lunes, 17 de mayo de 2010

Introduction

Quintana Roo State is located in the eastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula at the southeastern tip of Mexico and is the youngest state of the Mexican Republic. Its beaches, considered among the most beautiful ones in the world, are surrounded by the beautiful blue intensitive to clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea. Our State is wonderful but it is not perfect because for our geographical location, every year we are prone to be impacted by a hurricane.

sábado, 15 de mayo de 2010

What is a hurricane?


Begging with this blog, it's important explain what a hurricane is, so I interviewed to Meteorologist of the Dirección Estatal de Protección, Captain Jaime Villasano Espejo who said that:

"A hurricane is a low pressure system that forms over warm sea which groups cloudes in spiral shape. During its trayectory produces heavy rains and strong winds. The Hurricane Season for the fourth region that covers Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean starts on June 1 and finishes on November 30 but the months where there is a major activity are Agust, September and October. In consequence, the month more dangerous for our State is September.
The conditiones for hurricanes to develop, there must be a warm layer of water at the top of the sea with a surface temperature greater than 80 degrees F (27 degrees C). This ocurrs during spring and summer.

The life of a hurricane is divided into four stages: tropical disturbance, tropical depression, tropical storm and hurricane.
At the moment that system becomes a tropical storm, it receives an official name and continuos with the same if it becomes a hurricane. "

jueves, 13 de mayo de 2010

Its Names


When we are born our parents give us a name which identifies us and distinguishes us of other people. This way, the meteorologists put names to the hurricanes to identify them and track them as they move across the ocean. Remember, there can be more than one hurricane at a time and without naming them, we could get confused of which storm we're talking about.

  • For several hundred years many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred.
  • An Australian meteorologist began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century.
  • In 1953, the U.S. National Weather Service began using female names for storms.
  • In 1979, both women and men's names were used. One name for each letter of the alphabet is selected, except for Q, U and Z. For Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, the names may be French, Spanish or English, since these are the major languages bordering the Atlantic Ocean where the storm occur.
  • Nowadays, the World Meteorological Organization uses six lists in rotation. The same lists are reused every six years. The only time a new name is added is if a hurricane is very deadly or costly. Then the name is retired and a new name is chosen.

  • Every tropical season, there are 21 named tropical cyclones for the Atlantic, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Gama...)
  • For this season, in the Atlantic Ocean names are Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Igor, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie, Walter.



sábado, 1 de mayo de 2010

Early Warning System for Tropical Cyclones




How often have we heard that we are in blue or red alert? What is an Early Warning system for Tropical Cyclones? Well this is a System was created by the National Civil Protection System in 2000, with the aim of keeping people informed when a disturbed system according to its track could affect any part of our country and this way mitigates its effects.

To achieve this, among the main points are mentioned as follows:
  • Using of two cyclone intensity scales: the Saffir-Simpson scale and the scale of circulation.

  • Using of two schedules according to colors: one when the cyclone is aproaching and another when it is moving away.
  • Using of an alert by a fixed color code (Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red) to facilitate understanding of the seriousness of the danger.
  • Incorporation of actions to be followed by the population in each of the stages (1).

Each alert mentions the meaning of color, the distance of the tropical cyclone, the type of danger, issuing weather bulletins, the actions that the government and people should do and more.

(1) Sistema de Alerta Temprana para Ciclones Tropicales. http://geografica.cenapred.unam.mx/DocumentosSIAT/SIAT_CT.pdf. Obtained on May 9, 2010.