We have a hurricane. Almost. Maybe. Probably. never mind

The anemic (perhaps due to climate change, perhaps not) Atlantic Hurricane Season has finally produced a storm that might turn into a hurricane and will hit the Gulf Coast.

Tropical Storm Karen is just north of the Yucatan and is strengthening and heading due north towards Louisana, Mississippi, Alabama or the Florida Panhandle with the current (and very much subject to revision!) bulls eye somewhere around or just east of Mobile.

The current projections indicate that the storm will turn into a hurricane while over the gulf, then weaken to a tropical storm before striking land. But it will still be a near-hurricane force tropical storm at that point and will bring a lot of rain and such with it. Also, it might be big, as in wide.

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This is a huge hurricane/typhoon heading quickly, and imminently, towards taiwan. The storm itself is roughly as wide as the island nation is long, so very little will be left unaffected.
The big, current, story in the Atlantic is, of course, hurrican/tropical storm (there is some confusion on the status of the storm over the last 12 hours) Ingrid. Regardless of how it is classified, Ingrid is going to cause major flooding in Mexico.
Update: The new forecast track of Neoguri is shown above as well as the location of two nuclear power plants.
[Tracks of storms in the Northwest Pacific basin, 2007.]

This is clearly an environmental response to my wife flying to Jacksonville tomorrow.

By Jim Thomerson (not verified) on 03 Oct 2013 #permalink