Three days to go and we may break an all-time hurricane record.

The longest any hurricane season has gone without a named hurricane occuring anywhere in the Atlantic Basin is September 11th.

My new dock is still standing when I thought it would only last one hurricane, and it was built after Dennis. It has been an amazing gap, and you can bet Citizens is building some incredible reserves. Once they fill the coffers, the state will try to lure private insurance carriers to come back and close down citizens and reap an incredible profit.

Dang. We missed breaking the record by three lousy hours.

I have a friend who builds docks. I worked for him after I got out of the Marines. None of the stuff he has built has been destroyed.

Dr. Jeff Masters is the meteorologist and hurricane expert who flew with the Hurricane Hunters for four years and co-founded Weather Underground.
Here's his prediction of what we can expect now.

Forecast for the next two weeks: below average activity
The main reason for the quiet first half of the season has been the large amount of dry, stable air over the Atlantic. The primary source of this dry air has been the Sahara desert of Africa. However, dry air from Northeast Brazil may also have contributed, argues wunderblogger Lee Grenci. That region of the country experienced a record $8.3 billion drought in 2013--the most expensive natural disaster in Brazil's history. Even with all the dry air we've seen over the Atlantic in 2013, it is really remarkable that activity has been so low when all of the other factors--lack of an El Niño, wind shear near climatological averages, an active African Monsoon spitting out plenty of tropical waves, and above average ocean temperatures--have favored development. Instability increased over the tropical Atlantic over the last few days of August and the first week of September, thanks to the influence of the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO), a pattern of increased thunderstorm activity near the Equator that moves around the globe in 30 - 60 days. Instability was also boosted by a Convectively Coupled Kelvin Wave (CCKW) that brought rising air to the Atlantic. This increase in instability helped the formation of Gabrielle, Humberto, and Tropical Depression Eight, and may help boost the odds of a potential tropical storm forming this weekend over the Southwestern Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche. The influence of the MJO is fading over the Atlantic, though. Beginning next week, we will be entering a phase of the MJO where it will likely bring more stable, sinking air to the Tropical Atlantic. This suppressed phase of the MJO could last through the first week of October. The models are also pointing to another outbreak of dry air from the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) coming off the coast of Africa this weekend, which will keep the Tropical Atlantic dryer than usual next week. The steering pattern over the next two weeks features a strong trough of low pressure over the U.S. East Coast, giving high odds that any hurricane that manages to form and approach the U.S. will recurve out to sea, without affecting any land areas. So keep your fingers crossed--we're doing unusually well for this point in the hurricane season, with no landfalling hurricanes, and it looks like we have above average chances of keeping it that way deep into September.

That sounds really, really good, Bob, but I still remember Opal, Oct.4 and just can't relax yet............... Hate this time of year!

Bob it's all because I broke down and bought that damn generator, never used it. I guess if I bought the whole house generator we would be off the hurricane path entirely.

Joanimaroni wrote:Bob it's all because I broke down and bought that damn generator, never used it. I guess if I bought the whole house generator we would be off the hurricane path entirely.

Next Spring--buy the whole house generator!

Our neighbor in Huntsville had a very large propane tank in his back yard that could power his generator. In Huntsville it's the tornadoes that put the power out and we went a week without power when those big ones hit a couple of years ago.

I know two people who bought the whole house generators.
If you buy one that runs off natural gas (most of them) be sitting down when you get the gas bill after it's on for any length of time.

Without a generator, I arrived home from Tampa just 2 days after Hurricane Ivan. There were 12 people at my house, I shudder to think how many I would have with a whole house generator.

I'd say to deny you have one, but they are pretty obvious and so loud you can't really hide them. I can remember how peaceful it was in our neighborhood the day after the tornadoes hit (thank God, they didn't hit Huntsville that badly, although power was out everywhere). It was so quiet. The weather was a perfect sunny 75 or so degrees all the rest of that week. So we didn't need AC. We had a gas grill that we had just filled the tank on...so we cooked up everything in the fridge. We played board games, listened to the radio. Cell phones didn't work. Actually it was pretty neat. And then about 2-3 days into it, some of the neighbors had gotten generators. And there went the peace and quiet.

stormwatch89 wrote: I still remember Opal, Oct.4 and just can't relax yet.

That's true.  But Opal was a Cape Verde storm born off the coast of Africa on September 11th.  If Masters' assessment holds true,  even if a Cape Verde storm develops this late it will likely curve north and miss the U.S.  

About the only thing to worry about now is a storm forming in the Caribbean or the lower Gulf.  But the good news is that no major storm of that kind has ever impacted our area.  So the odds are definitely now on our side that the threat of a bad one is over with for this year.

