Definitely better to be prepared where you are. Up here we just worry about keeping warm ... I'll be praying this season goes easy on the Gulf Coast..
Thank you, my friend.
I have a bad feeling about this year. Fortunately, I just renewed my insurance with wind and hurricane rider so we should be OK from that stand point.
Hey Veritas...I sent a few trackbacks..not sure if ya got them! 
Hey Angel,
I don't see them. I'll check Haloscan. It acts weird sometimes. Some trackbacks don;t show up for some reason. I really need to look into some other kind of blogging and trackbacking software one of these days.
Hope all is well. Are you getting one last blast of snow? It's going to get cold here this weekend one last time.
It's already cooler than usual here, Veritas. I've been able to get a lot of yardwork done that I can't bear to do in the heat. It's a blessing!
I too hope that things won't be as bad as is being predicted and that you will stay safe. Have a blessed Easter weekend!
Back in 1995-6, Dr. Gray noted that in addition to (or conjunction with) the La Nina phenomenon, the Quasi-biennial oscillation and the rainfall
amounts in the African gulf of Guinea. Is the stratospheric QBO the same thing as the 'multidecadal oscillation? I guess while I'm confused, I should also enquire as to what drives the ElNino-LaNina cycle?
I don't know BB, I've not heard of the QBO. I'll have to look that one up. I know the Atlantic MDO is an oscillation in the number and strength of hurricanes over a several decade period. We have been in a high activity part of the cycle since the mid 90's that is expected to last 10 - 20 years or so. Prior to that time the hurricane seasons have been fairly mild from the 60's - mid 90's and active in the 30's - 50's. Based on the timing the MDO and the QBO might be the same but I do not know that for certain.
A good article on El Nino-La Nina is at:
http://www.nationalgeographic.co.../
mainpage2.html
"For reasons that scientists still do not comprehend, every few years the trade winds subside or even disappear."
Thanks BB for getting me thinking.
BB-
Wikipedia - that ever so accurate reference source - defines the quasi-biennial oscillation as:
"The QBO (quasi-biennial oscillation) is a quasi-periodic oscillation of the equatorial zonal wind between easterlies and westerlies in the tropical stratosphere with a mean period of 28 to 29 months. The alternating wind regimes develop at the top of the lower stratosphere and propagate downwards at about 1 km per month until they are dissipated at the tropical tropopause. Downward motion of the easterlies is usually more irregular than that of the westerlies. The amplitude of the easterly phase is about twice as strong as that of the westerly phase. At the top of the vertical QBO domain, easterlies dominate, while at the bottom, westerlies are more likely to be found."
While the Multi-decadal Oscillation refers to the cycle of hurricanes in which 10 - 20 years of a strong hurricane season are followed by 10 - 20 years of a mild hurricane season. Actually to be more accurate, it is a hypothesized oscillation of sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic. The connection to hurricanes is that as the sea surface temperature increases, hurricane activity also increases.
Thanks! Despite the lack (thankfully) of hurricanes up here in the mountains, this tropical weather science got me thinking. A
'magnum opus' site here
http://www.ccb.ucar.edu/lanina/
e...ec_summary.html
summarizes in some detail the '97
conference and state of the art thinking. Especially intriguing are the competing computer models, in particular the accurate CIRES at U
Colorado. The details caused me to fog up, but it appears that sea/air
current, convection, temperature and thermal transfer interact with the
easterlies, westerlies and trade winds. (Would be fun to have the program) The current thinking seems that the weather scientists feel they are at the point between relying on past statistics vs optimizing their 'model' input data.
I heard some time back that the nascent weather modeling led to what has been termed 'chaos theory'
*chuckle* More info here
http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/c...haos/
chaos.html
Looks like the 'new' ATT/Bellsouth better start hiring lots of new repair 'specialists' soon...
Looks like a below normal year for hurricanes and barely a normal year for named storms
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