I first heard this on the news a few days ago, thought how odd it was and then pushed it to the back of my mind. Thinking about how we just may dodge the Ivan bullet in this area (though the Panhandle appears not to be so lucky), I recalled the information I heard and decided to look it back up.
Hurricanes are back and they're not going anywhere anytime soon.
See, most of us who live in Florida have come here in the last, oh, 10 - 30ish years. Prior to that, though this area was populated, it wasn't the massive metropolitan areas is it now. So most residents - myself included at 18 1/2 years in Florida - have lived in a window of time where we had less then normal hurricane landfalls. But it couldn't last forever and now scientists say we need to get used to facing more years like this one, rather then everything we've come to know all this time.
"Scientists say we are in a period of enhanced hurricane activity that could last for decades, ending a 24-year period of below-average activity. They also say the law of averages has caught up with Florida, with a change in atmospheric steering currents turning the state into a hurricane magnet." (source)
This is some scary shit. It's not the kind of thing that comforts you as you watch the third major hurricane in a month barreling towards your state. You want to think of this as the freak year, but it doesn't seem that simple.
"Starting a decade ago, scientists began warning coastal-zone residents that big hurricanes were once again headed their way. As if to underscore the point, 1995 produced 19 named Atlantic Ocean storms, the second busiest season on record (after 1933, which had 21). Most years since 1995 have followed a similar trajectory. Colorado State University hurricane expert William Gray is now projecting a total of 16 named storms for 2004, including five major hurricanes.
By contrast, the period between 1970 and 1994 averaged less than two major hurricanes per year..." (source)
It's hard to grasp how quite things have been in our calm period compared to how it used to be. And the time shift between then and now.
"One has to go all the way back to 1964 to find a year when Florida had three major hurricanes.
Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House. The Beatles were a novelty act. Universal Newsreels still played in movie theaters.
"They call her Dora, but she's no lady," goes the narration of one. Hurricane Dora passed over St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and then up the Georgia coast. "If you had to put it to a vote, Dora was the most unpopular girl in town."
The other hurricanes to hit Florida in 1964 were Cleo and Isbell. But somehow, in all the years since then, Florida has defied the odds." (source)
Thing is that no one exactly understands why we go through these cycles. Though the fact that the Atlantic has gone up in temperature by about 1 or 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit is one factor they believe is involved, as well as upper level winds not being as strong and therefore unable to disrupt these storms once they start. But, that's all best-guess. And no one can say if it's part of a global warming trend, or just Mother Nature's cycles of change.
"The only unusual thing is the fact that Florida hasn't been hit by hurricanes like we used to get," said National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield. "I think nature's just righting itself and the statistics are going to balance itself out here before long." (source)
So, with nine storms so far this season - four of which became major hurricanes with winds 110mph and over - and the season being only half over, it's a trend of what's to come. And it makes the realization of just how vunerable, isolated and targeted we really are down here. We've taken our calm seasons for granted, never thinking that there's good patterns and bad patterns and eventually, the bad pattern would catch back up with us again.
It's a daunting and frightening thought.
~ castles of sand by Memory and Dream
at 9/13/2004 01:20:19 AM ~
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