No Kevin, Mother nature has a way of cleaning herself. She trying to clean-up all the crap that is coming from the big white house.

Gee Paul I have to go with Kevin on this one. After all, the storm isn't hitting D.C.. Even if it was, there is an awful lot of crap there to clean up besides Obama's.

Sombody *wants* to be Mitt's Veep? Wow, some people are delusional...

All this weather makes it seem like 2012 is going to happen!

must be a slow news day; tropical storms hit all along the Fla., Miss.,Ala.<la and Texas areas all the time.

All the time, saxon ?

Wow I never knew. They must get sick of constant storms down there.

Hank-192...: nope, cleans out the air, Hurricane , although is a different thing, they are a real bitch.

"All the time"? Then explain this;

The storm will deliver a dose of much-needed rainfall to parts of the Southeast that are currently suffering from drought, according to weather.com

Northeast Florida is suffering "exceptional drought" and the rain could soak the parched areas between northeastern Florida and southeastern North Carolina.

The comment also completely ignores the reality held here;

NBC News reported that made Beryl the strongest May tropical cyclone to hit the U.S. since a hurricane that hit the Outer Banks of North Carolina with winds of 75 mph on May 29, 1908. However, that fact speaks more to the scarcity of tropical activity in May as opposed to Beryl's strength.

Get out your tin hats, the save the earth folks are getting together to bury oil and gas and praise the wind and sun. Even though the energy produced trade off between them doesn't even compare. We are the only inhabitable planet in this solar system so unless you plan to be leaving for some were else we do need to look out for this big green and blue marble in space. But really we're so spoiled in the e-world that we don't have a clue as to what the rest of the inhabitants are doing to the planet on there side of the world. So we really need to educate ourselves to how they may be destroying or saving the planet before we start screaming at each other over weather wives tales on things we don't understand. The tin foil hats really need to be put away with the banners are real concideration for your neighbor be formost in your concerns. And the greatness of the Unites States held high for all to see what can be done as a united peoples work together for the betterment of civilization. And yes the planet will be here long after civilization is history!!! And there will still be water and land on it long after we have all passed and it will clean itself and history will begin again. The tin hats love themselves so much they have to tell us all about the things were doing wrong. That's when i stop listening, sorry!

Did I SAY we can stop using oil and gas?

Then pick up your straw man...you impressed no one by knocking it down.

some days it seems as though civilization is "already gone"

Living in Texas, I read of the rain and felt a surge of jealousy. Good that those areas got some much needed rain. As to Washington and politics, yet again, being brought into a story about weather, suggest certain people really need to get a life.

Ah, Florida...

Land of the hanging chads, formerly-pet-Burmese pythons overtaking the Everglades, Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman, a naked guy chewing off another man's face, and huge hurricanes fueled by global warming, just to name a few.

What's not to love? I can see why you're jealous, mygirl.

The rains fell on more than the state of Florida alone. As to the state of Florida, it's generally accepted that the state is a tad...unusual.

mygirl I agree, my friend in Jersey is bitchin that he thinks he's in Seattle for all the rain he's getting I asked him to send me some, he told me he can't since he's not allowed to "mess with Texas" I told him we'll make an exception lol

After living in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda and still have family living there, i can attest that tropical storms are normal. I'm also inclined to mention the daily deluge of rain that comes around 3-4pm, sometimes dumping as much as 3 inches in an hour. I'm glad for my friends and family's sake that the storm was downgraded before landing.

Also, considering it is technically the "rainy season" in Florida atm, hurricanes, tropical storms and constant showers will be normal for a few months.

Well actually 2012 DID start happening on January 1st.
And when are these "huge" hurricanes caused by global bull@!$%# supposed to occur?

And when are these "huge" hurricanes caused by global bull@!$%# supposed to occur?

Gradually over the last 35 years, but feel free to stay in the fact-free world of the climate change deniers.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have released a study supporting the findings of several studies last year linking an increase in the strength of hurricanes around the world to a global increase in sea surface temperature. The new study strengthens the link between the increase in hurricane intensity and the increase in tropical sea surface temperature. It found that while factors such as wind shear do affect the intensity of individual storms or storm seasons, they don't account for the global 35-year increase in the number of the most intense hurricanes. The study appears online in the March 16 edition of Science Express at www.scienceexpress.org.

Last summer, the journals Nature and Science published studies claiming to show a very strong link between rising tropical sea surface temperatures and an increase in the strength of hurricanes. The Nature study, by Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, concluded that cyclonic storms in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceanic basins were increasing in strength and duration. That increase, Emanuel concluded, was due to increasing sea surface temperatures caused, in part, by global warming.

A month later, the journal Science published research linking an increase in sea surface temperatures over the past 35 years to a near doubling in the number of the strongest hurricanes, those labeled Category 4 or 5. The study, authored by Peter Webster, Judith Curry and Hai-Ru Chang at Georgia Tech and Greg Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, examined hurricanes in all oceanic basins that play host to cyclonic storms around the world.

This latest study sought to determine whether factors other than sea surface temperatures could be significantly contributing to this 35-year trend. Georgia Tech researchers Carlos Hoyos and Paula Agudelo, along with Curry and Webster examined three factors: vertical wind shear (changes in wind speed and direction with height); humidity in the lower atmosphere; and zonal stretching deformation, which is the tendency of the winds to rotate in a cyclonic direction.

"If you examine the intensification of a single storm, or even the statistics on intensification for a particular season, factors like wind shear can play an important role," said Curry, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. "However, there is no global trend in wind shear or the other factors over the 35-year period."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/giot-rrs031606.php

Kaybeetoys: You wrote:

"Ah, Florida...

Land of the hanging chads, formerly-pet-Burmese pythons overtaking the Everglades, Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman, a naked guy chewing off another man's face, and huge hurricanes fueled by global warming, just to name a few.

What's not to love? I can see why you're jealous, mygirl."

What party was the election commission person ? (R)

What percentage of FL voters were born in FL? 8% Most from NY,NJ, & mid west.

Now on the python, new tropical fish species, iguana , monitor lizard, and snail infestations.

Could the anti-global warning folks please arrange a real week long cold snap to kill the new species.

We haven't had a real winter in decades. Just, of course, a coincidence. Couldn't be climate change ......

GCooper, we no longer receive daily afternoon showers here in north Florida. The climate's shifted so that they don't occur during what we once called the rainy season.

GollyGeewhillikers, Katrina was bad enough. Don't be calling down any more like her, please. I live in Florida near a river. They'll be coming soon enough, perhaps this season. Don't wish for disaster for people you don't know. It's bad Karma. Look how many weather disasters there have been through the winter with tornadoes. They're hot weather problems. If you can't see how that's unusual, you won't be convinced by hurricanes, no matter how large.

We have no seasons in Florida, SweetPea. Prior to Climate Change we had Wet and we had Humid. Now we only have Humid. It's dead boring here now.

Ever notice that its the LOSER States which get hit regularly by Hurricanes and floods and droughts and tornados ? These States are impoverished states where the average resident pays LESS to Uncle Sam each year than they GET BACK from Uncle Sam in one form of assisstance or another..these folks don't call FEMA what it really is...its WELFARE, and the "Farm Assisstance programs" and Crop rotation payments are Welfare, too, sound nicer under a different name, but these are all hand-outs from Unlce Sam......

I read in a weather boo that there are only TWO places in the entire World, where there is a regular TORNADO season....A.) Mongolia and B.) The old states of the Confederacy and Oklahoma...Bible Belt nation....Gods joke,I guess, or, perhaps His anger.

Liam-1161783 : Guess you have missed the macro dynamics of population movement to the south for decades???

Your northern superiority complex should have prepared you better. Simple fact is that FL,SC,TN, GA, and other southern states has had formerly northeastern citizens retiring in southern states. What could cause them to do that?? Less taxes, fees, and cheaper housing. Oh , and they educated their kids up north (people like you), and some feel they shouldn't pay to educate those kids in their new state. To them , thats a fair place to cut. And then they'll say we live cheaply in a state of Losers.

Now, IF you want them back?? Perhaps you should ask them to return??

I know...summer is over 3 weeks away. But how will the temps average out over time. A few days above average is just local or at best regional weather. A prolonged trend can be construed to be a change in climate.

Yes, if the trend in temperature looked like this http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ or this http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ we might have reason to worry.

Oh, wait...

..welcome to seasons...winter & summer...soon to be...summer & summer....no more spring & fall...

Fear! Fear! We must blame this on man. We can't simply say we're in a La Nina pattern that is creating some unseasonably (not unprecedented) warm temperatures and storms.

So it was just as bad 100 years ago? Umm...that's not global warming caused by man. That's just Mother Nature's cyclical nature. None of this is new.

.. Yes and since it's just Mother Nature's cyclic pattern we should drill baby drill, pollute all we want and not lift a finger to reduce our carbon footprint.. /sarc

Each 100 year record broken, by themselves, prove nothing. The fact that we are breaking record after record everywhere around the globe MIGHT have a little scientific significance... not sure... just a hunch... on a gawd awful hot day in May.

Hey John B! Seen this one?

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Can't be caused by man, unless you look at science.

97% of climate scientists agree with global warming caused by rising carbon levels in the lower atmosphere. Keeping in mind that Exxon Mobile began the anti-global warming initiative with a concerted campaign to spread doubt by any means of the process in the late 90's, one doesn't have to wonder wonders why people are so aggressively against the concept considering their resources.

The only problem with the deniers is that this natural enigmatic cycle they speak of doesn't have any measurable cause other than the sense of really wanting to deny global warming. Please then tell me what the source of it is. Why would 2011 be the hottest year on records going back to 1850 and geological science going back 100,000 years? If it's so obvious that there is no man-made cause then what exactly is the cause?

By the way, a single tropical storm in 1908 with the same wind speed doesn't mean it was hotter than year. It wasn't. Many factors go into the genesis of a hurricane. We're not in La Nina, we're in El Nino, the cooling cycle of the Pacific waters and yest this is unprecedented in all of recorded history.

On a desperate note doesn't anyone find it odd that we're on the second storm and the season has yet to begin? Furthermore that the storms are forming above the tropics? It's an indisputable fact that the summer was the warmest in record in this hemisphere so I worry a bit about what the aftermath of this season will be. Hopefully this unnamed "natural cycle" will all of sudden reverse and make everything cold for once.

@dante:

Nature doesn't follow calendar dates. Just because a storm began outside the "usual" calendar dates, doesn't mean that anything is amiss with Nature. It just means that a storm arrived a little earlier than usual.

We can't simply say we're in a La Nina pattern that is creating some unseasonably (not unprecedented) warm temperatures and storms.

We CAN, in fact you just DID, but that wouldn't be accurate;

While it is undoubtedly true that there are natural cycles and variations in global climate, those who insist that current warming is purely natural — or even mostly natural — have two challenges.

First, they need to identify the mechanism behind this alleged natural cycle. Absent a forcing of some sort, there will be no change in global energy balance. The balance is changing, so natural or otherwise, we need to find this mysterious cause.

Second, they need to come up with an explanation for why a 35% increase in the second most important greenhouse gas does not affect the global temperature. Theory predicts temperature will rise given an enhanced greenhouse effect, so how or why is it not happening?

The mainstream climate science community has provided a well-developed, internally consistent theory that accounts for the effects we are now observing. It provides explanations and makes predictions. Where is the skeptic community’s model or theory whereby CO2 does not affect the temperature? Where is the evidence of some other natural forcing, like the Milankovich cycles that controlled the ice ages (a fine historical example of a dramatic and regular climate cycle that can be read in the ice core records taken both in Greenland and in the Antarctic)?

http://grist.org/climate-energy/current-global-warming-is-just-part-of-a-natural-cycle/

So bring me some science to back up your position, then we'll talk.

Shandril, I'm sorry, but yes the seasons do come around in predictable times each year. Not to go over your head but there is something called an orbit and an axial tilt and you'll find that the calendar is accurately measuring that cycle to an accuracy within seconds (with the leap year and leap century corrections of course). The hurricane season is based on the time of the year that the water temperatures should be high enough to produce such a storm which in turn is based on the solar incidence angle which in turn is based on the season which comes around predictably on calendar dates. As for Nature, whoever this person is, whether or not something is amiss with him, that the sea surface temperature has exceeded the threshold for tropical convection at this time in the year is directly related to the mean temperature in the hemisphere over the past three seasons. This has been indisputably higher than not only the average but the highest ever recorded.

This is due to a rise in the absorption index of the lower atmosphere in the wavelengths that are transmitted from the surface in reaction to solar flux. This correlated strongly and predictable with in the wavelength Lyman series of the Carbon dioxide molecule as well as several others. That process is related, of course to the solution to Shrowdinger's equations as it related to the zero-point energy of a bound electron within such a molecule and the first, second, and third energy level of the first and second class within that system.

As you must know, that energy difference correlates to the energy of photons traveling within the visual area of the spectrum and therefore are absorbed and transmitted and lower frequencies that lack the capacity to leave the lower atmosphere.

The end effect has been a 2.34 degree rise in the average temperature globally within the last century which in turn increases the dynamic probability of tropical convection forming outside of the historical seasonal norms. In effect, if this were the years 1920-1965, the water surface temperature would have been too cold to produce tropical storms, much more two in the same area (keeping in mind that these storms are heat sinks to water temperatures).

Lets also keep in mind that the 2010, 1995, and 2011 seasons were tied for the third most active on record. 2005 was the most active on record, 2003, and 2008 were tied for fifth. Now this might not have been a pattern if for example we only had 20 years of records, but we actually have accurate records going into the 19th century.

It is slightly obvious that a long string of records is statistically improbable in a s system that isn't increasing over time. All the causal factors are explained. What is your misunderstanding?

What is with this insistence that there is some mysterious man named Nature using magic and we should dismiss the pursuit science itself and attribute everything not to what we have discovered to be the cause, but his army of elves and his bag of tricks?

School is in, dante is teaching...

Dante - love your post, you speak my preferred language.

Didn't you mean "Schrödinger's equation" instead of "Shrowdinger's equations"? As I recall, the equation collapses the wave function to give one state, and the equation is a linear partial differential equation whose solutions describe the state function; it works for electron energy states but also works quite nicely for macroscopic systems such as atmospheres. I believe I helped some of those guys with their math, especially estimations of the heat budget of the North Atlantic current, using Schrödinger's equation and getting a specific solution (as contrasted with the general solution).

I wonder if polarization is factored in. Certainly incidence angle is the most important driving factor in determining quasi-seasonal variations from past norms in global temperatures, along with wavelength.

Anyways, love your post.

Nonone is mentioning the fact that this formed pretty much in the area of the Gulf Stream. Which is warmer than the surrounding ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream

Jim of course I meant Shroedinger, and actually I saw the error after rapid posted that, but had run out of editing time and sort of idly wondered if it mattered. I find when I type quickly, things turn into phonetic analogies. There are many other spelling errors throughout ^_^.

Generally the 3-D second order partial differential equations seem to describe a limit in determinate differential calculus than every system in physics and related areas of engineering and system modelling for which they are used. Or is that me being cynical? Who knows.

Is there some point, Wally, other than pure deflection? Is the Gulf Stream not ALWAYS there? Is its water not ALWAYS warmer than the surrounding ocean. Does that heat not ALWAYS intensify storms?

Dante -

nice reply, thanks. And fear not - limits are meant to transcended.

In 3 dimensions, the second order equations seem to describe a limit? Just guessing, but that might possibly be related to permutation expression within the special orthogonal symmetry group of order 3. You know - the wave function collapses to give the state function, but the collapse never causes any truly spontaneous symmetry breaking, so I'd consider a "sidewinder" approach, perhaps through iterations of Markov chains for each state function, giving a new derived "wave function" related to linear predictor coefficients (sort of).

Of course, Schrödinger's equation can be expressed in a nonlinear form ...

More rain some places, desertification in others that are currently productive, climate that may be death for the plants currently in place at a given location, unprecedented loss of food production in places newly made desert, more fuel used because of increased need for air conditioning. Looks like your head is buried deeply in the sand to me.

The critical issue is not what the temperature is, or may be, or will be. The critical issue is how fast it is moving.

Rapid change is the real danger. Human habits and infrastructure are suited to particular weather patterns and sea levels, as are ecosystems and animal behaviors. The rate at which global temperature is rising today is likely unique in the history of our species.

This kind of sudden change is rare even in geological history, though perhaps not unprecedented. So the planet may have been through similar things before — that sounds reassuring, right?

Not so much. Once you look at the impact similar changes had on biodiversity at the time, the existence of historical precedent becomes anything but reassuring. Rapid climate change is the prime suspect in most mass extinction events, including the Great Dying some 250 million years ago, in which 90% of all life went extinct.

What we know about ecosystems, and what geologic history demonstrates, is that dramatic climate changes — up or down or sideways — are a tremendous shock to the biosphere and cause mass extinction events. That, all in all, is not likely to be a good thing.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/whats-wrong-with-warmer-weather/

@Wally1853299,

Yes...but the good 'Lord' created an eco-balance unmatched by any other...

You are assuming a lot of "what ifs" and "maybe's" John Boy. The current data are not indicating these dire predictions, and perhaps show a slowing down or even a reversal of any warming. Even if mankind has caused climate change, it is very doubtful that much can be done about it considering human nature. Most of the world's peoples are more concerned about having food and shelter that what a tiny group of hysterical scientists are fretting about.

