Hurricanes Igor and Tomas get their names retired
The names Tomas and Igor will no longer be used to name hurricanes in the Atlantic, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced this March. Hurricane Igor made landfall near Cape Race, Newfoundland on September 21, 2010, and was that island's most damaging hurricane in 75 years, with $200 million in damage. Hurricane Tomas smashed through the Lesser Antilles Islands on October 30 - 31, 2010, dealing a particularly harsh blow to St. Lucia, where eight died and damage was estimated at $500 million. Tomas also killed 35 people on Haiti, and contributed to a cholera epidemic that killed thousands.
Figure 1. Little Barsway bridge 10 km north of Grand Bank, Newfoundland, after flood waters from Hurricane Igor swept it away. Image credit: George J.B. Rose.
Figure 2. MODIS satellite image of Tropical Storm Tomas taken at 10:30am EDT Saturday October 30, 2010, as the storm began lashing the Lesser Antilles. At the time, Tomas was a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds. Image credit: NASA.
The retirement of hurricane names
The WMO maintains a list of hurricane names for the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific that repeats itself every six years. The names Igor and Tomas in the Atlantic would have appeared again in 2016, but will be replaced by Ian and Tobias. Each spring, the WMO meets to decide if any names should be retired from the list, due to notable death or destruction caused by one of the past season's storms. Any country that is a member of the WMO can request that a name be retired. If a country seriously affected by a hurricane does not request retirement of the name, then the name will not be retired. In the recent past, Mexico, in particular, has been reluctant to request retirement significant storms that have affected them. In 2010, two significant hurricanes affected the country, but Mexico chose not to request retirement of either: Hurricane Alex, which killed twelve people and did $1.5 billion in damage, and Hurricane Karl, which killed 22 and did $206 million in damage. Back in 2005, Mexico also did not request retirement of Hurricane Emily, which made two landfalls in Mexico as a major hurricane, destroying thousands of buildings, but not claiming any lives. A new storm named Emily will appear this year, as we are recycling the names from 2005 that were not retired (2005 holds the record for most retired names, with five.) Probably the best example of a hurricane that did not get its name retired, but deserved to, was Hurricane Gordon of 1994, which killed 1145 people on Haiti. Haiti did not send a representative to the 1995 WMO meeting when retirements for 1994 were decided. Gordon did not affect any other countries strongly enough to motivate them to request retirement, and the name Gordon will be used again in 2012.
Since Atlantic hurricanes began getting women's names in 1953, 76 names have been retired, an average of 1.3 retired names per year. The list includes one tropical storm, Allison of 2001, that caused billions in damage from its heavy rains. The storm with the most appearances so far is Arlene, which has appeared nine times: 1959, 1963, 1967, 1971, 1981, 1987, 1993, 1999, 2005. Arlene will make its tenth appearance this year. One exception to the retirement rule: before 1979, some storm names were simply dropped. For example, in 1966, Fern was substituted for Frieda, and no reason was given. Only three Eastern Pacific hurricanes have had their names retired--Hurricane Ismael of 1995, Hurricane Pauline of 1997, and Hurricane Kenna of 2002. All of these storms hit Mexico.
Cool Katrina animation
A new visualization created by Advanced Visualization Laboratory at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois shows Hurricane Katrina spinning over the Gulf of Mexico during a 36-hour period in August, 2005. The animation is part of a full-length planetarium film called Dynamic Earth screened at the Fulldome UK festival on March 12 - 13. You can see the video at the newscientist.com or DynamicEarth web sites. The video description: Trajectories follow moist air rising into intense "hot tower" thunderstorms, and trace strong winds around the eye wall; rapidly rising air is yellow, sinking air blue. The sun, moon, and stars show the passing of time. The visualization highlights Katrina's awesome power and fierce beauty.
I'll be back with a new post Tuesday or Wednesday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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aret you a littel late on this dr m?
Jed- there was a cell, maybe a coupla hours ago over Vidalia, had a VIL nearly that much. Coupla TV sigs earlier, too, that line kinda trying to push south. But they were mostly upper- and mid-level rotation, I never saw nothing touch down. They probably saw some healthy winds up that way, though.
Ahhh but I got that confounded ridge just south of me, it's pushing back, I ain't gonna see no VILs tonite near me.
What about Alma?
%u2022Alma was the first eastern North Pacific basin tropical cyclone to make landfall along the Pacific Coast of Central America since records began in 1949. The storm formed quickly on May 28 west-northwest of Cabo Blanco, Costa Rica. Alma was responsible for two direct deaths and the destruction of thousands of homes.
Four Hurricane Names Retired From List of Storms
Edit: Since Alma was only a Tropical Storm, Dr. Masters origional statement is correct, only 3 hurricanes.
you did that alanis morrisette the other day-
was I the only one who caught it?
'twas fantastic
WTH is a DARPA sock puppet?
Hey that's cool, you're not real. So you won't get angry, or get your feelings hurt, or complain.
We need more people- errr, programs like that here.
Hey but that software program sure did good with some old-school nineties emo music, eh?
9:39 PM GMT on March 27, 2011
Better late than never.
Dr. M
What about Alma?
''Alma'' is a Spanish word and translates as 'Soul'
So we can red into this that the Pacific area now has 'no Soul?'
Thanks for the post, we think the animation is amazing and look forward to seeing the real things no doubt sooner than later!
Anyway, watch out Florida, here comes the rain!
LOL so ture dr m so ture
.LONG TERM...RATHER SIGNIFICANT CHANGES BETWEEN LATEST GFS RUN AND
PREVIOUS RUNS. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CUT-OFF LOW OVER THE
N-CENTRAL GULF OF MEX BY SATURDAY MORNING IS NO LONGER INDICATED
AS GFS MOVES CLOSER TO THE ECMWF SOLUTION. NOW ONLY AN OPEN LONG
WAVE TROUGH IS INDICATED UNDER A PROGRESSIVE LONG WAVE PATTERN.
THIS SOLUTION, IF VERIFIES, MAY NOT RESULT IN AS UNSETTLED
WEATHER CONDITIONS AS PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. THEN AGAIN, UNCERTAINTY
IS VERY HIGH AS WE GET INTO THIS PORTION OF THE FORECAST AND
CONDITIONS COULD VERY WELL CONTINUE TO CHANGE IN FURTHER MODEL
RUNS.
Some of the 'formal People say:-'
Better late then never but better never late!
LOL
Fortunatly, I'm not one of the 'Formal People!'
THANK YOU!!!
I particularly enjoyed "Friday" by Rebecca Black - especially at the time Darpa posted it. Cheered me right up. 50 million hits!
Top left where it says Firefox in, go to add-ons, top right of pay click on the little gear looking thingy, click check for updates.
Just a WAG, but hope it finds something that helps.
I've seen people comment that they've had problems accessing the site, but I don't recall having any problems within the past year. I was using an older version of Firefox, but I downloaded Firefox 4 recently and have been using it with no problems. All of my settings are the default ones; I am using Windows Vista.
What else specifically would you like to know? What kind of error messages are you getting when you can't access the site?
You might be having problems with routing. It may be time to contact your ISP and tell them you are having problems connecting to www.wunderground.com. (If you know how to use tracert, that will clue you in to whether there is a problem.) If you were having trouble once on, I would get it, but trouble connecting? I don't think that is wunderground's problem. You and others may be struggling with a bad router or switch on the way to wunderground (?)
You might also try connecting directly to the blog rather than to the WU home page (if that is what you do). Or try connecting through a free proxy service - that will force a different routing.
You might also try disabling various plug-ins in Firefox to see if that helps. I am holding back on Firefox 4 because I don't think all my plug-ins are functional. Plus I never really like x.0 software versions. Generally better to wait for x.1 (in this case Firefox 4.1); let others find the bugs. I'm running v 3.6.16 with no problems whatever ("new" wunderground).
