Kyle and Economic Crash averted this time, but the threats are still with us

I will say this for not only the economic sector of the United States, but also the hurricane; I am beginning to believe this country is like the cat with nine lives. Once again, what could have been with Kyle will not be as bad as thought due to it staying east. Maine will certainly have a wet and windy day, but Cape Cod and nearby areas were spared—this time.

With each “near miss”, whether New England, North Carolina, Florida or New Orleans; there builds a mistaken assumption that the “really bad one” will ever hit. This is exactly what led to the whole Katrina debacle and perhaps the Ike disaster in Galveston. When it comes to nature, one must respect that as humans, we do not control it.

If a few meteorological details would have been slightly different, the two storms (Kyle and the unnamed storm) which flirted with the country the past few days could have resulted in a much worse scenario. The headlines would be quite different today if a category 1 hurricane had ripped into Wilmington, North Carolina on Friday and a category 2 hurricane tore across Long Island last night. Just as most people do not have any idea how close we came to total economic meltdown this week, so they don’t know how close we came to two hurricanes hitting the coast within two days of each other.

Congressional action prevented the economic hurricane from crushing the United States economy. Atmospheric changes in winds and pressure prevented the two hurricanes from buffeting the coastline. The economic mess is still there and after the initial hoopla over the accord reached by Congress and the White House, the underlying problems will result in another crisis down the road. Weather conditions still favor the development of tropical systems over the next few weeks.

The moral to the story is simply that we must not become complacent either in regards to the financial mess or the potential for future storms. Perhaps there is cause for rejoicing that the world’s financial markets will not crash tomorrow, but there is no reason to sit back and think “all is well” either. There is good reason to rejoice in that Kyle snubbed Martha and her vineyard and decided to check out the sights in Nova Scotia. But, Laura is bound to pop up somewhere soon and where she goes, at the moment nobody knows.

Perhaps, if we are still around to talk about it, down the road we can look back on the last weekend of September of 2008 as NOT the weekend of devastating economic storms and double hurricanes; but rather as the weekend we were temporarily spared, as a country, from the pain and suffering of three storms hitting at the same time. However great the rejoicing is today, I pray it does not lend itself to apathy in the future.

Kyle maybe visiting Marha at her vineyard and then take in Maine

Regardless of what the “official” track of Kyle looks like, the odds right now favor a direct hit on Cape Cod and then eastern Maine of a strong category 1 or perhaps even a weak category 2 hurricane. Although there is certainly a chance this storm might stay east of the United States mainland, due to the weakening of the unnamed storm which lashed the Carolina’s yesterday, Kyle should get pulled west.

The danger is that if Kyle comes any further west, suddenly Providence and Boston become targets instead of Cape Cod and Maine. Anyone with interests along the coast of New England better be getting ready for probable power outages, very heavy rain and hurricane force winds. Those who live in this part of the country are used to storms, but anyone new to the area should take heed.

Though certainly not as strong, Kyle appears to be following almost the exact path taken by Hurricane Edna in 1954. Edna was a strong category 3 storm which produced winds of 120 mph on Martha’s Vineyard. It came ashore directly on Cape Cod and then moved up to Maine. Since there are very few people still around who lived through Edna, it makes it difficult to get a good handle on possible effects of Kyle.

Barring any unforeseen developments, Kyle should produce strong enough winds to knock out power on the Cape and probably eastern Maine. Kyle should not be strong enough to produce any storm surge to speak of. There is a high risk of very heavy rain on the west side of Kyle as he tracks north. This would come into play in New Jersey, New York and New England.

Once Kyle passes, there is a bit of a calm before what should be the final “pop” of tropical development over the next couple of weeks. No one on either the Gulf or Atlantic Coastline should think the season is over. It has a been a busy season already and the final quarter may end up being more active than any before it.