Four Named Storms in July Set Record (since record keeping began)

[IChing]

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
AP Science Writer


Arlene, Bret, Cindy and now Dennis. Storm hunters don't expect to be hunched over their radar screens and dispatching chase aircraft until Labor Day. But 2005 is no normal year.

Martin Nelson, the lead forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, says this is the first time the Atlantic hurricane season had four named storms this early since record-keeping began in 1851. The season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The first three storms never grew beyond tropical storms that dumped rain and cut utilities from Louisiana to the Carolinas. Dennis got its name on July 5 and two days later it had morphed into a Category 4 monster with winds reaching 150 mph.It also is the earliest occurrence of a Category 4 hurricane in the Caribbean, and possibly the U.S., meteorologists say.>>>>snip
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HURRICANE_DENNIS_RECORD?SITE=MNMAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-07-09-14-36-29

[lildreamer316]

1. Gotta hate that global warming that dosen't exist. n/t

[Francine Frensky]

22. On Fox, they mocked global warming and pointed

out that there have only been increased hurricanes in one area, we aren't seeing this all over the world, like in the Atlantic or Pacific. Their logic was these things run in cycles, and they said that over the next 15 years, this gulf area may see lots of hurricanes.

Any meteorologists know if that is true?

[DrRang]

24. Numbers run in cycles but not strength

For what it's worth: Ross Gelbspan, author of "Boiling Point" and other global warming books, says that the number of storms fluctuates in cycles of ten to twenty years. However, since hurricanes are fueled by warm ocean waters, the strength of each storm depends on ocean temps. And ocean temps are rising dramatically due to global warming. So, more storms turn into extremely powerful hurricanes.

[Gay Green]

26. We aren't seeing this all over the world, huh?

Somebody tell FauxNews that there were seventeen typhoons in the Northwest Pacific last year.

[matt819]

2. I know there are DUers in hurricane region

but I have to tell you, I have just about had it with the kind of catastrophe reporting we've seen over the past 3-5 years. Yes, we know there are hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. Yes, it is unfortunate, and sometimes tragic, but do we have to read every single tidbit about these storms and follow their track every minute of every day? I feel for you. I really do. I have family that live in Florida. But please stop reporting this stuff nationally. It doesn't affect us, and there's nothing any of us can do about it.

You'll see from my avatar that I'm in the northeast, and I feel the same about winter storms. Yes, it sucks. There are times I wonder why I live here. But I do, and I deal with it. I don't expect people in the south to follow the news of every winter storm.

Stock up on supplies, batten down the hatches. But please stop reporting this stuff nationally. Flame away.

[IChing]

3. It does affect you, you pay for it in your taxes and insurance.

when they get hit your rates and taxes go up, global warming affects the planet

this is a global phenomena not just a winter storm, or a california earthquake.

so I will stop reporting on global issues also.

[R Hickey]

4. And we in the upper mid-west are having a really muggy summer...

...and all they ever tell us is "it's not the heat ...its the humidity."

[1monster]

5. Dear Matt: While hurricanes are mentioned, the most important point of

IChing's post is that the climate is changing. Not that we get hurricanes in Florida and the gulf and up the east coast. It is that these storms are starting earlier and earlier and getting bigger and bigger.

Global warming.

And hurricanes that travel up the east coast can do, and have done some serious damage to New England.

[matt819]

6. I'll grant the global warming aspect

but that's not the primary focus of the articles on these and other weather events. It's the drama, the evacuations, etc. That's the part that bugs me.

[Karenina]

8. What bugs me

is that you don't seem to understand that those of us in unaffected regions have loved ones, friends and DU homies riding out the storms. WE are deeply concerned about their welfare and safety. If you're not interested there is a "hide thread" function that you can use if our communications disturb you.

[UncleSepp]

11. Do we have to read every single tidbit about these storms?

Is someone forcing you to read this stuff? Read something else if you aren't interested.

[kestrel91316]

16. No man is an island ..................

didn't John Donne say that?

