With temperatures here in Tampa plunging to near or below freezing tonight, I guess it's safe to call an end to the 2008 hurricane season. It was a busy year for us and didn't end with
Hurricane Ike. We flew another storm, Hurricane Kyle, shortly thereafter and ended the season with Hurricane Paloma in November. Yes, I said November - the 7th and 8th to be exact - in a storm south of Cuba that rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 4 in two days. The Google Earth track as developed by a colleague is shown here. (Please click on the images to enlarge them - hit the back button to return to the blog.)
Paloma was a nasty storm which weakened and died over eastern Cuba and did not affect the U.S. Even so, it did some damage to our P-3 similar to that done by a similar storm in the same location several years earlier. The damage was caused by graupel and hail. It wasn't quite this bad in the Paloma flight, but close.
At this point I will end this blog and move on to other things. But be aware - we are less than four and a half months away from the beginning of the 2009 season. I'm sure there will
other tales to tell then.
Thanks for your interest. Hope you were able to take away some useful information about hurricanes and why/how we fly them. Had fun doing this. Ended the year with a final career total of 564 hurricane penetrations. Since that's the current world record, perhaps I should quit while I'm ahead. We'll see.
Thanks again
