Sunday, August 16, 2009

Race Against Time

In the midst of packing, I recieve a frantic call from a friend who is desperate to escape the rock. She had checked her email and found that campus notified us (finally) about the inpending hurricane. That one, Ana, was no big deal. I'd watched it form during finals and I'd predicted it would hit some time when I was scheduled to leave.

Turns out, a second storm, Bill, has decided to grace us with it's presnce. That I wasn't aware of, and it's MUCH bigger than Ana. Super.

According to the satalite imagery on NOAA, both storms are headed for a direct Caribbean hit! Specifically, St Kitts (where mom and I are) and St Croix (where dad is). Oh fun again. I called my brother yesterday to remind him to watch the weather incase, ya know, it hit us before we got on our AA flight back to the mainland, stranding us here without electricity and forcing us to live in a mud hut underground. Hey- at this point, anything could happen and nothing would surprise me.

Fortunately, the sattelite of Ana seems much less dramatic than it was yesterday. It had a very clear eye, which is no longer obvious. Below are the storm updates that I recieved this morning (both were huricanes yesterday).

...ANA RACING WESTWARD...
8:00 AM AST Sun Aug 16
Location: 14.6°N 54.7°W
Max sustained: 40 mph
Moving: W at 20 mph
Min pressure: 1005 mb



...BILL STRENGTHENS A LITTLE...
5:00 AM AST Sun Aug 16
Location: 11.4°N 37.2°W
Max sustained: 45 mph
Moving: W at 13 mph
Min pressure: 1002 mb



If anyone needs help finding where I am, St Croix is the speck southwest next to Puerto Rico, and I'm the next speck west of that about 3 milimeters away. It coorelates to 100 miles from Puerto Rico to St Croix, with St Kitts being an addioional 150 miles. That's a big 3 milimeters. Neither of these storms compares to Hurricane Dean from 2007, so I suspect they will blow over.

Ana is supposed to hit at 8am Monday August 17 (tomorrow) before Rudder and Mango's flight, while Bill is scheduled to hit at 8am Thursday, August 20 after my, mom's, and Salty's flight.


PS: I have 5 posts that I haven't had time to polish and publish. Stay tuned for more interesting stories!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess it wasn't possible for you to leave St. Kitt's without having another brush with a hurricane. Hope you'll get through it okay.

E.

Anonymous said...

SCYC is having a storm watching lunch this Monday and Tuesday from 11AM till 2 PM. Everyone welcome except Ana and Bill.

Anonymous said...

7AM...Ana is here filling the sisterns. Some thunder. I hope it did not do any damage to you. Dad