Everyone who matters in the world of weather in my region seemed to have pretty much said this year’s hurricane season is dead. The best local TV weatherman said so. The second-best local TV weatherman said so. Even the lousiest local TV weatherman said so.
To top it off, even the real professionals from the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles told me so in person just about two weeks ago. A couple of forecasters from the NWS had a little booth set up at the fire festival and Dog-Tober-Fest in downtown Beaumont on Oct. 9. I asked them point blank if you could stick a fork in the hurricane season here and they said yes.
The computer“spaghetti” models on Weather Underground have the budding storm going here there and everywhere, even in the general direction of Texas and Louisiana. Let’s hope not. We should hope all our weather guys are right and you can close the barn door on this year’s hurricane season. You see, I’m on vacation and I’ve got, at least, a few plans. I hate to sound selfish, but if not me, then who?
The WC-130 aircraft looked frighteningly huge as it ascended over the waters of the Mississippi Sound. How could something that large, flying at what appeared to be such a gradual pace, make it off the Keesler Air Force Base runway and over the beach highway in Biloxi without falling out of the sky, I used to ask myself?
They seem too big and slow to fly but they do and those of us on the Gulf Coast are grateful that they do.
I never really thought that much about what the planes were doing or where they were going. Nor did the fact that I only saw these planes fly so languidly when I hung out on a hot summer day with my friends provide a clue as to the aircrafts’ missions.
I knew, back then, that a lot of different activity went on at Keesler. I got my first pair of glasses — black, horn-rimmed ones which several later would look cool if you went for the Elvis Costello look— at Keesler because the dispensary at the Seabee base didn’t have an opthamologist or even an optometrist.
My homeboy, Jonathan, who lived with his first wife and then-baby girl over in Biloxi, attended air traffic control school at Keesler during a hitch in the Air Force. After I got back from Sea duty, one of my office subordinates on the ship transferred to Keesler to attend Chaplain’s Assistant school even though he was in the Navy.
But only years later would I figure out that those huge, slow planes that I saw at some time during summers on the Mississippi Gulf Coast beach were so important to my life when I decided to be a p’ert-near coast resident.
Those planes I saw, but didn’t know or particularly care what they were for back then, were Hurricane Hunters.
The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadronat Keesler fly the WC-130s, or Lockheed Martin WC-130J Hercules if you want to get technically anal about it, into tropical systems to detect vital information which helps hurricane forecasters determine what a storm might do and where it might go. Often the Air Force Reserve crews manning the aircraft will fly right into the eye of a hurricane. You might think “calm” when talking about the eye until you remember you have the hurricane surrounding you.
This is one of those days, today, you might see one of these big slow planes take off and ever so slowly climb up into the sky over the Mississippi Sound and its barrier islands. A National Hurricane Center advisory around noon Central Daylight Time indicated an Air Force reconnaissance plane was approaching a low pressure center between Grand Cayman and Honduras. The NHC has given the system an 80 percent chance for tropical cyclone development.
Of course, the cable news media is all over the possibility of a storm like a gecko on an insurance commercial. That is because of the massive BP oil spill that continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico and onto land from Louisiana to Florida.
My most not-favorite CNN anchor, Rick Sanchez, was making much ado about this not-even-tropical depression and the hurricane “models” which are already predicting paths for what could become the first named storm of the season. If it be comes a tropical storm it would be named Alex. The weather woman on CNN is at this moment as I write this saying which model would be “preferable” as for where the storm may go. She means what would be the best track for the storm, if there is a storm, as it might affect the oil spill and limit subsequent damage, if there is damage and if there is a storm. That is truly putting the dog before the pony show. The reason is that the models of where this storm might head currently extend from Tampico, Mexico, to Apalachicola, Florida. That’s a lot of ground, uh, water to cover and it includes the area in which I live.
In just the last five years I have been through three hurricanes, a tropical storm and four or five evacuations, if you count all those folks who came to this area from Hurricane Katrina until being chased away by Hurricane Rita. If I left out a storm, I apologize.
Don’t get me wrong. I am concerned about the BP gusher as I have been for awhile and not just for the oil-covered pelicans although I hate to see the environment f**ked up. But I am likewise concerned for my neighbors here on the Upper Texas Coast. That is why I am glad those building-sized, puzzling slow Air Force-looking planes I used to see when I was a young sailor are out there flying with confidence in the Gulf of Mexico hunting hurricanes. The information that those airmen out of Keesler gather is important to a lot of people and probably more folks than usual — because of the BP spill in the Gulf — await what comes from the storms that the Hurricane Hunters risk their lives to investigate.
A fast-moving snow came through our normally snow-deprived area Friday and left about a 1/4 inch. Unfortunately, there was little left for a photograph as what was left on the ground was in the dark and by the time I got out of bed the next day the snow was long gone. Such are Gulf Coast snows. At least we got to share our snow with my friends up in the Northeast. My friend Sally, in Western Massachusetts told me she enjoyed the first snow of the year which was thanks to the same potent weather system.
Otherwise the weekend was one of mostly watching all my football teams go down in flames save one. The Longhorns squeaked by Nebraska and thus will play in the National Championship against the Crimson Tide. I have to be almost apologetic in saying that I root for Texas because, as most of my friends are Republicans while I am a proud Democrat, most of my friends and relatives are also Aggies. Many are such Texas A & M fans that they will root for any team but “TU” or what they call The University of Texas (at Austin). That I don’t understand. It seems like we are all Texans and we would support a fellow Texas team fighting for the national title. But not so many Aggies.
My high school fell in quarterfinals. I wasn’t surprised because Newton played No. 1 Daingerfield. My college alma mater, Stephen F. Austin was destroyed in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs — formerly NCAA Div. I-A — by No. 1 Montana. University of Houston was beaten by Eastern Carolina for the Conference USA championships. Last but certainly least in the NFL, my Texans got whipped by Jacksonville and slipped to 5-7.
So yes that one-second nail-biter between the Cornhuskers and the Longhorns was my little bright light. Well, the Saints won in overtime but I didn’t get to see that because Fox cut completely the Saints’ exciting OT finish off for the Cowboys miserable loss to the Giants. I mean, I like Wade Phillips and all but give me a break.
Needless to say it was a disappointing weekend. Not much snow. My favorite teams were mostly left trampled in the mud. My feet continue to hurt including my non-broken toe that feels now like a broken foot. Yet, the world continues to turn. One cannot watch cable TV news without everything being laid down in the context of politics. With every breath that Obama takes a new poll is released. Will his exhales excite the independent white Christian women or will his inhaling raise his numbers with the black male Muslim upper class cross dressers? Stay tuned. I’m sure we will find out eventually.