The current data showed that 2010 was the hottest year on record. I'm certain that you have no idea what the "current" data is. Stop being a mouthpiece. Learn some actual science.

It's already obvious that 2012 is not a sign of this "reversal." If you want an example of what "most of the world" is worried about, I was just down in Jamaica (not on vacation) and they were extremely worried about the changes to the growing season over the last few decades and set out a renewable energy initiative. I think you're confusing the poor in the world with the people in a certain unnamed rich country that have the luxury of buying a hole in the sand to put their heads in. Desertification is causing starvation today.

Read.

No Wally, the current data DO NOT show slowing or reversal of warming;

Until recently, though, one of the many analyses of tropospheric temperatures did show very little warming and was in direct contradiction to model predictions that say the troposphere should warm significantly in an enhanced greenhouse environment. Something had to be wrong, the observations or the model predictions. Naturally, the skeptics had no doubt it was the models that were off.

However, it turns out that additional errors were uncovered and the MSU Satellite temperature analysis now shows warming well in line with model expectations. Real Climate has a good rundown of the technical details for those with the stomach for it. In short, this long-running debate turned out to be a great validation of the models and a real death blow to the “earth is not warming” crowd.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-satellites-show-cooling/

It is my opinion that the seasons are shifting by an average of 2-3 months in some areas. Causing droughts, floods and all of the phenomenon associated with climate change. Where winter used to start in October for some with bitter cold temperatures and snow winter now starts in December/January. Spring lasts longer for most, well into the considered summer months. While Summer eats into what used to be known as fall and fall wanes into the formerly known winter months.

As the planet continues to adapt to the atmospheric changes we introduce the weather will continue to shift. I view this as natural progression.

Cooper, and is your opinion based in any actual science? Is there any data at all to back up your conclusion that winters are ending later and summer starts late?

More rain some places, desertification in others that are currently productive, climate that may be death for the plants currently in place at a given location, unprecedented loss of food production in places newly made desert, more fuel used because of increased need for air conditioning. Looks like your head is buried deeply in the sand to me.

A phenomena that was acurately predicted over 50 years ago!

dante2308 -

I did my thesis on the climatic effects on the coral reefs.

But having said that and cleared it out of the way. No, generally when someone starts a sentence with "It is my opinion.." you can be assured its not a fu<king thesis. Other than living in the same region for 35 years and witnessing the changes of the seasons i don't have a report from an ivy league professor who studied my climate and can verify my sneaky opinions.

As a person who did a thesis on climate effects, one would assume that you would at least be curious enough to take the three seconds it takes to look up climate data to confirm your suspicions before going off on a tangent and being so vocal about your "opinions."

Global average temperature is simply increasing. The seasons shift in 22,000 year cycles due to procession, not 35 year cycles. Wherever you live, if it is in the US, you wouldn't objectively find "spring extending into summer months." If you, like everyone who cites "nature" as the cause of climate change, could only point to the mechanism of your so-called (and in your case imagined) natural climate shift.

I don't understand why you felt the need to say "Ivy League" and talk about your thesis. I suppose it was to try to be impressive, but perhaps it would be more impressive if in all those 35 years you had learned how to use Google.

Are you for fu<king real? I was merely joining in on a conversation with my original post not trying to implement my 35 year regional weather as the pattern for global climate change. Get a grip, go outside more often and quit being so damn "scholarly". Sometimes simple conversations regarding observations and opinions can yield more than a textbook.

Clearly common sense is out of your league. I bid you good day.

GCooper, you're wrong. It's not my fault you're wrong. It's not a failing on my part for pointing out that you're wrong. Common sense would imply being right. You're not. I just don't feel I gained anything by listening to nonsense. The pervasive spreading of nonsense is why we aren't addressing climate change to begin with.

I'm sorry you can't stomach it, but just because you say something completely and totally wrong and frankly insulting to the millions of victims and thousands of scientists who study it doesn't mean someone else can't say "well, no, you're wrong."

Learn something instead of defending your nonsense by attacking those darn dur scholars with their science and reasoning whatits. How you ever produced a thesis is beyond me.

At the time when this system was in the area you mentioned it was in the mid-level of the atmosphere and was still a cold core system. Tropical entities are in the lower level of the atmosphere and are warm core systems.

that is because at that time it was sub-tropical............get a lesson in terminoly, please!

What does "terminoly" mean?

Jennifer, in order to be classified a tropical storm (or sub-tropical storm), it must have sustained winds of at least 39 mph. The amount of rain has nothing to do with it. We have had dry hurricanes, with very little rain.

Well, at least Beryl will soak Northern Florida and Georgia,areas in great need of rain. Hoping it will curtail the drought effects.
We need the rain, here, too.
But, the weather conditions that day were downright challenging on the roads. The wind gusts were above normal. The downpour of the rain just came down hard and fast, too. It took people by surprise. It just was not a typical thunderstorm blowing through the area. Tropical/subtropical, the system felt like the beginning of a something we may have been concerning for all of us who live in South Florida. Felt like we had to decide if if was or wasn't a concern.
Who wants to drive behind a line of vehicles driving 5 mph on interstate highways with their flashers on?
It's like they never experienced rain before, let alone winds. Those people are very challenging to have on the roads.
Then they park their vehicles on the side of the highways thinking they are safer, then more follow their decision to park, with their flashing lights.
Then, you have a line of them trying to merge back onto the highway once the rain slows down. And, what follows?
Accidents.

So they should speed up? And turn off their flashers?

Jennifer, the classification of a storm depends upon wind speed. It's incumbent upon people to keep themselves informed about tropical depressions, storms and hurricanes.

Tropical season begins in June through the end of November. Most tropical systems don't develop until at least July, with the peak being on September 10th. Hardly ever is there any systems developing in May. This is the second named storm already this year. That is why this is news worthy.

Obama promised change! Were getting it, so don't complain, you voted for him and all the change that he would bring. He said wind and solar, and were getting it, and now your all complaining!!! Wow you just can't satisfy everybody.

