*********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Clouds are the mountains of Florida for the eyes that long for peaks, And the skies are poems composed by God in the language that beauty speaks." -------Don Blanding, _Skies above Florida_, (1941) *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Every year the tropical hurricane - a major source of natural disasters - becomes a seasonal topic of fascination, awe, and sometimes fear, as it reminds residents of the coastal zone of the need for awareness of hurricane hazards. However, because a hurricane occurrence at any one location is a rare event, public response to it is more that of fascination than of fear, and uncertainty about the need for individual actions." _The Hurricane and Its Impact_, 1981, R. Simpson and H. Riehl *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "There's a 40% chance that I'm a meteorologist." --- J.A. Beran *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Love comes out of nowhere, baby <<<< yes it's cheesey, but hey, like a hurricane <<<< it's about hurricanes... (and it) Feels like rain" - John Hiatt *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "In October [1995] storm action, the East Coast was battered by hurricanes Xanthippe, Yves, Zoe, Aaron, Boutros Boutros and the Hurricane Formerly Known as Prince." - Dave Barry *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The Great Tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." - T.H. Huxley (1825-1895) ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Up warm; down cold!"..."Up moist; down dry!"..."In-up-out!" - Bill Gray, CSU *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Lixion, your enthusiasm term in the vorticity equation for this storm is way too high!" - Frank Marks, Jr. talking with Lixion Avila about 2002's Dolly *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Squalls out on the Gulf Stream, Big storm is coming soon..." Jimmy Buffett, _Trying to reason with hurricane season_ ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "I am more afraid of a West Indian hurricane than I am of the entire Spanish Navy." U.S. President McKinley During the Spanish-American War ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "A VERY INTERESTING EVENT OCCURRED WITH LILI IN THE PAST 24 HOURS. IT INTENSIFIED RAPIDLY TO A STRONG CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE AND WEAKENED TO A CATEGORY TWO AS FAST AS IT STRENGTHENED. THERE WILL BE MANY EXPLANATIONS AFTER THE FACT...AND PERHAPS MANY PHD DISSERTATIONS. I AM GLAD THERE WILL BE SOME. THE TRUTH IS THAT NOBODY WAS ABLE TO PREDICT THESE SUDDEN CHANGES IN INTENSITY. CURRENTLY...THERE ARE ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS ON INTENSITY CHANGE. INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES WEATHER RESEARCH PROGRAM...USWRP. HOPEFULLY THESE EFFORTS WILL HELP US PREDICT SUCH EVENTS IN THE FUTURE." - HURRICANE LILI DISCUSSION NUMBER 49 - NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL - 11 AM EDT THU OCT 03 2002 - FORECASTER AVILA ***************************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ***************************************************************************** "Three miles down the beach, the big St. Mary's Orphanage with nine- three children was under siege. It was a fortress of brick and stone...and now waves crashed against its second story. The ten sisters who ran the place herded all ninety-three children into the chapel. The mother superior ordered the other sisters to tie lengths of clothesline to the youngest children, then tie one end around their waists...The storm advanced through the building quickly. The chapel disappeared. Windows shattered. In seconds, the building failed. "Later, a rescuer found one toddler's corpse on the beach. He tried lifting the child. A length of clothesline leaped from the sand, then tightened. He pulled the line. Another child emerged. The line continued into the sand. He uncovered eight children and a nun...[Overall] ninety children and all ten sisters died." - _Isaac's Storm_ by Erik Larson about the 1900 Galveston hurricane *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Whatever the universe is, I believe it is all one. And this fragile shoreline, with its mangroves, coastal hammock and ancient reef, is a precious part of very little that still survives of our unique environment." Marjory Stoneman Douglas on the Bear Cut Preserve in Key Biscayne, FL ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "We have seen that scientists have become political activists pushing an agenda of research in "global warming". In their enthusiasm to push forward their political agendas using glossy pseudoscientific journals and talk shows on television, uncertainties in the science are often glossed over and those scientists that question the science are labeled 'skeptics'. The term skeptic is often then associated with war mongers and anti-environmentalists. An important component of the scientific method, debate of the fundamental issues, is thereby squelched." - Prof. Bill Cotton, _Human Impacts on Weather and Climate_ ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Never make a forecast that you don't have to make." --- M.B. Lawrence *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." -- Robert Heinlein ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Late that night, in absolute darkness, it hit, with the far shrieking scream, the queer rumbling of a vast and irresistible freight train." - The 1926 Great Miami Hurricane - From _The Everglades: River of Grass_ - Marjory Stoneman Douglas ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Over and over this jerky, four second video showed clumps and gauzy strips of clouds beginning to curl around a point, as if sucked in by a magnet. To tropical storm analysts this was a sign of 'organization,' a profane and inadequate word to describe one of nature's most beautiful mysteries, the transformation of chaos into order, of perturbation into cyclone." - The genesis of Hurricane Mitch, 1998 - _The Ship and the Storm_ by Jim Carrier ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "What is true for other sciences should also hold for climate research: Dissent is the motor of further development, differences of opinion are not an unpleasant family affair. The concealment of dissent and uncertainty in