Good morning everyone. Well, things finally kicked into gear in the Atlantic, so it is time to get back into things at Hurricaneville. A lot of things have transpired since I last posted to all of you. Not only in the tropics, but with weather in General. If you live in the Northeastern United States, you have dealt with one of the coolest and wettest summers on record before this recent heatwave. Meanwhile, the state of Texas has dealt with some of the hottest and driest weather in decades. The Pacific Northwest has endured its share of blazing heat as well. Temperatures soared over 100 degrees in places such as Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver for the first time in 15 years.

An El Nino episode has developed in the Pacific, which has impacted tropical activity in the Eastern, Central, and Western Pacific as well as here in the Atlantic. This latest episode is expected to strengthen and persist into the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2009-10. The Eastern Pacific has seen one of its busiest seasons in several years with 10 tropical depressions, 7 named storms, 4 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes so far. Some of that activity moved into the Central Pacific as both Felicia and Guillermo were strong enough to make it near the Hawaiian Islands.

The Western Pacific has been active as usual. Recently, a devastating typhoon named Morakot struck the island nation of Taiwan a couple weeks ago. As of last week, the death toll was feared to be at least 500 despite the fact that over one thousand were found alive in rescue efforts. Many in the country were upset with the way the government responded to the crisis. Some government officials offered to resign in the wake of the response.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, things had been fairly quiet for much of the season. Up and until last weekend, there had only been one depression. Then, Ana emerged on Saturday, August 15th after going through some trials and tribulations as a depression. Within hours of Ana becoming the first named storm of the season, Bill emerged in the Far Eastern Atlantic, and gradually strengthened into the season’s first hurricane and major hurricane with winds of Category Four strength on the Saffir-Simpson Scale at 135 mph. Claudette became the third named storm of the season on August 16th, and then was the first landfalling system of 2009 in the North Atlantic on the 17th.