Don't know, but that is a record of the last 150 years.

I've never yet come a cross a wimpy Wendy. They should have gone for Willow

Awesome image, btw, xoB, thanks.

Notice how dry Australia is. Every time a hurricane hit the coast, Australia just sucks that tropical storm right up. American 'canes often may go 1000 miles inland. Rarely does that happen in Australia.

We get cyclones. They're no where near the size of hurricanes tw. That would explain their limited lifespan once they hit the coast.

A third tropical storm - Chantal - has finally formed off of NE United States. Unusual is for a storm to form this far north. More unusual is its projected course - just south of Greenland and by Friday approaching Iceland. Predicted track shown below.

However that is not the significant event this week. Like last year, storms from Africa crossed the Atlantic, stayed below 10 degrees N latitude, and did not veer north until arriving in Panama or Eastern Pacific. Well the Pacific already has its five tropical storm. One even threatened the big island of Hawaii.

This week, that storm track moved north. A potential storm was forming just north of Brazil (rather than crossing Brazil). If this trend continues as predicted, the 2007 Hurricane race has just begun.

An excerpt from satellite images of 31 July shows storm tracks from Africa (right) and curving northward across the Atlantic towards Cuba (left). Some storms in the old track across northern South America and Costa Rica are still observed.

Hurricane Dean is expected to be approaching Puerto Rico on Saturday. Assuming it continues this same curving path, Dean should arrive somewhere between northern FL and the US east coast. This storm has been developing so early since leaving Africa as to be worth significant attention. It will probably skim up the east coast - remain at sea. But we really will not know until maybe the 20th of Aug.

Start looking for sales on hurricane party goods. Mid Atlantic US residents have not had a good reason for a hurricane party in a long time. If you invite Erin, Felix, Gabrielle or Ingrid, they might have such a good time as to return. Select your guest list with care.

I hope it stays about 50 to 100 miles offshoe and tears up the hot water thats been out there for 2 moths - Thats just what the fishin needs!

personally, a cat 1 or 2 is perfect. couple days off work, paid... hurricane parties... an impromptu boozefest is always fun.

The models have shifted to the south each time they've run them, today. That low that was supposed to pull it north and keep it in the Atlantic might not be low enough to do so.

Ah, Dean, please don't go into the gulf.

http://icons.wunderground.com/data/i...0704_model.gif

While busy looking east at Dean, Kitsume forget to look over his right shoulder. A potential Tropical Storm already playing hide and go seek ... in the Gulf:

A little late, but note how Taiwan is smack-dab in the center of the roughest track...

A Tropical Storm watch has in fact been issued for coastal Texas.

Possibly Erin out there, but we're hopefully only looking at a tropical storm on landfall. Although, I don't think Texas needs any more rain?

Would have been helpful if the system had gone to the parched AL/MS area.

So maybe it will sink NO this time for good.

None of the Dean models seem to say anything about it heading up the east coast.

http://intellicast.com/Storm/Hurrica...m=2&type=track