favor of a politically good cause takes its toll on credibility, for the public is more intelligent than is usually assumed. In the long term, these allegedly so helpful dramatizations achieve the opposite of that which they wish to achieve." - Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr "A Climate of Staged Angst" ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "If the phone doesn't ring, you'll know that it's me. I'll be out in the eye of the storm." --- Jimmy Buffett *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Whenever there is the first hint of a counter-clockwise symbol on a weather map that a hurricane might hit land, `Mr. Hard News' is down there wrapped around a lamp post." Tom Brokaw reacting to Dan Rather calling NBC Nightly News "news-lite" *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** The Dead Wave Society All over the TV Watch all the PV When it's zero You'll be a hero Time to invert? Make that subvert Burma Shave Lance Bosart, 1999 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Mortally wounded. We have before us a panorama of death, destruction, and ruin throughout the entire country." - President Carlos Flores Facusse of Honduras after Hurricane Mitch - From _The Ship and the Storm_ by Jim Carrier ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Scientists lapse into a zeal reminiscent of nothing so much as the McCarthy era. For them, methodological criticism is the spawn of conservative think tanks and propagandists for the oil and coal lobby, which they believe they must expose; dramatizing climate change, on the other hand, is defended as a sensible means of educating society." - Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr "A Climate of Staged Angst" "Landsea and others were on record as saying the global warming had nothing to do with hurricanes. And that is so clearly false. ... Politics is very strong in what is going on, but it is all coming from Landsea and colleagues. He is linked to the skeptics and being encouraged by Pat Michaels and others, I suspect (he has written a joint article with Michaels)." - Kevin Trenberth ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Crikey, I hope I'm not developing into a weather nut." --- Noel Davidson - Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre Melbourne, Australia October 2002 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "There are no undifficult forecasts." --- Dr. Bill Gray, 1997 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Nothing but the service of God and the extension of the monarchy would induce me to expose myself to such dangers." - Christopher Columbus on hurricanes - 17 July, 1494 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "All violent gales or hurricanes are great whirlwinds, in which the wind blows in circuits around an axis; that the winds do not move in horizontal circles, but rather in spirals. That the velocity of rotation increases from the margin toward the center of the storm. That the whole body of air is, at the same time, moving forward in a path, at a variabile rate, but always with a velocity much less than its velocity of rotation." - William Redfield in the 1831 _American Journal of Science_ - From _Hurricane Watch_ by Bob Sheets and Jack Williams ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Those mid-west tornado chasers can have their F3's and F4's. Give me a good ole fashion Cat 3 in the Bahamas with ambitions to race northward!!" - David Vallee - Taunton, MA *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "June - too soon. July - stand by. ... Old Florida fisherman's jingle August - look out you must. ... on the hurricane season September - remember. ... (from _The Everglades: River of Grass_) October - all over." *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I myself have experienced only one real disaster, Hurricane Andrew, and it was considerably different from the disaster movies that I've seen. For one thing, in the movies, there's always some kind of romance interest; whereas after Hurricane Andrew, nobody in the affected area was able to take a shower for approximately two months. Everybody smelled like a cologne named Eau de Dead Goat. The most romantic thing people did during that time was refuel each other's generators." --- Dave Barry, 1997 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "When it got a little light, I looked out the window and I couldn't see anything. The wind was still blowing pretty hard so I waited a while, then looked out again. I still couldn't see anything. I told my wife, `there's some kind of fog. I can't see anything.' Finally, I realized there wasn't anything to see. All of the trees were gone." Harry Huffman on Hurricane Andrew from _Hurricanes and Florida Agriculture_ by J. A. Attaway ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "We can find no evidence that any competent meteorologist believes the science to be at present in such a state as to enable an observer to indicate day by day the weather to be experienced for the next 48 hours throughout a wide margin of the earth's surface." - 1866 - England's Committee of Inquiry - From _Hurricane Watch_ by Bob Sheets and Jack Williams ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "You might be a Floridian if ... You have more than 20 C and D batteries in your kitchen drawer. The freezer in your garage is full of homemade ice. You flinch when you are introduced to a person named Charley, Frances or Ivan. You find yourself dropping words like "millibar" and "convection" into everyday conversation. Your pantry contains more than 10 cans of Spaghetti Os. Making coffee on your propane grill does not seem like an odd thing to do. You are thinking of repainting your house to match the plywood covering your windows. When describing your house to a prospective buyer, you say it has three bedrooms, two baths and one safe place." --- Anonymous, (Part I), July 2005 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "The Florida straits were as dangerous as the Florida Indians. There [was]...the extraordinary danger of hurricanes in the tropic latitudes, that could blow up almost without warning from June to November, gray screaming whirlpools of wind more than a hundred miles an hour, dragging in their centers a mound of sea water and blowing before them the high ungovernable ships like dried leaves onto that