Saturday, September 06, 2008
Hanna
11 pm: My sneakers had a washing. I was doing alright with an umbrella, damp - not drenched, when I realized I'd have to get my feet soaked crossing the street. Some kids were running around in the rain over on Gina's block..
***
We've had beautiful later summer weather here, great if you have a place at the shore or work outside. But it hasn't been "interesting" weather. Now there's a tropical storm coming up the coast. We just had what I suppose were some rainy outer bands. Hanna is still hundreds of miles south. I don't know if she'll kick up really large waves - probably more a washing machine ocean. The path is forecast to cross into Jersey from Delaware Bay & then back out to sea. It's raining hard in central VA & on down into North Carolina. I guess we'll just have a showery, windy, warm, humid Saturday. Gina, in Asbury Park with her boyfriend, says I should skip feeding her cats if it's too stormy. How stormy would that be? Her place is three blocks away. If Hanna was a full-fledged Category 2 hurricane & the local fire dept & every hysterical weather forecaster on TV told everyone to stay inside, I'd use those cats as an excuse to go outside.
Checking out wave heights at the NOAA buoy data center, I learned that a freighter collision last November finished off Ambrose Light Tower at the entrance to New York Harbor, it's been decommissioned & will be torn down & not replaced. So ends the long & noble history of Ambrose Channel lightships & towers. That weather station is gone, too. The large Sandy Hook Pilot Association ship - a floating rest station & hotel - will remain in the area.
It seems like an unusual number of buoys are adrift off their moorings this year - including Station 44004 east of Cape May, & some turned off for lack of funding. I can't help but think it's due to federal maintenance cutbacks, & wonder if it's creating a hazard for smaller boat mariners who rely on the local buoy readings of water & wind conditions. Maybe these types of buoys are becoming obsolete; expensive toys for people like me to use for internet voyaging.
***
We've had beautiful later summer weather here, great if you have a place at the shore or work outside. But it hasn't been "interesting" weather. Now there's a tropical storm coming up the coast. We just had what I suppose were some rainy outer bands. Hanna is still hundreds of miles south. I don't know if she'll kick up really large waves - probably more a washing machine ocean. The path is forecast to cross into Jersey from Delaware Bay & then back out to sea. It's raining hard in central VA & on down into North Carolina. I guess we'll just have a showery, windy, warm, humid Saturday. Gina, in Asbury Park with her boyfriend, says I should skip feeding her cats if it's too stormy. How stormy would that be? Her place is three blocks away. If Hanna was a full-fledged Category 2 hurricane & the local fire dept & every hysterical weather forecaster on TV told everyone to stay inside, I'd use those cats as an excuse to go outside.
Checking out wave heights at the NOAA buoy data center, I learned that a freighter collision last November finished off Ambrose Light Tower at the entrance to New York Harbor, it's been decommissioned & will be torn down & not replaced. So ends the long & noble history of Ambrose Channel lightships & towers. That weather station is gone, too. The large Sandy Hook Pilot Association ship - a floating rest station & hotel - will remain in the area.
It seems like an unusual number of buoys are adrift off their moorings this year - including Station 44004 east of Cape May, & some turned off for lack of funding. I can't help but think it's due to federal maintenance cutbacks, & wonder if it's creating a hazard for smaller boat mariners who rely on the local buoy readings of water & wind conditions. Maybe these types of buoys are becoming obsolete; expensive toys for people like me to use for internet voyaging.
Labels: weather
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
To inject politics into your blog, having the feds decommission those buoys is smaller government in action and should be cheered by conservatives. Then again, levees failing in New Orleans in 2005, horrific airport delays, bridge collapses and food poisoning outbreaks due to a lack of inspectors are all products of the longstanding mantra "government isn't the solution to the problem, government is the problem."
In simpler news, I was going to Cranford to check out Musicfest, but now I am afraid I'll get rained on. I'll just sit by my TV and await the 3:30 pm kickoff from Notre Dame Stadium.
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In simpler news, I was going to Cranford to check out Musicfest, but now I am afraid I'll get rained on. I'll just sit by my TV and await the 3:30 pm kickoff from Notre Dame Stadium.
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