Is it over?

Yesterday was officially the last day of Hurricane Season... Time to chill out a bit...

So it goes...

Oh, come on!

We have just had the first anniversary of the category 5, Hurricane Maria that we sat out in Salt River, St Croix.

Now we see this from the National Hurricane Center...

Hopefully they'll be "done in" by wind shear and dry Saharan dust.

We have a named storm headed this way

We now have a named storm heading our way... ISAAC

When I saw that earlier today I immediately thought...


So It Goes

WHAT? Hurricane Beryl???

Well, it is that time of the year...

OK.

This forecaster has a nice calm voice and does a good job. Check out his website for video tropical weather updates: https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/



It seems like Beryl may not be anything for us to worry about as she will probably fizzle out but nevertheless we will still prepare for a storm.

So It Goes

Hurricane Irma: 8-month anniversary

Can't believe 8 months have passed since Hurricane Irma.

Hurricane Irma hit the Virgin Islands on September 7, 2017. It pretty much had no affect on us in St Croix compared to the VIs to our north. We up anchored and ventured over to Salt River to ride out Irma which was good preparation for Hurricane Maria which struck the night of September 19-20, 2017.

Wow! sums it up pretty good.

Hurricane Maria was #10 in the top ten list of most intense hurricanes ever.

The official beginning of 2018 H-season is only 24 days away.


Here's a YouTube video that was posted yesterday by News Of St John

Prepare early and check on those folks that are around you.

So It Goes...

VI recovery - A bit more every day

I was happy to read this morning in the St Croix Source that an additional 1,762 customers have had power restored since January 1st. Restoration levels now stand at 92 percent on St. Croix, 99 percent on St. John, and 91 percent on St. Thomas.

This year the three street parades of the St. Croix Crucian Christmas Carnival were combined into one. Saturday's parade honored recovery teams that worked in the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. It saluted visiting linemen, WAPA (Water And Power Authority) workers, and the Red Cross, incorporating blue tarps, neon vest colors, and hard hats into their schemes.

Thanks to everyone.

Is it really over?

Today, December 1st, marks the first day of "it's not hurricane season". As survivors of both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria we are happy to see this day arrive. Maybe we'll have some ice cream.

Although, we will still keep a watchful eye on the weather... no surprises, please.

So It's Gone...

1st day of June 2017

The first day of June is another one of those special days for me.

Pre-1996, it was a time of anticipation of the coming summer days with all of the fun stuff that it entails. But now, it is the mark of the first day of "H" season with its perennial question of "what's in store for us this summer?"

This year, we have the worry of impending windstorms but we also have joy of beginning a new chapter in our cruising life.

This morning I googled "2017 hurricane season" to see what has been predicted for this summer. Some of the results ranging from 5 to 45 days ago said that it would be higher than average. But the more recent articles of yesterday and today are saying lower... I'm going for lower :)

This one is from yesterday's AccuWeather - 2017 Atlantic hurricane forecast: Possible El Nino to limit development of storms. That sounds good.

Wunderground had a blog post I like from April 6th 

 The CSU team cited two main reasons why this may be a below-average hurricane season:

• A weak to moderate El Niño event is expected to develop by autumn
• The tropical Atlantic has cooled over the past month, and the far North Atlantic is currently colder than normal.

As always, the CSU team included this standard disclaimer: "Coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every season, regardless of how much activity is predicted."

Got to finish coffee #3 and start doing stuff...

Have a good one!

Come Monday it will be the last day of H-season

Monday, November 30, 2015, is the last day of official hurricane season. Hurray!

While this Jimmy Buffett video isn't about hurricanes, it's the first time I've seen it and I wanted to share.  I wonder when it was made? In the seventies? Anyway, it has a nice introduction...

Enjoy!

Come Monday - Jimmy Buffett

Tomorrow we do the happy dance!

So it goes...

Maybe we should leave our storm anchors down

UPDATED after 11:00am forecast... 

What's up with this?

Computer models from Wunderground.com

September 5, 2015 Invest 91L

WELL, it is now this...

5-Day Forecast Cone - NOAA/NHC

September 5, 2015 - Tropical Depression Seven

Might become Tropical Storm Grace tomorrow...  Wonderful :(

Yes, I think we'll be leaving the storm anchors down for a few more days (after checking them out, of course)

[Back to the earlier post...]

It's still early days though.  Lots of time for it to fizzle or head more to the north. Hopefully it will not even get a name.

Remember Hurricane Marilyn? It has been 20 years... She hit St Thomas on September 15-16, 1995.

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!

T.S Erika Breezes By St Croix

Erika passed below St Croix Thursday evening. We had winds up to 60 MPH and not much rain.

We fared well. The cats pretty much took it in stride; probably because there wasn't any thunder or lightning.

The next morning, we noticed a boat that arrived the day before the storm (and was a nice distance downwind from us) was not anchored in the same place as when we closed up our boat in the evening.  Looks like they might have dragged a bit.

