CSU Forecasters Predict 4 Major Atlantic Hurricanes, With One Making U.S. Landfall
Posted by Willie Drye on April 10, 2013 Meteorologists at Colorado State University think as many as four major hurricanes with winds exceeding 110 mph will form in the Atlantic Basin during an active 2013 hurricane season. And they think it’s likely that at least one of those catastrophic storms will make landfall somewhere on the U.S. coast from Maine to Texas. CSU meteorologists…
CSU Researchers Say Sandy Wasn’t Influenced By Global Warming
Posted by Willie Drye on December 7, 2012 Researchers at Colorado State University say the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in October was not caused by human-induced climate change. In a recently released paper discussing the unusual “super-storm” that devastated the New Jersey shore and flooded the New York City subway and a traffic tunnel, CSU researchers William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say…
Powerful Hurricanes Such As Sandy and ‘Black Swan’ Storms Could Alter U.S. Coastline
Posted by Willie Drye on December 4, 2012 
Scientists and meteorologists examining data from Hurricane Sandy think the massive super-storm that caused widespread devastation from North Carolina to New York City in October could be a harbinger of changes for the U.S. coastline. Exactly how those changes might unfold isn’t clear. But some scientists who study hurricanes and coastal environments outlined some possibilities at…
Trying To Out-Guess A Storm At Sea Is A Risky Gamble
Posted by Willie Drye on November 6, 2012 As Hurricane Sandy pounded its way up the Atlantic Coast last week, a tragic and compelling sidebar to the hurricane’s devastation was the loss of two lives and a replica of a historic wooden tall ship in the treacherous waters off the coast of North Carolina. Questions have been raised about whether Robin Walbridge, the…
A Timeline of Hurricane Sandy’s Path of Destruction
Posted by Willie Drye on November 2, 2012 Hurricane Sandy will be remembered as a raging freak of nature that became one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history. Here is a timeline from Sandy’s birth deep in the Caribbean Sea to its dissipation over Pennsylvania nine days later. October 22 A tropical depression forms in the southern Caribbean Sea off…
Hurricane Sandy’s Expected Impacts
Posted by Willie Drye on October 29, 2012 Here is a compilation of Hurricane Sandy’s expected impacts produced by Early Alert, an emergency management consulting service based in Islamorada, Florida. The highest storm surges are most likely to occur tonight through Tuesday morning during high tide. Major coastal flooding causing road closures, inundation and damage to structures is expected along the coasts of New…
Hurricane Sandy Will Join Other Storms That Were Rare Freaks Of Nature
Posted by Willie Drye on October 29, 2012 A phenomenal set of meteorological coincidences has turned Hurricane Sandy into an epic storm, but there have been a few other tempests that have greatly benefitted from similarly freakish conditions. And as bad as Hurricane Sandy will be, at least the technology is available to detect, monitor and track it. Earlier “storms of the…
Hurricane Sandy Could Be One of Most Destructive Storms in Many Years
Posted by Willie Drye on October 26, 2012 As Hurricane Sandy moves from the Bahamas into the Atlantic Ocean, unusual weather conditions in the upper atmosphere could turn the storm toward major U.S cities and make it one of the most destructive hurricanes to strike the U.S. East Coast in many years. Sandy is expected to stay well offshore for the next two days as…
$450,000 In Private Donations Will Allow Excavation Of Blackbeard’s Ship To Continue
Posted by Willie Drye on October 19, 2012 A spur-of-the-moment donation today of $32,500 allowed the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to meet its fund-raising goal of $450,000 to continue excavating the wreckage of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the flagship of the legendary 18th-century pirate Blackbeard. The contribution from Rita and Eric Bigham, a retired couple who divide their time between…
Isaac Still Battering Gulf Coast; Tornadoes, Flooding Feared As Storm Moves Inland
Posted by Willie Drye on August 30, 2012 
After making landfall Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane in southeastern Louisiana, Tropical Storm Isaac’s slow crawl northward from the Gulf Coast is causing significant flooding and some wind damage, as well as a threat of tornadoes. “The slow motion has been exacerbating the problem here,” said Keith Blackwell, meteorologist at the University of South Alabama’s…
Minimal-Hurricane Isaac Could Be Over-Achiever in Damages
Posted by Willie Drye on August 29, 2012 
Hurricane Isaac is on the bottom rung of the scale used to rank hurricanes’ destructive potential, but the damage it inflicts on the U.S. Gulf Coast during the next 24 hours could make it an over-achiever. Hurricane Isaac made landfall late yesterday afternoon in southeastern Louisiana as a minimal hurricane with winds of about 80…
Computers Puzzled About Isaac’s Likely Path
Posted by Willie Drye on August 26, 2012 Meteorologists trying to forecast the path of Tropical Storm Isaac are puzzled because the computer programs they use to predict where a storm will go are giving them very different results. Keith Blackwell, a meteorologist at the University of South Alabama’s Coastal Weather Research Center in Mobile, said the disgreement between hurricane forecasting programs — known as “models”…
Isaac Lashes Haiti, Heads for Florida Keys and Gulf Coast
