23-27 August 2010

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2010 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 30 August 2010. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• Eye on the tropics -- Some tropical cyclone activity was found across tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans last week:
• In the North Atlantic basin, a tropical depression formed late Saturday over the central equatorial Atlantic southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. This system, which was identified as Tropical Depression 6, intensified on Sunday as it traveled to the northwest and was renamed Tropical Storm Danielle, the fourth named tropical cyclone of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season.
• In the eastern North Pacific basin, a tropical depression formed over the waters of the Gulf of Tehauntepec off the Central American coast at the start of this past weekend. By early Sunday morning, this depression had intensified to become Tropical Storm Frank, the sixth named tropical cyclone of the 2010 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific. By late Sunday, Tropical Storm Frank was moving toward the west.
  A day earlier, a tropical depression identified as Tropical Depression 8-E formed off the western coast of Mexico and traveled initially toward the west-northwest, but remaining well to the south of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. By late in the weekend, Tropical Depression 8-E was beginning to curve and travel toward the west. For additional information and a satellite image of Tropical Depression 8-E, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
• In the western North Pacific, Tropical Depression 6W formed over the waters of the South China Sea late Sunday (local time). Earlier, an area of disturbed weather capable of intensifying was located over the South China Sea on Friday, as indicated by the satellite image and discussion appearing in the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Reports from GRIP -- NASA's six-week field experiment designed to study the development of hurricanes in the North Atlantic Basin began at the start of last week and continues. Some notes from this experiment, called Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP), include:
• One of the first missions that was conducted as part of the GRIP experiments was a 5-hour "shakedown" flight made by NASA's DC-8 aircraft early last week along the northern Gulf Coast so that the scientists could test their instruments. [NASA GRIP Mission]
• A report on the work that the scientists performed on their first GRIP flight aboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft. [NASA GRIP Mission]
• One of the scientific investigations that is being made during the GRIP experiment entails the analysis of the shapes and sizes of precipitation particles in an effort to see if how these physical properties of precipitation influence the development of severe weather in storm clouds. The scientists and engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have redesigned the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR), which will be flown on a high-altitude a WB-57 aircraft, to better observe the different shapes of precipitation at an altitude of 60,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. [NASA GRIP Mission]
• Origin of underwater hydrocarbon plume in Gulf is mapped -- In mid-June, scientists affiliated with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution conducted a 12-day research expedition onboard the University of Rhode Island's Research Vessel Endeavor and mapped the large 22-mile long underwater hydrocarbon plume that has spread out across the Gulf of Mexico. This plume, which had a width of 1.2 miles and a thickness of 650 feet was at a depth of more than 3000 feet below the water's surface because of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. [NOAA News]
• Fisheries scientist from NOAA receives a prestigious award -- In recognition of his research on large marine ecosystems, Kenneth Sherman, director of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Marine Ecosystems Studies and of the NOAA Fisheries Narragansett, RI Laboratory was named one of two 2010 recipients of the Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development, which is considered the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize. [NOAA News]
• Projects designed to prevent and control harmful algal blooms along Atlantic Coast receive funding -- NOAA recently announced that three multi-year projects were awarded up to $3 million to prevent and control harmful algal blooms impacting coastal communities along the Atlantic coast as part of the agency's Prevention, Control and Mitigation of Harmful Algal Blooms program. The programs are headed by researchers associated with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Delaware College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology. [NOAA News]
• First rescued Gulf sea turtles released -- At a ceremony held last week near Cedar Key, FL, the NOAA administrator and the Unified Command's National Incident Commander joined biologists from a variety of federal, state and partner organizations, to release 23 Kemp’s ridley sea turtles back into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico after having been rescued and rehabilitated following the Gulf oil spill. [NOAA News]
• Deep oil plumes in Gulf could cause "dead zones" --Scientists at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Princeton University who modeled the oil and methane leaking into the Gulf of Mexico due to the Deepwater Horizon warn that the oil plumes well under the surface could be a likely source of the deep "dead zones" or hypoxic zones where the lack of dissolved oxygen along with the toxic concentrations of dissolved oil have resulted in a reduction in marine life. [EurekAlert!]