deadly line of reef and rock." _The Everglades: River of Grass_ - 1947 - Marjory Stoneman Douglas *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Tuning...involves adjusting parameters after a model is run to improve the agreement between the model results and data. Tuning is bad empiricism. Calibration is bad empiricism with a bag over its head." - Prof. Dave Randall, CSU, 1997 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Hurricanes, baseball, sushi, beer and women: What more could you want in life?" - Dr. Bill Gray, 2000 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Even though hurricane forecasting is a science and many forecasters have doctorates in the subject, the final decision about the official forecast is often as much art as science. Of particular importance is the forecaster's subjective and qualitative analysis of what is happening in the atmosphere surrounding the storm. A forecaster draws on experience with scores of storms, an understanding of how the atmosphere works, and knowledge of the computer models, including how each model is handling the current storm, to plot the line on the map that represents the official forecast of a hurricane's path." - From _Hurricane Watch_ by Bob Sheets and Jack Williams ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "You might be a Floridian if ... You have the number for FEMA on your speed dialer. You own more than three large coolers. You can wish that other people get hit by a hurricane and not feel the least bit guilty about it. Three months ago you couldn't hang a shower curtain; today you can assemble a portable generator by candlelight. You catch a 5-pound catfish. In your driveway. You can recite from memory whole portions of your homeowner's insurance policy. At cocktail parties, women are attracted to the guy with the biggest chain saw. You have had tuna fish more than 5 days in a row." --- Anonymous, (Part II), July 2005 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The sickle wings of the night hawks began the long beat southward in their fall migration. In their skyey courses they may have been the first to feel that vast shape of air spinning up from the equator along the line of the Bahamas. The word reached Miami on the morning of Friday, September 17 [1926], that a hurricane moved there somewhere ...Old-timers, remembering hurricanes, felt their skins prickle and began to board up...Most people knew nothing of hurricanes at all... [The storm] moved directly on Miami. Late that night, in absolute darkness, it hit, with the far shrieking scream, the queer rumbling of a vast and irresistible freight train. The wind instruments blew away at a hundred twenty-five miles. The leaves went, branches, the bark off the trees. In the slashing assault people found their roofs had blown off, unheard in the tumult. The water of the bay was lifted and blown inland, in streaming sheets of salt, with boats..., coconuts, debris of all sorts, up on the highest ridge of the mainland... At eight o'clock next morning the gray light lifted. The roaring stopped. There was no wind. Blue sky stood overhead. People opened their doors and ran, still a little dazed, into the ruined streets... Only a few remembered or had ever heard that in the center of a spinning hurricane there is that bright deathly stillness. It passed. The light darkened. The high shrieking came from the other direction as the opposite whirling thickness of the cyclonic cone moved on over the darkened city." - _The Everglades: River of Grass_ - 1947 - Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** Late 1940s: "The stakes are large and with increased knowledge, I think that we should be able to abolish the evil effects of these hurricanes." - Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir Early 1990s: The 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone: 130,000 fatalities 1992's Hurricane Andrew: $30,000,000,000 in damages *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 *********************************************************************** "Lisa: Dad! A hurricane is coming! Homer: Don't be silly! There's never been a hurricane on record that hit Springfield! Lisa: That's because the records only go back to 1972, when the original Hall of Records mysteriously blew away!" - The Simpsons ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** " 'The roof was totally gone ... [and we see] the most amazing sight, the inside of the hurricane's eye wall with this churning mass of clouds lit by the half of sky that was full of stars.' The Shoemakers are in the calm eye of Hurricane Andrew in a roofless house that the storm has destroyed around them." - Quote by Mike Shoemaker in the book _Hurricane Watch_ by Bob Sheets and Jack Williams ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "You might be a Floridian if ... You are on a first-name basis with the cashier at Home Depot. You are delighted to pay $2.50 for a gallon of unleaded. The road leading to your house has been declared a No-Wake Zone. You decide that your patio furniture looks better on the bottom of the pool." There is a roll of tar paper in your garage. You can rattle off the names of three or more meteorologists who work at the Weather Channel. Someone comes to your door to tell you they found your roof. Ice is a valid topic of conversation. Relocating to North Dakota does not seem like such a crazy idea." --- Anonymous, (Part III), July 2005 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "You are like a hurricane There's calm in your eyes >>> Yet another And I'm getting blown away >>> corny song Somewhere safer where the feeling stays... >>> about hurricanes I want to love you but I get so blown away." --- Neil Young, _Like a hurricane_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "It could stay the same or go down a bit or up a bit." - Chris Landsea quoted in the _Miami Herald_ (6/1/97) regarding the upcoming revised Atlantic hurricane season forecast... *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" Mark 4:41 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Science is not a democracy. The majority is often wrong..." - Dr. Joanne Simpson - First Woman PhD in Meteorology ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA/NWS/Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Fax: (305) 553-1901 Email: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov ********************************************************************** "What if Ivan [2004] had hit New Orleans? New Orleans was spared, this time, but had it not been, Hurricane Ivan would have: * Caused the levees between the lake and the city to overtop and fill the city "bowl" with water from lake levee to river levee, in some places as deep as 20 feet... * It would undoubtedly be one the greatest disasters, if not the greatest, to hit the United States, with estimated costs exceeding 100 billion dollars ... Survivors would have to endure conditions never before experienced in a North American disaster" * Hurricane Ivan had the potential to make the unthinkable a reality. Next time New Orleans may not be so fortunate." --- Shirley Laska, University of New Orleans --- November 2004, _Natural Hazards Observer_ 29 August, 2005 - Category 4 Hurricane Katrina hits Louisiana. *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Never prophesy, especially about the future." - Samuel Goldwyn *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Life is too short to waste it pursuing bad science." - E. N. Parker, _Eos_, 9/16/97 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The cloud parted around us, there was a sudden blinding brilliance of sunlight, the plane banked to start circling around the wall and as my sight grew accustomed to the glare, I began slowly to realize the astounding vastness and beauty of the place we had entered. . . . the eyewall was an enormous bank of whiteness sloping steeply upward to 50,000 feet or higher, and curving sharply beneath us down to the sea. It seemed to be built of roll upon roll, coil upon coil of bundled cloud, like a massive pile of folded towels. . . . It had an eerie blend about it of impassive poise and furious motion, a titanic stillness containing terrible energies. It soared up to a clearly delimited rim, and within that lay a blazing, spotless hole of sunlit blue sky. Below, patches of sea boiled in a seething mayhem of broken water. It was a perfect eye. . . . But it was God's stadium nonetheless, an almighty bowl of tranquillity surrounded by epically vast strands of wind-packed white cloud climbing all about us, unbroken, smoothly towering taller than mountains. The sea writhed beneath it, spume-streaked, and the sky stared down blank and empty above. `I must say,' came a quiet voice from the cockpit, `this is definitely impressive.'" ----- _Inside the Hurricane_ by Pete Davies *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** HOLLYWOOD, FL - The 2002 hurricane season will be packed with "big surprises, big windspeeds, and a big, big finish," God announced Monday at a press conference touting His fall schedule. "Get ready for the biggest, wildest, most exciting hurricane season yet," God said. "You'll see all the 200 mph winds, all the flooding, all the overturned cars." Asked whether the season would be more remarkable for the hurricanes' frequency or size, God was evasive. "I don't have to tell you," God said. "But I will say this: Those weak, cerebral 'tropical depressions' are very five minutes ago. This season, it'll be devastating. Thus sayeth the Lord." - _The ONION_, August 21, 2002 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "The hurricane season, which has produced so many storms that the National Weather Service is now naming them after fraternities, fails to end as scheduled, as yet another hurricane, Epsilon, forms in the Atlantic. The good news is that Epsilon poses no threat whatsoever to land. The bad news is, it still manages to knock out power to most of South Florida." - Dave Barry, _Miami Herald_, 1 January 2006 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Then fiery clouds collect in thick masses; the thunder sounds deep and heavy. Rainbows appear, now forming an unbroken curve and again separating, and the ends of the bow dip into the sea. The sea sends back a bellowing sound, and boils with angry surges; the loose rocks dash against each other, and detached sea-weed covers the water; there is a thick, murky atmosphere; the water fowl fly about affrighted; the trees and leaves bend to the south --- the typhoon has commenced." - S. Wells Williams (1883) *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** David Letterman's Top Ten Rejected Names for El Nino (11/11/97) 10. Senior Stormy 9. Gee, Your Monsoon Smells Terrific 8. The Devil's Wet Hacking Cough 7. Starbucks' New Storm-uccino 6. Windy Pete, the South American Treat 5. Al Roker's Meal Ticket 4. The Atmospheric Salad Shooter 3. Stormy Spice 2. "Weird El" Ninovic 1. Weathergate *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Shear rules! Don't underestimate it!" - John Kaplan 8/23/00 on the upcoming demise of Hurricane Debby *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "It amazes me that you can speak with such great confidence about things that we know so little about." - Dr. Bob Burpee, 1996, Director of the National Hurricane Center speaking with one of the forecasters about an Atlantic hurricane ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "There are those who believe that, thanks to satellites, computers, and modern communications, a Galveston or Labor Day disaster could never happen again...It is a sad fact that the United States may not have seen its last Galveston." - Kerry Emanuel, _Divine Wind_, Spring 2005 Hurricane Katrina, 1500 dead in Louisiana & Mississippi, August 2005 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "When that cloud begins to move apace, you may expect the Wind presently. It comes on fierce, and blows very violently at N.E. 12 hours more or less...When the wind beginds to abate i dyes away suddenly, and falling flat calm, it continues for an hour, more or less: then the wind comes about to the S.W. and it blows and rains as fierce from thence, as it did before at N.E. and as long." - From the log of William Dampier on 4 July 1687, in the South China Sea, the first such record of a tropical cyclone. *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I think that there's a fairly good indication that it's going to be wet, windy, wild, weird, wacky wonderful winter weather." - NWS Forecaster Jim Lushine, August 1997 104 mph gust Miami, 4.56" rainfall Miami International Airport, tornadoes reported in Monroe, Miami-Dade and Broward counties, total damage in the 10s of millions of dollars. - February 3, 1998 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "How can we isolate the mechanisms of tropical cyclogenesis when we have trouble agreeing on when cyclogenesis has actually happened?" --- Jack Beven - National Hurricane Center - 5 September 2000 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Gone are the days ... [of the] claim that the inner core heat source from the ocean has nothing to do with [tropical cyclone development], and that a lovely hurricane vortex can be developed entirely independently of anything to do with the ocean. Debates raged ... with the fancy Harvard Professor making mincemeat of little people such as Riehl and myself. Herbie will be very happy up on the cloud where I hope he is now able to play happy music on his harp." --- Joanne Simpson - December 2003 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Make no mistake, it is warnings properly placed, sufficiently far in advance, that saves lives and property, and it is failure in these that result(s) in casualties, property damage and Congressional investigations." - Grady Norton (1947) ************************************************************************ Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Wastin' away again in Margaritaville Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt Some people claim that there's a woman to blame But I know, that it's El Nino's fault." - Jimmy Buffett - February 7, 1998 - Coral Sky Ampitheater *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "A hundred-knot hurricane's about the prettiest there is. You get stronger than that, the water's all white. You get below eighty knots, the streaks and ripples and blowing spray are less spectacular. But at a hundred knots, the sea has this kind of turquoise color and it's layered. There's a filigree of foam on the surface, long streaks of glowing foam with long streaks of greenish bubbles beneath that, and between the disturbances there's a deep navy blue. Anybody that's seen it wants to see it again." ----- Hugh Willoughby in _Inside the Hurricane_ by Pete Davies *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "lord please watch over all these lost children born to chase the hurricane ... lord keep an eye on all these lost children swept away in the wind please shine some light down on all those travelin' lead them all home again" - Tom Petty _Lost Children_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The fundamental idea is that atmospheric pressures, velocities, etc, should be expressed as numbers, and should be tabulated at certain latitudes, longitudes and heights to give a general account of the state of the atmosphere at any instant....It is shown that there is an arithmetical method of operating on these tabulated numbers, so as to obtain a new table representing approximately the subsequent state of the atmosphere after a brief interval of time, delta-t say." - Richardson (1922) *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Alice was the first one, she swept me off my feet, Barbara was the next I knew, I still can feel the heat. Carol put me in a whirl, Dolly passed me by; Edna firmly slapped my face, Florence lingered nigh. But Hazel was the worst one yet, I think of her when it rains; These girls are rough and ready, bad feminine hurricanes." - Winston-Salem Journal - North Carolina, U.S.A. - 1954 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "It was God's stadium...an almighty bowl of tranquility surrounded by epically vast strands of wind-packed white cloud climbing all about us, unbroken, smoothly towering taller than mountains. The sea writhed beneath it, spume-streaked, and the sky stared down blank and empty above. `I must say,' came a quiet voice from the cockpit, `this is definitely impressive.'" ----- _Inside the Hurricane_ by Pete Davies *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had." --- Michael Crichton, January 17, 2003 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The only people who flew near tropical cyclones were dedicated hurricane-hunter aircraft flown by people for whom merely mortal danger was boring." Tom Clancy _Clear and Present Danger_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "We ate a lot of crow last year. This year, I'd like filet mignon, but I'd settle for chicken." --- Atlantic seasonal hurricane forecaster Prof. Bill Gray "I still don't think of him as a celebrity. I think of him as someone who needs a new car." --- Wife (and former Mayor of Fort Collins, CO) Nancy Gray [From 31 May, 1998 Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel by Michael Cabbage.] *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "In August, the peak of the season looms, and the tropical waves over West Africa start forming into a train of thunderstorms - discrete, bundled clusters of rain and lightning, fiery balls of red and orange infrared reaching one after the other back across the continent toward Chad and the Sudan." ----- _Inside the Hurricane_ by Pete Davies *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I've got the feeling there are a lot of environments in which vortices of various origins can become driven by latent heat release. Hurricanes are one result, some polar lows are another, and these occlusion center storms are a third. Or are they all one and the same?" - George Young (April 2004) *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The history of meteorology is littered with whitened bones of claims to have demonstrated the existence of reliable cycles in the weather." William J. Burroughs _Weather Cycles - Real or Imaginary_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving [Gay Days] flags in God's face if I were you." - Long-range hurricane forecaster Pat Robertson - May 1998 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "For scientists concerned with weather modification, hurricanes are the largest and wildest game in the atmospheric preserve...there are urgent reasons for hunting and taming them." - Cecil Gentry, Director, National Hurricane Research Laboratory, 1973 - From _Inside the Hurricane_ by Pete Davies *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Don't misunderstand what I said about "everybody knows it"... I would only suggest that when you do a rewrite that you don't suggest that this is a startling and unexpected finding. I know of no papers in the literature