3-7 January 2011

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2011 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 17 January 2011. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

• In Close -- Earth reaches perihelion, the point in its orbit that is closest to the sun (147.1 million kilometers or 91.2 million miles), on Monday, 3 January 2011 at 19Z (2 PM EST, 1 PM CST, etc.).
• Time for a change in the normals -- According to international agreement, temperature, precipitation and degree-day normals are computed for thirty-year intervals, with the normals updated at the start of each decade. The end of the calendar year 2010 last Friday represented the end of one these decades used for climatological accounting purposes, with Saturday marking the beginning of a new decade. By the end of 2011, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center will have collected and processed 30 years of climate data from thousands of stations before distributing new official climate normals for the 1981-2010 reference period. By early 2012, these new normals will officially replace the 1971-2000 normals that have been used during the last decade.

• Eye on the tropics -- No organized tropical cyclone activity was detected in any of the world's ocean basins during the last week. However, in the South Indian Ocean, a low-pressure system identified as System 98S formed late last week off the northwestern coast of Western Australia. While this low brought locally heavy rain to Western Australia, it never developed into an organized tropical cyclone. Additional areas of northern Australia had received locally heavy rain over the previous weekend as Tropical Storm Tasha from the South Pacific basin made landfall along the coast of Queensland, Australia on Christmas Day. For more information of System 98S and Tropical Storm Tasha, see the NASA Hurricane Page.

• Right whale untangled off Florida -- At the end of last week, federal and state biologists successfully untangled a North Atlantic right whale that had become entangled in 150 feet of ropes in the Atlantic waters off the eastern coast of Florida near Daytona. [NOAA News]

• Online Deepwater Horizon response library is posted -- NOAA officials recently unveiled a web portal called "The NOAA Deepwater Horizon Library" that permits public access to an archive of the various maps, wildlife reports, scientific reports and other previously released public information used by emergency responders, maritime interests and local officials during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of last spring and summer. [NOAA News]
• Plans are finalized for 2011 hydrographic survey season -- Officials with NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey are finalizing plans in preparation for the upcoming 2011 hydrographic surveying season, which marks the nation's 177th hydrographic surveying season. New oceanic data that are to be collected will be used to update navigational charts along the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and the Atlantic Coast, including Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound. [NOAA News]
• Algae bloom develops off Patagonia -- An image obtained over one week ago from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the algal bloom in the surface waters of the South Atlantic off of Patagonia. The various loops and swirls in the algal bloom serve as tracers of the Brazil and the Falklands (Malvinas) Currents along a shelf-break front. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Studying causes of a mass extinction in early marine life -- Researchers at Ohio University who have been studying the collapse of marine life during the Late Devonian (approximately 378 to 375 million years ago) have found that an influx of invasive species appears capable of stopping those dominant processes associated with new species formation and triggering mass extinction events. [NSF]
• An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, drought, floods, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [NOAAWatch]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• 3 January 2006...The record 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season extended into the new year, as Tropical Storm Zeta reached its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph for the second time; the previous occurrence was on 1 January 2006. Never a threat to land as it traveled across the central North Atlantic, Tropical Storm Zeta was the 27th named tropical cyclone (including both tropical storms and hurricanes) of the season. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4 January 1493...The explorer, Christopher Columbus, began his return to Spain and completed his first journey to the New World. (Wikipedia)
• 5 January 1841...The British explorer, James Clark Ross, was the first to enter pack ice near Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica.
• 5 January 1875...CDR Edward Lull, USN, began an expedition to locate the best ship canal route across Panama. This route was followed 30 years later. (Naval Historical Center)
• 5 January 1903...The general public could use the San Francisco-Hawaii telegraph cable across the Pacific cable for the very first time.
• 6 January 1839...A two-day storm off the Irish and English coasts was immortalized as "The Big Wind".
• 6 January 1898...The first telephone message from a submerged submarine was transmitted by Simon Lake, the father of the modern submarine.
• 6 January 1928...An intense low pressure system over the North Sea created a storm surge that moved upstream along the Thames River to London in England. Water rose over embankments. The rapid rise of the river resulted in 14 deaths in basements. As many as 40,000 people were left homeless. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 7 January 1904...The international Morse code distress signal "CQD" was established. Two years later, the 1906 International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea, resolved that the radio distress signal should become "SOS" because it was quicker to send by wireless radio. (Wikipedia)
• 7 January 1927...Transatlantic telephone service began between New York and London, with 31 calls made on this first day.
• 8 January 1958...The Coast Guard LORAN Station at Johnston Island began transmitting on a 24-hour basis, thus establishing a new LORAN rate in the Central Pacific. The new rate between Johnston Island and French Frigate Shoal gave a higher order of accuracy for fixing positions in the steamship lanes from Oahu, Hawaii, to Midway Island. In the past, this was impossible in some areas along this important shipping route. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 8 January 1971...Twenty-nine pilot whales beached themselves and died at San Clemente Island, CA.
• 8-11 January 1980...Winds, waves and rain pounded Hawaii, resulting in 27.5 million dollars in storm damage, which was the greatest amount to that date in the Aloha State's history. Four houses were destroyed and 40 others damaged by a possible tornado in Honolulu's Pacific Palisades area on the 8^th. Ocean waves with heights to 20 feet entered beachfront hotels along the Kona Coast of the Big Island. (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, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.