Avian Flu Diary: NOAA: The 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season in 4.5 Minutes

2011 Tropical Storm Tracks – Source Wikipedia

#5985

Today – November 30th - marks the official end of the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane season.

NOAA has released a 4 minute video that compresses the 6 month Altantic Hurricane season into 4 minutes and 41 seconds. It comes from the NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory, and requires Adobe Flash Player to view.

(Click image to view)

This description from the NOAA webpage. A hat tip to @JustinNOAA for tweeting this link.

The 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season in 4.5 minutes

The 2011 Atlantic hurricane season officially ends on Nov. 30 and produced a total of 19 tropical storms of which seven became hurricanes, including three major hurricanes. This level of activity matched NOAA’s predictions and continues the trend of active hurricane seasons that began in 1995.

From Arlene to Sean, Hurricane Season 2011 has been very active, leading to 120 fatalities and causing more than $11 billion in property and infrastructure damage. Surprisingly, none of the first eight tropical storms reached hurricane status, a record since reliable reports started in 1851.

(Continue . . . )

Once again, despite an unusually busy tropical season, the United States was largely spared due to favorable steering currents which kept most of these storms out to sea.

Only two named storms made landfall in the United States during the 2011 season; Tropical Storm Lee in Louisiana and Hurricane Irene in New England.

But every hurricane season is different, and what happened this year, or the year before, doesn’t tell us much about what lies in store for 2012.

Even with this relatively mild hurricane season, the United States has sustained a record number of Billion Dollar Plus weather-related disasters this year, proving the need for year-round preparedness, and in all areas of the nation.

(See Weathering Heights: Billion-Dollar-Plus Weather Disasters)

Like death and taxes, disasters are inevitable. A few of my general preparedness blogs include:

When 72 Hours Isn’t Enough

In An Emergency, Who Has Your Back?

An Appropriate Level Of Preparedness

To become better prepared as an individual, family, business owner, or community to deal with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or any other type of disaster: visit the following preparedness sites.