Miss. governor urges vigilance as Isaac approaches Gulf ~WDSU

Isaac is strengthening ~Wunderblog

~Tropical Storm Isaac is strengthening. An Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft measured surface winds of 60 mph on the east side of the center, about 170 miles south of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, at 8:40 am EDT this morning. Winds at the aircraft's flight level of 5,000 feet were hurricane force, 76 mph.

Gulf Coast States Evacuation Routes ~DisasterMap.net

Infographic: 160 Years Of Hurricanes Form One Giant Hurricane!

 We follow our tropical storms like big game hunters on safari, watching as these monsters wake and go on a rampage, close enough to document every single detail, but far enough, hopefully, to never get caught in their path.

But what of the larger view? What of the trend? How do these single storms relate to one another over time? John Nelson painstakingly mapped out every tropical storm documented by NOAA and NASA since 1851, and the results are absolutely spooky. It doesn’t take a meteorologist’s degree to spot the obvious: The storms converge to form a larger entity that looks strikingly akin to a hurricane, as if hurricanes are just fractals for larger hurricanes. Come to think about it, if you keep zooming out, you eventually arrive at our own galaxy, the Milky Way, which also spirals like a hurricane. ~Hat Tweet Defend New Orleans ‏@defendnola