under a considerable amount of shear, but it had a solid low level circulation, warm SSTs, considerable ocean heat content, and was in a moist environment.

Usagi, now a tropical storm, has moved away from Japan and is undergoing extratropical transition. Usagi brought high rainfall to the area. Apparently the Japanese take delivering the mail as seriously as we do, even delivering the mail during a typhoon: this BBC news story notes that "a postman was injured after wind overturned his van."

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Regards the bridge collapse in Minneapolis -- the StarTrib had these quotes, which make it appear that the hot weather may indeed have been a contributing factor -- although the focus now seems to be mostly on a failure with the steel truss, which was designed as non-redundant (any one piece failing can cause the entire truss to fail):

"Things can happen with temperature, and with construction, or a lot of other confounding factors." --Catherine E. Wolfgram French, a civil engineering professor at the University of Minnesota.

"I would start at the foundations." --Michael Ramerth, a principal at MBJ Consulting Structural Engineers in Minneapolis.

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Have a nice weekend, and don't forget to watch that tropical wave in the Caribbean and the East Pacific. :)

In other words, there is no tropical activity of note in the North Atlantic, so relax and enjoy the weekend.