TampaBay.com | El Niño brings calm hurricane season but potentially hazardous winter

October 27, 2009 - El Niño has brought Floridians a calmer hurricane season, but the winter could be a much different story.

Think downpours, floods and tornadoes.

"We're going to have a very active winter," said Daniel Noah, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay.

No hurricanes have threatened Florida this season, which ends Nov. 30. But tornadoes have killed more people in Florida than hurricanes in recent years, so the National Weather Service is trying to get the word out about the flip side of El Niño.

El Niño forms every three to five years as warm surface waters in the Pacific Ocean shift from the west to east. Those warmer waters form upper atmospheric storms that can thwart hurricanes forming in the Atlantic.

But they can also cause havoc during the winter months.

This El Niño started in July and weakened eight hurricanes, Noah said. Now considered a moderate El Niño, it is expected to strengthen in the coming months, producing hazardous weather.

The opposite of El Niño — La Niña — occurs when surface water in the eastern Pacific cool to below average temperatures. That produces warmer winters, drier summers and a more active hurricane season in the Atlantic.

The last El Niño was during 2006 and 2007, and it led to the Christmas Day tornadoes that damaged about 100 homes in Pasco County. FULL STORY

Examiner.com | Severe storm potential in the east can be traced to Hurricane Rick from Pacific

October 24, 9:53 AM - Just one week after record cold and snow at Penn State and even the Baltimore suburbs, the threat of severe weather may erupt along the east coast. This is part of a strong storm that already brought snow to Denver, flooding rain to Fort Worth and Houston Texas, even tornadoes to parts of Louisiana. This is in part to due the remains of once powerful Hurricane Rick, which had winds of 180 mph last week, then hit Mexico's Pacific coast as a tropical storm. I had shown how some of this energy would get pulled into this storm and increase it's energy. The result today will be the final push as it winds up and moves into Canada.

UPI | Fred almost a hurricane in Atlantic

MIAMI, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. forecasters Tuesday said Tropical Storm Fred in the Atlantic Ocean is almost a hurricane and Tropical Storm Linda in the Pacific is moving very little.

Straits Times | Hurricane Jimena could hit Mexican coast

LA PAZ (Mexico) - POTENTIALLY deadly Hurricane Jimena, churning in the Pacific off Mexico, now has a 'high possibility' of crashing into the coast, the National Weather Service warned on Sunday.

After earlier moving on a track that looked as if it would curve away from the coast, the service said there is a 'high possibility of a direct (land) hit by Hurricane Jimena in the next 72 hours,' in Baja California Sur state on the Baja California peninsula in Mexico's northwest.

Jimena late on Sunday was packing winds of 220 kph and was moving west-northwest at 13 kph, the weather service said.

The storm, which could barrel onshore on Wednesday, may be felt with powerful winds, heavy rain and rough seas as soon as Tuesday, it forecast.

With gusty winds and some drizzle here already, residents of La Paz, the state capital, were rushing to board up windows and buy groceries before shops close their doors.

State civil defence officials were meeting to decide if and when evacuations will be necessary and where shelters will be set up.

The area of the state where the storm may make its hit is not especially densely populated, and has many small fishing villages.

Jimena has already caused 'intense heavy rain with flooding in the lowlands and landslides in mountains' in the states of Guerrero, Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco on the Pacific coast, a Mexican weather official said on Saturday.

The Category Four storm was just one notch below the most dangerous possible category on the one-to-five Saffir-Simpon scale.

The Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre said in a bulletin that 'a hurricane watch may be required for portions of the southern Baja California peninsula (of Mexico) later on (Sunday into Monday).' 'Some fluctuations in strength are likely over the next day or two,' the US NHC said. -- AFP

RELATED:

Video: Jimena Strengthens To Category 4 Storm The Associated Press

Hurricane Jimena threatens Mexican coast Melbourne Herald Sun

Dangerous hurricane headed for Baja California Reuters India

Voice of America - Austin American-Statesman

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Examiner.com | Bill and Hillary Clinton get out of Bermuda before Hurricane Bill strikes

August 21, 9:43 PM

A State Department spokesman today said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had cut short their vacation on Bermuda due to the approach of Hurricane Bill.

Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington, D.C. that the Clintons left Bermuda Thursday for a different vacation spot, which he declined to disclose.

The former president apparently got some golf in Thursday before the couple left the island. He was spotted golfing at Port Royal Golf Course, according to the Associated Press, where four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners now work as groundskeepers. There apparently was no contact between the president and the former prisoners, western Chinese Muslims called Uighurs.

Read more....

AP | Hurricane Bill now Category 4 storm in Atlantic and could get stronger

12 mins ago

MIAMI – Hurricane Bill became a Category 4 storm as it rumbled across the Atlantic early Wednesday with maximum sustained winds near 135 mph.

And forecasters say the dangerous hurricane could get even stronger.

The National Hurricane Center said people in the Leeward Islands should monitor Bill's progress, though the core of the storm was expected to pass well to the northeast of the islands late Wednesday and early Thursday.

"The wind sheer is light and the waters are warm," Todd Kimberlain, a forecaster at the center, said Tuesday. "Those are two essential ingredients not just for the formation, but also the maintenance, of hurricanes."

Early Wednesday, Bill was centered about 460 miles east of the Leeward Islands and moving west-northwest near 16 mph.

The most significant threat could be to Bermuda, which the storm could pass in three or four days, Kimberlain said. But it also could move directly between Bermuda and the eastern coast of the U.S. without making landfall.

Either way, people near the coast can expect wave swells and rip currents in the next few days, Kimberlain said.

Meanwhile, people in flood-prone Haiti and the Dominican Republic awoke to good news Tuesday as it appeared Ana, the first named storm of the Atlantic season, had largely spared their shared island.

The two countries that share the island of Hispaniola are vulnerable to storms, with many impoverished people clustered along rivers, but there were no reports of major damage from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ana. The system had been downgraded to a tropical depression and then largely dissipated before reaching Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but its rains were still considered a potential threat.

Forecasters had revised their Atlantic hurricane season predictions for this season after the first two months passed without any named storms developing.

UPI | Hurricane Bill building strength

This NOAA image shows Hurricane Bill, the first of the 2009 hurricane season, as it moves west-northwest near 22 MPH through the Atlantic Ocean, August 17, 2009. UPI/NOAA

Published: Aug. 17, 2009 at 12:50 PM

MIAMI, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Hurricane Bill picked up strength Monday, maintaining its west-northwesterly move across the Atlantic Ocean, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

At midday, Bill's center was about 1,080 miles east of the Lesser Antilles.

Bill, the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season's first hurricane, was expected to keep on its west-northwesterly track for the next few days. The center said Bill was expected to strengthen during the next 48 hours, and could become a major hurricane by Wednesday.

The maximum sustained winds are nearly 90 mph with higher gusts.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles outward from Bill's center. Tropical storm-force winds extended up to 145 miles.

RELATED

Hurricane Bill reaches Category 2 strength
1 hour ago (Reuters)

Is a "Hypercane" - A Mega-Katrina Possible? MIT Expert Says "Yes"

MIT's Kerry Emanuel describes the worst nightmare hurricane that could ever happen -a "hypercane" with winds raging around its center at 500 miles an hour. Water vapor; sea spray and storm debris are spewed into the atmosphere, punching a hole in the stratosphere 20 miles above the Earth's surface.