I feel like ive been through a hurricane --had problems all week with power --yesterday all day no power---all week it kept going off --I had someone put a new breaker in ---boy did I get in trouble --5 min after he did it gulf power called--did you take the meter out I said ummm maybe

then I got a lecture--and they said ok then my meter got real hot again -they showed up the next day ---I was like ohhh nooo so they wanted to take my meter --but they left it in till Monday-- $1000 later and my lights are fine geeze----they had to rebuild the whole thing all the way up--and that is a discount -usually runs double that amount --the whole box had to be replaced everything right when I couldn't hardly breathe and ready to get a motel room they showed up I was sooo hot.

Oh no, Cool. Sorry about your troubles. I know very little about electricity. But we are doing a kitchen remodel and you know how things snowball when you start these projects.   You think you're spending $300 on an over the range microwave but then it turns into an extra $700 for a new electrical panel that's needed. And our box outside is not in great shape either, so it will need to be replaced at some point.

cool1 wrote:I feel like ive been through a hurricane --had problems all week with power --yesterday all day no power---all week it kept going off --I had someone put a new breaker in ---boy did I get in trouble --5 min after he did it gulf power called--did you take the meter out I said ummm maybe

then I got a lecture--and they said ok  then my meter got real hot again -they showed up the next day ---I was like ohhh nooo so they wanted to take my meter --but they left it in till Monday-- $1000 later and my lights are fine geeze----they had to rebuild the whole thing all the way up--and that is a discount -usually runs double that amount --the whole box had to be replaced everything right when I couldn't hardly breathe and ready to get a motel room they showed up I was sooo hot.

5 minutes later they called? Wow, that's kind of scary.

Bob wrote:

About the only thing to worry about now is a storm forming in the Caribbean or the lower Gulf.  But the good news is that no major storm of that kind has ever impacted our area.  

Well I've now learned that aint exactly true. No direct hits, but two hurricanes which formed in the Caribbean did have some impact on us.

The 1906 hurricane formed on Septemper 19th and made landfall in Gulfport on September 29th as a category 2.

And the 1916 storm formed on June 29th and made landfall in Pascagoula on July 11th as a category 2.

The new meters they have the new system they have --oh man they told me when you take the meter out --they know right then--one guy came out the same day right after and put the tag back on geeze! The electrician told me in the old days you could get away with a lot not now though!

I kid you not five minutes the phone wrang ! we did some fix up work here to and had this pool pump going and well my meter ran hot hot and they can tell that to --mm you wont know it they just pulled up the second day -I guess they were trying to see if we were messing with it ---he had the meter in his hand and said I need to take this with me  

Well he put it back if we promised to call an electrician Monday -- so that's what we did --My husbands employer called someone for us all I know is I got a deal and im glad about that , still high when you have to put that kind of money out im feeling it  

Nekochan wrote:Oh no, Cool.  Sorry about your troubles.  I know very little about electricity.  But we are doing a kitchen remodel and you know how things snowball when you start these projects.    You think you're spending $300 on an over the range microwave but then it turns into an extra $700 for a new electrical panel that's needed.  And our box outside is not in great shape either, so it will need to be replaced at some point.

oh my goodness !

After further reading, the 1906 hurricane, even though the center crossed at Pascagoula, put a real bad hurting on Pensacola.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_Mississippi_hurricane

This is what the harbor at Pensacola looked like...

cool1 wrote:

Nekochan wrote:Oh no, Cool.  Sorry about your troubles.  I know very little about electricity.  But we are doing a kitchen remodel and you know how things snowball when you start these projects.    You think you're spending $300 on an over the range microwave but then it turns into an extra $700 for a new electrical panel that's needed.  And our box outside is not in great shape either, so it will need to be replaced at some point.

oh my goodness !

5 minutes....unbelievable.  

Yes, a new panel but I guess it's just as well to have a new panel in this older house.   Now I can plug things in without worrying about it.   Something about putting the microwave over the range...our old panel couldn't handle it. The microwave has a convection oven in it as well.  We bought it at the Sears Outlet store in Jax at a good price.  Thought it would be handy to roast a chicken in or do a little baking in.  But I've read the instructions for operating the convection part and I don't understand them.  One place in the instructions it says you can use metal pans and then in the next paragraph it says to use microwave safe pans.  I read over the instructions several times to make sure I wasn't missing something or misunderstanding the instructions and I sill didn't understand.  So then I gave the instructions to hubby and asked him if he was confused too...and he said YES.  The instructions for the convection part of the oven make no sense to either of us.  But the microwave part works well.  Makes very good popcorn.  lol.  That's all we've really used it for since it was put in last week.   But I have to say it's nice to get the microwave off of the counter top.  Makes my counters much roomier.