Good morning everyone. Well, there is a lull in the tropics right now, but it may not last for long as there are three areas of disturbed weather including a tropical wave about 1200 miles east of the Windward Islands that may become a tropical depression. You can at least say goodbye to Gabrielle, which is still a depression as it heads out to sea away from the Northeastern Coast of the United States. Gabrielle had come ashore along the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Sunday with maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour, gusts up to 65 miles per hour, and a minimum central pressure of 29.68 inches of Hg, or 1005 millibars.

With those preliminaries out of the way, I wanted to shift focus briefly to another book that has recently come into my possession. About a week or so ago, I was contacted by Jeff Lyon with regard to his book, The Destruction Diary of Hurricane Bob. If you recall, I had written an article on the 15th anniversary of the storm last summer. Hurricane Bob was a Category Two Hurricane that came up the East Coast of the United States, and hammered New England with winds as high as 100 miles per hour in August 1991. It even wreaked havoc on then President George H.W. Bush’s vacation at his family retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. Returning to our story, Mr. Lyon sent me a copy of the book to read, and I received it on Monday. I just glanced at the book, and there are a lot of nice articles and stories about the storm as well as a myriad of photos of the destruction left behind by the storm.

I do recall Hurricane Bob coming up the East Coast. The storm moved well east of the Jersey Shore as it just brushed the tip of Long Island. While there were some clouds, showers, and gusty winds, by no means was it a bad storm for the Garden State, but it certainly was for New England. The region has seen its share of storms over the years including the Great Hurricane of 1821, the Long Island Express of 1938, the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, storms of the 1950s (Carol is one example), Hurricane Donna (1960), Hurricane Belle (1976), and Hurricane Gloria (1985). I look forward to reading this book more in depth over the coming days. In the meantime, I invite you to get a copy of the book for yourself. Jeff Lyon is selling a limited number of copies on the Craigslist web site.