Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi, as usual, has some out-of-the-box thinking on hurricanes, such as the saving grace of the high peaks of the Hispaniola mountain ranges:
"I can remember my [meteorologist] dad saying to me ‘[D]o you realize how much worse things would be for the southeast United States if there was no Hispaniola?’…as big as Flora [1963] was it never got its core back, nor did Inez in 1966 until it was out in the gulf and even then it never got back to what it was before Hispaniola…In 1998, Georges did battle with the island and because of that, was not the storm it could have been. And in 2005 Jeanne got tangled up there for a while."
The mountains, guarding part of the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, have skimmed the intensity of more than one big hurricane. Unfortunately, those peaks only tugged on Hurricane Dean as it passed well to the south instead of trying to cross them.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 