Hurricane Season Prediction

With the first Hurricane of 2007 just forming in the Gulf, I've started watching. I love strong storms and heavy weather. I don't enjoy that people's lives are lost, but I don't mind so much when stuff is messed up. You know, it's just stuff.

My parents lost most of their stuff during Andrew while living in Homestead, Florida. That was a bummer, but other than photo albums, I think they basically replaced everything.

My dad said it was eerie to drive back to their house, and in fact, almost couldn't find it because all the landmarks were gone. He said it was very strange to be in a place where no birds were singing. They found some of their stuff across the street and an other people's yards.

Anyway, I found this cool graphic that tracks the hurricanes from the 1850s to 2004, a total of 1325 storms (above).

This chart is really interesting in that there seems to be no pattern. The National Hurricane Center has a really hard time predicting these things. If you notice when there's a prediction cone graphic, it doesn't go any further than 5 days.

I guess there's just no telling where the winds will steer them.

The graphic makes me think of a fractal, you know, one of those computer generated infinite patterns that repeat as you zoom in or out.

I'm always looking for patterns in nature, and although some things like flowers and earth rotations have a perceivable pattern, things like tree branches and ocean waves don't. It looks like hurricane paths are another one that doesn't look like a pattern...yet. Maybe the pattern is a complicated one that hasn't looped yet. I don't know, maybe it won't loop.

Entropy says that order degenerates into chaos, and does not go the other way around. I think that's really cool. It's like the design of the Earth is infinite in it's variables.

Here's the article explaining the unpredictability of hurricanes. It's where I got the cool graphic.

...when all is said and done tropical cyclones that develop in the Atlantic tend to follow the periphery of the "subtropical ridge" (sometimes referred to as the Bermuda High) as if it's a big steering wheel. You can see the black lines of all the historical tropical storm and hurricane paths curving around that subtropical ridge.

I'll be watching. We're getting rain this week from Erin. That's fun.


What do you think?
1. Are you a storm chaser?
2. Ever been in a hurricane?
3. What are your predictions for 2007? More or less?