2005-10-07

Tropical cyclone Stan

It was easy to miss the category 1 hurricane that made landfall in Central America a few days ago, mostly because the media in the USA doesn't report on storms that don't threaten Americans. ... um, well, that is North Americans.... um, I mean, well, I guess I mean people in the United States of America.

So while the tropical system called 'Tammy' is dumping some rain on the southeast, Stan dumped rain across central America, including large regions of deforested moutains. When forests are ripped out of the mountainsides, there's not much holding the top-soil down, and torrential rains can easily cause landslides. That's what is happening across the region now. Here's a link to a BBC article about the devastation: [LINK].

Also, according to Jeff Master's blog [LINK], there is a lot of unsettled activity in the tropical Atlantic, so look for Vince to form sometime next week. There's a good chance there will be more storms than names this year, meaning that it will be a banner year for Atlantic tropical cyclones.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

combined with the even more devastating earthquake in Pakistan (tens of thousands dead!), and thinking back to Katrina and the tsunami... I think the Earth is trying to tell us something.

.brian said...

I've been thinking the same thing. I'm just waiting for the big California quake next.