I have an intel chip PC with no unusual config of java, flash or anything else. Win 7.
Yeah its a good thing cause the storms today have been incredibly powerful!
Eh, yeah its hard to say how much you'll get, it doesn't look very likely anything that impressive will come your way, those cell are dying out as they head towards you. It probably more likely I get something big. Don't worry though, you will probably get some good rain before this upcoming week is over!
Sorry as for me I can't help ya, I,'m not very computer savvy, I know how to use one but that is about it, I'm still afraid to take the college intro computer class even though chemistry, physics, and calculus are coming along great, LOL.
2011 March 27 22:23:56 UTC
Uh-oh...
000
WEPA42 PHEB 272230
TIBPAC
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 2230Z 27 MAR 2011
THIS BULLETIN APPLIES TO AREAS WITHIN AND BORDERING THE PACIFIC
OCEAN AND ADJACENT SEAS...EXCEPT ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...
WASHINGTON...OREGON AND CALIFORNIA.
... TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ...
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY.
THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
REPORTED BY THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY.
ORIGIN TIME - 2224Z 27 MAR 2011
COORDINATES - 38.3 NORTH 142.4 EAST
DEPTH - 10 KM
LOCATION - NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU JAPAN
MAGNITUDE - 6.5
EVALUATION
NO DESTRUCTIVE WIDESPREAD TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS BASED ON
HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.
HOWEVER - EARTHQUAKES OF THIS SIZE SOMETIMES GENERATE LOCAL
TSUNAMIS THAT CAN BE DESTRUCTIVE ALONG COASTS LOCATED WITHIN
A HUNDRED KILOMETERS OF THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER. AUTHORITIES
IN THE REGION OF THE EPICENTER SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS
POSSIBILITY AND TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY MAY ALSO ISSUE TSUNAMI MESSAGES
FOR THIS EVENT TO COUNTRIES IN THE NORTHWEST PACIFIC AND SOUTH
CHINA SEA REGION. IN CASE OF CONFLICTING INFORMATION... THE
MORE CONSERVATIVE INFORMATION SHOULD BE USED FOR SAFETY.
THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE PRODUCTS
FOR ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...WASHINGTON...OREGON...CALIFORNIA.
New Quake in the East coast of Japan area at 6.5:-
MAP
6.5
2011/03/27 22:23:57
38.405
142.120
5.9
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
NHK is carrying live video.
"The day began with company officials reporting that radiation in leaking water in the Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal, a spike that forced employees to flee the unit. The day ended with officials saying the huge figure had been miscalculated and offering apologies.
A few hours later, TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said a new test had found radiation levels 100,000 times above normal."
TEPCO originally claimed to have discovered iodine134 to be the main radioactive contaminant.
Iodine134 has a half-life of ~52.5minutes -- ie every ~52.5minutes, half of the amount still there decays into a stable element.
100 equals ~2^6.644 -- so in ~6.644 times its given half-life, a given radioactive isotope will have decayed to 1/100th of the amount of there initially.
~6.644 times ~52.5minutes equals ~5hours49minutes.
It's been more than 6hours since the evacuation. And TEPCO deliberately didn't bother to state how many hours had passed between taking samples.
Which leaves plenty of time for "10million times above normal" to have decayed down to "100thousand times above normal".
Further down in the article, "Officials acknowledged there was radioactive water in all four of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex's most troubled reactors, and that airborne radiation in Unit 2 measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour, four times the limit deemed safe by the government."
In other words, the only thing this latest announcement has proven is that Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman TakashiKurita's "The [original] number is not credible" are just words of unbacked opinion still lacking in credibility.
Why, you sound skeptical of TEPCO. Haven't they been forthcoming and open about the seriousness of the incident since it all started? They've never lied nor understated, have they? They've not tried to downplay facts, or hide anything, have they?