I'm still waiting for a story like this:

"In a shocking development the weather this year has been the most average since recordkeeping began in 1803. No cause has yet been identified for this unusually average weather, but experts say that somewhat less average weather should be expected next year."

Can't have one without the other. That's how it is with tropical storms.

Yep, everybody is out to kill Mother Earth. Some of dumb statements you wackos toss out. The planet will survive, but mankind may not. And that might be good thing.

Hurricanes have nothing to do with pollution or anything of the sort, get off your soap box.

Don't forget to mention mud slides and forest fires to go along with those earth quakes. Mother nature really loves those liberals; Huh?

Really, hiap? Where's your science that says we can dump massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and NOT affect temperature? ALL the science says it WILL, where's your science that says it won't?

think hiap is eating to much soap

There have been hurricanes in the Caribean and East Coast of the US since long before there were cars, or coal, or any one burning CO2 into the atmosphere. There have been good years, there have been bad years, and there is no trend of there being more tropical activity due to manmade climate change. I live in hurricane country, and they are, always have been, and always will be a fact of life. Forcasters can barely figure out where a hurricane is going to go in a few hours, why should I think science has proven that big bad hurricanes are punishment for me driving a car? I don't even know of any scientist that believes that anyway.

Now you're confusing weather with climate.

Climate and weather are very different things, and the level of predictability is comparably different.

Climate is defined as weather averaged over a period of time — generally around 30 years. This averaging smooths out the random and unpredictable behaviour of weather. Think of it as the difference between trying to predict the height of the fifth wave from now versus predicting the height of tomorrow’s high tide. The former is a challenge — to which your salty, wet sneakers will bear witness — but the latter is routine and reliable.

This is not to say it’s easy to predict climate changes. But seizing on meteorologists’ failures to cast doubt on a climate model’s 100-year projection is an argument of ignorance.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/we-cant-even-predict-the-weather-next-week/

the left coast?

Really? Left coast = West coast.

I'll take hurricanes over earthquakes any day.

Statisticly, which kills more people in the U.S.? btw Quakes haven't really been a problem in Oregon and Washington states. At least not yet.

At least with hurricanes we get plenty of lead time to get out of the way, anyone crazy enough to stay at their home through a catagory 3 or higher takes their life into their own hands. Other natural disasters don't give that kind of warning.

Science and technology give advanced warning for hurricanes, tornados and tsunamis. Quakes usually are preceded by small temblors. They're still working on accurate quake prediction. It'll come. Have faith in science, it has a proven track record.

But no amount of praying or animal sacrificing is going to save your ass from any natural disasters.

glad the "Dragon" is landing off west coast

Typhoons = hurricanes. Same thing, different name.

I hope mother nature realizes we've had enough rain where I'm at and she decides to let things dry out for a while.

Do I get her attention by dancing around a maypole, sacrificing chickens or taking a virgin? Which method is best, you know ?

mother nature knew this and sent some relief...

...do not make asses out of yourselves

You first.

"do not make asses out of yourselves....."

Why not? You just did.

Well Hank chickens are easier to catch than virgins (personal expierience).

God doesn't bless people who kill others for a living.

Shandril,

How about people who volunteer to protect freedom for your sorry hide? You are a disgusting person.

Killing Iraqi and Afghanis is protecting our freedom how exactly? Havn't we actually *lost* freedom after 9-11 with the Dept. of Homeland Security and the wars?

Road Warrior-252445

Shandril,

How about people who volunteer to protect freedom for your sorry hide? You are a disgusting person.

F.O.L.

Shandril

Care to explain Gods' instructions to the Hebrews about entering and occupying the Promised Land?

I am atheist. To me, this is not a religious issue, but one of common descency. When someone hopes the best for our fallen soldiers and the love ones left behind, you don't mock them. To do so reflects on your lack of maturity.

RTypo,

The soldiers deployed to fight for YOU only take orders. They believe they are fighting for your freedom, and don’t you forget it.

I love our soldiers. These are Americans like me, many of which are supporting families.

But how are they fighting for me exactly? Iraq looked like fighting for Exxon Mobil. Afghan looks like a clusterfrack of misguidedness. A huge occupying army to fight poppy growing sheep hearders and to look for Bin Laden?

In fact the last noble cause for our troops was WW2 in my view. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan... not so much.

Well Typo, as long as there is a standing military, it will need soldiers whether it is a volunteer military or the draft. You don't have to serve because someone is. In a sense, they ARE fighting for you. If you don't see that, then there is no reason to continue the conversation.

I wonder how people get thru life with zero reading comprehension skills. I know there's a lot of people out there like that, but I still wonder.....

It is amazing, isn't it, Hank?

I'm having trouble keeping up with your thought process...is the President wrong if he doesn't do something, or because he does? If he reacts quickly, or slowly? Is he to blame for any damage and destruction or not? If anyone on this thread has held President GW Bush responsible for tropical storm Beryl I must have missed it, but I guess you know best. I'll have to guess, because you certainly haven't told us anything other than the fact you're angry about something.

Reporting from FL: it's a tropical storm, not a hurricane. Some of the lower parts of downtown Jacksonville got minor flooding and a few trees blew down. There have been power outages across our fair city (the largest in the world).

What do you imagine has happened, AngryVeteran? The worst thing is the bridge closings and cancellation of Memorial Day celebrations. Are you PUI (Posting Under the Influence) by any chance? It's clear you are angry but there's nothing for President Obama to do about Tropical Storm Beryl.

Thanks for your service. I hope you're getting help for your issues.

Rotten timing in terms of this being a holiday weekend.. Ahh OK. Not rotten timing for the farmers in the area that have lost many early crops to the drought, its still early enough that they can replant some crops. You do like to have food to eat, dont you?

Cheap,

You can't profit or push an agenda with facts! Now get with the program before you analytical thinking gets you in hot water.

Pun intended.

