Happy Thanksgiving Hurricane Style

The third Monday in October marks the 'Hurricane Thanksgiving Day'. This year that is today, October 21 so Happy Thanksgiving! No turkey but equally important NO hurricane and no storms of any sort! Sweet! Take a look at this National Weather Service map of the Atlantic waters captured just last evening: 

According to the National Geographic: Residents of the U.S. Virgin Islands know that if they haven't been hit by a hurricane by mid-October, there's a good chance they're safe for the rest of the Atlantic hurricane season. Since 1726 Virgin Islanders have devoted a day to  give thanks as the summer storms pass them by. While this has not been 'full proof' why not embrace the tradition? Lets hope that the worst of the storms are behind us and all we have to look forward to is sunshine! Enjoy the day by getting to a beach (or, at least, planning your next vacation to St John!):

Your hammock awaits

The pictures from our St John villa as Tropical Storm Isaac approaches

Wednesday evening on St John and the weather is still OK... see you in the AM & please stay safe!

Today was  a day of preparation pulling boats and putting away loose furniture and even putting on hurricane shutters but all in all it was a good day on St John....

As early evening sets in St John is still in the clear

See you in the morning and stay safe!

Tropical Storm Isaac's path still tracks to the south of St John

FYI This is TS Issac from a few years back Our St John webcam shows the clouds from Tropical Storm Isaac getting thicker and darker as the storm heads our way:

The clouds now cover the sky over St John's Rendezvous Bay in advance of Tropical Storm Isaac

No way around it...Tropical Storm Isaac is making its way through the islands. Here it is at 2 PM on Wednesday...

Day #5 was a mix of sun & rain & wood & plumbing; however, we are all eyes to the sky as we start week #2

The outline of the pool has been formed

Day #5 was a mix of sun and rain so we lost a little bit of time; however, it was still a productive day.  The guys did some hand digging to fine-tune the size of the footings that will eventually be poured with concrete. More rebar was cut and formed (into grids that will be placed into the middle of the concrete to hold it in place. And, more wood was cut and placed to define the outline of the pool.  

The side of the pool that faces the Caribbean will be curved

We met with both our electrician (Dick from Angel Electric) and our plumber (Joseph, owner of Love City Plumbing) and were delighted with them both.  They each are great people and both had great suggestions about how to improve our original design.  Dick suggested adding some very cool LED lighting to our wading pool and Joseph suggested some modification to our existing plumbing system that will make it much more efficient. 

While we had a great first week of construction, as we start week #2 we are watching the weather closely since we have two weather systems (one looking like it could be quite nasty) to our east heading our way.  The red circle, according to the National Hurricane Center, is a 'tropical system' which, at this point, has an 80% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone (e.g. tropical storm or hurricane) within the next 48 hours so this may well prove to be a nerve-wracking week!

This is the description for the red circle!

Monday AM, picture from our webcam:

At this point the weather is great so it is hard to imagine there is bad weather heading our way

What a difference a couple of days can make...in the Caribbean

This is the time of year that the Atlantic Ocean becomes a bit of a 'bowling alley' of storms. Storms usually form as they come off of the western coast of Africa and head west.  That is where the uncertainty comes in.  Sometimes the map can look very ominous.  For instance, this is what we were looking at coming toward the Virgin Islands (read for that: St John) this past Friday:

One system just to the north of the Virgin Islands and two systems to the East

As you can see from the caption on the picture above, the red indicates a pretty strong probability of a 'system' becoming a tropical storm (e.g. greater than 50%) and that was followed by an orange system just off the coast of Africa.  Neither color is a 'nice' color during hurricane season so we started talking about buttoning up our villa, just in case.  

During the night we got lots of 'liquid gold' (e.g. rain that fills our cisterns) and as we awake this morning the red has turned to yellow (this is a good thing!) passing way to our south, and we have sun! The orange that had been heading toward us is now just a yellow (another good thing) and seems to be heading north-northwest and this is the way the map looks right now:

This is only to say that weather changes in a heartbeat so don't worry too much when the storms are far away from the Caribbean.  Anything can happen - for the good or bad. While we have been fortunate - so far - this hurricane season with storms petering out before they get to us, we are still very early in the season. More storms will come off the coast of Africa.  Some will turn from yellow to orange and probably on to red.  While we are just a teeny island in a vast ocean, the systems that are serious tend to be huge and can be felt for hundreds of miles so the storm can be far away and can still have an impact on us.  The best advise is an age old one 'keep your eye to the sky' which in 2012 lingo translates to watching the following tropical weather links: 

National Hurricane Center  - updates current conditions & forecasts several times a day.

Caribbean Hurricane Network  - including very locally based reporting & forecasting. Excellent site.

Storm Pulse - interesting depictions of the storms

St John webcam  - Our St John villa's webcam which looks to the East overlooking Rendezvous Bay (most storms race east to west so it is great to watch the weather 'come in')

If you have travel plans including the Caribbean I would not recommend changing them (or not making them in the first place!) because of the hurricane season.  It is more likely than not that your time on island will be storm free. However, just in case the bowling lane gets nasty and a big storm does head our way, it is always smart to protect yourself with travel insurance.  It is a small cost to pay for some reassurance.  

So, for today, we plan to head to the beach!