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Hurricane Isabel made landfall east of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, as a Category 2 (Safford-Simpson scale) hurricane on 18 September 2003. The storm's center tracked to the northwest, passing west of Chesapeake Bay (Figure 1) in the early morning of 19 September. Hurricane Isabel brought the highest storm surge and winds to the region since the Chesapeake-Potomac hurricane of 1933 and Hurricane Hazel in 1954 (http://www.erh. noaa.gov/er/akq/wx_events/hur/isabel_2003. htm). Storm surge was variable in the region, reaching a high of 2.7 m on the western side of the bay where the heaviest rainfall occurred. The highest sustained wind in the bay region reached 30.8 m s−1 at Gloucester Point,Virginia, with gusts to 40.7 m s−1.

The hurricane season of 2004 has turned out to be one for the record books. The first recorded South American hurricane made landfall in Brazil in March 2004. Hurricane Alex, the first named storm of the North Atlantic hurricane season, was the strongest hurricane ever recorded north of 38° latitude. Hurricane Ivan was the most southerly-forming North Atlantic hurricane recorded. After menacing the Caribbean, Ivan made an official landfall near Mobile, Alabama, but greatly affected the western panhandle region of Florida, which was located within the dangerous northeastern quadrant of the storm.

A strengthening El Nino has suppressed overall tropical storm activity during the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on 25 November. The hurricane season, which ended on 30 November, produced only four hurricanes, half the number during a typical year since 1995. Eight storm systems—twice the average amount—affected the U.S., however. NOAA hurricane forecasters at the agency's Climate Prediction Center, Hurricane Research Division, and National Hurricane Center had predicted normal to below-normal overall storm activity, due to the strengthening El Nino, according to the agency. Climate Prediction Center director Jim Laver said that gaining a better understanding of the atmospheric conditions controlling seasonal hurricane activity is at the core of the agency's extended-range hurricane outlooks. Laver said that while 2002 was the agency's fifth straight year of issuing accurate outlooks for overall hurricane season activity, “future success depends on more research into how global and regional climate patterns affect Atlantic hurricane activity.”

Before tropical storm Mitch had transformed itself into a hurricane on October 24, 1998, some U.S. disaster assistance to Central America had focused on drought and fire outbreaks then affecting the region. However, Mitch—which ranks among the most intense hurricanes to strike the Atlantic basin in the past several hundred years—caused 11,000 deaths. The hurricane devastated several countries and their economies, as well as their fledgling hydrological and meteorological capabilities. According to several sources, these capabilities had been less than adequate to begin with, and had been slowly falling apart over the years, due to eroding budgets or political strife. Along with Hurricane Georges in September 1998, which also struck the Caribbean, Mitch prompted U.S. disaster assistance to quickly shift gears to deal with the new emergency.

Erosion, caused in large part by unusually severe storms, has damaged beaches and property in recent years along the Pacific coast of the United States. In the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington), four storms were experienced during the 1998–1999 La Nina winter that produced wave heights which exceeded what had been projected as the 100-year extreme event. This occurrence raises questions about the effects of climate controls— such as El Ninos and La Ni˜nas—on wave conditions in the North Pacific, and whether there has been a progressive increase in wave heights during recent decades, much as has been found in the North Atlantic. In the North Atlantic, researchers have documented from a long-term record of wave measurements west of Lands End, England, that wave heights have increased progressively since the late 1960s [Carter and Draper, 1988; Bacon and Carter, 1991; Kushnir et al., 1997; Gulev and Hasse, 1999]. Previous to our study, no attempt had been made to examine whether such trends exist in the North Pacific. This is now possible, thanks to more than a quarter-century of ocean buoy measurements of daily wave conditions throughout the eastern North Pacific.

Three regions of simultaneous anomalous warming observed in the North Pacific Ocean at the end of May 1997 (Figure 1) are related to wind anomalies through different mechanisms, NASA's high-resolution Scatterometer (NSCAT) [Liu et al., 1998] reveals. The anomalous warming along the equator is part of the developing El Nino and is related to the westerly wind anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific and the relaxation of the trade winds. The equatorial westerly wind anomalies are related to the anomalous cyclonic wind pattern in the northeast Pacific.