Cheap:

Wrong. The moon is moving AWAY from the earth. Not that that has any more to do with anything than the other claptrap you wrote.

Straw man argument, no one said anything about "farting and exhaling". The issue is the thousands of tons of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere with our industrial activity.

Go back to school. Or, perhaps more appropriately, go to school at all.

I suppose we should all stop driving our vehicles, turn off our electricity, go back to horse drawn buggies and plows, and move back into buffalo skinned tents, and all be self sustaining individuals again so that we can reduce our personal CO2 production.

Now tell us how you intend to get the REST of the developed WORLD to follow your lead?

Did anyone SAY we would go back tohorse and buggy days? Obviously that's not practical, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't move toward a solution.

As for the rest of the developed world, 191 countries are already ahead of us on this issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Kyoto_Protocol

Yes, cheaphoarde, I expect reasonable people (which may or may not include you) to believe that human activity is affecting the climate...though not by farting and exhaling, by which comment you earned the "may or may not" comment.

It’s true that natural fluxes in the carbon cycle are much larger than anthropogenic emissions. But for roughly the last 10,000 years, until the industrial revolution, every gigatonne of carbon going into the atmosphere was balanced by one coming out.

What humans have done is alter one side of this cycle. We put approximately 6 gigatonnes of carbon into the air but, unlike nature, we are not taking any out.

Thankfully, nature is compensating in part for our emissions, because only about half the CO2 we emit stays in the air. Nevertheless, since we began burning fossil fuels in earnest over 150 years ago, the atmospheric concentration that was relatively stable for the previous several thousand years has now risen by over 35%.

So whatever the total amounts going in and out “naturally,” humans have clearly upset the balance and significantly altered an important part of the climate system.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/natural-emissions-dwarf-human-emissions/

Actually, the moon is receding from earth at a rate of about 2 inches a year. And is has been doing this since it formed. It used to be much, much closer to us, probably as close as 20 to 30 thousand kilometers.

Wally and Mr. Tom, Yes the Moon as a whole is moving away from earth, about 4 cm per year. The moons orbit is elliptical though and moves closer to us and further from us just like the earth from the sun. I wish you would see the point. In order for the earth to maintain the same weather patterns year in and year out the earths orbit around the sun must follow the exact same path year in and year out, the sun must maintain the same temperature year in and year out, the moon must maintain its orbit around the earth the same year in year out, the earth must maintain its tilt exactly the same year in and year out. Do you honestly believe this actually happens? The true straw man is man made global warming. So much so that we now have to explain warming by saying we are cleaning the air too much. Here is an article. Now I just saw one a couple of months ago just like it here on MSNBC and there are many others if you just do a simple search. So, which is it? Pollution is causing global warming or the air is to clean. If its both we are f&%$ed. articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/18/opinion/la-oe-kintisch18-2010apr18

Please feel free to describe the science which would dictate that a 35% increase in atmospheric Carbon Dioxide over 150 years does NOT cause an increase in temperatures.

That or show how a difference in earth-to-moon difference of 2/15,133,979,520 per year is causing a greater temperature change than Carbon Dioxide levels right here in our own atmosphere.

That oughta be entertaining...

Um, I think you still have prove that CO2 is increasing temperatures. Last I checked the "science" was shown to be a fraud. Temp monitors were put in "hot spots" near things such as incinerators to get a false temperature reading and random data was put into computer models to get the desired result because the actual data was not cooperating. There were even emails sent out to get this done.

Second, it's interesting that you only bring up the moon from my paragraph. This is just like you people. Take one sentence out of context of the whole to make someone sound unreasonable. Let us go over this again.

In order for the earth to maintain the same climate all the time some things must happen.

1. The sun must maintain it's temperature. We know it does not.

B. The earth must maintain the same orbit around the sun all the time year in and year out. We know it does not.

3. The earth must maintain the same tilt on it's axis all the time year in and year out. We know it does not.

D. The earth must maintain it's rotational speed the same all the time year in and year out. We know it does not.

5. The moon must maintain it's same orbit around the earth all the time year in and year out. We know it does not.

Knowing all of these variables are changing I think it is safe to they would have an affect on our climate. Much more so than doctored up, fraudulent, "scientific" evidence.

Ooh, you threw out a whole blizzard of nonsense on that one. Let's take them in order;

1) No one has proved that CO2 increases temperature.

Congratulations, you've rejected science that has been known and proven for nearly 200 years.

Carbon dioxide () is one of the greenhouse gases. It consists of one carbon atom with an oxygen atom bonded to each side. When its atoms are bonded tightly together, the carbon dioxide molecule can absorb infrared radiation and the molecule starts to vibrate. Eventually, the vibrating molecule will emit the radiation again, and it will likely be absorbed by yet another greenhouse gas molecule. This absorption-emission-absorption cycle serves to keep the heat near the surface, effectively insulating the surface from the cold of space.

http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm

2) The science doesn't hold up.

Yeah, it does...everywhere outside fact-free zone of Conservative talk radio.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: “Human activities … are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy. … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise” [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: “The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue” [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

3) Urban temperatures are distorting the data.

Um, no. I realize the below requires you to go to the link in order to view the evidence. I realize absorbing information that doesn't fulfill your confirmation bias is probably something of which you're incapable...but try anyway.

Urban Heat Island Effect has been examined quite thoroughly (PDF) and found to have a negligible effect on temperature trends. Real Climate has a detailed discussion of this here. What’s more, NASA GISS takes explicit steps in their analysis to remove any such spurious signal by normalizing urban station data trends to the surrounding rural stations. It is a real phenomenon, but it is one climate scientists are well aware of and have taken any required steps to remove its influence from the raw data.

But heavy duty data analysis and statistical processing aside, a little common sense and a couple of pertinent images should put this idea to bed. Here is an image, taken from Astronomy Picture of the Day (a wonderful site, by the way), of the surface of the earth. It is a composite of hundreds of satellite images all taken at night. (The large version is well worth the download time!)

