Tryin To Reason With the 2011 Hurricane Season

Today, June 1, marks the start Hurricane Season - traditionally my most favorite and anticipated season of the year.

Every June 1 I write about hoping for the coast's long deserved and long overdue Category 6 storm that is so sorely needed along every inch of the inhabited coastline from Brownsville Texas to Calais Maine. Its a hurricane that is so strong that its never been recorded at that intensity before. My dream hurricane (the "Great Undeveloper" as Bob Ake described it one day as we drove down the North Carolina Outer Banks at the peak of hurricane season) never makes formal landfall. The center of it comes within 5 miles of the coast at the mouth of the Rio Grande on the US / Mexico border. There it moves north and east, keeping the eye five miles off shore so it retains a constant energy source. It follows and scours the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in a perfect arc along the Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coasts to the Florida Keys. There it follows the islands northeast to Key Largo where it miraculously changes course once again and follows the entire east coast of the United States (including the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay inland to Philadelphia) to Calais Maine where it becomes extratropical in the Bay of Fundy. At the conclusion of its trip along the coast it has removed all condominiums, rejuvenated the coastal sands, and cleared out the vermin known as the human race that has done so much to destroy the integrity of the coast.

For the 2011 season I'm still hoping for a great undeveloper hurricane to come ashore and cleanse the coast.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is once again predicting a more active than usual hurricane season in the Caribbean region. NOAA is giving us this prediction of activity:

We estimate a 70% probability for each of the following ranges of activity this season:

* 14-23 Named Storms,
* 8-14 Hurricanes
* 3-7 Major Hurricanes
* An ACE range of 155%-270% of the median.

Three to 7 major hurricanes is fine with me. Maybe a couple will be Category 5 storms. If they come ashore and do some reconstruction of habitats so much the better. This year I'm hoping the most damage occurs at and in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a city in dire need of huge rearrangement.

So join me in welcoming in this most auspicious and potentially regenerative season. All day today I will be playing this classic song by Jimmy Buffett each hour at the top of the hour to help welcome in the season. You might consider doing the same.