WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

22-26 May 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:

• Typhoon continues its deadly ways -- After crossing Philippine Islands on week ago, Typhoon Chanchu (the western Pacific's counterpart to a hurricane), initially headed northwestward across the South China Sea before turning toward the north and then northeast, making landfall in southeastern China by Thursday. At its peak, Typhoon Chanchu was rated a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale. This typhoon claimed at least 37 lives in the Philippines and numerous Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea. As of Sunday, the bodies of 28 fishermen from Danang, Viet Nam were found, while another 150 remained missing at sea. [USA Today] A satellite image obtained from the Japanese geosynchronous satellite shows Typhoon Chanchu as it moved across the South China Sea toward southeastern China. [NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery]
• Hurricane Preparedness Week -- With the beginning of the official 2006 hurricane season for the North Atlantic Basin beginning on 1 June, this upcoming week (21-27 May) has been declared National Hurricane Awareness Week. The 2006 hurricane season began in the eastern North Pacific basin last Monday (15 May). The National Hurricane Center maintains a hurricane preparedness website that provides information and educational material for the various hurricane hazards to include storm surge, high winds, tornadoes and flooding. (A Spanish version of this website is also available.) A similar hurricane preparedness website is also maintained by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, HI with some information specific for the central Pacific basin. Several Gulf Coast and Middle Atlantic States will also conduct statewide Hurricane Preparedness Days or Weeks. Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina will have various events. Guam, Hawaii and the Marianas will observe a Hurricane Awareness Day today (22 May).
  To kickoff National Hurricane Preparedness Week, NOAA officials will release their 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook at a news conference scheduled for today, Monday, 22 May 2006. [NOAA Media Advisory]
• North American Safe Boating Week -- This week of 20-26 May has been declared 2006 National Safe Boating Week, to help kick off the 2006 North American Safe Boating Campaign. Check the Safe Boating Week site maintained by the Safe Boating Council.
• The storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald reanalyzed -- Scientists with the National Weather Service Forecast Offices in Marquette, MI and Cleveland, OH and with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, MI have recently completed a reexamination of the storm on 10 November 1975 that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in eastern Lake Superior as the ore carrier was attempting to seek shelter from the storm as it was moving eastward across the lake from Superior, WI. Using available surface data from the time of the storm, the scientists used a newer and higher resolution model to track the storm. This reanalysis indicates a detailed portrayal of the excessive winds and waves that helped sink the ship. [NOAA News]
• NOAA helps locate historic ship wrecks -- A team from the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, aided by a grant from the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and support from the NOAA Rhode Island Sea Grant Program, located four sites that appear to contain the shipwrecks of Revolutionary War ships that were scuttled by the British Navy to blockade Newport (RI) Harbor in 1778. The search continues for Captain James Cook's Endeavour, thought to have been sunk off Newport after it had been turned into a transport and prison ship following its 1768-1771 exploration voyage to the Pacific. [NOAA News]
• Deep-water explorer designed to search for shipwrecks -- A team of engineering students at the Rochester Institute of Technology designed and built an underwater remote-operated explorer vehicle that is to be used to explore several shipwrecks in Lake Ontario and in the Atlantic Ocean. [Rochester (NY) Institute of Technology]
• An unprepared Northeast could be due for a destructive hurricane -- Some meteorologists and insurance officials are concerned that sections of the Northeast, extending from the New York City metropolitan area northeastward into New England, could be ripe for a long-awaited destructive hurricane this season. They base their projection on a somewhat cyclic pattern of intense hurricane activity, with the last period of hurricane activity in the Northeast from 1930 to 1960. They are also concerned that this region is currently unprepared for such a possible major hurricane. The region was hit by a category-2 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) in 1893 and a major category-3 hurricane in 1938 called the "The Long Island Express." [USA Today]
• Risks associated with living along coastal areas assessed -- Researchers from The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the International Institute for Environment and Development have published a study indicating that as much as ten percent of the world's population is vulnerable to flooding due to increased storm surges and a possible continued rise in sea level. [Earth Institute News]
• Study to help preserve Antarctic marine ecosystems -- While the 18th annual field season for the NOAA U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources research program concluded two months ago, research continues to help understand the physical, biological and anthropogenic influences on living marine resources in this ecosystem. This program is part of the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service's Southwest Fisheries Science Center. [NOAA Magazine]
• The USS Oriskany becomes a reef -- The decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, a veteran of the Korean and Viet Nam conflicts, was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico last week, forming the world's largest artificial reef for fish and other marine life. The sunken ship, which lies in about 130 feet of water, will be open only to certified divers, and could help stimulate tourism in the western Florida Panhandle. [Pensacola News Journal]
• Deep sea slab found under Central America -- Analyzing seismic waves reflected from the mantle deep under the west coast of Central America, a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz have detected a massive and folded rock slab that had formed on the ocean floor approximately 50 million years ago and then sank below North America. [EurekAlert!]
• Coral reef may yield record of old Pacific weather patterns -- A researcher from the University of Auckland reported that her analysis of long-lived Pacific coral indicates that the tropical Pacific was warm and dry during the "Little Ice Age" (1550-1900 AD) when much of the Northern Hemisphere was cold, but cool and dry during the "Medieval Warm Period" (900-1200 AD), when conditions were warm and wet elsewhere. [EurekAlert!]
• Hurricane cloud tops could provide clues on surface winds -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have been studying data obtained by sensors onboard orbiting satellites of cloud tops in developing hurricanes. These data are being used to supplement land-based radar data to make better estimates of the hurricane winds at the earth's surface. [NASA GSFC]
• Oil from the Exxon Valdez could continue to cause harm to wildlife -- A research chemist and colleagues at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau, AK report that new evidence suggests that the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince William Sound in March 1989 may have extended farther out into tidal waters, thereby possibly causing greater harm to marine wildlife than previously thought. [EurekAlert!]
• Money for teachers! K-12 educators are eligible for $500 National Weather Association grants for projects that increase their students' knowledge of meteorology. Applications are due 1 August 2006. For more information, visit http://www.nwas.org/solhirsch.html
• 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:

• 22 May 1819...The steamship SS Savannah left Savannah, GA on a voyage to Liverpool, England and became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It reached Liverpool on 20 June. (Wikipedia)
• 22 May 1849...The future President, Abraham Lincoln, received a patent for the floating dry dock described as for "buoying boats over shoals" (No. 6,469). He was the first American president to receive a patent. His idea utilized inflated cylinders to float grounded vessels through shallow water. (Today in Science History)
• 22-24 May 1948...A rare early season hurricane struck the island of Hispaniola, killing an estimated 80 people. (The Weather Doctor)
• 22 May 1960...A 8.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of south central Chile triggered a tsunami that moved across the Pacific Ocean. Between 490 and 2290 people were estimated to have been killed by the earthquake and tsunami, and damage estimates were over one half billion dollars. Hilo, HI was devastated by the tsunami. (The University of Washington)
• 23 May 1850...The US Navy sent USS Advance and USS Rescue to attempt rescue of Sir John Franklin's expedition, lost in Arctic. (Naval Historical Center)
• 23 May 1946...Commodore Edward M. Webster, USCG, headed the U.S. Delegation to the International Meeting on Radio Aids to Marine Navigation, which was held in London, England. As a result of this meeting, the principal maritime nations of the world would make an intensive study of the World War II-developed devices of radar, LORAN, radar beacons, and other navigational aids with a view to adapt them to peacetime use. This meeting was the first time that the wartime technical secrets of radar and LORAN were generally disclosed to the public. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 23 May 1960...Tsunami waves from Chilean earthquakes began to affect the Alaska's coast along the Gulf of Alaska from Prince of Wales Island to Montague Island for as long as one week. The tsunami waves on the 23rd were up to 14 feet high near Yakutat. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 May 1500...The 13 ships in the fleet of Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral were hit by a huge ice storm that sank four ships. The rest of the ships were separated as they sailed south of the Cape of Good Hope and continued their journey to India.
• 24 May 1901...The relative humidity at Parkstone, Dorset in England at 4 PM was reported to be 9.5 percent. This low relative humidity is not typical of the British Islands, which are surrounded by ocean water and have no large high mountain barriers or plateaus. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 May 1951...Northeast gales generated waves to 15 feet high in the harbor of Newport, RI. A 50-ft. Navy launch with about 142 men on board capsized. Nineteen of the men drowned in the incident. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 May 1992...Winds up to 40 knots and seas to 18 feet in the northern Gulf of Alaska, approximately 30 miles southwest of Alaska's Cape Cleare, sent three waves crashing over the Cajun Mama. The 80-ft fishing boat sank, but the crew of five was rescued. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 25 May 1985... The Meghna River delta in Bangladesh was hit with a tropical cyclone with winds of over 100 mph that created a 15-to 20-foot high storm surge that flooded a 400-square-mile area, mainly islands located in the mouth of the river. More than 11,000 people and 500,000 head of cattle died and hundreds of thousands were left homeless because of this cyclone.
• 26 May 1967...A slow moving nor'easter battered New England with high winds, heavy rain, and record late season snow on this day and into the 26^th. Winds 70 to 90 mph in gusts occurred along the coast. Over 7 inches of rain fell at Nantucket, MA with 6.57 inches falling in 24 hours to set a new 24-hour rainfall record. Severe damage occurred along the coast from very high tides. The 24.9 inches of snow that fell at Mount Washington, NH set a new May snowfall record. Other locations in New Hampshire received 10 inches of snow near Keene and 6 inches at Dublin. (Intellicast)
• 28 May1963...A cyclone killed about 22,000 people along the coast of East Pakistan.
• 28 May 1987...A robot probe found the wreckage of the USS Monitor off Cape Hatteras, NC. (Wikipedia)
• 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)

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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.