Y’all should know that there’s a storm brewing. My namesake, Chris, is gaining strength down in the Caribbean. The storm’ll probably be a hurricane by the weekend or early next week.

Do you think that might be part of the reason things have been so chaotic around our house lately? … Nah. But it is an interesting coincidence, eh?

August tends to be the worst month for Atlantic hurricanes. Katrina was an August storm.

But it is unusual for them to only be getting around to the C name this late in the season. Last year this time they were watching Harvey. Usually the C storm peters out early on and isn’t much worth paying attention to.

I’m going to keep my eye on Chris this year. I suspect she’ll make landfall somewhere near the Texas/Louisiana border sometime late next week or into that weekend.

Here’s to hoping that she ends up being a small storm and doesn’t harm anyone.

If you want to have a good source for up to date info on her, click on the button to the right for the US Navy’s hurricane tracking center. I keep that button over in my right side bar all the time because it is a useful resource. You can come here anytime and get to quality Hurricane info.

I don’t use the Navy’s site because I’m former Navy, but because they seem to be the best at predicting where the things will go. Being in the maritime industry, hurricanes are a special interest to me. They can significantly affect my job so I pay close attention.

Over the years I have watched hurricanes through several sites. (I have a whole folder in my favorites for weather. How geeky is that?) I’ve seen that the Navy’s site consistently has the most accurate track prediction out there. So I keep going back to there for my info.

You’re welcome to click through anytime. And if you are on the Gulf Coast, I’d be keeping an eye on Chris myself. At least until we get an idea of where she really is going.

One of my favorite weather passages is in the book of Job where God is giving Job a talking to, kinda reminding Job who he is. When I read the sarcasm that God uses, I can’t help but believe that God does have a really good sense of humor. Check it out.

“Do you know where Light comes from and where Darkness lives So you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get lost? Why, of course you know that. You’ve known them all your life, grown up in the same neighborhood with them!

“Have you ever traveled to where snow is made, seen the vault where hail is stockpiled, The arsenals of hail and snow that I keep in readiness for times of trouble and battle and war? Can you find your way to where lightning is launched, or to the place from which the wind blows?

“Who do you suppose carves canyons for the downpours of rain, and charts the route of thunderstorms that bring water to unvisited fields, deserts no one ever lays eyes on, drenching the useless wastelands so they’re carpeted with wildflowers and grass? And who do you think is the father of rain and dew, the mother of ice and frost?

“You don’t for a minute imagine these marvels of weather just happen, do you?”

Yeah. I can hear the sarcasm pouring from that speech. Sometimes we just have to be reminded of our place.

We can watch the hurricanes until the cows come home (or get blown away). But at the end of the day there is nothing we can do to change where its wind blows or how hard it hits.

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Well the first storm of the season is heading out to sea. Alberto was not much of a storm, as far as hurricanes go. At maximum winds of 70 mph she (he?) didn’t quite even qualify as a hurricane.

However the storm did dump over 5-1/4″ of rain on us here in Savannah. We needed it badly. The week or so before the storm had been so hot that I told Gorgeous over the weekend that if it kept up I might not have to even mow the back yard. The grass was going to just burn off for me. (We water the front lawn in the interest of inter-neighbor relations.)

Living in the Southeast and working with ships I keep a close eye on hurricanes and tropical storms. Not only will they potentially affect my home life, but they also generally can wreck havoc on my work life too.

There are a lot of places where you can get hurricane info when the storms are brewing. Most of you are familiar with the National Hurricane Center. Their information is some of the best. Some folks like the Weather Channel’s Hurricane Central. I get tired of all their obnoxious ads so I tend to skip that one.

Did you know Wikipedia has a page for the 2006 Hurricane Season? Interesting stuff. I’ll be checking that one through out the year. If you ever have some obscure need to get info on past hurricane seasons, you can check their index of Atlantic Hurricane Seasons. With pages going back to 1494, I’m sure there’s enough information in those pages to make the average head explode.

That brings us back to the blog here. You may have noticed this little blue button in the right side bar under Good Stuff. It will take you to the Navy’s hurricane tracking site. I tend to be a raw-data guy. I’ve had some formal weather training because of my maritime and aviation backgrounds. My weather guesses are usually at least as good as the folks on the Weather Channel. I’ve found over the years that the Navy’s computer model for course prediction seems to be one of the best. Their predicted tracks are usually close to what actually happens.

So if you want to get an idea where a storm is going, come on in here and click on the button in the side bar. You might even find something interesting to read while your here!

Enjoy!

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FINALLY! The Navy’s hurricane track is back up on their site. For the last week I’ve had to rely on the National Hurricane Center. I didn’t realize how much I needed the Navy.

I’ve been playing the, “should I stay, or should I go,” game here in the Southeast for over 15 years now. In that time I’ve found the Navy’s tracking model to just plain be more accurate. I hope the modeling program wasn’t damaged with their server crash.

With two storms out there I was twitching more than I would in my second hour without a coffee cup in my hand.

Addictions can be rough.

Is it just me, or is there something eerily weird about the coincidence of me adding a link to the Navy’s hurricane tracking site to my blog immediately before this:

NOTE: We experienced a hardware failure over the weekend, products are slowly re-populating, apologize for the interruption.

Apparently there is power in the blog. More than I ever had when I was actually in the Nav, that’s for sure!