correlating umbrella use with rainfall intensity either." BAMS Editor Ed Zipser discussing a controversial paper with its author *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "When the significance of your correlations depend upon whether you use n or n-1, you know something's fishy." - Peter Webster, CU, 1995 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The time is probably not far distant when all the great Tropical Storms of each Hurricane season will be treated as they occur, and when seamen, FOREWARNED of their danger, may be saved from some at least of the many dangers of their hazardous profession constantly exposes them to." --- The Royal Gazette of Bermuda, August 1843 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** WARNING: A shameless self-serving plug is next... NOAA's Hurricane Research Division - "good science done by brave men on a puny budget" --- Pete Davies in his book _Inside the Hurricane_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "One day, the wind blowed so hard, it blowed a well up out of the ground; blowed so hard, it blowed a crooked road straight. Another time it blowed an' blowed, an' scattered the days of the week so bad Sunday didn't get around 'til late Tuesday mo'nin." - The WPA Guide to Florida *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Scientists consider seasonal hurricane forecasting to be, at best, a GRAY area." Ed Rappaport U.S. National Hurricane Center *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Any meteorologist not familiar with oil, should first catch a shark, try-out its liver, bottle a portion of the oil in a phial, well cork, then hang in a shady place -- and THROW AWAY HIS INSTRUMENTS AND WEATHER CHARTS. Clear oil indicates fine weather, -- when thick, bad weather -- when solid, look out for a hurricane, a hundred and twenty mile breeze that would suck a well out of the ground." --- E.H.T., The Royal Gazette of Bermuda, October 10, 1932 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." --- Sir Winston Churchill ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "The Dvorak Technique - One of the greatest inventions of our time!" - Bruce Harper "The Dvorak Technique - Responsible for saving millions of lives!" - Chip Guard --- 30 Years of the Dvorak Technique at the May 2004 AMS Conference --- on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology Conference, Miami Beach *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "There are two kinds of people in this world: those who study tropical storms and those who don't." - Bill Gray, CSU ************************************************************************ Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Good God! What horror and destruction! It is impossible for me to describe it or for you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of falling houses, and the earpiercing shrieks of the distressed were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels...In a word, misery, in its most hideous shapes, spread over the whole face of the country." --- Alexander Hamilton, September 1772, After a St. Croix Hurricane *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I pray thee, put into yonder port, for I fear a hurricane. Last night the moon had a golden ring, and tonight no moon we see!" Longfellow, _The Wreck of the Hesperus_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "No one person has contributed more to hurricane understanding and forecasting advancement over the years than Bob Simpson." --- Dr. Bill Gray, May 2004 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly is right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke's First Law _Storm World: Hurricane, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming_ by Chris Mooney, 2007 http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html sigfile - skies above florida sigfile2 - fools & wicked sigfile3 - 40% sigfile4 - love,rain,hurricanes sigfile5 - 1995 season sigfile6 - hypothesis/fact sigfile7 - gray sigfile8 - barry sigfile9 - buffett sigfilea - mckinley sigfileb - miles sigfilec - eye of the storm sigfiled - tropics,temperate sigfilee - hurricane jingle sigfilef - Fla. straights & hurricanes sigfileg - 1926 Miami hurricane sigfileh - neil young sigfilei - prophesy sigfilej - typhoon has commenced sigfilek - first tc obs sigfilel - grady norton sigfilem - richardson sigfilen - tom clancy sigfileo - weather cycles sigfilep - webster sigfileq - GRAY area sigfiler - 2 types of people sigfiles - hypothesis - testing sigfilet - forecasting sigfileu - buffett - lightning sigfilev - barnston sigfilew - roosevelt sigfilex - kantor... sigfiley - hurricane variations... sigfilez - dave randall...science sigfileaa - Psalm 147 sigfilebb - Heinlein sigfilecc - Tom Brokaw sigfiledd - gray-undifficult forecasts sigfileee - romantic disasters sigfileff - dave randall...tuning sigfilegg - hurricane-mod sigfilehh - same, up, down sigfileii - bad science sigfilejj - El Nino names... sigfilekk - Jim Lushine forecast... sigfilell - Margaritaville- El Nino sigfilemm - NC ditty sigfilenn - Dr. & Nancy Gray sigfileoo - Pat robertson sigfilepp - 1832 foresee forecasts sigfileqq - shark oil sigfilerr - Hamilton sigfiless - Hugh - people/hurricanes... sigfilett - operational oceanography sigfileuu - top 10 reasons Floyd skipped Fla sigfilevv - NOAA done away with sigfileww - Jerry Jarrell sigfilexx - Willis Moore sigfileyy - Isaac Monroe Cline sigfilezz - Mark Twain *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Most hurricanes are like people: they don't live up to their potential." --- Hugh Willoughby, February 16, 1999 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "...and the high wall of water rolls you over and over and then, whatever it is, you get it and we find you, now of no importance stinking in the mangroves. You're dead now, brother..." Ernest Hemingway, "Who Murdered the Vets?" in _New Masses_ after the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The world's great Atlantic hurricanes are apocalyptic machines that move across water, feed off water, push water from ocean to shore and out of giant lakes, and make water a weapon of death." - Eliot Kleinberg, _Black Cloud - The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928_ ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Meteorology has ever been an apple of contention, as if the