This incredible image of Hurricane Emily and the Moon over the Gulf of Mexico was shot by the crew of the International Space Station, and published by the Nasa Earth Observatory.
It appears that the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season will break records. It’s only mid-July. Now, I can remember growing up on the East Coast of the United States. Hurricane season is supposed to be in late August and early September.
Doesn’t it know?
They name hurricanes in sequential alphabetical order according to name lists agreed upon at World Meterological Organization meetings. This is how since 1950 the same standardized phrases and terms have been advising and warning people about dangerous weather conditions throughout the Carribean.
On this trendline it’s possible that they could run out of letters for a given season. They don’t even use the whole alphabet.
Perhaps at the next meeting they will consider using the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z as a way to extend the naming system. They won’t even consider names starting with those letters now.
We must conserve resources!
Five extra letters would provide some useful extra code space with which to encode and thereby anthropomorphize these tremendously destructive interactions of air and water. “Emily is coming!”
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