Oh, and didn't he also say "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

Guess he was just some stupid English philosopher guy with his head up his a--.

[Bhaisahab]

21. it does affect me. and i'm sitting in new delhi

i'd say such news needs INTERNATIONAL coverage. any disturbing weather anomaly concerns the whole world. an invasion of locusts in west africa or a severe winter storm in north america could mean a drought in india. after all, the world heats uniformly, like an egg.

[FloridaPat]

7. They didn't start naming hurricanes until around 1947. Now the question

is did they have 4 hurricanes ever this early.

[1monster]

13. I not sure if it was 1926 or 1927, but Florida went into an economic

depression two or three years before the rest of the country did simply because the state was hit by several hurricanes. I'll have to look up the information, but I do know this:

Florida was BOOM town in the 1920s. Developers were building all over the state. Then came a series of hurricanes (don't know how many) and the developers were wiped out when many of their developments were badly damaged or destroyed.

One developer (whose first name escapes me) named Davis was so ruined that he took a trip on a cruise ship and somewhere out in the Atlantic, disappeared. The cruise ship came back, but Mr. Davis most likely accepted a berth right next to Davy Jones's locker.

When I first moved here in the 70s (an area which saw quite a bit of the 1920s boom), there were sidewalks in the middle of nowhere, leading nowhere, a legacy of the boom that went bust.

[kestrel91316]

9. I am SOOOOOO glad that global warming ..............

is a myth, because if it were true, the hurricanes would be so much worse than in the past.

Oh, wait.........

[hnsez]

10. NOT GLOBAL WARMING - THE RAPTURE!!!!!!!!!!

[lovuian]

12. Ok I look at this Hurricanes as the Earth's eye looking at us

and her eye is huge and it weeps for the tears that we are destroying her atmosphere and waters...

She has to fight back so that we GET IT!!!

this is what environmentalists for years has been warning us about

Increased Hurricanes and flooding of coastal cities

We haven't got it yet but after repeated Hurricanes over and over again maybe we will get the point!!!

[ovidsen]

14. Tropical storms (hurricanes)= Earth's heat dispenser

Tropical storms are how the planet distributes heat (energy) from the tropics to the rest of the planet. At least that's what I was taught when I majored in meteorology 35 years ago.

More heat (global warming) means more tropical storms.

I guess we'd better get used to it.

[wli]

15. how many more years?

How many more years is it supposed to get worse under the assumption greenhouse gas emissions are halted altogether?

[kestrel91316]

17. Well there is the distinct possibility, IMHO,

that it could just keep getting worse until we all die of starvation or disease due to the end of civilization. But really, now, global warming/climate is just a silly myth. Run along now.

[hatrack]

18. If human beings stopped emitting GHGs tomorrow . . .

The planet would continue to warm for at least 100 years simply because of what we've released into the atmosphere to date.

Of course, it wouldn't be that simple. There's all the CO2 and methane released from melting permafrost and peat bogs, and all of the positive feedback effects from melting snow and ice.

As things stand now, we're on track to hit 400 ppm CO2 by 2015, and 500 ppm by 2100, at which point the entire Greenland ice sheet will melt.

[Viking12]

19. 500ppm by 2100? How optimistic of you hatrack :)

Assuming a business-as-usual scenario of future carbon use equal to the current rate of increase of roughy 1.2% per year, we should be well over 720ppm by 2100. We should hit 500 by 2050 at the latest..... :(

[hatrack]

25. Guess I'm just a cockeyed optimist . . .

:toast:

[Francine Frensky]

23. Can you check out post #22 and reply??

I know the folks at Fox are paid to mock global warming, but what do meteorologists think?

[sleipnir]

20. Only since 1851? Ummmm.....that's nothing...this is a worthless record.

We've been keeping records for about 150 years. Well, that's just a blip on the geological timescale of the Earth. How the fuck do we know if this isn't normal every 200 years or so?

Sometimes the arrogance of humans amazes me.