violent commotions of the atmosphere induced a sympathetic effect on the minds of those who have attempted to study them." - Smithsonian secretary Joseph Henry 1858 _Storm World: Hurricane, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming_ by Chris Mooney, 2007 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "One main purpose for the forecast, is to show the veracity of the underlying hypothesis. In science, predictability is an important gauge of the correctness of a theory." - Rick Lanier, 1995 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I may have had puked-on hands ... but at least I saw a nice storm!" - Stormchaser Steve "Ho" Hodanish *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The bureaucrats in Washington are so busy charging the imaginary windmills of global warming that they've forgotten the immediate real threat of Atlantic hurricanes" - Bill Gray, CSU - 2001 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Like a twenty-car pileup, the recipe for catastrophe at Lake Okeechobee, Florida, in 1928 required a series of unrelated conditions to all collide in one place at one time: a shallow lake, an inadequate dike, lack of communication, few evacuation routes, a flawed forecast." - Eliot Kleinberg, _Black Cloud - The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928_ ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Predicting hurricanes is notoriously difficult, with an unexpectedly quiet year for tropical storms last year causing embarrassment for the forecasters on whose computer models big money rides... [The forecasters were] forced to eat humble pie." - Tom Stevenson - The Daily Telegraph (London) - 24 May, 2007 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Scratch my back with a lightning bolt Thunder rolls like a bass drum note The sound of the weather is heaven's rag time band" Jimmy Buffett, _Barefoot Children_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** ******Top Ten Reasons Hurricane Floyd Skipped Florida****** 10. Couldn't afford a single-day pass to Disneyworld. 9. Didn't like the old person smell. 8. Deep worry that Jimmy Buffett would write some folksy tequila-induced song about him. 7. Wanted to impress Jody Foster. 6. Damn state looks like a ***** from up here. 5. Any state with Jimmy Johnson and Pat Riley's hair could be too difficult to damage. 4. If it was gonna miss the Carolinas, they wouldn't have named it after Mayberry's barber. 3. Heard what happens to tourists in Dade County. 2. Jacksonville is SO five minutes ago. 1. Was afraid of being caught by the Coast Guard and returned to its homeland. (Stan Jensen - from sci.geo.meteorology - 20 September 1999) *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." - Louisa May Alcott (1868) ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Gonzo is the gentleman's hurricane hunter airplane." Aircraft Operations Center Cmdr. Rob Poston from the cockpit of the Gulfstream IV aircraft - _Palm Beach Post_, Sep. 3, 2004 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "This broad consistency between observations, models, and theory is a powerful indicator that we are likely already experiencing more intense tropical cyclones as a result of global warming." --- Anthes, Correll, Holland, Hurrell, MacCracken, Trenberth (2006) --- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society "There is an inconsistency between the small changes in wind-speed projected by theory and modeling versus large changes reported by some observational studies." --- Statement on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change --- International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones, 2006 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 *********************************************************************** "There simply is no substitute for real-time forecasting." - Tony Barnston et al. (1994) _Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc._ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "There is absolutely no reason for a hurricane to make landfall. NOAA must be done away with! The military must take control of our weather. The reason NOAA allows our friends to die and their property to be distroyed is simply avarice - there are too many six-figure jobs involved." - Earl in Alabama "Where do i get one of these six-figure jobs?" - Chris in Miami *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The sea was full of foam, and the sea, air and clouds had seemingly merged into one." - From the logbook of the "Johann Ludwing" - October 1894 hurricane ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "It almost seems like we've got a 'Kick Me' sign on the state [of Florida] here." - Max Mayfield, National Hurricane Center Director, Sep. 8, 2004 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Isabel was so shapely and symmetrical in the tropics, with that perfectly edged 40-mile eye, but now in the Temperate Zone she may be turning into a squalid old squall, arms flailing, eye swollen half-shut -- a reeling, sloppy, skanky beast of a storm." - Joel Achenbach, _Washington Post_, September 17, 2003 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Most of the people who work here [at the National Hurricane Center] work here because they love hurricanes. But there comes a time when you go from liking storms to hating them. They are no longer beautiful. They're threatening, they're dangerous and they're scary - and maybe even ugly." - Jerry Jarrell, December 1999, on the eve of his retirement *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare." - Psalm 29:8 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "The sound of the wind, that's what you never forget. The initial whisper. The growing mewing that turns into a howl. Then the cry of glass shattering. The snap of trees breaking. The grumbling of a roof peeling apart." - Ana Veciana-Suarez, September 11, 2004, _Miami Herald_ Remembering Hurricane Andrew as 2004's Ivan threatens ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Man has never learned why the Almighty sees fit to destroy cities." - Editorial, _Miami Tribune_, September 19, 1926 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** Question: "What are 5 signs of an approaching hurricane? Thanx, O.W." Answer: 1. Max Mayfield begins showing up a LOT on TV. 2. Long lines for plywood form at Home Depot. 