Chantal

To compensate for the poor quality of our Internet service provider, and the equally poor quality of our telephone service provider (not surprisingly, the same outfit), I usually find myself on line in the morning. Early in the day, there tends to be less traffic on both sides, and download times are about as good as you are going to get. I use this half hour opportunity most mornings to process the electro-mail, check the headlines at CNN and at the Onion, and check out a few old Mr. Boffos from the archives.

On cue, My Yahoo lets me know that I am still warmer than you. In fact, I have only noticed two days this summer (winter comparisons being moot) when I was not, local temperatures being surpassed by those in the Twin Cities on those rare occasions.

It is August in the Tropics, however, and our recent typical temperature range has been remaining steady with a low of 28 and a high of 35 (82 to 95 for those Fahrenheit-ites out there), every day for a couple of weeks. These high averages tend to heat the sea around us and the ocean to the east of us and, for a variety of mostly unfathomable meteorological reasons, the atmosphere becomes unstable, and I figure that it is time for a visit to the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC’s) web site.

Well, I suppose that the reasons behind the weather are not all that unfathomable. Regardless, unfathomable is a fairly cool word. Unlike the vast majority of the others, it mixes both comprehension and seafaring.

“Arrgh! The waters, Cap’n, they be unfathomable.”

“Abast! Shiver me timbers and shut yer blow hole, ya swab!”

For most of the year, the NHC site (www.nhc.noaa.gov) is good for infrared satellite images of the Caribbean and Gulf basins, looking north well past Raleigh, south to Panama City, west to Brownsville and east to almost Africa. From this, you can see the larger cloud formations, and the blacks, whites and grays make nice wallpaper, changing every day, yet with the same basis.

The other day, though, the change to this image was obvious, as a dense circular mass had appeared and was looming just east of the Windward Islands. Obviously, something afoul was afoot - perhaps just a mass of rain, or perhaps something stronger.

Oh, yes, perhaps something much stronger.

I flash to another page at the same site, where I see that the NHC has given the cloud a name, “Tropical Depression Four”, the fourth such named occurrence this season. The season,... of course,... of the hurricane.

[Cue lightening flashes, thunder and scary storm music]

Early that afternoon, the wife called to tell me that she was going to the grocerama. Typically, not so odd an event, and completely expected once she informs me that the androgynous cloud formally known as “Tropical Depression Four” is now a somewhat butch tropical storm named “Chantal”, heading ever more rapidly towards the Windward Islands and then, most notably per the current predictions, towards our little island paradise.

“Buy some bottled water”, I recommend.

One large difference between hurricanes and other heavy weather is that the Federal Government gives plenty of notice (what the local government gives us is a second hand report on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report). Rare is the hurricane, nee tropical storm, nee tropical depression, that is not predicted three or more days before landfall. This is quite unlike my experience with tornados, where you can learn to recognize the conditions favorable for their formation, but then they pop out of the front at random, giving the population scant minutes to grab the cats and the radio and hustle down to the storm cellar.

Growing up in the Midwest, school was often interrupted by tornado drills, where we learned our lesson as to how we duck and cover and hope it hits someone else. As an adult in the Midwest, I came to expect the late afternoon wail of the warning siren and knew what to do when it sounded - grab the cats, head for the cellar, duck and cover and hope it hits someone else.

Things are less uptight here, or just less organized. The last hurricane to impact the island hit in 1988, when Gilbert stopped by to rearrange the furniture, relocate some utilities and harvest the banana crop. Last year, there was not even a tropical storm watch, and no threat of local destruction (by the weather only, self-destruction in Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston is a different matter). Needless to say, the shopping excursion was undoubtedly premature by local standards, but it did help us avoid any last minute rush, and we got rice and peas to last a month or two.

Now, if only there was a hurricane.

Chantal, it turns out, was just a sissy little tropical storm, who lost her bluster once she hit the Windward Islands, and was quickly downgraded to big cloud status. The season is young, though, and there are normally seven to ten named storms each year, so we may still get pummeled.

Until then, we will keep our mouse balls clean, our eyes on the maps, and eat rice and peas.

That is, unless she happens to get riled and get herself upgraded again to tropical storm in the last twelve hours, on her way to a class two hurricane, which should hit the island this evening sometime.

Time to batten, land lubbers.

That is, unless she changes course again and misses the island altogether. Read More......