Hurricanes happen on both coasts. We say last year as the United States and Caribbean got pummeled with five intense Hurricanes. But Hurricanes have also hit us on the West Coast just below our border with Mexico. We just saw a rare early hurricane Adrian hit and pummel into Guatemala, forcing people to higher ground. Winds well over 120 miles per hour as it made land fall. The Gulf of Mexico has gotten severe Hurricanes too. http://www.pbrla.com/pasthurrs.html And then on the complete other side of America the Eastern Seaboard often get hit a couple of times per year and we all know that Hurricanes are nothing new. https://www.cnmoc.navy.mil/nmosw/tr8203nc/inglesid/text/sect3.htm http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadly6.shtml Many Hurricanes never hit land or slow down as they hit colder air right before they hit land turning into tropical storms or minor depressions and we do not have to worry about them. We should probably thank our lucky stars for if you lived in Japan, Philippines, Taiwan or on the Pacific Rim Shoreline of Asia surely you would have to worry about a much worse force, a Typhoon!!! http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean What is a typhoon and how do these differ from Hurricanes and why do we capitalize such things. Well first we capitalize them because they are natural disasters like Earthquakes, Tidal Waves, Tornadoes, Volcanoes, Tsunamis and other such terrible Mother Nature problems http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewsReleases/2000/00-60.html Even fires and floods are often named and capitalized. Think of the big fires we have battled or the huge flooding from the Mississippi river often simply named after the town with the greatest damage or deaths. This will help you differentiate the types of storms of this nature that we are discussing; http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqHED.html It is apparent that we do not teach these things in school to the degree we should, especially considering the idiots who have beach parties during Hurricanes and how many people can die in a natural disaster. I bet if we educated more people about these issues we would have enough people spending time to study them and finding methods to prevent and predict them better or even stop them. Luckily the Weather Channel plays storm stories, but you have to wonder if that entices the thrill seekers or scares people enough to seek cover? Recently we have watched two serious Typhoons approach islands and land in the Pacific Asian Shoreline at speeds exceeding 250 Kph, luckily it slowed to only 106 mph as it slammed into China's coast. That is a huge deal, with high seas and other complications. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?onNews=1&GRP=A&id=19869 But Japan received almost 20 Typhoon hits this past year and then the Earthquakes came too. 2004 was a tough year for natural disasters, we certainly felt the Hurricanes in the United States and no one will ever forget the Indonesia quake and Tsunami. People also lost their lives in the Philippines this from Typhoons and flooding. Too bad it did not hit North Korea? Just joking a little. But really we must understand that anything affecting any part of the world with that magnitude effects us indirectly, as all weather patterns within our atmosphere are like vapor inside a beach ball too close the fire. Think about it. Think about the weather and if you are a religious one, maybe you should put safe weather in your requests and prayers? |
