After last year’s breakneck pace, this year’s hurricane season has been… well, it’s been a non-event.
This time last year Katrina was in the Gulf. Katrina was the 11th named storm. Ernesto, our current storm, is number five.
Ernesto is an interesting storm because reality and what the Hurricane Center is saying are two entirely different things!
Ernesto has crossed Cuba, an island with a spine of substantial mountains. The Hurricane Center says top winds are 40 mph. I don’t think so. I see no evidence of that kind of wind.
I’m not saying there’s chance Ernesto will rejuvenate in the warm water between Cuba and Florida. Still, it is what it is. I’m not sure what their purpose is.
A friend who’s a hurricane researcher says Ernesto has been a tropical depression for the last 12 hours. I with that.
Meanwhile, it’s all academic. The more pressing concern is what will Ernesto be when it hits Florida? My guess is tropical storm – but that’s just a guess – nothing scientific.
I haven’t called my folks to ask them to roll the hurricane shutters yet. That probably says more of how I feel than anything else.
Some long range projections bring Ernesto north, toward New England, this weekend. It will be working against a big high pressure system. Even as a non-hurricane, Ernesto might give us more wind than Cuba is seeing tonight.
These storms are always interesting, always perplexing, never user friendly.