:-\
Fukushima, JP (Airport)
Updated: 1 hr 6 min 59 sec ago
Clear
32 °F
Clear
Brilliant, simply Brilliant,
At last someone who knows how to show us the maths?
This stuff hasn't been lying around is as fresh out of the pot as coffee!
JapanMeteorologicalAgency
Another point - earlier it was 1000 mSv at the water surface. Today it is 1000 mSv of airborne radioactivity. Airborne. No one seems to have caught that change yet.
WEPA42 PHEB 272230
TIBPAC
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 2230Z 27 MAR 2011
THIS BULLETIN APPLIES TO AREAS WITHIN AND BORDERING THE PACIFIC
OCEAN AND ADJACENT SEAS...EXCEPT ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...
WASHINGTON...OREGON AND CALIFORNIA.
... TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ...
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY.
THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
REPORTED BY THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY.
ORIGIN TIME - 2224Z 27 MAR 2011
COORDINATES - 38.3 NORTH 142.4 EAST
DEPTH - 10 KM
LOCATION - NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU JAPAN
MAGNITUDE - 6.5
EVALUATION
NO DESTRUCTIVE WIDESPREAD TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS BASED ON
HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.
HOWEVER - EARTHQUAKES OF THIS SIZE SOMETIMES GENERATE LOCAL
TSUNAMIS THAT CAN BE DESTRUCTIVE ALONG COASTS LOCATED WITHIN
A HUNDRED KILOMETERS OF THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER. AUTHORITIES
IN THE REGION OF THE EPICENTER SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS
POSSIBILITY AND TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY MAY ALSO ISSUE TSUNAMI MESSAGES
FOR THIS EVENT TO COUNTRIES IN THE NORTHWEST PACIFIC AND SOUTH
CHINA SEA REGION. IN CASE OF CONFLICTING INFORMATION... THE
MORE CONSERVATIVE INFORMATION SHOULD BE USED FOR SAFETY.
THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE PRODUCTS
FOR ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...WASHINGTON...OREGON...CALIFORNIA.
NOAAPacific TsunamiWarningCenter Link
The earthquake occurred about 100 miles ENE of Fukuetc.
At college decades ago one of our professors said,
Reality is a state of mind, brought upon by an absence of Drugs, leaving out the 'cough medicine' I wonder what these guys are on?
About 40 years ago I studied at a very mild level with my landlord, a proffesor of Physics at Bristol university,UK, the half life factor. He stated that at a basic level if a thing has an half life of an hour, then it is half as radioactive after that hour has passed, this implies that the other half of the radio activity has gone into the environment!
The environment over there must by now be starting to look a bit messy!
Footnote, that 6.5 must have shaken them to the 'core' this morning
*This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude: 6.5
Date: Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 22:23:56 UTC or Monday, March 28, 2011 at 07:23:56 AM at epicenter
Location: 38.405°N, 142.120°E
Depth: 5.9 km (3.7 miles)
Region: NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Distances:
*109 km (67 miles) E of Sendai, Honshu, Japan
*156 km (96 miles) E of Yamagata, Honshu, Japan
*161 km (100 miles) ENE of Fukushima, Honshu, Japan
*368 km (228 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan
Location Uncertainty: horizontal +/- 13.1 km (8.1 miles); depth +/- 5.9 km (3.7 miles)
Parameters: NST=365, Nph=377, Dmin=404.1 km, Rmss=0.85 sec, Gp= 32°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=8
Source: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID: usc0002cqa
Updated 34 minutes ago
Japan issues tsunami warning.
Japan has issued a tsunami advisory after a shallow 6.5 earthquake struck off the Miyagi coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The tsunami was expected to hit imminently at a height of 50 centimetres.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology says there is no threat to Australia's coastline.
that cough medicine can be some rough stuff...
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