Hurricane season officially opens in 2 weeks. I don’t know about you, but I can already feel the approach of hurricane winds in the air. Because of El Nino conditions forecasters are predicting above an average season. According to Mahalo, eight hurricanes are predicted this year with 15 storms in total.
With the Horizon spill still not stopped, where does that leaves us? Without a wing and a prayer. It is not uncommon for a storm to spark up pre-season, for a storm to circulate into the Gulf of Mexico, or for national disasters to have an effect on other nations – through support, aid, and now potentially oil.
The Deepwater Horizon spill is now inches away from the loop current according to the West Florida Shelf ROMS model. With no barrier stopping the movement, it's comparable to an 18 year-old male experiencing his freshman year of college without a condom: The dilemma to face is pregnancy or disease to stop a male from further propagating, just as landfall will not stop the oil spill from impregnating the sand and the disease being the environmental implications.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2010.