When we went to bail out the dinghy après l'orage, we were surprised that there wasn't much water in it. Crucians didn't want strong winds but they definitely could have used the water.

The StCroixSource has a photo of a 41-foot Morgan on the beach from Christiansted Harbor. See here. We hope they are OK and can recover their boat.

So it went...

Tomorrow is Erika

It appears that we will be visited by Erika tomorrow. That's two in a row!  Hope that will be the last for this season.

The story so far...

So it goes...

Today is D-Day.... Danny

Well, it is finally here. D-Day. The good news is that the once Hurricane Category 3 Danny will probably be Tropical Depression Danny OR just a remnant by the time he gets to our area.

Also, the storm's path has changed. It has moved south. The "cone of death" no longer touches us... HURRAY!

Tropical Depression Danny

NOAA August 24, 2015 - 05:00am

BUT there is another storm lurking behind Danny that should be here in about 3 days...

Invest 98L

WeatherUnderground August 24, 2015 08:00am (AST) Models

So it goes...

Shucky Darn... TD4

Hoping Danny doesn't come for a visit.

Click graphic to enlarge.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015. 11am EDT. Advisory #1

It was a beautiful day today. Very blue sky that I haven't seen in a while. The clear skies are preferable but the Sarahan dust is much better for us summer storm-wise.

It is still quite far away and we'll be keeping an eye on it. I hope our internet service improves as it has been completely unusable every evening and quite often during the day. (Speaking of being disconnected, we just had our connection drop. Double shucky darn).

We were out shopping today and some people seem to want a storm to bring some much needed rain, etc..

So it goes...

It's finally here

This is it. The day we've been looking forward to all summer. The last day of H-season.

It looks like it may become a gloomy day. It's a bit overcast and we've had a few sprinkles but nothing to complain about.

Thankful for a relatively calm summer :)

So it goes!

The terns were right

We were worried about TS/Hurricane Gonzalo even though the royal terns were back in town. We prepared our boat and put out two more anchors.

The first few projected tracks had the little TS symbol right on top of us but fortunately, Hurricane Gonzalo stayed about 100 miles away to the northeast.

The terns were right.

90L is TS Gonzolo

GONZOLO, great name for a storm. Makes me think of a Marx Brother movie.  But as cool as his name might be (we experienced Omar a few years ago), we really don't want him passing through here.

The Hurricane Hunters flew through Invest 90L earlier today and found out that it was a Tropical Storm... didn't even mess with the Tropical Depression phase.

They predict it will be an H-thing when it gets to Puerto Rico.

So, guess you know what we'll be busy with... best to be prepared.

Hope the GFS model (red line in above image) is accurate and it will pass quite aways from us.

Here's a bit from Advisory #1 - 130 PM AST SUN OCT 12 2014

DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK
------------------------------
AT 130 PM AST...1730 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM GONZALO WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 16.4 NORTH...LONGITUDE 58.4 WEST. GONZALO IS
MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 10 MPH...17 KM/H...AND THIS GENERAL
MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE THROUGH TUESDAY...FOLLOWED BY A TURN
TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST TUESDAY NIGHT. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...
GONZALO IS EXPECTED TO MOVE THROUGH THE LEEWARD ISLANDS BY EARLY
MONDAY MORNING.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 40 MPH...65 KM/H...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS.  STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

TROPICAL-STORM-FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 45 MILES...75 KM
FROM THE CENTER.

THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1009 MB...29.80 INCHES.

So it goes

They're back...

We would like to welcome back the Royal Terns... Salut!

Yesterday afternoon while having a sundowner tot of rum along with some quality time with the cats, two Royal Terns made a low pass over the deck. Wow, are we glad to see them. To us, it means the end of H-season in our neck of the woods.

Weather guru Dr. Jeff Masters at wunderground.com pretty much said the same thing a couple of days ago but his statement has now been validated by our fine feathered friends.

August 2013 - No complaints here!

We just noticed that there is a new weather system out there, Invest 96L. Here's an image from last night (Aug 29, 2013) at 8:00pm.

Invest 96L - Aug 29, 2013 20:00 EDT

Not so bad for us but perhaps not so good for those in the Canary Islands.

Dr. Jeff Masters' Wonderblog had a couple of interesting things today:

The end of August is upon us, and with just one day remaining in the month, the remarkably quiet Atlantic hurricane season of 2013 is highly likely to be just the 6th season since the Hurricane Hunters began flying in 1944 without a hurricane forming by the end of August (the other years: 2002, 2001, 1988, 1984, and 1967.) Although there have been two tropical storms in August (Erin and Fernand), these storms were weak and short-lived, and August 2013 had one of the lowest Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) totals on record for an August in the Atlantic... [more]

Color me a happy camper!

This is good news!

Very good news indeed...

500 PM AST SAT JUL 27 2013

...DORIAN DEGENERATES INTO A TROPICAL WAVE...
...THIS IS THE LAST ADVISORY...

So it goes :)