• Technology helps NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson rescue a downed pilot -- Using sophisticated onboard navigation equipment, the NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson was able to rescue a downed pilot from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico west of Key West, FL, near where the ship was conducting mapping surveys. [NOAA News]
• Widespread plastic debris found floating in western North Atlantic -- A team of researchers from the Sea Education Association, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Hawaii recently reported that data collected over 22 years indicates an increase in the concentration of plastic debris found floating in the waters of the western North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas. The concentration of debris was comparable to the region called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch." [EurekAlert!]
• Monitoring the Northwest Passage from space -- An image obtained from data collected last week by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows the nearly ice-free channels around some of islands of the Canadian Archipelago that would represent the famed Northwest Passage. According to National Snow and Ice Data Center, some of the straits have more ice this summer than back in the summer of 2007 when the extent of the Arctic sea ice had reached an all-time record minimum. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Three large earthquakes may have sparked Samoan tsunami -- A team of researchers led by a seismologist from the University of California at Santa Cruz claims that the 8.1 "great earthquake" thought to be responsible for the deadly tsunami that hit Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga on 29 September 2009 may have also triggered two other major magnitude 7.8 earthquakes. [NSF News]
• Growth of Antarctic sea ice seen as a paradox -- Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently explained that the increases in the Antarctic sea ice in recent years were due to a hydrological cycle that was accelerated by higher temperatures. This accelerated hydrological cycle resulted in more precipitation in the form of snow over the waters of the Southern Oceans surrounding Antarctica, which also helps to stabilize the upper ocean and insulate it from the heating below. [EurekAlert!]
• Thickness of Arctic sea ice is a matter of concern -- Sea ice physicists from Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute who have been monitoring the thickness of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean near Greenland from aircraft are concerned that the ice cover is thinning and could affect the long-term equilibrium of the Arctic Ocean. [Alfred Wegener Institute]
• Using weather and climate knowledge to chart maritime heritage -- Archeologists along with meteorologists at the Museum of Archaeology at Norway's University of Stavanger have been combining their knowledge of meteorology, climatology and archaeology to discover some of the old sea routes and mooring sites along the Scandinavian coast used by early Norwegian mariners from the Iron Age to the early Middle Ages. [EurekAlert!]
• The Great Oxygenation Event revisited -- A geochemist from Washington University in St. Louis cautions that difficulties exist in attempting to interpret redox (reduction-oxidation reaction) proxies to help determine if the early Earth's atmosphere and oceans were either reducing or oxidizing. These proxies may involve the ratio of chromium isotopes in banded iron formations or the ratio of isotopes in sulfide particles trapped in diamonds, can be used. His analyses indicated the chemistry of the atmosphere-ocean system is more complex than previously thought, with several swings in atmospheric and oceanic oxygen concentrations between about 2.5 billion years ago, a time often called "Great Oxygenation Event," and the Ediacaran period (from 635 to 542 million years ago), when early multicellular animals may have appeared. Therefore, he calls for denser sampling and analysis of the rock samples. [Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom]
• 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.

