Christine Hudnall

Was talking with one of my sisters, who still lives down in Homestead, and it got me to thinking. We’ve talked at least once a day (or every other day) since the start of Hurricane Ike, back when he first formed into depression on September 1st. (Can it really only be 5 days ago?!) We both said, he needs watching. Later that day he was Tropical Storm Ike and we watched as he gathered strength and two days later he was renamed Hurricane Ike.

Well, Ike continues to gather strength and is a major hurricane. Sure he has lost some strength as he went along, and then regained it adding more, which is all a normal part of the eyewall replacement cycle, which is a naturally occuring phenom in intense cyclones, that was discovered during the U.S. Government’s hurricane modification experiment called Project STORMFURY.

I was going to discuss a little bit about Project STORMFURY and the effects of seeding hurricanes and clouds, but have decided not to and just close with, we can try an mess with Mother Nature, but it will bite us in the butt in the long run. Leave nature alone, we’ve messed with it enough over the years.

To get back to topic, my family are Hurricane Andrew survivors, yes, we’ve been through other hurricanes, some major ones, but they always get compared to Andrew. And so far (thankfully) none have surpassed him. So, we take watching the tropics seriously and getting as prepared as we can, seriously.

Now, when Andrew came through, my youngest nephew was just a couple of months over two years old. And he has been through some since then too, but with Ike, my sister was telling me, he is getting concerned. The others it was, yeah get prepared, but we’ll be okay. Not this one.

So, what is so different about Ike that has people, in the words of my now teenaged nephew “going friggin crazy”?

Could it be that the shear compact strength of him and not to mention the looks are very reminescent of Andrew? Are people having déjà vu? I know for me personally, sure, I watch hurricanes come and go on radar, satellite and in my different weather programs, and like to go out and feel the power of them, but with Ike, I have been watching closer. So, am I under the same influence as others are? Is that why my heart beats just a little harder whenever I look at Ike?

Hurricane Andrew was basically a bomb that exploded over our area. NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) states it best in their FAQ’s page on Hurricanes, Typhoons and Tropical Cyclones, and someone asked “Why don’t we try to destroy tropical cyclones by ___ (fill in the blank)“.

For example, when Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992, the eye and eyewall devastated a swath 20 miles wide. The heat energy released around the eye was 5,000 times the combined heat and electrical power generation of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant over which the eye passed. The kinetic energy of the wind at any instant was equivalent to that released by a nuclear warhead.

Thank you AOML - those of us that lived through it have been saying it all along.

Be prepared, keep watch, be safe, but don’t “go friggin crazy”. Remember what happened, but don’t let it rule you, there is still a whole lot of changing in a cyclone that can happen, namely, direction.

Newest coords:

REPEATING THE 1100 PM AST POSITION…21.2 N…70.9 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD…WEST-SOUTHWEST NEAR 15 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…135
MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…947 MB.

Re-analysis Project - The upgrading of Hurricane Andrew