(1991). The French Presence in the South Pacific 1842–1940. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 130-130.

Concentrations of atmospheric aluminum—a good indicator of mineral aerosol—have been measured weekly, between January 1981 and March 1982, at the seven stations of the SEAREX Asian Dust Network in the North Pacific. A seasonal transport pattern was found at most of the sites, with high Al concentrations from February to June and low concentrations from July to January. There was a latitudinal gradient in the mean annual atmospheric dust concentration, with the greatest concentrations occurring in the mid-latitudes. When coupled with statistics of dust storms in Asia and of Kosa (dense dust hazes traced to Chinese origins) in Japan, the data suggest that the dust collected in the network was transported by the westerlies from arid regions in Asia. It is estimated that 6–12×106 tons of Asian dust are transported annually to the central North Pacific; larger quantities are probably deposited over the western North Pacific, closer to the Asian sources. This atmospherically transported mineral aerosol is a significant source of sedimentary material for the North Pacific.

A summary of the 1977 season is presented. Included are seasonal statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

A summary of the 1983 season is presented. Included are seasonal statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

The 1978 hurricane season produced 98 "tropical systems", of which 33 acquired the closed circulation of a depression. Over half of these 65 originated over the African Continent. African seedlings initiated 6 of the 11 named Atlantic storms, and 13 of the 18 east Pacific storms.

This is the second of a two part series discussing hurricanes during the 20th century. In Part I, Paul J. Hebert and Glenn Taylor analyzed the 129 direct hits by hurricanes to Gulf and Atlantic coast states. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest hurricane on record accounting for over 6,000 deaths. The most intense hurricane to strike the United States occurred in 1935 when a storm reading 26.35 barometric inches hit the Florida Keys. The costliest storm to date is Hurricane Agnes which caused over $2,100,000,000 worth of damage to Florida and the northeastern United States.

A summary of the 1987 season is presented. Included are season statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

This article is a continuation of the report on 1974 tropical cyclone activity in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Part 1 summarized the statistics on storm tracks, intensifies, forecast verification and damage and casualties. Part 2 presents satellite picture analyses of individual storms following the Dvorak (1974) technique for classification of tropical systems.

I WAS BORN in the year 1920, in Seaside Hospital, on Pacific Avenue, in Long Beach, California. With that locational determinant, it seems fated that my professional interest would lie in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and its rimlands, and hence lead to the subject of this address. The great extent of the Pacific Ocean is a fact of world geography that many of us learned only after the outbreak of World War II with the Japanese; the Pacific is a spacious ocean region all too often omitted in condensed versions of world map projections. The immense bowl-shaped basin of the Pacific is the earth's largest feature.1 It extends nearly halfway around the world at the equator — from the coast of Ecuador to Singa pore. At 32,000 feet from the ocean floor, Hawaii is the world's highest mountain, and the Marianas Trench, 36,000 feet in

The 1979 hurricane season produced 85 “tropical system” of which 27 acquired the closed circulation of a depression 52 of these originated over the African Continent. African seedlings initiated 7 of the 8 named Atlantic storm and 7 of the 10 East Pacific storms.

A summary of the 1979 season is presented. Included are seasonal statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

A summary of the 1978 season is presented. Included are seasonal statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

The authors have been monitoring the large-scale circulation over the tropics since 1968 through use of operational tropical wind analyses prepared by the National Meteorological Center. Seasonal and monthly anomaly charts of the tropical circulation at 700 and 200 mb have been prepared using four-year seasonal and monthly means as a preliminary “normal” A sequence of seasonal anomaly charts is used here to describe the highly anomalous tropical circulation during the northern summer of 1972 and its antecedents. During this season the trades were weaker than “normal” over most of the Pacific with both the North and South Pacific anticyclones displaced poleward. In the upper troposphere the anomalous flow was anticyclonic over the Central Pacific reflecting the weakness of the mid-oceanic troughs north and south of the equator. From the eastern Pacific eastward across the Atlantic, Africa, and the Indian Ocean the flow at upper levels north of the equator was westerly relative to normal, signifyin...

