October 31st. All my life I have looked forward to October 31st. While other children loved Christmas, I loved nothing more than Halloween. It was the one night a year when you could stay out after dark and terrorize neighbors without any consequence. Not only could you terrorize them, they rewarded you with candy. What holiday can possibly top Halloween? Now, October 31st represents a new wonderful event….the official last day of hurricane season! When you live on a boat, weather is the most important thing and no one with any sense ever questions it. For insurance purposes, there is a “hurricane zone” which is shaped like a large rectangle (see picture below). As you can see, Grenada is where we have been since July and it is just below the box. That does not mean that hurricanes do not come through Grenada but they are rare and usually have not had time to build into a strong force. If you are caught in a named storm within the hurricane zone, most insurances will not pay any claims. Which brings me to the so-called “increase in storms” due to climate change. All the studies I have read since beginning our adventure (and old timers I have talked to) agree that the increase in storms is due to our ability to track and monitor storms in the modern age (1). In the past, storms that did not make landfall were only reported if a ship happened to be passing through the area of the storm. Now, we can track storms the moment they begin to form off the coast of Africa. We monitor the storms diligently throughout the season and more often than not, the storms swing out to sea before ever causing any issues which means those storms would never have been known in earlier times. Storm names come from a list that was adopted in 1953 (males were added in 1979) and the list repeats itself every six years. Storms that are particularly violent and deadly are retired and replaced with other names. For example, Katrina and Hugo were retired and I would bet that Ida will be retired after this year as well. So, when you hear the news begin the “panic porn” over a named storm, take a minute to review the track possibilities in depth before you panic. Most of the time, they are reported as “approaching the US at a rapid pace” but the news neglects to report that the majority of tracking predictions see the storm swerving out to sea. For example, this year, 17 named storms were predicted. Named storms do NOT mean hurricanes. You may be surprised to learn that there were 14 named storms and only five of those storms reached hurricane wind levels and only three made landfall in the States. One was Ida in New Orleans which was a big one and the others were Elsa and Nicholas that weakened quickly once they made landfall. We felt very blessed this year to have only had a few strong winds during Elsa and no major issues here in the Caribbean. We are very ready to get back on the move and look forward to figuring out where we will land for Christmas!
Until then, we finish all our projects this week and then we are on a plane back to the States for our usual Thanksgiving festivities! We have added in a side trip to the Mayan Riviera so I am sure we will have some beautiful pictures to share upon our return. Until then, there will be no blog until December so have a wonderful Halloween and Thanksgiving!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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