| The worst thing than can happen is for people to not be prepared, so something that seems to come out of nowhere might catch people off guard and have a greater loss of life for example. A great concern would be for storms that form quickly or do something else unexpected and hit an area that didn't have enough time to prepare. Property can be replaced, lives cannot, so plenty of time to prepare, most importantly to evacuate, is what you hope for. The Atlantic is a big place, with no land from the Antilles to Africa. Once you have a storm in the Caribbean it is going to hit land unless it dissipates, so having a storm there is troublesome for someone. Heat content is greater in the Caribbean and around the loop current (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_Current) in the Gulf: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/data/at.html If environmental conditions support a tropical cyclone, and you have high heat content, it has more energy to work with. Deeper warm water helps the storm. You don't upwell cooler water as easily because it is warmer deeper. (The turbulence of the wind mixing the water up, allowing the water just at the surface to mix with increasingly cooler waters further down.) Also though if a storm stalls it cools the water with cloud cover though too. But to try to get back to your question, I think the closer the storm is to land, the more you have to worry. People are more concerned when something is near them, and to land in general too. There are a lot of storms that come across from Atlantic and curve off into the Atlantic threatening no one, though sometimes Bermuda. If a storm strengthens more quickly, usually it will be steered more north and curve off thanks in part to the Coriolis effect. (http://scijinks.jpl.nasa.gov/coriolis/) Something has to counteract that, like high pressure for example or a front. If a storm is not steered by high pressure into the East coast or a front takes it off into the Atlantic for example, it's not much of a problem. (Again sometimes Bermuda and maritime provinces of Canada) But if a storm waits to develop and not in the Atlantic, a wave coming across like we have seen with Danny and Erika for example, can get in close to land. For Dominica things were pretty bad despite, it was rain and not wind. But it happened to kind of catch them off guard. Katrina looked dead. Or at least its origins were actually another tropical depression that combined with something else and they numbered it as a new tropical depression, which later became Katrina, because they were not sure if it was really the same thing. It got closer in to the coast, went across southern Florida and hit the loop current in the Gulf. The origin of Katrina was actually in the Bahamas: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/KATRINA.shtml? So it was another depression and then sort of dissipated, and merged with something else. You have it right there in the Bahamas, close to land. Less than a week after forming, it made landfall with a very high surge due in part to the water it had in motion due to being much stronger in the central Gulf. Look how long we have followed Erika. It's been a slow waiting game. Something that develops quickly closer to land warrants more attention. The area off Africa, if it strengthened quickly might curve away and not impact anyone. (I have not looked at the global models at all on that one, I have no idea what is forecast by them.) Although I like how the area of formation has been trending more northward so far on the 5 day outlook: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.php?basin=atlc&fdays=5 Look at the earlier ones to see how it has trended. But if that storm forms way out there and still does move west, or any storm for example, we would pay attention, well more people would, if you had a hurricane move across. It would be on the news for week or two if it continued to land. But if Erika for example, just an example, got in the eastern Gulf and found better conditions and became a hurricane, it might catch some people off guard as people were expecting one thing and got another. I think its just people's expectations. You can have a bad storm with a lot of warning or a bad storm with little warning, or at least the warning that it was going to be a lot worse was unknown well in advance. But then the amount of time is subjective too. New Orleans (where the loss of life was greatly due to poorly built levees) to Mississippi, which had the greatest natural impact, to the Florida panhandle, all had a lot of warning. You could say being less than a week out from formation to total devastation was seemingly out of nowhere, but people had time to evacuate, if they could. There were issues with not being prepared to evacuate that many people I think in New Orleans, as well as some simply not wanting to. But then you have a storm like Charley for example. It was well forecast for track. But due to the shape of the coast of Florida and the path of the storm, a small veer off the track made landfall in a much different track, though still on the edge of the cone. But, it was much stronger than they thought however. So there you have an instance where there was warning, but it turned out to be a lot worse because it caught some people off guard who didn't then have time to prepare. Out of a lot of natural disasters, tropical cyclones usually have one great aspect, early warning. Earthquakes and tornadoes have none to little. Earthquake, some areas have seconds. Tornadoes, maybe minutes for an actual one, more time if there is greater risk through a watch. Floods can be forecast earlier on sometimes, but flash flooding can sneak up on you. (not just from tropical cyclones of course) With a hurricane, you could have a week, maybe more, maybe less, but a lot of time to make decisions. It's when you don't have the time to make decisions, and that seem to come from nowhere for whatever reason, that is more alarming. Earlier warning gives you the time to evacuate and save your life. |