Aside from being very beautiful, it is a perfect indicator of urbanization on earth. As you can see, the greatest urbanization is over the continental United States, Europe, India, Japan, Eastern China, and generally coastal South America.

This next image was taken from NASA GISS. It is a global surface temperature anomaly map which shows warming (and infrequently, cooling) by region.

Look at North America, look at Europe, at Asia, Australia, Africa and the Poles and compare them to the urbanization in the image from APOD. There is quite simply no way to discern any correlation whatsoever between urbanization and warming. If the UHI effect were the cause of warming in the globally averaged record, we would see it in this map.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/warming-is-due-to-the-urban-heat-island-effect/

4) The whole thing is a fraud.

No, the denial is a fraud.

The growing confluence of model results and the increasingly similar physical representations of the climate system from model to model may well look like sharing code or tweaking ’til things look alike. But it is also perfectly consistent with better and better understanding of the underlying problem, an understanding that is shared via scientific journals and research. This understanding is coming fast as we gather more and more historical and current data, all of which provides more testing material for model refinement.

Viewing the increasing agreement among climate models and climate scientists as collusion instead of consensus is a rather conspiratorial take on the normal course of scientific investigation. I suppose that fewer and fewer scientists disagreeing with the status quo is indeed consistent with some kind of widespread and insidious suppression of ideas, but you know, it is also consistent with having the right answer.

In common with most of the major Conservative frauds, we find ALEC playing a major part...go figure.

Welcome to Tennessee, which on March 19th became the fourth state with a legal mandate to incorporate climate change denial as part of the science education curriculum when discussing climate change.

First it was Louisiana, back in 2009, then Texas in 2009, South Dakota in 2010 and now Tennessee has joined the club, bringing the total to four U.S. states that have mandated climate change denial in K-12 "science" education.

Many other states could follow in their footsteps as well, given that, as DeSmogBlog exposed in late-January, this is an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bill, a near miror image of its Orwellian-titled "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act."[PDF]

The machinations of ALEC are best explained by the Center for Media and Demoracy's "ALEC Exposed" project.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/154655/how_alec_is_destroying_the_teaching_of_climate_change_science,_one_state_at_a_time

Um, I hope you realize the links here are from 2004 and 2006, years prior to when it was found out they are a fraud and people were manipulating the data to get the desired result. And I also think that recently people have actually said that because we are now reducing pollution it is causing global warming. So I wonder which it is. Pollution is causing global warming. Reducing pollution is causing global warming. Extreme heat means there is global warming. Extreme cold means there is global warming. Extreme drought means there is global warming. Extreme rain means there is global warming. I guess everything is causing and means there is global warming. I'm still thinkin momma nature is just doin what she's doin. Our meteorological scientists can't predict the weather a day or two out let alone anything else.

I can only assume you're referring to "climategate" since, unlike I have done you refuse to put up any supporting information for your positions. In reality it's "climategate" that was a fraud;

The manufactured controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit has generated a lot more heat than light. The email content being quoted does not indicate that climate data and research have been compromised. Most importantly, nothing in the content of these stolen emails has any impact on our overall understanding that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming. Media reports and contrarian claims that they do are inaccurate.

Investigations Clear Scientists of Wrongdoing

Six official investigations have cleared scientists of accusations of wrongdoing.

• A three-part Penn State University cleared scientist Michael Mann of wrongdoing.
• Two reviews commissioned by the University of East Anglia"supported the honesty and integrity of scientists in the Climatic Research Unit."
• A UK Parliament report concluded that the emails have no bearing on our understanding of climate science and that claims against UEA scientists are misleading.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Inspector General's office concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of their employees.
• The National Science Foundation's Inspector General's office concluded, "Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct...we are closing this investigation with no further action."

Other agencies and media outlets have investigated the substance of the emails.

• The Environmental Protection Agency, in response to petitions against action to curb heat-trapping emissions, dismissed attacks on the science rooted in the stolen emails.
• Factcheck.org debunked claims that the emails put the conclusions of climate science into question.
• Politifact.com rated claims that the emails falsify climate science as "false."
• An Associated Press review of the emails found that they "don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions."

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html

Of course... I'm going believe all of these liberal agencies and media outlets. I'm convinced now.....

I realize that science is a threat to Conservatism...that's just how it is.

Meanwhile there's no way for me to be convinced of your position, because you haven't even made an effort to back up your own statements.

Let's see. Penn state had someone involved in the fraud. The UEA had people involved in the fraud. The UK government had someone involved in the fraud. The EPA would love to exert its power over us by using this fraud to install more regulations. The AP, politifact and factcheck are biased. You know, I think I can make my own decision about the evidence rather than be told by the perpetrators they've done an investigation and found they've done no wrong.

I don't have to convince you of anything. I simply believe mother nature is going about it's business. My science has been laid out. The earths orbit changes, the sun's temp changes and it's tilt on it's axis changes.

Global Climate Change: Effect of the Earth's Orbit

Orbital Variations

Variations in the earth's orbit and inclination toward the sun cause cyclical variations in solar energy received by the earth and on the spatial distribution of solar energy on the earth's surface. The variations are believed to be the cause of historic climatic changes as well as those larger pre-historic climatic changes which are recorded in the geologic record. The predominant climatic effects of orbital variations are changes in seasonality.

The Earth travels around the sun in an elliptical orbit that varies in shape, with time from nearly circular to distinctly elliptical. This, combined with the fact that the sun is not the centroid of the earth's orbit, causes the distance from the Earth to the sun to vary. For instance, the current annual variation of this distance is between 147 million kilometers and 152 million kilometers. The distances can be as much as 142 million kilometers for a minimum and 156 million kilometers for a maximum. The amount of solar energy received by the earth is greatest when the earth is nearest the sun. This phenomenon is called the eccentricity of the orbit and has a 100,000 year cycle. This factor, combined with the tilt of the earth's axis, is believed to cause seasonal climate changes which are out of phase in each hemisphere. For instance, northern hemisphere winters are currently milder and summers cooler than normal. The opposite situation, colder winters and hotter summers, is now occurring in the southern hemisphere.

