It’s ten a.m. on the morning of September 26 and no one would suspect a monster was lurking. It’s a cloudy day, slight breeze, temperature at 79, a little quiet on the country roads of bucolic Fairfield, Florida. The wife and I went next door to move any loose paraphernalia on a vacationing neighbor’s property into his garage, then took our usual one-mile walk down 112th Avenue. A mile is plenty of time to consider the possibilities, which range from nothing untoward happening to a tree falling on the house and the cat escaping, never to be seen again. We have a history of feline hysteria so Siobhan is taking grave measures to prevent this from happening. You don’t want to know.
Our trees, of course have been manicured to fall outward if at all, but the Cosmic Arranger, who decides these things, is capable of dumping them anywhere he pleases. Hay for the horses has been covered with a tarp held in place by heavy enough objects to deter a normal windstorm, but this one is anything but. The Generac is gassed up and ready to go since it’s only a matter of time until electrical power is a thing of the past. The horses have open doors to their stalls and can proceed as they please. That just leaves nine finicky goats, who will be very displeased by the whole affair. Our goats don’t cotton to water in their fields, absolutely abhor puddles and won’t stand for disruptions in their feeding schedule. No sensible explanation will suffice, any late meals will be greeted with outraged baahing and head-shaking and letters to the editor of the Caprine Daily News. It turns out that most goats have suffered the blight of home-schooling and have never been taught that patience is a virtue.
Quo Vadis
Dinnertime Thursday, and we all wait for guidance from our weather gurus, an odd lot with strange agendas. The new guy at Channel 20 is stubbornly insisting Helene will barge in further east than anybody thinks. He has a little penis-like (disturbingly curved) arrow running from the middle of the storm directly into Gainesville, although he seems willing to compromise on Cross City. Most of the Weather Channel pros are pointing to somewhere between Panacea and Apalachicola. A healthy number of Tallahasseeans, only 31 miles inland from Panacea are heading for whatever hills they can find. All our fisherman friends with properties in Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach are cringing in fear and gnawing their fingernails to the quick.
The experts are telling anyone who will listen that this storm is a devil in disguise, not just a windstorm happy to take a large bite out of the coastline and go about its business, but one which will roar inland and keep itself together long enough to make Sherman’s march through Georgia look like the Rose Parade. And Pedro---batten the hatches at South of the Border, it’s coming your way, too.
It’s stunning to contemplate what a tornado, flood or hurricane can do to humans and their meager creations in the blink of an eye. One day there’s a nice little town like Mexico Beach sitting there minding its own business, next day there’s barely a trace it ever existed. Too bad we can’t pen up all the tree-muggers and anthracite-lovers in one of these destinations and let ‘er rip. As a famous Cajun once said, it’s the environment, stupid.
Tell Us About Hurricanes, Mr. Science
“Where do they come from, where do they go? Where do they come from, Cotton-Eye Joe ?”
There are six widely accepted conditions for hurricane development. The first is that ocean waters must be above 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Below this threshold, hurricanes will not form or will weaken rapidly. Ocean temperatures in the tropical East Pacific and the tropical Atlantic routinely surpass this threshold, and as global warming heats up the ocean waters will measure above 79 for longer periods.
The second ingredient is distance from the equator. Without the spin of the Earth and the resulting Corioles force, hurricanes would not form. Since the force is at a maximum at the poles and a minimum at the equator, hurricanes can not form within 5 degrees latitude of the equator. The Corioles force generates a counterclockwise spin to low pressure in the Northern Hemisphere and a clockwise spin to low pressure in the Southern Hemisphere. Didn’t know that, didja?
The third ingredient is that of a saturated lapse rate gradient near the center of rotation of the storm. A saturated lapse rate insures latent heat will be released at a maximum rate. Hurricanes are warm core storms. The heat hurricanes generate is from the condensation of water vapor as it conveniently rises around the eyewall. The lapse rate must be unstable around the eyewall to insure rising parcels of air will continue to rise and condense water vapor.
Now we’ve got one you’re familiar with. The fourth and one of the most important ingredients is that of a low vertical wind shear, especially in the upper level of the atmosphere. Wind shear is a change of wind speed with height. Strong upper level winds destroy the storm’s structure by displacing the warm temperatures above the eye and limiting the vertical accent of air parcels. Hurricanes will not form when the upper level winds are too strong.
