Long Island Hurricane History

Hi All,

Hurricane season is traditionally from June 1st to November 30th in the Northern Atlantic Ocean.  And now that the hurricane season has past - and now that we can breathe a bit easier....we can take a quick look-see at an interesting hurricane related website...Wikipedia has a great article to learn more about the Atlantic Hurricane season.

Click here for a table from Wikipedia which lists the number of hurricanes by year.  

But what's really interesting is the link to a site called Long Island Hurricane History.... the site has tables of powerful hurricanes, videos, a list of significant weather events (hurricanes, blizzards, strong wind storms, Nor'Easters, etc), satellite and radar imagery links, historical weather maps, evacuation roots, tidal surge maps and much more on the site.  Click on this link for more information about flood zones on Long Island...

Click here for a  list of hurricanes and nor'easters on Long Island.  Maximum strength, local impact of the event and the year of the event are listed in the table. Note that the table and the information come from Newsday.

Regards - and here's to having a moderately cool and somewhat snowy winter!

Stu



 

Extreme Weather

Hi All,

Check out this link from the Mother Nature Network.  Said link is titled '6 Snowstorms That Crippled the East Coast'.  Included are 2 or 3 paragraph length descriptions of the storm - interesting. And there are photos to boot!

And speaking of extremes...click on this link from USAToday to view an article titled, 'All of California in Severe Drought For 1st Time This Century'.

Extreme heat is becoming more of an issue lately...click on this link from Ready.gov for an article called 'Extreme Heat'. It'll explain how readers can deal with extreme heat and stay 'cooler'.  There is also a link for 'More Information about Extreme Heat'.

Under the rubric of extreme wind comes Tornadoes and Hurricanes.  Click on this extensive article from Wikipedia that discusses Tornadoes. The article includes definitions of funnel clouds, characteristics of tornadoes, life cycle, types and a large section on tornado detection.

One of the most reputable and well know websites about hurricanes is the National Hurricane Center. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hosts the site. I could spend whole blog entries on this extensive, current, unbiased, easily-navigable website.  However, I won't. I will, however, discuss some of the best parts of the site.

The National Hurricane Center site is available on various devices and in various formats.  There are links to Cyclone Advisories, and Audio/Podcasts,

In addition, users can find marine forecasts for the Atlantic and East Pacific.There are links for Storm Surges, Wind Scales, Most Extreme Storms and Forecast Models. And there is much, much more...

Enjoy the sites!
Regards,
Stu

High Wind Watch For Friday and Saturday

Hi All,

If you haven't realized it yet - its windy outside. Very windy in fact. Click here for a link to the Wunderground - a weather website that gives forecasts, weather news and more.

But wait, there's more. Click on this link for this weekends' weather in Farmingdale - link is from Yahoo! Weather.

If we have high winds, what does that mean for homeowners? What should they do in case of really, really strong winds?

Click on this link from the NOAA - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The information at the bottom of the page has a section for 'High Wind Safety Actions'. In this case the example is if a hurricane is approaching your region.

Some of the more obvious things that homeowners should do include bringing in all lawn furniture, barbecues, and dog houses. More info can be found on this link.

Find out if you home meets current building code requirements for high winds by clicking on this link. If you need to reinforce your garage door because of heavy wind, click here. Click here for more information about shuttering the windows on your house.

Finally, click on this link for the modern version of the Beaufort Wind Scale. If you want a really neat picture, click on the last category for a great picture of what hurricane force winds look like on the ocean!

You also might want to click on this link for the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale Summary Table - neat stuff and the categories they cover are really helpful.

Finally, you might want to click on this link for some fun 'Wind Facts'. Click here for the link to the site by the name of 'Wind' from a site called 'Clouds R Us'.

Included on the site is a table of wind chill factors, information on global wind patterns, and winds that have been named (ie. Mistral, Pampero, Levante, etc...)