• 23 August 1540...The French explorer Jacques Cartier landed near Quebec in his voyage to Canada. (Wikipedia)
• 23 August 1889...The first wireless message from a ship to the shore "Sherman is sighted", was received in the US. The US Lightship No. 70, San Francisco, announced the arrival of the U.S. Army troopship Sherman to the crowd assembled at the Cliff House. Reporters from the San Francisco Call relayed this information to a city awaiting the return of its hometown regiment from the battlefields of the Spanish-American War. The lightship, miles out at sea in deep fog, relayed this message via wireless telegraphy (later known as radio) through the fog to the Cliff House. This was the first 19th-century working use of wireless telegraphy outside of England. The method was still primitive, using sparks to emit intermittent radio waves and code messages. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
• 23 August 1933...The Chesapeake-Potomac hurricane made landfall over Nag's Head, NC and moved over Norfolk, VA, Chesapeake Bay and Washington, DC. Winds gusted to 88 mph at Norfolk, VA. A tide seven feet above normal flooded businesses in Norfolk, and damage in Maryland was estimated at $17 million. Sixty percent of Atlantic City, NJ was flooded as was 10 square miles of southwest Philadelphia, PA. Forty seven people were killed and damage was estimated at $47 million (in depression-era dollars) (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 23-24 August 1992...Hurricane Andrew on its way to Florida with winds of 150 mph, struck northern Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. The storm surge reached 23 feet. Total damage on the islands topped $250 million. At about 5 AM on the 24^th, Andrew made landfall near Homestead, FL with a central pressure of 922 mb (27.22 in.). Fowey Rocks coastal marine buoy recorded maximum sustained winds of 141 mph and a peak gust of 169 mph and the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables had sustained winds of 115 mph with a peak gust of 164 mph. A record storm surge of 16.7 feet occurred in Biscayne Bay. Homestead AFB was practically wiped out. More than 120,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving 250,000 homeless. Forty-one people died and property damage exceeded $25 billion, making Andrew by far the most costly hurricane in U.S. history. Andrew was the third most intense hurricane to strike the mainland behind Camille (1969) and the Labor Day Hurricane (1935) (Intellicast)
• 23-24 August 1998...Almost 18 inches of rain deluged Del Rio, TX between 8 AM on the 23^rd and 6 AM on the 24^th because of stalled remnants of Tropical Storm Charley. Violent flash flooding from San Felipe Creek left residential lots swept bare of homes, with asphalt streets gone. Nine people were killed and 150 injured. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 August 1912...The US Congress gave effect to the convention between United States, Great Britain, Japan and Russia prohibiting taking of fur seals and sea otters in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea by authorizing the President "to cause a guard or patrol to be maintained in the waters frequented by the seal herd or herds of seal otter." (USCG Historian's Office)
• 24 August 1988...A tropical depression drenched the Cabo Rojo area of southwestern Puerto Rico with up to ten inches of rain. San Juan received 5.35 inches of rain. (Storm Data) (The National Weather Summary)
• 24-29 August 1785...Hurricane ravaged the Eastern Caribbean Sea from St. Croix, Virgin Islands to Cuba during the last week of August. Over 142 people were reported dead from the storm's impact. (The Weather Doctor)
• 25 August 1885...A severe hurricane struck South Carolina causing $1.3 million damage at Charleston. (David Ludlum)
• 25 August 1927...The August Gale, a hurricane, raged across the East Coast, crossing the Cabot Strait between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland during the early morning hours. Hundreds of small boats in Newfoundland ports are among the storm's victims. (The Weather Doctor)
• 25 August -7 September 1979...Hurricane David crossed the island of Dominica on the 29^th, with winds to 145 mph. Roseau, the capital, was devastated. Fifty-six people were killed on Dominica and 60,000 of the island's 80,000 residents were made homeless. About three-quarters of the coconut and banana crop were destroyed. The central pressure in David fell to 924 mb (27.28 in.) on the 30^th as it moved south of Puerto Rico. At that time, highest sustained winds reached 173 mph. On the 31^st, winds of 150 mph from Hurricane David brought over $1 billion in damage to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, killing over 1200. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 26 August 1883...Krakatoa Volcano exploded in the East Indies. The explosion was heard more than 2500 miles away, and every barograph around the world recorded the passage of the air wave, up to seven times. Giant waves, 125 feet high and traveling 300 mph, devastated everything in their path, hurling ashore coral blocks weighing up to 900 tons, and killing more than 36,000 persons. Volcanic ash was carried around the globe in thirteen days producing blue and green suns in the tropics, and then vivid red sunsets in higher latitudes. The temperature of the Earth was lowered one degree for the next two years, finally recovering to normal by 1888. (David Ludlum)
