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Ewa Wink

Capital Weather Gang - Forecasting hurricanes: Part 1 - 1 views

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    Posted at 11:35 AM ET, 08/19/2010 Forecasting hurricanes: Part 1 By Steve Tracton How good (or bad) are today's forecasts? * Sun & warmth: Full Forecast | Yesterday's rain totals * This is the first of a two-part series on hurricane forecasting. Part 1 details how reliable forecasts are expected to be when (and if?) the 2010 tropical season finally picks up steam. Part 2, to appear next week, will look at ongoing research into the development of tropical systems and the prospects for improved forecasts. Hurricane Fran, Sept. 5, 1996. Satellite image by NASA. As reported in an earlier post by CWG's Greg Postel, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest update of its 2010 seasonal hurricane forecast calls for a significant chance that the remainder of the season will be very active, perhaps one of the most active on record. Whatever the number of tropical storms and hurricanes -- collectively referred to here as tropical cyclones (TC) -- most seasonal hurricane forecasts justifiably caution that it's impossible to reliably forecast when and where an individual storm might develop, nor its intensity and whether it will make landfall, before a storm even exists. The specifics of genesis, strength, size and track of TCs fall in the domain of daily weather. As such, predictability is limited in theory and practice from a few hours to about a week or two at most (no one really knows for sure). These specifics, of course, are precisely those which are required by emergency managers who, for example, must decide if and when to order evacuations, and those which ultimately determine the impact of a TC on lives and property. So, what are the current capabilities and limitations in the accuracy and utility of TC forecasts? The foundation of the TC prediction and warning process is the track forecast. If the track forecast is off, so too will be predictions of other parameters, such as wind speed and direction, rainfall, and storm surge relative to landf
Richard Allaway

2010 Haiti earthquake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The neighbouring Dominican Republic was the first country to give aid to Haiti,[105] sending water, food and heavy-lifting machinery
  • The first team to arrive in Port-au-Prince was ICE-SAR from Iceland, landing within 24 hours of the earthquake
  • A rescue team sent by the Israel Defense Forces' Home Front Command established a field hospital which included specialised facilities to treat children, the elderly, and women in labour near the United Nations building in Port-au-Prince. It was set up in eight hours and began operations on the evening of 16 January
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  • The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters was activated, allowing satellite imagery of affected regions to be shared with rescue and aid organisations
  • Rescue efforts began in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, with able-bodied survivors extricating the living and the dead from the rubble of the many buildings which had collapsed
  • treatment of the injured was hampered by the lack of hospital and morgue facilities
  • The supercarrier USS Carl Vinson arrived at maximum possible speed on 15 January with 600,000 emergency food rations, 100,000 ten-litre water containers, and an enhanced wing of 19 helicopters; 130,000 litres of drinking water were transferred to shore on the first day
  • The buoy tender USCG Oak and USNS Grasp (T-ARS-51) were on scene by 18 January to assess damage to the port and work to reopen it,[182][183] and by 21 January one pier at the Port-au-Prince seaport was functional, offloading humanitarian aid, and a road had been repaired to make transport into the city easie
  • The United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander called the result of the earthquake an "almost unprecedented level of devastation", and committed the UK to ₤20 million (US$32.7 million) in aid
  • Italy announced it would waive repayment of the €40 million (US$55.7 million) it had loaned to Haiti,[142] and the World Bank waived the country's debt repayments for five years
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