WC> Since they've been keeping statistics the intensity of hurricanes
 WC> has been increasing in the Gulf of Mexico.

 WC> It's a well known fact that hurricanes intensify over warm waters.
 WC> Warmer waters more intense hurricanes.
 WC>  Strength of hurricanes has doubled on the Gulf over the last few
 WC> decades. It's really that simple.

 WC> To see for yourself
 WC> www,bbsr.edu/Weather
 WC> Scroll down to GOES east infra-red satellite image.

 The gummit wants to blame the warmer waters, not what's warming them.
This isn't religious so to speak unless you want to think momma nature
is on the war path. Can't say I blame her.
........................................

Posted on Thu, Sep. 22, 2005

Gulf current fueled Rita and Katrina

By Seth Borenstein

Knight Ridder News Service


WASHINGTON - Hurricane Rita, following in Katrina's wake, zipped from
a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in 30 hours -- the storm
equivalent of a race car going 0 to 100 in nothing flat.

That's because Rita and Katrina both found the perfect hurricane fuel
--
ultra-deep, super-warm water -- and then lingered there, storm
researchers said.

The result: For the first time in a single hurricane season, two
Category 5 hurricanes powered across the Gulf of Mexico toward the U.S. coast.

Both storms hit what scientists call the Loop Current, an annual
100-mile swath of 82-degree water between the Florida Keys and the
mouth of the Mississippi River that's 300 feet deep, said Frank Marks, the
director of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. Normally, warm water is about 125 feet deep.

That deep pool of warm water "is enough to make a really nasty
hurricane," said Hugh

Willoughby, senior hurricane scientist at Florida International
University. Most of the time, hurricanes cross the loop, intensify
somewhat, then get back to cooler waters where they weaken.

But both Katrina and Rita "are going straight down the slot like a
barrel of a shotgun," Marks said.

Adding to the storms' intensity is the absence of high altitude winds,
which would have weakened them.

The effect of the warm Gulf waters was predictable. But Katrina left a
mystery in its wake.

As Katrina passed over an eddy of the Loop Current in late August, it
should have cooled the water by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn't, and
that surprised scientists.

Rita is predicted to hit the same eddy on Thursday afternoon.

NOAA's buoys and thermometers are waiting.

Cindy

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