It’s
Hurricane Season again folks, specifically the Atlantic Hurricane Season, which
started early this year on Saturday June 1st 2013 instead of on
Monday July 1st 2013 as stated in the article “Hurricane
season begins today”, published Saturday, June 01, 2013
1:48 PM, The
Jamaica Observer and “
Brace for active 2013 hurricane season, 18 storms named”,
Published Friday May 31, 2013 5:34 pm, The Jamaica Gleaner.
Already,
the first Storm of the Pacific Hurricane
Season, Hurricane Barbara, had struck on Thursday April 30th 2013 as
stated in “Hurricane
Barbara lashes Mexico's southern coast”, published 30 May
2013 Last updated at 04:18 GMT, BBC
News.
Their
Pacific Hurricane Season usually starts a few months earlier. Hurricane Barbara
was battering the Western coastline of Mexico even as Neville Bell of Television Jamaica read the News
from his Apple iPhone on Thursday April 30th 2013 at approximately
6:05am on SmileJamaica.
This
was a full two (2) days before the official Start of the Hurricane Season. At that
point my interest in preparing for our impending doom was piqued. Especially as
last year, I was almost stranded at ACCENT Marketing due to a Hurricane that
came towards Jamaica and missed as per usual but turned New Kingston into a
warzone of flying Debris and Churning water.
Predictions
vary on what's expected (again) to be an unusually active Atlantic Hurricane
Season. Dr William Gray and Philip Klotzbach of the Colorado State University
have called out their Hurricane betting odds for the six (6) month period:
1. 18
named storms
2. 9
hurricanes
3. 4
Category 5 hurricanes
NOAA
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), is a little more fatalistic
and is glad to predict:
1. 13-20
named storms
2. 6-11
hurricanes
3. 3-6
Category 5 hurricanes
Here’s
a list of the Hurricanes lined up for this Season:
This
time of year is an exciting time for Storm Chasing scientists, who usually
saddle up their aircraft with electronics Gear and fly them straight into the
eyes of the storm to gain direct on-the-ground information on the hurricane
itself.
But
if you’ve been following the whole development of Drones and their recent
emergence in the Public eye, you’d not be surprised that that may be used this
year to track hurricanes as opined in the article “Reality
catches up with sci-fi in storm drones”, published Jun 02,
2013 by Justin Juozapavicius,
Phys.org.
Despite
the privacy concerns swirling around the use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
or Drones, in much the same way the Police would be given extra eyes in the
sky, a program similar to the one suggested for the Jamaica Police in my blog
article entitled “GOJ
can develope UAV's as a means of giving the Police eyes in the sky -
Inspiration for Aviators in Jamaica via G.I. Joe Retaliation”.
With
the help of our local Universities, Drones and Telecom Providers, drones can be
developed coordination with the MET (Meteorological Office of Jamaica) for
Weather forecasting. Storm chasing literally on a shoestring as the Caribbean
become a theatre for the coming Class of Hurricanes in Monsters University
(2013).
No comments:
Post a Comment