A summary of the 1984 Atlantic hurricane season is given. Twelve tropical cyclones and one subtropical cyclone were tracked in the North Atlantic–Caribbean–Gulf of Mexico region. Diana was a landfalling hurricane on the North Carolina coast and Lili was a rare December hurricane.

The 1973 tropical cyclone season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean is discussed and compared with recent past seasons. A comparison between reconnaissance aircraft wind speed estimates and satellite derived storm intensity is presented. The storm track and a brief discussion of each storm are included.

The combined sea-height data for the year 1971 for the western North Pacific Ocean are examined to determine the sea-state characteristics around tropical storms and typhoons. The results show that the areal extent about the storms of the combined sea height in the 9–15 ft range is primarily a function of storm duration, intensity (maximum sustained wind) and size. Equations derived by linear regression techniques are presented for describing the state of the sea about tropical cyclones.

A summary of the 1984 season is presented. Included are season statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

A general overview of the 1974 hurricane season in the North Atlantic is presented together with detailed accounts of individual storms.

A summary of the 1980 season is presented. Included are seasonal statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

The 1986 hurricane season for the Atlantic basin is summarized. Six named tropical cyclones were tracked; two hurricanes, Bonnie and Charley, crossed the United States coastline.

This report, in two parts, consists of: 1) A summary of the statistics of the 1974 tropical cyclone activity in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Storm tracks and activity tables comparing recent years are included. 2) A satellite picture analysis of individual storms and a sequence of daily pictures of eastern North Pacific hurricanes of the 1974 season.

(1984). North to Alaska: Marketing in the Pacific Northwest–Central Alaska linear trade. Maritime Policy & Management: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 99-112.

Five named tropical cyclones and one subtropical cyclone were tracked during 1982 in the Atlantic–Caribbean–Gulf of Mexico region. There were no landfalling hurricanes.

CALIFORNIA is experiencing the worst drought in modern history, and there is much concern and speculation about future rainfall prospects. We recently succeeded in relating South Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST) to rain in northeastern Brazil1, and here we use similar methods to relate sea surface temperatures over the North Pacific Ocean to rainfall in California. We found December SST in the north-east Pacific off Washington to have a limited but definite predictive value, and to account for about 45% of the variation in California rainfall for the period February–April.

A tropical cyclone analog program for the North Indian Ocean area (INJAH74) is described. The program is a statistical computer technique to provide forecasts for Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea tropical cyclones from 12-72 hours. The analog program is discussed in terms of its operational use at Fleet Weather Central/Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Guam, Mariana Islands. (Author)

A summary of the 1976 Atlantic hurricane season is presented along with detailed accounts of individual storms. Interesting aspects of the 1976 season include the absence of any named storms in either the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea. Two storms in the central north Atlantic recurved toward the cast at unusually low latitudes. Hurricane Belle struck Long Island after weakening dramatically during the 24 h period prior to landfall.

A statistical analysis is performed of the tropical cyclone forecast advisories and bulletins issued by the Eastern Pacific Hurricane Center, Redwood City, California, during the 1971–78 seasons. Each forecast is normalized by comparison with the performance of an objective model (EPCLPR) that is based on climatology and persistence. The normalized official forecasts show an improvement in skill during the period. This improvement is attributed to the availability of satellite data for determining the storm positions and to the introduction of objective forecast techniques. Forecast errors are related to a number of storm-related variables, such as initial latitude and longitude and deviations from the climatological track. Stepwise discriminant analysis is used to classify the forecasts into groups of above or below average errors.

A summary of the 1981 season is presented. Included are seasonal statistics, storm tracks and comparisons with activity in recent years.

A general summary of the 1983 hurricane season is presented. Four named tropical cyclones were tracked during the season. Three landfalls occurred. Alicia, the first cyclone of the season, ended a three-year period during which no hurricanes reached the United States coastline.