2008 Hurricane Season

Tomorrow, June 1st, is the beginning of the 2008 hurricane season. Living on the east coast (in Connecticut), with many friends who also live on the eastern seaboard (in Virginia and North Carolina), plus having experience with tornadoes from my early years in Minnesota, I like to keep an eye on the weather. And with the tornado season being so active --- more than 600 tornadoes thus far --- I am wondering if the hurricane season will offer more activity than usual as well. Regardless, I will be monitoring these websites as needed:

National Hurricane Center:
Officially designated in 1967, the center was actually founded in 1898 when then-President William McKinley declared that the weather bureau establish a hurricane warning network. Here is the remainder of a history description from Wikipedia:

The Miami office [of the weather bureau] was designated the National Hurricane Center in 1967, and given responsibility for Atlantic tropical cyclones in their vicinity. Other hurricane warning centers, such as in New Orleans and Boston, played a role even into the 1980’s. In 1984, the NHC was separated from the Miami Weather Service Forecast Office. By 1988, the NHC gained responsibility for eastern Pacific tropical cyclones as the former Eastern Pacific Hurricane Center in San Francisco was decommissioned….In 1995, the NHC was moved into a new hurricane resistant facility on the campus of Florida International University.

The Weather Underground Tropical Weather page
Considered the first Internet weather service, here is an abbreviated history of the Weather Underground from their website:

Jeff Masters, when a PhD candidate in meteorology at the University of Michigan and working under the direction of Professor Perry Samson, wrote a menu-based telnet interface in 1991, which displayed real-time weather information around the world. By 1992, the two servers his system used were rattling off their desks as “um-weather” became the most popular service on the Internet.

Perry and Jeff, in 1993, recruited Jeff Ferguson and Alan Stermberg to help build a system to bring Internet weather into K-12 classrooms…The growing Internet weather program was given the name “The Weather Underground,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 1960’s radical group that also originated at the University of Michigan.

And in case you want to use hurricane season as the basis for a meteorology unit with your homeschool group, don’t forget to order a hurricane tracking kit (good for 25 students). While I have never done this, it looks like a great way to get kids tuned-in to observing the weather. Setting up a weather station might also be of interest if weather is your summer homeschool project. I prefer this build-it-yourself version from FamilyFun.com.

Oh, and don’t forget, unlike tornadoes, the National Weather Service names the hurricanes (and tropical storms) that come long each year. The 2008 names are listed below. Stay safe out there!

2008 Hurricane Names
Arthur
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gustav
Hanna
Ike
Josephine
Kyle
Laura
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paloma
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred