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The official hurricane season starts today and extends until the end of November. The weather-folk are figuring for a thicker season with eight or more named storms. It’s one of the risks we take living here in South Florida – or anywhere along the Atlantic coastline.

I could cope with a little misting, after yesterday’s heat wave.

Forecasters: Use Internet, but rely on our analysis

On the brink of another hurricane season, forecasters advised Internet users to gather information about tropical weather but leave the analysis to professionals.

The nation’s leading hurricane forecaster loves this cartoon: It’s called ”Weather Office of The Future” and it shows a computer, a forecaster and a dog.

”The computer’s job is to do the forecast. The forecaster’s job is to feed the dog,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. “And the dog’s job is to keep the forecaster from touching the computer.”

He hastens to add that forecasting hasn’t quite reached that degree of automation, but with another six-month hurricane season beginning Tuesday, many South Floridians will sit at their computers, dig through a wealth of data on the Internet and believe they are deducing the future strength and direction of a storm.

The advice from professionals: If you must try this at home (or in the office), at least pay attention to the analysis of trained meteorologists and guidance from experienced emergency managers. In other words, don’t discount the importance of human expertise.

”It’s good that people have access to the information,” Mayfield said, “and a certain percentage of those people will try to make their own forecasts. But studies show that most people base their actions on the advice of local officials — and that’s just what they should do.”

Those local officials include emergency managers in each county, augmented by a large corps of government and private meteorologists.

In addition to the forecasters at the hurricane center in West Miami-Dade County, South Florida is fortunate to have extremely able hurricane experts at local television stations and at The Weather Channel on cable television.

Residents who surf websites dedicated to tropical weather are well-advised to listen to the experts’ interpretation of what is happening out there in the Atlantic, the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico. These professional forecasters take their responsibilities seriously. ”When you’re telling somebody that it’s heading to the coast, that’s fine,” said Steve Lyons, The Weather Channel’s tropical weather program manager. “But when you paint it on the screen and people at home are taping it and freeze-framing it and making an evacuation decision based on it, there is a huge responsibility to get it right.”

And there might be plenty of opportunities this year for the experts to demonstrate their expertise.

Government and private forecasters expect a busier than usual season, with 12 to 15 tropical storms that become six to eight hurricanes, including two to four intense hurricanes with wind above 110 mph. The long-term annual average is 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes.

As the accompanying article shows, a variety of websites can help residents of the hurricane zone anticipate what might happen and how to respond to it.

The National Hurricane Center’s site — www.nhc.noaa.gov — registers many millions of hits a day when a storm threatens the coast, and sites run by local weather offices also become extremely busy.

In addition, Web surfers can see near real-time satellite photos of tropical threats and, when a storm is close to shore, real-time radar images — including one from Havana at www.met.inf.cu/radar.asp

”There are a lot of sites out there,” said Tony Carper, director of Broward County’s Emergency Management Agency. “But I would always encourage everyone to pay attention to the forecasts from the National Hurricane Center and from your local forecast office.

“Heed the watches and warnings that are coming form those entities and always try to understand the total picture.”

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Diseases Database: described as “a cross-referenced index of human disease, medications, symptoms, signs, abnormal investigation findings etc”.

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Map24 is a fascinating piece of mapping software.. reminds me of a non-sat-mapped version of the stuff used by ACIM. I can see why it won a webby for Technical Achievement. I’m not sure why it uses email, but my firewall blocks it, and the software functions just fine. I imagine it’s a way to collect data on most viewed areas.

Other nations: UK version – Belgian – German – Danish – Dutch  – Finnish – French – Italian – Swedish

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Awesome Bollywood Vanilla coke ad. (real player) WAKAW! Ice Creamy Thanda!

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The Statistic of one of every 75 men in prison (USA) amazes me.

I wonder if penal colonies are an option any more?

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Dadaist Cut-up Garfield Comic Strip Creator.

Wow, I really like these more than the source material.

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Well, I thought Danny kind of hosed me on my day off… I thought we were going to spend some time together, but plans changed and he worked around the house instead until the late afternoon. Launching at 3pm on a work night fairly sucks. I wonder if it was due in part to his current care needed with funds for the summer, some responsibility to cleanup or if he was feeling guilted into spending some time with the Mrs? All were probably factors. Whichever way, the remapping of my vacation time was a peeve. Instead of haunting the apartment, I decided to go for a personal expedition, and have Danno call me on the cell when he became available. I took a walk up to Riverfront, and rode the water taxi down to the Swimming hall of Fame. Dan and I finally got together about 4pm, and he picked me up at the Elbo Room Where I was hanging out, people-watching and listening to the live band do a cover of Werewolves of London.

I wasn’t so annoyed once Dan arrived… I was enjoying a hot day and a cold beer… lots to see and do.. two cool crane-boats, goofy guys riding by slowly in cars trying to troll for girls in bikinis, lots of people in general enjoying the day off. I was glad that I was going to get to spend more than 45 minutes with him I was expecting.

I didn’t forget to take a minute at 3pm to contemplate Memorial Day and what it means… I’m very thankful.

After Dan Picked me up, we puttered around a little before deciding to go to the Mai-Kai for cocktails. We hung out there and talked about Godzilla, the atmosphere there, and I came home with another Tiki-man rum-punch cup to go with the rest of my collection. Our server Natalie was charming, but inept. I think she’s surviving on sugar alone. In her defense, it *was* happy hour, and the place was starting to hop.

Pictures from yesterday:

I got a little color, not to mention a little burn no my nose and upper cheeks.

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Nifty “Found Sounds” at Archive.org… categories include Nature, mechanical, contraptions, and field recording, and are growing.

Oddball Spoken word – Recordings of Dale by Milwaukee Luke who was working at a 7-Eleven (located in Milwaukee) in the mid 1990’s where Dale would shop and talk for hours. Recorded on a microcassette recorder and edited by Milwaukee Luke to feature the best conversations.

I was totally engrossed… I’ve seen quite a few people like that on the bus and in my travels through the city.

More Spoken Word.

Archive.org is wonderful stuff.