Kevin's Watch

Well, the six months of the Atlantic hurricane season is once again upon us. Predictions call for up to 16 named storms, with as many as 9 of them being hurricanes.

Even living in the middle on the peninsula, storm tracking is essential here. We may not suffer the effects of storm surge here, but a large enough storm could cover the entire width of the peninsula, before the eyewall ever touches land.

I know we have several Floridians here on the Watch, and jel is in Louisiana. Any other Watchers close enough to the Atlantic or Gulf to be effected by potential storms?

We just get LOTS of rain up here in Virginia.

near houston texas. hurricanes are a fact of life.

I saw on CNN.com today that if we have 1 of the Category 5 storms like Katrina or Rita then the price of gasoline will jump to $6 per gallon.

*sigh*

I thought that was predicted to happen by Labor Day anyway...

I'm right on the Atlantic

The predictions are always off, so I ignore them every chance I get. Face it, unless you're communing with satan, you probably don't know the future. I pay attention to the ones that actually exist, though. Everybody who lives where there are no hurricanes think they're the most horrible things ever, but seriously, tornadoes freak me out way more because they're so sudden; hurricanes announce their presence before they actually get to you. Though there was that 'no-name' storm that hit here without warning in '93.....that one was freaky.

Hurricane Ivan was indirectly responsible for me burning my eyebrows off.

Sunbaneglasses wrote:Hurricane Ivan was indirectly responsible for me burning my eyebrows off.

oh, now this is a story I've gotta hear.

I'm thinking a gasoline generator and someone's face a little too close to the spark plugs...or something...

Yeah, let's hear the details, SBG...

I agree with you, dAN. When I worked in Norfolk, every year we heard about how we were overdue for The Big One that was gonna wipe out Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks, take back Willoughby Spit (formed by a hurricane in, like, the 1600s), etc., etc. Fast-forward 22 years: we're *still* overdue for The Big One here in Virginia.

Not to say that it will never happen. But now I only start worrying when a storm draws a bead on the Outer Banks....

Well here ya go: Even here, 300 miles from the coast the wind gusted up to 80mph and was sustained near 55 for a period of time, needless to say the power went out. Being the genius that I am I decided to make the best of things and have a cook out for my family and my in-laws since no one could cook in their houses. Gas grill + fire + lots of grease dripping from hamburgers + 60 mph wind gust = 4 foot tall tornado of flame. 4 foot tall tornado of flame + SBG = sunburn like burn over face and arms, hair burned off arms, eyebrows almost completely burned off and hair on head singed and smoking. Everyone liked the cheeseburgers.

I was sorely disappointed with Ivan.....all we got was alot of rain. Opal, on the other hand, was fantastic!

My question....before you started the cook-out, did you say, "ya'll watch this!"?

lol, I'm glad eveyone liked the food at least!

"How to get a sunburn during a hurricane", lesson one....

It is meant figuratively when they say to put a little of yourself into your food.

Since riding out Hurricane Elana in '85, I have a lot more respect for Nature and it's awesome power.
So I prepare evry year for the worst.
(I moved down to Florida 3 days before Hurricane Agnus in '72 and thought that it was "cool" to see what storm surge can do.)

I predict there will be a big one in North Carolina in september.

I'll be on holiday there, and am used to being followed by bad weather.

Apologies in advance!

I live right on the Atlantic, but the hurricans normally go back out to sea just before hitting us.
We only end up with a bad rain storm.

Although, one will hit us every thrity years or so, and after it does, everyone starts thinking that we're in the new hurrican belt or something.
Then five years later, when we still haven't gotten another one, things go back to normal.

The last one, was about five years ago, so people are just starting to realize again that we're probebly not going to get hit this year.


Funny story about that last one:
A litle while ago, I was spouting of some useless information, about how storms are named; quoting facts like, if someone dies in the storm, then the name will not be reused, and that they are named alphabetically, but every years they start back over at 'A'
It was then when my (swet and lovely) bride said that the year that we got hit must have been a busy year, because they made it all the way to the "W"'s.

The hurrican that hit us was named Juan.

I third what dAN said. We do prepare by stocking extra water, non-perishable food, batteries, and the like at the beginning of hurricane season, but otherwise, life goes on unless there's an actual hurricane watch/warning posted.