Hurricane

[Nick Thompson]

All,

Thanks, all, for assistance in forecasting and advice giving and notes of concern.   The Least Regret Forecast principle ("Once a forecast starts to go sour, LEAD the forecasters, if you want to stay with the storm" ) did indeed turn out to be correct and the storm landed much further east than one might have supposed from forecasts 36 hours out, which is about the time one had to have made a decision if one were to get out of Houston.  My daughter rode out the hurricane  in a relative's house just outside the beltway in S Houston with only a third of an inch of rain, hurricane force winds, no flooding, and not even a tree down.  Mirabile Dictu, their house in Seabrook on Galveston bay seems to have come through also, although this report is second hand.  The focus of worry should now be in the Sabine River watershed and Coastal Louisiana, where the combination of surge followed by flooding will be mindboggling.  Is there anybody in that part of the world we should be worrying about?

For the nerds amongst you, I have a question:   In what sense is a hurricane a something.  I cannot understand how such a big and brutal thing can be steered and destroyed  by such weak currents .  I guess the ideal enrivonment for a hurricane is one in which winds at all levels of the atmosphere push it along in thesame direction and speed.   As long as they all push in the same direction, they are called steering currents;  if they push in different directions, they are called sheer.  Steer is good for thunderstorms; sheer is bad for hurricanes.  The hurricane came under sheer in the last 24 hours ago and to that is attributed its weakening.  However the same sheer that weakened the storm INCREASED the power of some of its thunderstorms, hence the tornados in Louisiana.  So a hurricane is clearly an emergent:  despite being composed of thunderstorms, what is good for its thunderstorms is not necessarily good for the hurricane.  The thunderstorms that particpate in good hurricanes are altruists.  

So, thinking this all though, is it the case that a hurricane is ony a THING if the environment around it relates to all its parts in the same way?  In which case, it isnt much of an thing, is it?  Would we be much of  To what extent and by what means does a hurricane defend itself against sheer.  Heal itself?  How does it do these things.  What is the best metaphor for a hurricane, a top, a gyroscope,  a dervish, or a corporation?  

Inquiring minds want to know.

Nick




Nicholas S. Thompson
Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nickthompson at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
nthompson at clarku.edu
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