Posted by Willie Drye on August 25, 2012 Tropical Storm Isaac could strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the U.S. Gulf Coast, and the movement of two weather systems over the U.S. mainland will determine where the storm goes ashore next week. The movement of the low pressure systems could cause Isaac to move a little more westward, said Keith Blackwell, meteorologist at…
Haiti, U.S. Gulf Coast Prepare for Isaac
Posted by Willie Drye on August 24, 2012 As Tropical Storm Isaac bears down on Haiti with near-hurricane force winds, residents of the U.S. Gulf Coast prepare for a likely visit by the storm next week. Isaac is expected to cause widespread flooding wherever it makes landfall. As of 5 p.m., the storm’s center was just off the southern coast of Haiti. The…
Isaac May Become Major Hurricane in Gulf
Posted by Willie Drye on August 23, 2012 
Tropical Storm Isaac could intensify into a major hurricane with winds exceeding 110 mph (177 kph) and threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida by the middle of next week — the seventh anniversary of devastating Hurricane Katrina. Meteorologists think Tampa, Florida — where the Republican National Convention will begin Monday — is less likely…
Forecasters Think At Least 2 Major Hurricanes Could Form Before Season’s End
Posted by Willie Drye on August 9, 2012 Forecasters at Colorado State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration think at least two major hurricanes with winds exceeding 110 mph (about 177 kph) will form in the Atlantic Basin — which includes the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean — before the 2012 hurricane season ends. The updated CSU…
Debby’s Downpour Drenching Florida
Posted by Willie Drye on June 26, 2012 Tropical Storm Debby, expected to come ashore later today on Florida’s Gulf Coast, has dumped more than two feet of rain in some places and caused flooding south of Tallahassee, Florida as it has meandered slowly along the Florida Panhandle. The snail’s-pace movement of the storm at about 3 mph since Sunday has allowed Debby to drench…
Uncertainty about Tropical Storm Debby’s Path Causing Worries on Gulf Coast
Posted by Willie Drye on June 24, 2012 Hurricane forecasters are warning of tropical storm-force winds of at least 35 mph (56 kph) by late Monday from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, but caution that Tropical Storm Debby’s path is very uncertain as it churns through the Gulf of Mexico toward a likely landfall somewhere on the Gulf Coast later this week. That…
13 Named Storms, 2 Major Hurricanes Predicted for Summer of 2012
Posted by Willie Drye on June 1, 2012 Despite two unusual tropical storms forming in May, forecasters at Colorado State University think only two major hurricanes could form in the Atlantic Basin during a tropical storm season that isn’t expected to be as active as recent summers. In their forecast released earlier today, CSU forecasters Phil Klotzbach and William Gray predicted that 13 named…
Names and Faces Suggested for Monitor Sailors
Posted by Willie Drye on March 6, 2012 As the 150th anniversary of a pivotal Civil War naval battle approaches, forensic experts at Louisiana State University have put faces on the remains of two men who served aboard the USS Monitor, the revolutionary ironclad warship that fought the Confederate dreadnought CSS Virginia to a draw during the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862.…
For USS Monitor Conservators, the Work Gets Personal
Posted by Willie Drye on December 19, 2011 In the stormy early morning hours of New Year’s Eve 1862, the USS Monitor slipped beneath huge waves off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The ironclad ship that changed naval warfare during the American Civil War capsized as it descended into the infamous “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” and its famous gun turret separated from the hull…
U.S. again lucky during active hurricane season
Posted by Willie Drye on November 30, 2011 The hurricane season that ends today marks the second consecutive year when an above-average number of storms have formed and most of them stayed harmlessly offshore from the U.S. coast. “Enjoy it while you can,” said Jeff Masters, meteorological director for the website Weather Underground. “It will not last forever.” The 2011 hurricane season was…
Completion of Blackbeard Excavation May Depend on Corporate Funding
Posted by Willie Drye on November 2, 2011 A 2,000-pound cannon hauled up from the wreck of Blackbeard’s flagship off the North Carolina coast last week has stirred more interest in the infamous 18th-century pirate and brought more visitors to Beaufort, a small seaport near the site of the wreck. And since state funding for the work on the Queen Anne’s Revenge has…
Forecasters Predict 70 Percent Likelihood of Major Hurricane Striking US This Summer
Posted by Willie Drye on August 6, 2011 Forecasters at Colorado State University in Fort Collins say there’s a 70 percent probability that a major hurricane will make landfall somewhere on the U.S. Gulf or Atlantic coast before hurricane season ends in November. CSU forecasters Phil Klotzbach and William Gray also said the counties with the highest possibility of a hurricane landfall are along…
USS Monitor’s Innovative Engine Being Restored at Virginia Museum
Posted by Willie Drye on July 5, 2011 On December 31, 1862, a fierce winter storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina extinguished the fires powering the steam engine of the USS Monitor, a warship packed with cutting-edge technology of the mid-19th century. With no engine to run its pumps, the ship that had fought one of history’s most famous naval battles and perhaps…
