Twisting USA

With everything else going on in the world, a lot of us missed something very interesting last week.

Two hurricanes - Humberto and Imelda - were chugging around in the Atlantic Ocean. They were really really big spinners, and had one or either decided to come ashore, it might have been a big problem for coastal cities and even those inland.

But, just like offsetting penalties in football, Humberto and Imelda got into a big dance routine out at sea and nullified each other, thereby saving a lot of damage from occurring and keeping many meteorologists safe inside TV stations instead of hanging onto street signs in hurricane winds. 

Hurricanes are large rotating weather systems with smaller rotating systems within them, and when all that energy from two different storms combines, that is called the Fujiwhara effect. Getting two hurricanes to do the vertical bop is not something we can arrange for on earth, like fixing up two shy people for the homecoming dance.  Two (or more!) storms twisting around can be seen in hurricanes and tornadoes and even more minor disruptions.

Weather reporters were stunned to see Humberto and Imelda separated by less than 500 miles. That's close to the record for how near two hurricanes have ever been.  And being so close, the storms’ circulations intertwined, forming something like one jumbo hurricane. In deference to Imelda being the bigger of the two, her name stayed on the storm, which stayed away from the US Coast, and that would have been one more heartache we didn't need this year.

This weather map shows the trouble twins spinning in the Atlantic. Think of how lucky we are!