WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

29 May-2 June 2006

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2006 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 28 August 2006. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Ocean in the News:

• A new environmental satellite launched into geosynchronous orbit -- NOAA and NASA officials reported that a satellite, initially identified as GOES-N, was launched and successfully reached geosynchronous orbit (approximately 23,000 miles above the earth's equator) last Wednesday night (25 May 2006). This new satellite (to be designated GOES-13 following attainment of final orbit) is intended to be a more stable pointing platform that should increase the performance of imaging and sounder instruments, thereby supply data critical for fast, accurate forecasts and warnings of severe weather, including tornadoes, winter storms and hurricanes. Other instruments will monitor space and solar environments, thus providing information on solar storm activity. In addition, the satellite will have a new dedicated broadcast capability to be used by the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network and a new digital weather facsimile capability for higher quality transmissions of data and products. [NOAA News]
• A long-term submarine volcanic eruption studied -- An interdisciplinary team of scientists from the U.S., Japan, Canada and New Zealand is participating in a NOAA-sponsored mission to study the volcanic eruption that has been continuing at a depth of more than 1800 feet below the ocean surface along the Mariana Arc in the western Pacific Ocean. Exploration of the active submarine volcanoes, along with sample collection, has been made with the remotely operated vehicle Jason II. [NOAA News]
• Students from Mississippi name new NOAA Fisheries vessel -- NOAA Fisheries officials recently announced that the 208-foot fisheries survey vessel to be based at Pascagoula, MS will have the name "Pisces", suggested by a team of five students and their teacher from Sacred Heart School in Southaven, MS that won the "Name NOAA's New Ship" contest. [NOAA News]
• Atlantic Hurricane Season begins -- The official 2006 hurricane season for the North Atlantic Basin begins on Thursday, 1 June 2006. The National Hurricane Center maintains a hurricane preparedness website that provides information and educational material for the various hurricane hazards including storm surge, high winds, tornadoes and flooding. (A Spanish version of this website is also available.) In the Eastern North Pacific basin, the hurricane season began on 15 May 2006. The official hurricane season will run until 30 November in both basins. Although last week (21-27 May) was National Hurricane Awareness Week, South Carolina and Georgia will observe hurricane awareness week from 29 May to 2 June 2006. The National Weather Service Forecast Office at Houston-Galveston, TX will host the 2006 Houston/Galveston Hurricane Workshop on Tuesday afternoon, 30 May, in downtown Houston.
• Hurricane Forecast Updates...
  • North Atlantic basin -- Last Monday, NOAA forecasters at the National Hurricane Center announced their seasonal outlooks for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, along with a plea for individuals to make early hurricane preparations for safety. They foresee a "very active hurricane season" with 13 to 16 named tropical cyclones (including hurricanes and tropical storms), including eight to ten systems becoming hurricanes. Four to six of these hurricanes could reach major hurricane status (category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale). [NOAA News] For comparison, Dr. William Gray and his associates at Colorado State University issued an updated forecast in early April of 17 named tropical cyclones, 9 hurricanes and 5 intense hurricanes for the upcoming 2006 North Atlantic hurricane season. [The Tropical Meteorology Project] Long-term statistics indicate nearly 11 named cyclones, 6 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes.
  • Eastern North Pacific basin -- NOAA forecasters issued their operational outlook for the 2006 season in Eastern North Pacific (east of 140 degrees W longitude), which began on 15 May 2006. They call a for below average season, with 12 to 16 named tropical cyclones, including nine hurricanes and one to three major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher). For comparison, the long-term averages for the eastern Pacific basin include 15 to 16 tropical named cyclones, nine hurricanes and four to five major hurricanes. [NOAA Public Affairs Press Release]
  • Central Pacific basin -- NOAA forecasters at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, HI recently released their outlook for the 2006 hurricane season in the Central Pacific (from 140 degrees West to the Dateline). They are anticipating a slightly below average season, with the possibility of two to three tropical cyclones, as compared with a long-term average of between four to five tropical cyclones that includes nearly two hurricanes, two tropical storms and one or two tropical depressions. [NOAA Public Affairs Press Release]
• First tropical storm of season forms in eastern Pacific -- Tropical Storm Aletta formed off the west coast of Mexico early Saturday and intensified to a minimal tropical storm system, the first of the 2006 Eastern Pacific hurricane season. [Weather Underground]
• Fifty years of NOAA hurricane research heralded -- Scientists and officials with the NOAA Hurricane Research Division, a part of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, FL, are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their division and the half-century of contributions to hurricane research. [NOAA Magazine]
• Big Easy could have a 30 percent chance of hurricane winds -- A statistics professor at the University of Central Florida and a consultant on hazard modeling from Savannah, GA have determined the probability of hurricane-force winds along the entire Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico coasts during the upcoming 2006 hurricane season, based upon They said that the Louisiana Gulf Coast, including New Orleans could experience a 3-in-10 chance of experiencing hurricane-force winds during 2006, the highest probability of any coastal section in the nation. [EurekAlert!]
• Draft report released on New Orleans levees -- The findings of an independent field investigation of the performance of the New Orleans levee systems following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have been detailed in a 700-page draft final report prepared by a team of researchers led by two engineering professors at the University of California, Berkeley. [EurekAlert!]
• NOAA provides information to the national marine transport system -- The role that NOAA and all of its five main line offices have played in the development and maintenance of our nation's marine transportation system is outlined. These main line offices, such as the National Ocean Weather Services, collect and provide environmental data and other products to the public and marine interests. [NOAA Magazine] [Editor's Note: Last Monday, 22 May 2006 was National Maritime Day, a day that has been proclaimed by all US Presidents since 1933. The day represents the anniversary of the date, 22 May 1819, when the steamship Savannah left its homeport of Savannah, GA, for England, marking the first transoceanic voyage by an American steamship. EJH]
• Brazil acts to protect coral reefs -- The Brazilian government and the Institute of Environment and Natural Resources recently created an official buffer zone around coral reefs in the Abrolhos National Marine Park off its central Atlantic coast. This designation limits oil exploration and protects the biologically richest coral reefs in the South Atlantic. [EurekAlert!]
• Exploring the Gulf floor -- Researchers from Louisiana State University are leading a team of colleagues from several other universities in a month-long research cruise of the Gulf of Mexico offshore of the Louisiana coast. Two of the researchers will dive in the submersible vehicle, Alvin, to depths of 3000 meters to study unique animal communities on the continental slope. [EurekAlert!]
• Helping the nation's ports to reduce vulnerability to earthquake damage -- A five-year project to be led by the Georgia Institute of Technology aims to develop strategies that would safeguard US ports from earthquake damage. [EurekAlert!]
• Extraction of offshore oil could improve -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been conducting experiments that could aid oil companies in the extraction of millions of additional barrels of oil annually from offshore reservoirs. [MIT News]
• A new picture of the splitting of continents revealed -- Geologists at the University of Ohio and other universities in Canada, Spain, Mexico and Great Britain report that continent plates appear to break apart along preexisting lines of weakness, allowing for the formation and opening of oceans. As many as six major continental assembly and breakup events may have occurred in Earth history, separated by intervals of about 500 million years. [Ohio University Research News]
• When ancient whales lost their "legs" -- A group of scientists from the University of Florida, California and India led by an anatomy professor at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine have found that approximately 35 million years ago ancient whales lost the last remnants of their hind limbs or "legs", which allowed the former four-legged land mammals to become sleek and gain the ability to spread out across the world's oceans. [EurekAlert!]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

