10/23- What a night

Good Thursday all- just one day!

Today is going to be a bit better than last night, fortunately, but still rather nasty indeed with heavy rain and gusty wind. Thankfully, we made it through last night without too much trouble, but what a night indeed. 7,000 people, however, are waking up in the dark this morning, which is nothing to sneeze at. The wind advisory has been extended until 8 AM and, quite honestly, I'd be rather surprised if they didn't extend it further than even that. The storm will, thankfully, begin to move away tonight so that we don't get it too bad tonight, and we finally get rid of most of the rain around noon tomorrow. Beyond that, it appears as though we'll be quite dry for several days and there is no precipitation in sight. Let's just get through the next 36 hours or so, and we'll be in the clear.

In the Atlantic- The low in the Bay of Campeche briefly became Tropical Depression #9, but it failed to become a tropical storm before it hit the west coast of the Yucatan this morning. Otherwise, it isn't going to be a very interesting week in the basin.

In the Pacific- A low developing off Mexico could become Tropical Storm Vance, but it is too far out for any details at this time.

Today in weather history- October 23, 2005- In an event generally forgotten because of Wilma (see yesterday's post), Tropical Storm Alpha kills 12 in Hispanola and becomes the record-breaking twenty-second named storm of 2005. This occurs because the NHC will name storms after exhausting the regular list after the letters of the Greek alphabet. In fact, they get all the way down to Zeta (the sixth letter on the list) and add another storm that should have been named but they missed, making the 2005 season by far the most active on record with 28 named storms (and thirty-one tropical depressions- so we weren't far off from having Tropical Storms Eta (there should have been), Theta, Iota, and Kappa!)