The earth's rotational axis is tilted with respect to the sun. This is called obliquity and is defined as the angle between the earth's orbit and the plane of the earth's equator. The tilt is toward the sun in the summer hemisphere and away from the sun in the winter hemisphere. The tilt of the earth changes cyclically between 21 3/4 degrees and 24 1/4 degrees. The period of cyclicity is 42,000 years. A large tilt warms the poles and causes smaller temperature differences in the summer hemisphere. The current tilt is 23 1/2 degrees.

As the earth travels around the sun its rotational axis wobbles much as a child's toy top wobbles as it slows down. As the earth wobbles, its axis sweeps out an imaginary cone in space. This is known as precession of the earth's axis. It takes 21,000 years to complete a cycle through which the rotational axis departs from and then returns to its original position. The climatic intensity of the precessional cycle varies in complex cycles with the orbital eccentricity, which has a cycle of 100,000 years.

The history of glaciation during the ice age as gleaned from studies of deep sea cores support the orbital control theory of climate change. Ice age sediments record orbital climatic influences. Biological productivity as recorded by the fossil record, the record of large mud deposits caused by melting of ice during interglacials, and terrigenous glacial deposits reflect orbital cycles.

Solar Output

Changes in the intensity of sunlight (solar output) may also cause or contribute to cyclic changes in the earth's climate. It is believed sunspots that occur periodically on the sun's surface may increase solar output slightly. Evidence includes the fact that the Maunder Minimum (a period of very few sunspots) from 1645 to 1723 occurred at the height of the Little Ice Age, a period in which temperatures in Europe were colder than at any time since the end of the last ice age. In addition, the little climatic optimum, a period of significant warming in Europe, which began in the year 1050 and lasted more than 100 years, began with an increase in sunspot activity.

Historical sun-spot cycles are at 11, 22, and 720 years. Recently, evidence of a regular 125-year cycle of warming and cooling temperatures, believed to result from a 125-year sunspot cycle, has been discovered.

Although the effect of sunspot cycles on climatic cycles remains theoretical, we now have satellite instrumentation in space which should eventually verify whether or not the sunspot climate theory is valid.

Also keep in mind as a star gets older it gets hotter.

I also believe there is no way to convince you of my position. You just don't want to be convinced.

And you reject all evidence that the alleged fraud was investigated and found to be nonexistent.

Then you put up a bunch of words without proper attribution to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources web site where they originated http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/cc/cc7.htm with exactly zero relevance as there is no effort to correlate that information to the actual situation that's being experienced on the Earth at this time. Can you quantify that the change in temperature corresponds to what would be expected from the factors described in that article?

Because climate change science predicts pretty accurately just how much the temperature should change based on the additional Carbon Dioxide that's been added to the atmosphere.

I won't be convinced for the same reaon that Galileo couldn't be convinced the Earth was the center of the universe...the pseudoscience of climate change denial is wrong.

Yes I reject the "evidence". I repeat. Let's see. Penn state had someone involved in the fraud. The UEA had people involved in the fraud. The UK government had someone involved in the fraud. The EPA would love to exert its power over us by using this fraud to install more regulations. The AP, politifact and factcheck are biased. You know, I think I can make my own decision about the evidence rather than be told by the perpetrators they've done an investigation and found they've done no wrong.

I wonder how else these changes in climate would have occurred over all of these years? Ice age, warming periods. Must have been all those factories the cave men operated.

These people can't predict the weather a day or 2 out half the time.

I've read articles that say reducing pollution is causing global warming.

So I wonder which it is. Pollution is causing global warming. Reducing pollution is causing global warming. Extreme heat means there is global warming. Extreme cold means there is global warming. Extreme drought means there is global warming. Extreme rain means there is global warming. I guess everything is causing and means there is global warming.

They've even had to call it "climate change" because global warming wasn't convincing enough people.

Galileo you are definitely not.

Actually it was the Bush Administration that came up with the term "climate change" because it sounds so much more innocuous than "global warming."

Who should do the investigations and evaluate the scientific data, Glenn Beck? The Koch brothers?

Oops, even the Kochs accidentally created a believer in climate change in the process of trying to buy yet another phony propaganda item. I guess Richard Muller will never get another dime from them;

One of the most prominent global warming skeptics is changing is his tune.

Richard Muller, a physicist who spent two years trying to see if mainstream climate scientists were wrong about the earth's climate changes, determined that they were right, the Associated Press reported.

His findings showed the temperature had risen about 1.6 degrees since the 1950s.

"The skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a skeptic two years ago," Muller told the AP. "And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/richard-muller-koch-brothers-funded-scientist-declares-global-warming-real-article-1.969870#ixzz1wVA3zZ3k

James Lovelock, a former global warming alarmist is now changing his tune. “The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing." He says he still believes in global warming but it is quite apparent he doesn't know why and it is not happening as fast as once believed.

It seems you left out one important quote from muller. But then again that's what you people do. Take a small portion out of context of the whole. "Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that." They don't know how much is due to humans and what will happen. You see, I don't care if a Koch bros foundation partially funded this research. I guess if the Koch bros helped fund this I was supposed say "I believe". I don't why your so mad at Bush. He actually bought into this also. He didn't want to alienate the people that didn't agree with global warming so he tried to find a happy medium. I am not drone.

We could go on and on with articles for and against. People who have gone from one side to the other. I guess we have proven something. We really don't know what is happening. You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe based on the evidence out there. The debate is not over.

It's been raining here in Jax for about 24 hours straight. My pool's overflowing. Wind and rain haven't stopped for long. The bridges have been open and closed all day depending on the wind speed. I wanted to visit my sister but the bridge was in danger of being closed. I couldn't leave my autistic son alone in the storm.