Looks like Old Mexico is going to get the schnitz (with Cancun turned into Rangoon), tomorrow through Thursday. Hopefully, after crossing the Yucatan’s jungled, hilly waist, however, Dean will be a shadow of its former self. At least the cenotes will get recharged.
Comments Off on Dean’s course
Posted in South of the Border, Weather/Climate
Tagged Hurricane Dean, Old Mexico, Yucatan Penninsula
All eyes are still on Dean, as it gets ready to clobber Jamaica tomorrow. Inevitably, someone has put up a page of nothing but hurricane and Gulf of Mexico graphics (some of them in motion) to facilitate the Dean watchers. Stare at them long and hard. Repeat after me: "Dean will stay away from the Texas coast. He will stay away from the Texas coast."
UPDATE: Be a voyeur. Read the "Pleas for Help" bulletin board at stormCARIB, the Caribbean Hurricane Network. Be glad you’re not there.
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Posted in Science/Engineering, South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Hurricane Dean, hurricane graphics
Dean looks like another story. Hopefully, it will hit Mexico. Terrible to hope someone else gets the grief, but there it is. Down at Port A we watched the precursor storms of Erin gather strength on Monday and Tuesday, and weathered the Weather Channel’s exaggerations, wishing all the while we had a laptop so we could be checking the Web for the detail the talking heads seldom got around to. Long on coiffed beauty and emotion and short on everything else. But when Erin arrived Thursday morning, we got about five inches of rain which mostly was gathered up by the sand. A little ponding on the roads. Nothing special. The waves were steeper–if still short–than usual, and the backwash was a little frightening, such that neither Mr. B. nor the teenage boogie boarders ventured too far into the surf. It was actually sunny by noon on Thursday, a few hours after Erin had swept ashore and fallen apart. Back here in Austin, the rancho got almost an inch of new rain from Erin’s northward careering remnants. Dean, well, it’s been Biblical in the Caribbean, so stay tuned.
UPDATE Well, Erin was a pussycat on the coast, but not in West Texas where it caused floods that killed and is doing the same thing now in Oklahoma, of all places. Almost a week later!
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Posted in South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Caribbean, Dean, Erin, Port Aransas
Leaving tomorrow on our annual trek to the beach at Port Aransas, so no posts until we return on Friday. Only glitch might be the storm brewing in the western Caribbean, which Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi, among other meteorologists, forsees sweeping into the Gulf of Mexico later in the week, possibly as a tropical storm. Maybe Dean unless an Atlantic one gets the name first. But he sees the chances of landfall as better for Mexico than the Texas coast. More tropical storm/hurricane argument here on what has been a quiet season so far. We will keep our fingers crossed that Bastardi’s right. Not like in 2004 when Ivan, crashing into western Florida and Alabama, sent huge waves across the Gulf to hit and close the beaches at Port A. I remember one almost washed away a family from West Texas who had incautiously spread out their blanket on the sand. They were awash in an instant and struggled up a dune with what remained of their stuff to escape the water.
UPDATE It looks like the name Dean may go to another storm, first, making the Gulf one (if there is a Gulf one) Erin. Unless Dean goes into the Gulf first. Which might not occur before we are back in Central Texas, which would be good. We shall see.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Accuweather, Joe Bastardi, Port Aransas
I’ll believe this when it happens:
"Local officials said recently they had been told the Homeland Security department plans to have 153 miles of wall in place in Texas by the end of 2008. While locals may be consulted on the type of fence constructed, they will not have veto power over whether the wall will be built, [director Michael] Chertoff said. ‘Because the fence is not only to protect the border communities, it’s to protect the country,’ he said."
More here. At this rate, it’ll be mid-century before they close the 2,000 mile southern border, two-thirds of it in Texas. Meanwhile, the tunneling has already begun.
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Posted in South of the Border, Texana, The War
Tagged Department of Homeland Security, southern border fence/wall, Texas
Iraq? No, Mexico’s narco wars. Can we close the border? Now?
For you birdwatchers who may have doubted the existence of these beauties, a pair on the Gallapagos Islands, photographed in 2005 by a visiting relative of mine. There are also red-footed ones, which nest in trees.
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Posted in Scribbles, South of the Border
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 