• 26 August 1949...A hurricane made landfall at Delray Beach, FL. Winds reached 153 mph at the Jupiter Lighthouse before the anemometer failed. The hurricane caused $45 million damage to crops, and caught the Georgia and South Carolina coast resulting in another $2 million in damage. (David Ludlum)
• 26 August 1992...Hurricane Andrew made its second landfall along the Louisiana coast near Burns Point, as a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Morgan City recorded wind gusts of 108 mph. Hammond was deluged with nearly a foot of rain. Total additional damage was estimated at $1.8 billion. Andrew, which had made its initial US landfall in South Florida on the 24^th, was the most costly natural disaster in US history, with total damage reaching up to $30 billion. Additionally, record hurricane evacuation of 2.4 million people took place in Florida and Louisiana. (Intellicast) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 27 August 1881...As many as 335 people were lost in the Georgia Hurricane, especially severe at Savannah and Charleston, SC. (Intellicast)
• 27 August 1883...The after effects caused by the Krakatau explosion in Indonesia, including large tsunami waves of up to 300 feet, killed 36,000 people. The tsunami waves were powerful enough to cross the Indian Ocean and travel beyond Cape Horn. The most powerful blast was the most violent known in human history, was loud enough to be heard in Australia, and the shock wave was registered by barometers England. The huge amount of volcanic dust thrust high into the stratosphere eventually traveled around the world. The dust blocked sunlight causing temperature drops and chaotic weather patterns for several years afterward. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
• 27 August 1893...The first of three great hurricanes that year struck South Carolina drowning more than 1000 persons in a storm surge at Charleston. Landfall was just south of Savannah, GA where sustained winds hit 120 mph. (David Ludlum)
• 27 August 1964...Hurricane Cleo battered Miami and the South Florida area, marking the first direct hit for Miami in fourteen years. Sustained winds of 100 mph gusted to 135 mph, and the hurricane caused $125 million in damage. (David Ludlum)
• 27 August 1995...Remains of Tropical Storm Jerry unloaded 12.32 inches of rain in 24 hours in Greer, SC, a record for 24 hours, for a rain event and for August. At Antreville, 17.00 inches fell in 24 hours, setting a 24-hour rainfall record for the Palmetto State. (Intellicast)
• 28 August 1965...CDR Scott Carpenter, USN, and nine aquanauts entered SeaLab II, 205 ft. below Southern California's waters to conduct underwater living and working tests. (Naval Historical Center)
• 28 August 1988...Tropical Storm Chris spawned a tornado near Manning, SC, which killed one person, and spawned three tornadoes in North Carolina. Chris produced one to two foot tides, and three to six inch rains, over coastal South Carolina. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 28-30 August 1839...A hurricane moved from Cape Hatteras, NC to offshore New England. An unusual feature of the hurricane was the snow it helped produce, which whitened the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Considerable snow was also reported at Salem, NY. (The Weather Channel)
• 28 August 1965...CDR Scott Carpenter, USN, and nine aquanauts entered SeaLab II, 205 ft. below Southern California's waters to conduct underwater living and working tests. (Naval Historical Center)
• 28 August 1988...Tropical Storm Chris spawned a tornado near Manning, SC, which killed one person, and spawned three tornadoes in North Carolina. Chris produced one to two foot tides, and three to six inch rains, over coastal South Carolina. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 29 August 1583...The Delight was wrecked on Sable Island, Nova Scotia during a heavy gale, blinding rain and thick fog. This was Canada's first recorded marine disaster, taking 85 lives. (The Weather Doctor)
• 29 August 1979...Winds associated with Hurricane David reached 145 mph as the hurricane crossed the island of Dominica. The capital city, Roseau, was devastated, with 56 fatalities and 60,000 out of a population of 80,000 left homeless. About three-quarters of the coconut and banana crops were destroyed. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 29 August 1988...The remnants of Tropical Storm Chris drenched eastern Pennsylvania with up to five and a half inches of rain, and produced high winds that gusted to 90 mph, severely damaging a hundred boats in Anne Arundel County, MD. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 29 August 2005...Hurricane Katrina, the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in US history, made landfall along the Louisiana Gulf Coast southeast of New Orleans as a category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale after reaching category 5 status. Massive destruction was reported in coastal Mississippi and in New Orleans. As many as 1833 people reportedly died from Katrina in the US. (National Hurricane Center)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.