Weekend Weather/Hurricane Workshop and Outlooks/El Nino Coming?

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
Tropical Depression One (which formed around midday Thursday in the western Atlantic) is no longer tropical. So, we won't get our Tropical Storm Ana (not yet) anyway.

Hot across much of the country on Saturday. The cool spots will be the northeast and Great Lakes with highs in the 50s to 70s and the west coast with highs in the 60s. Look for at least 100 for the high in Phoenix. There is a slight risk of severe weather from Missouri to Tennessee. There will also be some thunderstorms over south Texas and along the Rockies. Ridge over the western half of the US will begin to flatten in the next couple days. That will allow the Gulf to "open up" and that means more humidity on the way.

Houston, the weather is warming up! Highs Saturday and Sunday will be in the low 90s but morning lows will be in the 60s...(so get out an enjoy early). Humidity will be slightly higher on Sunday. Rain is not expected again until Tuesday.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do storm or tormenta, pronounced tore-MEHN-tah. Tropical Depression #1 did not make it to being a tropical tormenta.

Some exciting news from our editor about Volume 2. He is about to lay in the animating text and the music. I will let you know as soon as it is ready. In the meantime, you can order our award winning Volume 1 DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/,http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. For our English as a Second Language (ESL) version, got to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
Saturday, come out to the George R. Brown Convention Center for the free Houston Galveston Hurricane Workshop (theme: Ready or Not). The event runs from 10 am to 2 pm and will have several excellent speakers and numerous informative booths. There is also an activity area for kids. I will be moderating the media panel sessions at 11 am and 1 pm.

The Weather Research Center has released its 2009 hurricane outlook:
http://www.wxresearch.com/outlook/
They are predicting 7 named storms, 4 of these being hurricanes. The numbers for an average season are 11 and 6. So that is below average. They also give Louisiana/Alabama a 70% chance of a storm strike (average is 68%) with Texas only having a 40% chance (average is 61%). till, don't forget to be prepared...there are still chances and it only takes one storm to make life miserable as we found out from Ike.

Interesting development...we were in a La Nina and trending toward a neutral pattern. Now, the waters of the eastern Pacific are warming so much that the thinking is there might be a new El Nino developing in time to add wind shear which will decrease the number of hurricanes (and lower intensities) for the 2009 hurricane season. Unfortunately, for the upper Texas coast, historically, we have had some of our most intense hurricane strikes occur during El Nino seasons or the seasons following an episode.

Have a great weekend everyone!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman