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July 14, 2008

Tracking Catastrophes

Meant to mention this sooner, but one of my favorite morning spots to check is RMS's new-ish Current Cat Activity. Keep in mind, of course, that "cat" is short for "catastrophe", and so it's not a tracker for deranged felines. Anyway, good stuff on the latest big things happening on the globe, from floods to hurricanes, and everything in-between.

Here's an example from earlier today:

7/14/2008, East Pacific - Elida reached hurricane status today, making it the second hurricane of the East Pacific 2008 season. At 09:00 UTC (02:00 am PDT) the center of Elida was located near 16.2N 108.2W, about 335 miles (535 km) south-southwest of the Cabo Corrientes (Mexico) and 475 miles (765 km) south-southeast of the southern tip of Baja, California, with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 km/hr), and an estimated minimum central pressure of 987 mb. Elida is moving toward the west northwest at 16 mph (26 km/hr) and is expected to continue on this course over the next 24 to 48 hours with a gradual decrease in forward speed. Little change in strength is expected within the next 24 hours although some additional strengthening is possible in the short-term as suggested by all of the available intensity models. In a day or so, Elida will move over cooler waters and this should result in gradual weakening. Elida’s west-northwest motion is due to steering by a mid-level ridge over Northern Mexico. This ridge is due to build westward during the next few days but not quite as fast as Elida’s westward motion and so this should result in a continued west-northwest motion with a slower forward speed. In 2-3 days Elida is expected to turn more towards the west as it is steered by lower level flow. There is good agreement of the track guidance models, suggesting Elida will continue to move away from land. RMS will continue to monitor Elida but will only update this report if Elida is predicted to impact land.

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