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[Scubatooth]

Passing this along as this could impact anyone traveling or planning a trip from now into fall.

Last week I was on a conference call with participants from around the country including federal disaster response teams, various three letter agencies and was hosted by the National Hurricane Center.

The conference call was a eye opener to say the least. They are fully expecting a busy and active season with various models showing the probability of Florida (both Atlantic & Gulf sides)& US VI getting hit as extremely high (Cat 3 or higher). Elevated risk (Cat 1-2) for the Gulf Coast from roughly Houston TX to Mississippi, and then the upper seaboard from Ocean City MD to Boston. The reason they are saying this is that the water temperature in the gulf and Atlantic is much warmer then usual and not just at the surface but at the middle depths as well. Warmer water just adds to a storms strength exponentially.

Even before the official start to hurricane season the pacific basin had already had two named systems. In the Atlantic and gulf basin were a mix of unstable atmospheric conditions and several Lows stacked in Africa that could be released into the . Barbara went into the west coast of Mexico as a very weak cat 1 storm and fizzled out. However the remains of Barbara are now in the gulf (Listed as Invest 91L - also may be listed as I91L, or India 91 Lima)and could restrengthen into a tropical depression or Tropical Storm and would be named Andrea. The models indicate Invest 91L will probably just be a rain event that makes land fall in the panhandle of Florida. However that could change at anytime.

My disaster team command staff after the conference told everyone to go ahead and double check all our gear and to have it packed ready to go on short notice as we are on call for June and September. As well as to have gear packed for being deployed for 3 weeks (instead of the normal 2 weeks). I would never wish a disaster on anyone but at the same time my teammates and I are ready to go if the call for help goes out.

So what it boils down to ... I implore you if you are planning a trip this summer to buy trip insurance just in case. If something happened would you have the cash to buy a last minute full fare ticket to get out of the path of the storm if the airline couldn't change your flight so that you could get out of the the storms path? If you don't have trip insurance you are gambling big time on what may be a once in a lifetime trip and loosing all that money. Its better to have trip insurance and not need it then caught with your wetsuit around your ankles and loosing thousands of dollars.


WW - If you want to move this that is up to you but the higher the visibility the better.

If anyone has questions I will answer as best as I can.

Tooth