ATLANTIC & PACIFIC HURRICANE ACTIVITY & PREDICTIONS 2014
Hurricane Bertha August 01 - 06
part I
On August 06 remnants of extropical storm Bertha passes by Nova Scotia
Tropical Storm Bertha August 01 1615 UTC (1215 EDT) about to invade the islands
Personal Insights
Observations
With Bertha moving towards the UK residents are getting ready to see a big change in the summer weather.
Big Girl Bertha becomes the second hurricane in the North Atlantic basin
image by Aqua/MODIS
And now for the rest of the story
part II
On July 26 there was a 6.0 earthquake on the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge and knowing that this second phase of the hurricane season is marked by strong earthquakes signifying the next set of cyclones I sensed that we should see a second cyclone form in the Atlantic basin within a week. I also sensed that Arthur is to be the only named storm to form in the Atlantic for the month of July so Bertha should come on board after that date. NOAA's advisories had me wondering if I was mistaken because as the hours of July 31 ticked away it seemed like the next cyclone could form any time. But as if right on cue, and wanting to imitate the same feat as Hurricane Arthur, Tropical Storm Bertha forms at 2300 hrs on July 31 but because cyclone formations are based on Coordinated Universal Time, technically she is born at 0300 UTC August 01.
One week after Tropical Depression Two had dissipated, Tropical Storm Bertha was officially declared to be a tropical storm, on August 1 at 0300 UTC, east of the Lesser Antilles. Bertha made its first landfall on the north coast of Martinique, and then it made more landfalls in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic on the following day, and it later impacted the Bahamas on August 3. On August 4, the Hurricane Hunters flew into the storm and found hurricane-force winds and the National Hurricane Center upgraded Bertha to a Category 1 with winds of 80 mph, even though the storm's appearance was poor and its central pressure reading was fairly high for a hurricane.
Later that day, the center of circulation got displaced from the convection, which is very unusual for a hurricane. On August 5, Bertha dropped below hurricane strength due to the loss of deep convection. Bertha gradually weakened due to increasing wind shear. On August 6, The National Hurricane Center issued the last advisory on Bertha, as it weakened to a post-tropical cyclone due to colder waters and a front it was interacting with.
(above article extracted from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia)
But this is only half the story. The remnants of Bertha move back across the pond, as they say, over towards the UK.
Not everything about a storm has to be negative.
In Great Britain Bertha happens to come along on National Lazy Day and is welcomed by cyclists.
A low pressure system has picked up energy from the remnants of once Hurricane Bertha and is taking it on its way to the United Kingdom.
Bertha was not content with just hitting the UK but goes on to wreck havoc in France and Belgium causing flooding and spawning tornadoes in her wake.
Saturday night, August 09 I had a dream that Bertha was not quite finished meanacing about. She plans to mess things up in the UK as well as Europe and even go on to forming tornadoes.
Personal Insight