3. WSVN begins around-the-clock live coverage of long lines at Home Depot. 4. Your neighbors all shutter up their windows and leave on long vacations. 5. It gets VERY windy. - Anonymous, Dec. 2002 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Washington, D.C. - Sept. 9, 1900 To: Manager, Western Union in Houston, Texas Do you hear anything about Galveston? Willis L. Moore Chief, U.S. Weather Bureau" - from _Isaac's Storm_ by Erik Larson *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "If you think that hurricanes in Florida were bad in the 1940s and 1950s, then you should go back 50 million years when things were really devastating." - Kerry Emanuel - May 2002 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Apparently Poseidon and Zephyr are standing on Africa and are rolling storms at Florida like a giant bowling lane with the equator acting as the gutter." - Clifton W. Odom - 13 September, 2004 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "The eyewall itself can be seen...nearly touching the sea surface... The pancake-shaped white patches are places where the wind is literally scooping water from the sea...This is a place of unmitigated violence, where bubble-filled water gradually gives way to spray- and cloud-filled air, with no definite interface that one could call the ocean surface. It is arguably the worst place in the world for a ship." - Kerry Emanuel, 2005 "Divine Wind - The History and Science of Hurricanes" *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "HURRICANE...derived from 'hurican', the Carib god of evil... alternative spellings: foracan, foracane, furacana, furacane, furicane, furicano, haracana, harauncana, haraucane, haroucana, harrycain, hauracane, haurachana, herican, hericane, hericano, herocane, herricao, herycano, heuricane, hiracano, hirecano, hurac[s]n, huracano, hurican, hurleblast, hurlecan, hurlecano, hurlicano, hurrican, hurricano, hyrracano, urycan, hyrricano, jimmycane, oraucan, uracan, uracano" - _Glossary of Meteorology_ *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** 1891:"The opinion held by some who are unaquainted with the actual conditions of things, that Galveston [Texas] will at some time be seriously damaged by some such [hurricane] disturbance, is simply an absurd delusion. It would be impossible for any cyclone to create a storm wave which could materially injure the city." Isaac Monroe Cline - Meteorologist-in-Charge 1900: 8th of September - 8,000 men, women and children die in the storm surge of a Galveston hurricane. from _Isaac's Storm_ by Erik Larson *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "To become a good forecaster, you have to be prepared to be embarrassed once in awhile." - Gary Barnes, September 2001 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "You have to ask yourself, 'Who stands to gain from all these hurricanes?' I think the answer is obvious: hurricane researchers and the whole hurricane-industrial complex. Whose research programs stand to get more funding from the government? Who has the power to move financial markets with a casual quip about multidecadal warming trends? Who's all over the media like palm fronds on a post-cyclonic golf course? Search google news today? 'Kerry' 137,000 hits, 'Hurricane' 151,000 hits. I've got the proof of this outrageous conspiracy. See the document that exposes the bitter truth below. Gotta go; I've got Rather on the line." http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/doc.jpg E. Gross - 28 September 2004 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea Science and Operations Officer NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "Scientists ALWAYS wear tropical shirts!" - Rebecca Landsea (my niece) when asked by her 4th grade classmate about my attire at my hurricane presentation at her school *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "They [surface hurricane windspeeds] are all estimates. Nobody really measures what they're telling you. Usually what they tell you is that they're packing wind. I still don't know what that means. If I was going to pack something, I'd pack underwear." - Frank Marks, September 2003 *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Probable northeast to southwest winds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward, and points between, high and low barometer swapping around from place to place, probably areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning." - Mark Twain - parodying U.S. government weather forecasts - from _Isaac's Storm_ by Erik Larson *********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html *********************************************************************** "Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens... It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions." - Prof. Richard Lindzen, June 11th, 2001 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA AOML/Hurricane Research Division Voice: (305) 361-4357 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Fax: (305) 361-4402 Miami, Florida 33149 Internet: Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html ********************************************************************** "Governor Jeb Bush announced Monday that Florida has adopted the word 'ravaged' as its official state adjective. 'In the past decade, parts of Florida have been ravaged by hurricanes, political controversy, infestation, poverty, and crime,' Bush said in a press conference. 'What better way to describe the state than with the word 'ravaged'?' 'Ravaged' beat out such popular contenders as 'muggy,' 'graying,' and 'tourist-clogged.' - _The Onion_, 29 Sep., 2004 ********************************************************************** Chris Landsea NOAA/NWS/Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center 11691 S.W. 17th Street Miami, Florida 33165-2149 Chris.Landsea@noaa.gov P:305-229-4446 F:305-553-1901 ********************************************************************** "PUNTA GORDA, Fla., Aug. 14, 2004 -- The world went cockeyed here. Fat metal light poles crimped at the center, bowing to the ground like the twisty-neck straws in a retro diner. Couches turned into roof ornaments. Roofs turned into tree ornaments. Flimsy mobile homes twisted up grotesquely or simply imploded, leaving behind chunkily diced piles of someone's life." --- Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post