• 29 May 1827...The first nautical school was opened in Nantucket, MA, under the name Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin's Lancasterian School.
• 29 May 1914...Shallow river fog along the St. Lawrence River approximately 185 miles from Quebec City, Quebec contributed to the collision of the CP Liner Empress of Ireland and a Norwegian coal ship, The Storstad. Although the two ships had spotted each other several minutes before the collision, altered courses and confused signals contributed to the crash. In one of the worst ship disasters in history, the liner sank in 25 minutes drowning 1024 passengers of the 1477 people on board. Only seven lifeboats escaped the rapidly sinking vessel. (The Weather Doctor) (The History Channel)
• 29 May 1950...A Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner, RCMPV St. Roch, became the first ship to circumnavigate North America, when it arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Wikipedia)
• 30 May 1767...The first stone of the tower for the Charleston Lighthouse on Morris Island, SC was laid on this date. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 30-31 May 1997...As many as 140 people had to be rescued from rip currents off Dayton Beach Shores, FL. One man died in a rip current while trying to save his wife. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 31 May 1911...The hull of the ill-fated Titanic was launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland. At the ceremony, a White Star Line employee claimed, "Not even God himself could sink this ship." (Information Please)
• 31 May 1997...The Confederation Bridge, also dubbed the "Fixed Link," was officially opened, linking Canada's Prince Edward Island with mainland New Brunswick. This 8-mile long bridge that crosses the Northumberland Strait is the longest bridge in the world that spans waters that freeze. (Wikipedia)
• 1-17 June 2001...The deadliest and costliest tropical storm in US history, Tropical Storm Allison, wandered westward across the tropical Atlantic and crossed over into the Pacific before reversing direction and moving back into the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. On 1 June the tropical wave, which eventually evolved into TS Allison, moved into the Gulf of Tehuantepec on the Pacific coast of Mexico after moving westward across the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean from off the west coast of Africa on 21 May. On the 2^nd, a cyclonic (counterclockwise) circulation developed to the south-southeast of Salma Cruz, Mexico, but the low-level circulation became ill-defined as the system moved inland on the 3^rd over southeastern Mexico and western Guatemala. This system intensified again and eventually moved northward to the Texas Gulf Coast and then eastward to the Atlantic before turning into an extratropical storm in mid-June. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 2-4 June 1986...A tropical disturbance brought flooding rains to parts of the Greater Antilles. The flooding caused 59 deaths in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. As many as 240,000 people lost their homes to this disturbance. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 3 June 1979...The world's worst oil spill occurred when an exploratory oil well, Ixtoc 1, blew out, spilling over 140 million gallons of crude oil into the Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico. Although it is the largest known oil spill, it had a relatively low environmental impact. The well was finally capped in March 1980. Booms were placed along the Texas coast to protect major inlets from the oil that was carried northward by prevailing surface currents in the Gulf of Mexico. (Information Please) (Wikipedia)
• 4 June 1825...A hurricane struck Long Island, NY leveling trees and causing damage to ships. The early season hurricane, which originated near Cuba, caused major damage along the Atlantic coast from Charleston, SC to New York City. Many were lost at sea. (David Ludlum)
• 4 June 1976...Forty-foot waves from a tropical cyclone smashed Gogha (port), India. Excellent warnings limited the death toll to approximately 70. Dredging of the harbor at Bhavnnagar ceased for several years as storm runoff from the Kansa River washed away accumulated sand and silt. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2006, The American Meteorological Society.