Hurricane Season Is on Pause and Might Be Over

Hostile upper-level winds are forecast to dominate the belt across the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and the tropical Atlantic for the foreseeable future—at least the next 10 days. We can never rule out some random development in the Caribbean or the southern Gulf in November, but there is no sign of it in the long-range computer forecasts.

Hurricane Melissa passed Bermuda last night. Winds at the Dockyards there peaked at 83 mph sustained with gusts just over 100 mph. The winds blew hard for about an hour and a half late last night and then dropped off quickly about 1 AM.

Assessments this morning show that, as expected, the damage was superficial. Power is out in some areas and trees are down, but that fortified island can deal with this kind of storm relatively easily.

While Bermuda took a glancing blow, that was not the case in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and The Bahamas. Life will be very difficult for many people for quite some time in those countries.

Nowhere could withstand the kind of hit that Jamaica took, of course. It's amazing that anything remained vertical after the windstorm they faced. Hopefully the help is swift and plentiful to all these locations. People can withstand almost anything for a few days, but after that desperation sets in—babies have to be fed, freshwater needs to be found, the rain returns, and a dry place to sleep becomes essential.

Fortunately, in the tropics, things grow quickly, so by next year, the island will be green again. But they have to get through the next month and the month after that before they can start thinking about the future.