Silence of the Mind

So yeh...today was fun. I was flying to Kodiak, but it was a lateish flight for once...didn't have to be at the airport till 945 or so. It had started thinking about snow falling when I left the house, and was going full bore by the time the plane finally was ready(two mechanical delays in two days, not good).

So I get down there and do the work thats needed and go explore a bit since for the first time this project I have slack time. Went out and saw a few spots on Kodiak I hadn't been to, and then went to one I had and got chased off the beach by a herd of Bison(yes, actual plains bison). I made it back to town in plenty of time I thought, and when I went to turn in my rental the woman at the counter told me I really needed to go check in and see if my flight was even going to go since the flight before it hadn't even taken off from Anch yet. Ack...

I get checked in, and wait...and wait...and wait some more. Finally they announce the eminent arrival...of the flight before mine. argh. Ends up that my 1045 flight didn't even take off from Anch til 11pm, and didn't land in Kodiak till 1230. So I did not make it home until 230am. bleh....

And to top it all off, I get to the truck where I left it on the top level of the parking garage(because thats all that was available) and it looks like this

( Guess who didn't have a scraper )

And yeh, no scraper since I was borrowing kokuten's truck and he'd dewinterized it already. Took me 20 minutes to clear enough snow off with the sleeve of my jacket that I could see to drive.
But then I got home and found this waiting for me...
( Awww... )

There is a Cyclone in the Arabian Sea working its way north towards the coast of Oman. Cyclones are nothing new...but Cyclone Guno is the first recorded Category 5 cyclone ever seen in the Arabian sea. Interesting in its own right, but its current track has it entering the Gulf of Oman right about now, and thats not happened in recorded history. Guno has dissipated to Category 3 now, and by the time it finishes sideswiping Oman and makes landfall in Iran it is projected to have dissipated to a weak Cat 2 or a strong Cat 1 storm.

I've been trying to do some reading about cyclones/hurricanes in the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean...but everything focuses on the eastern side of the basin and all the cyclones that impact India and Bangladesh. Its so unusual for a cyclone to run into the northwestern area of the basin(there are maybe 4 recorded storms like that, and none of them were strong enough to even earn names) that there are no models for prediction and the forecasters are having to make educated guesses as to storm surge areas and wind damages.

The almost ironic thing is that for as impressive and unusual as this storm is, its just like the South Atlantic Cyclone Catarina that hit Brazil in 2004....No one is talking about it except the weather geeks.

Tracking Links

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/MargieKieper/comment.html?entrynum=163&tstamp=200706

http://hurricane.methaz.org/gonu/