Sandy Hutchens Chronicle

Sandy Hutchens watches Hurricane Bill move towards Bermuda :: Bill meets Ana and Claudette

Sandy’s Blog, August 18, 2009 -Sandy Hutchens watches Hurricane Bill with great concern as it grows into a serious storm. Hurricane is right now turning away from the Caribbean and heading towards Bermuda, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Hurricane Bill is the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, and has measured winds of 105 miles per hour, up from 100 mph earlier today, the center said in an advisory at about 11 a.m. Miami time. Bill will probably gain major-hurricane status, with winds of at least 111 mph, in the next day and hold that level as it passes west of Bermuda during the weekend, the U.S. center forecasts.

The hurricane’s center was about 705 miles east of the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands and heading west-northwest at 16 mph, with a turn to the northwest forecast tomorrow, the hurricane center said. The storm willl probably high surf in Bermuda on Aug. 22 and pass seriously close to Cape Cod. Hurricane Bill probably won’t hit land until it gets to Nova Scotia in Canada, said Matthew Rinde, a meteorologist.

“It’s going to make a fairly dramatic hook to the north, bypassing the East Coast of the U.S. and staying out over the western Atlantic,” said Jim Rouiller, a senior energy meteorologist at Planalytics Inc. in Wayne, Pennsylvania. “The U.S. East Coast appears to have dodged a bullet.”

Volatile Conditions

“At this point it looks like Bill’s going to split the difference between Bermuda and the U.S.,” Rinde said today in a phone interview from State College, Pennsylvania.

New England may experience “significant erosion and possible damage to shoreline structures,” wrote Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The 2009 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, got off to a quiet start before three named storms formed in a period of 48 hours Aug. 15 and 16. Tropical storms Ana and Claudette have since dissipated. Systems are named when they reach tropical-storm strength, with sustained winds of 39 mph, and become hurricanes when sustained winds are 74 mph.

The hurricane center gives the remnants of Ana, now over Cuba, less than a 30 percent chance of reforming after degenerating yesterday. Rouiller at Planalytics said the system still bears watching because the waters in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico are warm enough to revive the storm.

“I don’t want people in the Gulf to let their guard down on this yet,” Rouiller said by phone.

Watch out Bermuda!

Sandy Hutchens finds current video on YouTube concerning Hurricane Bill

Hurricane bill update Aug 17th 2009 11:35am CST Tropical updates

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