Bright and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky. Feels like spring, and certainly the birds are behaving in that fashion. The mercury has crept up to 13C / 55F, a value not seen on a sunny day like this so far this year. So, long may it continue.
Hurricane season is drawing towards a close in the southern hemisphere. Tropical cyclone Ilsa is roaring away with winds in excess of 110 mph, about 600 miles from Australia. It is not going near any land as far as the forecasters can tell. Hurricanes are one of Mother Nature's safety valves, and serve to disperse heat from the tropics to higher latitudes through a venting mechanism in the upper atmosphere. The amount of energy involved in your average hurricane would be sufficient to power everyone on planet Earth for a year - 200 times over. Annually, there are about 100 tropical cyclones anywhere on the planet. They can only occur over warm water (80F / 26C or more) with a specific set-up in the atmosphere (winds all blowing at the same speed and in the same direction at all levels) and away from the equator. They only happen in summer - which is why the southern hemisphere is currently having cyclones (= hurricanes). The phenomena are poorly understood, and are highly unpredictable, both in terms of course and intensity.
Hurricane season in the northern hemisphere will resume in two months from now. If you are in an area likely to be affected by these storms, please review your preparations now and make sure everything is in readiness for hurricane season.
I have kept my Tropical Cyclones blog since July 2006, and update it daily - if there are any storms or tropical disturbances to be reported on.
At 10 o'clock Thursday morning, we've got 45* with rain, sometimes very heavy rain. I understand this is to continue thru the weekend only Friday the wind is supposed to kick up.
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