The Amazing Tropics

Happy Monday! I was just plotting the amazing path of Bertha, and I am impressed with the amazing things she did during her life... First off, she started as an early July Cape Verde storm on July 3 as a tropical depression, and she quickly earned the tropical storm designation. Then, on July 6, she went from Tropical Storm Bertha to CATEGORY 3 (MAJOR) Hurricane Bertha. She didn't hold that for long, but she maintained hurricane strength for 6 days!!! She side-swiped Bermuda as a Tropical Storm and then, REINTENSIFIED into a hurricane as she drifted up into the cold northern waters. She drifted off as an extratropical storm packing winds still of 70mph, just barely under hurricane strength. The girl deserves a standing ovation.

Onto current events though... we still have two other tropical storms in our Atlantic Basin. Tropical Storm Cristobal had been hugging the Atlantic coast all weekend, but has now moved away and this would be his big shot at becoming something, and it looks like that process is beginning, as on the 11AM advisory, Tropical Storm Cristobal is a strong tropical storm.

Moving away from TS Cristobal... we see Tropical Storm Dolly, a much more impressive storm with a better look about her after just emerging into the Gulf of Mexico after some interaction with the northern Yucatan peninsula. This tropical storm is moving into an area of warm sea surface temperatures (SST) and is looking ripe for development and intensification. In fact, they are forecasting development into a hurricane before landfall, which is expected to be somewhere in Mexico/southern Texas. Folks there need to keep an eye on this one... you only have a few days to prepare, and as we know, anything can happen.

Aside from that, there is a nice tropical wave about to come off of the coast of Africa that is expected to develop once it emerges. Wow, another July system off the coast of Africa... this season amazes me.

I was visiting a friend's site who just returned from a spectacular trip to Hawaii. Gary is an amazing photographer, and he captured some amazing shots, but a couple in particular got my attention, so I asked him if I could share them with y'all. First off, while he was there, he had the rare privelege of witnessing a volcanic eruption, which is spectacular to see, but this was no ordinary eruption... this one spawned a water spout!!! How awesome! Please check out his blog for more shots.








Great shots, Gary!!! Thanks for letting me share them!

Finally, there are my shots of the moon from the other night. I was leaving bf's parents' house after visiting some of his family in from out of town. The moon was magnificent and orange in the eastern sky... so, of course, I had to stop and shoot the moon over my really cool pond. Of course, I struggle on my camera with nighttime shots, and that night was no exception, but it was fun to stop and shoot.

Have a lovely day!
~Dewdrop