I hope the links I provided blow you away :)

Regards,
Stu

Irene Preparedness

Hi All,

Sorry for the lapse in posting...Google was nice enough to force me to move the library Blogger account to a new email address. It took a bit of time to figure out how to recover the account name and password. But....we were able to do so. And here we are with another post. Unfortunately it is a hurricane preparedness post. I wish it were another 'summer day' type post that would be entertaining. We'll get to those in a bit though. Let's just get past hurricane Irene and we'll go from there.

So, without further ado, here are 6 really good links that'll get you started on how to cope with the hurricane over the next few days.

Hurricane preparedness from Nassau County Department of Emergency Management - you'll be able to download a printable version of the document.

List of hurricane evacuation shelters in Nassau County

Disaster Supply Kit

Hurricane Preparedness Checklist

Hurricane Preparedness - Nassau County again...

Utility Shut Off and Safety

Good luck and be safe and careful.

Regards,
Stu

Weather Changes and Forecasting

Hi All,

I seem to write a lot about the weather in this blog. I wonder if it is because weather plays such a large part in our lives that I write so much about it...hmmmm. I guess that is something to think about during a rainy day....

Anyway, the next few days are going to be very warm in this area of the country. Click here for a 5 day forecast for Long Island and, in particular, Farmingdale.

But the real reason I wanted to write todays' blog entry was to discuss (or at least mention) some of the traditional (and unofficial) methods that people forecast weather.

For example, click on this link for Traditional Weather Signs from a website called Gardening Matters. The author talks about various animals and how there various activities and behaviors indicate weather trends...interesting.

Another website that talks about this can be found here - the name of the site is Traditional Weather Lore Sayings of Britain. There is a whole section of weather lore and various animals - birds, pigs, cats and dogs and what there various behaviors mean with respect to the weather.

To see how far weather forecasting has come from its beginnings, click on this link from Wikipedia that discusses weather forecasting.

Finally, to learn a bit more about weather forecasting today, click on this link from the National Weather Service website - aka Weather.gov.

Notice the tabs at the top of the page...you can find links to Graphical Forecasts, National Maps, Radar, Water, Air Quality, Satellite, Climate and Warnings. Click on any of the links above to go to that part of the Weather.gov site.

So you see...weather is more than just the local weather guy on either CBS or NBC or ABC television.

Finally, this might be a popular blog entry - if so, I'll revisit the topic in the future with another related post - and possibly more detail with the NOAA.gov website...

Enjoy - and stay cool for the rest of the week.

Regards,
stu

Extreme Weather Means Extreme Planning

Hi All,

I suspect that you all know that LI i susceptible to hurricanes...well, the official start of the hurricane season starts in a few weeks (starts June 1st) and continues through November.

Because of the heavy rain this morning I was thinking about flooding - add to the fact that the Mississippi is overflowing its banks out west and well, you can understand why I'm thinking about emergency preparedness and planning. Hence this blog entry. Not too much fun to think about but it is practical, helpful, and a very timely topic.

A very, very good place to start to do research on emergency's is the Nassau County Department of Emergency Management website. Click here to visit the site.

The site is useful for its links to Emergency Preparedness, a Disaster Checklist, Hurricane Preparedness links, (click here for the Hurricane Preparedness Brochure) Evacuation Routes, Hurricane Evacuation Shelters and more.

All of these link are located on the left side of the screen - and, as of the date that I wrote this entry, were in a blue box - and under the Emergency Preparedness link in the box. Click on each topic above to link to that particular page on the Nassau County site.

I'm going to go into a bit of detail for the Disaster Checklist category that I mentioned above. It is a pretty helpful link -and it is interesting and timely. Click here for the particular link.

On this page, you'll find a section for 'Preparing a Home' in case of a emergency - including a home emergency plan, disaster supply kit, and meeting place. Another section of the page has a list for a Disaster Checklist, links to the American Red Cross, links to the Nassau County Police, and a link to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Click here for a list of Emergency Contact phone numbers on a local, state, and national level. It might be good for a quick reference type guide.

And....at a future date, I do plan to a blog entry talking about FEMA and Floodsmart.gov

Enjoy -but I hope you don't have to use these links any time soon!

Stu

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