30 May-3 June 2005

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2005 with new Ocean News and Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 29 August 2005. All the current online homepage products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• Atlantic Hurricane Season begins -- The official 2005 hurricane season for the North Atlantic Basin begins on Wednesday, 1 June. 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. The season will run until 30 November in both basins.
• NOAA vessel named -- NOAA officials announced that following a nationwide contest involving students in grades 6-12, their newest ocean exploration vessel has been named Okeanos Explorer as suggested by a team of students from Woodstock (IL) High School. [NOAA News]
• New tide and water level station established -- The University of Southern Mississippi and NOAA have recently inaugurated a new tide and water level station at the university's research laboratory so as to provide measurements of land subsidence and to monitor storm surges during the hurricane season. [NOAA News]
• An anniversary of NOAA satellites noted -- The 45th anniversary of the launching of the first weather satellite, TIROS, was recently celebrated. Since then, a variety of satellites has been launched that have been designed to monitor the earth's atmospheric and oceanic environment. [NOAA News]
• Large red tide affects the New England coast -- Scientists with the University of Maine have blamed the massive toxic red tide bloom along the New England coast on three storms that have traveled across the Gulf of Maine, along with unusual ocean currents. Officials in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts have banned the harvesting a variety of shellfish from beds along their coasts. [USA Today] Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are studying the algae responsible for these red tides and are providing information to coastal managers. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• New underwater volcano discovered in the Pacific -- Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Oregon and University of Sydney have discovered an active underwater volcano near the Samoan Island chain in the western Pacific Ocean. This volcano formed within the last four years. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution] [Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
• New technique for tsunami alert developed -- Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California, Los Angeles who have studying the colossal earthquake that produced the disastrous Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 have developed a method for imaging the earthquakes, which could provide sufficient time for warning the public of an impending tsunami. [Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
• Wet and dry conditions foreseen in Africa -- Researchers with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and NOAA recently reported that warming of the Indian Ocean could affect the African monsoons, resulting in wetter monsoons for the Sahel region of Africa, which had endured several decades of drought, while southern Africa could see development of a major and extended drought. [UCAR News]
• Assessing oceanic anoxic events -- A scientist at the Field Museum in Chicago has been studying an "oceanic anoxic event" when large quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide was sequestered in the ocean by maritime organisms approximately 183 million years ago. This event may have been triggered by the burning of underground coal deposits, which released carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. [EurekAlert!]
• Hurricane-force winds could strike Florida and North Carolina this season -- Using historical statistics and forecasts of ocean and atmospheric conditions for 2005, researchers from the University of Central Florida and a Georgia company predict that several coastal cities in Florida (Miami Beach and Naples) and North Carolina (Cape Hatteras) could experience hurricane force winds this hurricane season. [University of Central Florida]
• 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.

• 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 final 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 DSOcean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2004, The American Meteorological Society.