23-27 May 2011

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2011 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 29 August 2011. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• Hurricane awareness week -- In anticipation of the start of the 2011 hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins, NOAA has declared the week of 22-28 May 2011 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation. 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.)
• North American Safe Boating Week -- This week of 21-27 May has been declared 2011 National Safe Boating Week, to help kick off the 2011 North American Safe Boating Campaign. Check the Safe Boating Week site maintained by the Safe Boating Council.

• Eye on the tropics --- While sea surface temperatures have been increasing across the ocean basins of the Northern Hemisphere, tropical cyclone activity has been relatively light this past week. (Tropical cyclones are low-pressure systems over tropical waters.) In the western North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm 4W, which later was named Tropical Storm Songda, formed last Friday to the east-southeast of Yap. Over the weekend, this minimal tropical storm traveled to the west-northwest, at times weakening to a tropical depression. Forecasters indicate that this system could intensify into a typhoon as it approaches the northeastern coast of the Philippine Islands.. For additional information on Tropical Storm 4W along with satellite imagery, see the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Hurricane outlooks issued -- Scientists with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center have released their outlooks for the upcoming hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, the eastern Pacific and central Pacific Basins last week:
• For the North Atlantic basin, the outlook indicates a hurricane season in 2011 that would be more active than normal. Specifically, the outlook calls for a 70 percent chance that the basin could experience 12 to 18 named tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms), which would exceed the long-term average of 11 named tropical cyclones. Of the 12 to 18 named systems, six to ten hurricanes could develop, of which three to six could become major hurricanes (Category 3 hurricanes or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale). Based upon long-term averages, six hurricanes form in the Atlantic basin, with two becoming major hurricanes. The forecasters anticipate an active Atlantic hurricane season because of a combination of factors that include above average sea surface temperatures across the tropical Atlantic Ocean, a continuation of the 15-year trend toward more active Atlantic hurricane seasons and reduced wind shear through the lower atmosphere across the basin due to the eventual disappearance of the waning La Niña event. [NOAA News]
  For comparison, Phil Klotzbach and Bill Gray at Colorado State University released an updated forecast of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season in early April calling for a season with above average activity as they envision 16 named tropical cyclones, of which nine could reach hurricane status. As many as five of these hurricanes could become major hurricanes. [The Tropical Meteorology Project]
• For the Eastern North Pacific basin (east of 140 degrees West longitude), the outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center suggests a below-normal hurricane season. This outlook would call for a 70 percent chance of 9 to 15 named tropical cyclones, with five to eight hurricanes. One to three major hurricanes were also envisioned. These anticipated numbers compare with the long-term average of 16 named cyclones, nine hurricanes and as many as five major hurricanes. The lower than average anticipated numbers could be related to two climate factors: increased wind shear that continue to suppress activity across the basin since 1995 and to anticipated ENSO-neutral conditions during the peak months of the season that would follow this spring's lingering La Niña-like conditions. [NOAA News]
• For the Central North Pacific basin (between 180 degrees and 140 degrees West longitude), forecasters at NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center in collaboration with their colleagues at the Climate Prediction Center expect that the upcoming hurricane season would have better than even chance (70 percent) of below normal activity. They called for two to three tropical cyclones to affect the central North Pacific in 2011, either forming with in the basin or entering it from the east. On average, four to five tropical cyclones (including tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes) travel across the basin. [NOAA News]
• Review of global weather and climate for April 2011 -- Using the combined global land and ocean surface temperature from preliminary weather data, scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center have determined that April 2011 was the seventh warmest April since global climate records began in 1880. Furthermore, the average global ocean surface temperature for April was the eleventh highest since 1880, while the global land surface temperature was seventh highest on record. A lingering La Niña event with below average sea-surface temperature across the equatorial Pacific Ocean remained a factor.
  The areal coverage of Arctic sea ice remained below the 1979-2000 average and represented the fifth lowest April extent since satellite surveillance began in 1979. The extent of Antarctic sea ice was the fourth smallest.
  While the snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere was the 15th smallest for any April since records started in the late 1960s, the North American snow cover was the tenth largest. [NOAA News]
• Leader of NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program selected -- Dr. Elizabeth (Libby) Jewett, a NOAA scientist, was recently selected to become the first director of NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program, which has been established to oversee the nation's monitoring and research programs involving changes ocean acidity. [NOAA News]
• Hidden world of ancient Maya seaport explored -- A NOAA-sponsored team of researchers from Georgia State University, Northwestern University, the University of Washington and Israel's University of Haifa have been exploring the northeastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula looking for an ancient Maya seaport of Vista Alegre, which was an important part of the region's Pre-Columbian trading network between about 800 BC and AD 1521. [NOAA News]
• Public input sought on special designation for steelhead salmon reintroduced in Oregon -- NOAA's Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on the proposed "experimental" designation of a population of hatchery-raised steelhead salmon in Oregon's Deschutes River, which would provide legal protection to anyone who harmed the fish while otherwise acting lawfully. [NOAA News]
• Partnerships formalized to aid in environmental observations of western Indian Ocean -- At the start of last week, representatives from NOAA and the Agulhas-Somali Currents Large Marine Ecosystem recently formalized an agreement designed to help the nine western Indian Ocean nations (Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa and Tanzania) better manage their ocean ecosystems and resources. This agreement also fills the remaining gap of the Tropical Moored Buoy Array, to now cover the Indian Ocean as well as the Atlantic and Pacific basins. [NOAA News]
• Tracking influences of giant kelp with satellites -- Scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara have combined 25 years of data collected from the Thematic Mapper sensors onboard NASA's Landsat 5 satellite with underwater data obtained by university divers to track the dynamics of giant kelp forest ecosystems in the waters of southern California's Santa Barbara Channel. Their study demonstrates how new methods can be used to study how environmental factors and climate affect giant kelp forest ecosystems. [University of California Santa Barbara]
• Seaports need to plan for changes in climate -- Based upon their survey of nearly 100 seaports around the globe, researchers at Stanford University warn that many of these ports are not prepared to protect themselves from changes in climate during the 21st century that would result in rises in sea level and increased frequency of storms. [Stanford University News]
• Assessing seasonal effects of Arctic snow and ice upon climate forcing -- A scientist from the University of Michigan assembled a series of seasonal images that depicts "cryospheric forcing," defined as the amount of solar energy that snow and ice reflect, based upon satellite measurements of snow and ice extent with calculations of the amount of sunlight reaching the ground during the season. The images indicate that over the past three decades, fall snow cover has increased in the Northern Hemisphere, but spring snow cover has decreased. Consequently, more energy was absorbed in the Arctic during spring. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• 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 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 26th. 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 May 1963...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, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.