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Avoiding Cyclones
Thu Oct 09, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook. The worst thing you want to run into in a
boat at sea is a tropical cyclone, as Robin White tells us today.
It's not like The Perfect Storm. Meteorologist Neville Koop is with Weather News
International, which routes ships to help them avoid bad weather. He says when you're at sea
in a tropical cyclone you don't get beautiful cresting waves...
Koop: What you see are just lumps of water and the wind is so powerful it just sheers the top
of the wave off and you're just left with a boundary between the ocean and the sky which is a
mix of water - flurrying chunks of waves being blown around. It's like being in a washing
machine.
The worst waves are generated at the cyclone's center which is typically less than 150 miles
across. Koop says it's a small area and very few ships find themselves there. But with wind
speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour and waves of up to 80 feet if a ship is there it's all
the crew can do to get out alive.
Koop: the bottom of the sea is littered with ships that have unfortunately encountered these
systems...
Koop says when he's watching a cyclone develop it's not an easy job to stay focused on pure
science
Koop: It can become a very emotional issue particularly when afterwards you see what has
happened to people's lives
Knowing this motivates Koop to notify sailors of weather hazards as soon as possible, so they
can avoid the coming storm.
Robin White is based on land in San Francisco. Tomorrow, he reports on a nightmare from
nowhere: the rogue wave. The Weather Notebook receives funding from Subaru and The National
Science Foundation. Thanks today to the entire Weather Notebook staff, Doug Sanborn, Melody
Nester, Sean Doucette, and Peter Crane.
Today's Links
Weathernews International for the United States
http://www.us.weathernews.com/
Tropical Cyclone FAQ\'s
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqHED.html
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