Hurricane Dean Threatens Caribbean

Hurricane Dean is roaring through the Caribbean, threatening to hit Jamaica straight on as a strong Category 4 storm or even as a Category 5 storm with winds in excess of 145 mph. That's an extremely dangerous storm.



Dean's storm track places it on a course to hit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico before heading back into the Caribbean to hit Texas into late next week. As those predicted tracks indicate, there is strong confidence for the initial track over the next 48 hours, but decreasing confidence thereafter as the various models diverge significantly. Some place the track heading towards the Louisiana coast, while others track through the heart of Mexico. Those predictions will firm up over the next 48 hours, but in the meantime, residents along the coast should be taking preparations just in case.

Much has been made of the predictive abilities of the meteorologists and how many hurricanes are predicted for this year, along with where and how those storms will track. I noted this back in April. While the early part of the hurricane season has been quiet, and the number of storms predicted has been decreased slightly, it still points to being an active season. August is one of the busiest months for hurricanes in the Atlantic, so we've still got plenty of time for storms to develop.

None of this means that global warming does or does not play a role - meteorologists are mixed on this - and the fact that they are still trying to come to grips over the effects of relatively well known phenomenon like La Nina and El Nino suggests that have a long way to go before they can predict the number of storms accurately. While many will make note of the paucity of storms last year as proof that global warming is bunk, I will also note that while scientists seriously overestimated the number of storms last year, they seriously underestimated the number of hurricanes the year before. Predicting the number of storms is as much an art form as it is a science. It's getting better, but it has a long way to go.

However, the predictive ability to determine where a particular storm will hit has improved so that you can reduce the cone of uncertainty and focus those areas on where a storm might hit. That's important for emergency management personnel who have to prepare for a natural disaster and all that it entails. It also means that people living along the coast in the US have no excuse not to be prepared for a storm with time to spare to leave the affected areas.