It’s starting to look as though Ernesto is running out of steam. Cuba apparently beat it up pretty badly (I always find it weird, and frustrating given that it’s hard and unpleasant to visit under the current regime, that while Florida and the Bahamas are flatter than pancakes, Cuba–just a couple hundred miles away–has these several-thousand foot, presumably scenic mountains).

Anyway, it’s barely a tropical storm, and will take a long time to reorganize in crossing the Florida Straights, so the expection now is that it will come ashore as a tropical storm, rather than the one or two hurricane that was predicted this morning. It’s still headed right at us, though. I’m now debating whether to shutter. I’ll still have time to do it in the morning, when we’ll have a better idea what’s going on.

[Update a few minutes later]

I should note, in deference to the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic, that this storm may still have its say. I hope that they get off as lucky as it looks as though Florida will, but the models for them don’t look as optimistic for them right now.

The storm track has shifted east again. Now we’re almost right in the bullseye, with the track having the eye go right over the house. The only good thing will be that, if the trend continues, it will start to move away from us (which doesn’t mean it won’t hit us directly, of course, since this is all probabilistic). The bad news is that the farther east it is, the more powerful it will get, because it will be out over the warm Bahamian waters getting fueled, and it also means more chance for damaging storm surge on the Florida east coast.

I was hoping to avoid it this year, but that was wishful thinking. It is ironic, though, that the first hurricane of the season is coming right up the Florida peninsula. Hope it’s not a harbinger of the next two or three months.

The scary thing is that the NHS is saying there’s a possibility of strengthening to a two or three before it heads into the swamp. It would probably lose some strength over land, but a semi-major hurricane coming all the way up Florida, then continuing on up the coast into the Carolinas is going to cause a lot of cumulative damage, even if it’s not as intense as Katrina was, particularly considering property values in south Florida. I just hope the track doesn’t shift even further east and scrub us directly or from just off shore, in which case we might actually have to evacuate due to potential for flooding from surge.

It should also be noted that the track of this storm takes it just to the west of KSC. They’ll have to roll the Shuttle back (or at least start preparing for it–they could change their minds for a period of another day or so). Probably no launch this week (and maybe none next unless they can get some kind of accommodation with the Russians to resolve the schedule conflict with the Soyuz mission).

We’ve had a quiet season so far, but as we get into the end of August, that could be changing:

The Canadian model continues to be very consistent and very gung-ho, developing 97L into a strong tropical storm on Saturday, south of Jamaica, then taking the storm into the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane.

Some thoughts on posting frequency. The old “post daily” rule may no longer apply.

[Via La Postrel]

I recently got a call from Chase left on my answering machine telling me to call an 800 number and have my credit card available to authenticate myself. The trouble is, they didn’t authenticate themselves. Anyone could have made that call to me and if I did what the call said, I would be giving my credit card number (and probably the date, secret code and every else they asked me) to a bad actor. I authenticated them by dialing the number on the back of my card, but I worry that there will be a smart confidence man who will figure this out before the rest of the world figures out how to stop leaving openings.

I also received two calls about my “Virgin lottery territory” piece that Buzz Aldrin liked. Two other people called because they received checks from a “Virgin Lottery” that didn’t cash, they searched for that on the web and my article and phone number came up. Never mind that my article dealt with the 17th century lottery that helped fund Virginia colonization, they thought I might know something about modern fraud.

This should be cause for celebration, right?

Wrong. Why?

First of all, I hate the sun. I mean, it’s nice that it’s up there to provide energy and all, but I really don’t like it. It’s bright, I have to put on sunglasses, I have to slather myself with goop to protect myself from the rays, it makes it hotter here than it would be without it (which is hot enough, given the latitude). One of the things that I love about coastal California is that it is so reliably cloudy and foggy (and cool) almost every day, at least part of the day if not all day.

Second, the last couple weeks have been predicting rain every day. I look at the radar, and see thunderstorms all around, but they never make it here (the Gulf coast looks like it’s been getting drenched, though). It’s tantalizing. I see green blotches heading towards us, or standing right next to us, but not moving at all, and either they don’t move, or they move and dissipate before they actually get here.

Today, we were supposed to get Yet Another Tropical Wave that was supposed to bring us wind, and rain, and miserable (by the local standard–what do they know?–they like sun. And flat. And hot. And humid) weather, and yet, the sun has been shining all day.

I’ve filled the pool, I’ve watered the lawn, in vain, to attempt to cause some non-trivial precipitation, but no go.

One of the few things that I like about this God-forsaken (if an agnostic can use that phrase) land is that it gets thunderstorms. But not here. Not now.

[Rant Off]

This should be cause for celebration, right?

Wrong. Why?

First of all, I hate the sun. I mean, it’s nice that it’s up there to provide energy and all, but I really don’t like it. It’s bright, I have to put on sunglasses, I have to slather myself with goop to protect myself from the rays, it makes it hotter here than it would be without it (which is hot enough, given the latitude). One of the things that I love about coastal California is that it is so reliably cloudy and foggy (and cool) almost every day, at least part of the day if not all day.

Second, the last couple weeks have been predicting rain every day. I look at the radar, and see thunderstorms all around, but they never make it here (the Gulf coast looks like it’s been getting drenched, though). It’s tantalizing. I see green blotches heading towards us, or standing right next to us, but not moving at all, and either they don’t move, or they move and dissipate before they actually get here.

Today, we were supposed to get Yet Another Tropical Wave that was supposed to bring us wind, and rain, and miserable (by the local standard–what do they know?–they like sun. And flat. And hot. And humid) weather, and yet, the sun has been shining all day.

I’ve filled the pool, I’ve watered the lawn, in vain, to attempt to cause some non-trivial precipitation, but no go.

One of the few things that I like about this God-forsaken (if an agnostic can use that phrase) land is that it gets thunderstorms. But not here. Not now.

[Rant Off]

This should be cause for celebration, right?

Wrong. Why?

First of all, I hate the sun. I mean, it’s nice that it’s up there to provide energy and all, but I really don’t like it. It’s bright, I have to put on sunglasses, I have to slather myself with goop to protect myself from the rays, it makes it hotter here than it would be without it (which is hot enough, given the latitude). One of the things that I love about coastal California is that it is so reliably cloudy and foggy (and cool) almost every day, at least part of the day if not all day.

Second, the last couple weeks have been predicting rain every day. I look at the radar, and see thunderstorms all around, but they never make it here (the Gulf coast looks like it’s been getting drenched, though). It’s tantalizing. I see green blotches heading towards us, or standing right next to us, but not moving at all, and either they don’t move, or they move and dissipate before they actually get here.

Today, we were supposed to get Yet Another Tropical Wave that was supposed to bring us wind, and rain, and miserable (by the local standard–what do they know?–they like sun. And flat. And hot. And humid) weather, and yet, the sun has been shining all day.

I’ve filled the pool, I’ve watered the lawn, in vain, to attempt to cause some non-trivial precipitation, but no go.

One of the few things that I like about this God-forsaken (if an agnostic can use that phrase) land is that it gets thunderstorms. But not here. Not now.

[Rant Off]

Given the multiple fireworks displays (and no, I’m not talking about last night’s standard entertainment) yesterday, it should be interesting. Scheduled in about half an hour, and 12:15 PM EDT.