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US Travel News June 21, 2005 USATourist.com Hurricane season The annual hurricane season started early this year. On June 8 - 12, tropical storm Arlene, the first of 2005, moved out of the Carribean across the tip of Cuba and made landfall on the southern coast of the USA. Fortunately, it never reached the intensity of a hurricane and did little damage other than dumping large amounts of rainfall on the southern states. Hurricane season can extend from the beginning of June to the end of November, but most storms normally occur during the months of August through October. Hurricanes usually begin as tropical disturbances or tropical depressions in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. When they become large enough and intense enough to sustain winds above 39 mph (65 km/hr) they are classified as a tropical storm and given a name. The names are usually common names chosen in alphabetic order. This year, we began with Arlene. The next storm will bear a name beginning with "B" etc. When the sustained winds exceed 74 mph (123 km/hr), the storms are classified as hurricanes. As the hurricanes intensify they are given severity classifications of 1 to 5. A class-five hurricane is an awesome force of nature. It can sustain winds of 200 mph (330 km/hr) or more. If it lands on a coast, it can cause immense damage. Fortunately these monstrous storms are very rare. Only two class-five hurricanes hit the US mainland in the last 100 years. Most tropical disturbances never become tropical storms, and many tropical storms dissipate before they become hurricanes. The few storms that do become hurricanes seldom exceed class 1 or class 2. Unfortunately, the path of any hurricane is notoriously hard to predict. It might remain in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or drift north until it loses its energy. It might move into the Gulf of Mexico, drift out to sea or double back to assail any place along the Atlantic or Gulf coasts. Despite these forecasting problems, the National Weather Service usually furnishes one or two days warning of imminent danger to any coastal community. If you are vacationing in Florida or along the Southern Coast of the USA, you will always have ample warning of any real hurricane danger. The actual areas of intense danger are usually very narrow, and evacuations are rare. Unfortunately, the weather systems surrounding a hurricane can be immense. Hundreds of miles of eastern or gulf coastline may be deluged with incessant rain for several days as a hurricane induced weather system crawls past. That could certainly make a vacation less enjoyable. Such hurricane related weather normally affects coastal resorts several times each season. Typically, there is little you can do to avoid hurricane-related weather without making last-minute changes to your vacation plans. You can monitor the latest hurricane information by reading the National Hurricane Center web pages at: www.nhc.noaa.gov/ |