Jacksonville, FL — We’re moving into springtime with longer days. Sunrise Wed., Feb. 23rd was before 7am for the first time since autumn (right before Thanksgiving). Realize we will “spring forward” Sun., March 13 so we’ll go back to a sunrise after 7:30am, but it will only take about a month to “recover” that hour with sunrise again before 7am by mid April (right before Easter).
The National Hurricane Center has released its reanalysis of the 1966-1970 hurricane seasons (an ongoing project that will eventually update many of the hurricane seasons). 14 “new” tropical storms were discovered for that period along with some changes in hurricane intensity. Projects that re-examine hurricane seasons can give us better comparisons for what some consider a recently climatologically active period for tropical storms & hurricanes. All of the NHC archives can be found * here *
According the researchers: “Revisions to the hurricane database were accomplished by obtaining the original observations collected - mainly by ships, weather stations, the Hurricane Hunter Navy, Air Force, and Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA was the predecessor to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), aircraft reconnaissance planes, and the earliest available satellite images - and assessing the systems based upon our understanding of tropical cyclones today. The reanalysis also allowed “discovering” of tropical storms and hurricanes that occurred but were not yet recognized as such in the official records.”
Some of the highlights of the revisions made to the (1966-1970) database include:
• 14 new tropical storms were discovered during these five hurricane seasons and have been added to the database.
• Additionally, two new hurricanes were diagnosed in 1970, which previously were only considered to be a tropical depression (AL151970) and a tropical storm (AL081970).
• On the flip side, two major hurricanes in 1969 - Francelia (AL131969) and Inga (AL201969) were downgraded to a category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
• For U.S. hurricanes, Alma of 1966 (AL011966) was upgraded from a Category 2 to a Category 3 hurricane in southwest Florida, Inez of 1966 (AL091966) was upgraded from a Category 1 to a Category 2 hurricane in South Florida, Celia of 1970 (AL041970) was upgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 4 hurricane in lower Texas, and Gerda of 1969 (AL161969) was downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm in Maine.
“Giving the Gift of Blood” - The need for blood remains very high to extreme - locally & nationally. “OneBlood” - click * here * continues to offer a number of incentives to encourage blood donors to head to the big red bus &/or local donor centers. And now a new program that connects donors & patients! Although not every patient will choose to send a message, all you have to do is donate to potentially receive one of these heartfelt messages. More info. * here *.
Donating usually takes less than an hour & has the potential to save up to 3 lives. Personally - I find it a relaxing part of the day not to mention a relatively easy way to volunteer to help others in need (my last donation pic below on Valentine’s Day):
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