The fifth ingredient is high relative humidity values from the surface to the mid levels of the atmosphere. Dry air in the mid levels of the atmosphere impedes hurricane development in two ways. First, dry air causes evaporation of liquid water. Since evaporation is a cooling process, it reduces the warm core structure of the hurricane and limits vertical development of convection. Second, dry air in the mid levels can create what is known as a trade wind inversion. The inversion is similar to sinking air in a high pressure system. The trade wind inversion produces a layer of warm temperatures and dryness in the mid levels of the atmosphere due to sinking and adiabatic warming of the mid level air. This inhibits deep convection and produces a stable lapse rate. Got it? No? Okay, “adiabatic” means relating to a process or condition in which heat does not enter or leave the system concerned. Better? Good.
Finally, the last ingredient is that of a tropical wave. Often, a hurricane in the Atlantic begins as a thunderstorm complex which moves off the coast of Africa. It becomes what is known as a midtropospheric wave. If this wave encounters favorable conditions such as stated in the first five ingredients, it will amplify and evolve into a tropical storm or hurricane. Hurricanes in the East Pacific can develop via a midtropospheric wave or by what is know as a monsoonal trough. But who cares about them, right?
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| Galveston, 1900 |
Disa & Data
1.—In 1281 A.D., a hurricane killed 100,000 unlucky Mongols who were attacking Japan. The Japanese soldiers thanked the storm gods for the kamikaze, which means “divine wind from the gods.”
2.---During the Galveston hurricane of 1900, nuns used ropes to tie themselves to rows of children in orphanages. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” lamented their Mother Superior. Alas, the floodwater would have its way. After the storm abated, the nuns were found still tied to the children, all drowned.
3.---After Hurricane Dorian swept through North Carolina in 2019, some of the locals decided to check on the famous herds of horses and cows of Cedar Island. They were stunned to find 17 cows and 28 horses completely missing. Later, many of the bodies of these animals washed up on shore. The ones which didn’t were presumed to have been lost at sea. A couple of days later, however, 3 cows were found happily grazing on the shores of Cape Lookout, five miles away. Noone has a very good explanation.
4.---Cyclone Freddy was like The Man Who Came To Dinner….he just wouldn’t leave. Formed off the coast of Australia in February of 2023, Freddy hung around for five weeks, taking in the sights and travelling the width of the Indian Ocean before making landfall in Madagascar. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed in 2024 that Freddy was the longest lasting tropical cyclone ever observed. Contacted in a retirement home in downtown Tsiroanomandidy, Freddy said, “Hey, you only live once. Go for the gusto!”
5.---Kenny was a homeless guy who roamed the French Quarter in New Orleans in 2005, occasionally helping out at one of the better restaurants in town, being paid in fancy leftovers. When Katrina loomed on the horizon, the owners installed Kenny inside the building so he’d be safe and could keep an eye on things. When the monster storm hit and the city was flooded, all contact was lost and the owners assumed the worst---Kenny was out with the tide. Ah, but no so fast, my friends!
Once the electricity went down, Kenny thought the responsible thing to do was to cook up all the food, which would otherwise spoil. The restaurant stocked the finest meats in town and the menu there was first class, so Kenny invited a few friends over for pheasant under glass and pate de fois gras, their favorites. He also admitted to downing a few bottles of the place’s finest champagne but promised to make it up to the owners. Two weeks later when they were finally able to access the restaurant, there stood Kenny in all his glory, 20 pounds heavier and none the worse for wear.
Sunday Morning, Coming Down
Beguiling almost everyone, Hurricane Helene scurried a little east of the majority of predictions and blasted poor little Perry, Florida at 11:10 p.m. With winds reaching a scary 140 mph, the category 4 storm ranks among the most powerful ever to strike the USA. Our pals in nearby Cedar Key were left reeling, with some houses completely obliterated. Keaton Beach, with a surge of 20 feet, was decimated. Any building left standing was passed slowly and regarded with awe. Power was out everywhere, of course, as unending convoys of electrical trucks from around the country poured in to tackle the forest of downed trees and tangled wires. We lost power here at Flying Pie headquarters on Thursday night and got it back on Sunday, mid-afternoon, grateful for the gift of Generac.
True to the promise of Weather Channel, Helene savaged Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, where our old pal Leslie Logan was last seen on a ratty home-made raft heading due North out of Highlands. Leslie was a good swimmer in her younger years, and very buoyant, but who knows how her aging body will stand the tests of time and turbulence? If you see her floating by, throw out a line, she’ll be forever grateful and you’ll be paid back with a glowing smile and sumptuous baked goods.
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
