September Valentine

Written by Dr. Mel

Monday, 19 September 2005

I guess if your name is Valentine, not even the storm of the century could stop you from taking your wedding vows – on time. The other day, when Ophelia was spinning to our south, I began looking through some of my clippings from Connecticut's big storm, the 1938 hurricane, and upon them, there was a handwritten note attached from Val Dyer on one of the pages: “Kay and I worried a little. I went home early on Friday. Trees were down, but on Saturday Sept 24 we were married.” That was just three days after the historic storm. Val became a prominent engineer and both he and his wife enjoyed life to its fullest. Their own funerals were designated to be celebrations of their life, and they were determined not to let a hurricane stand in the way of their first major celebration – their wedding, even if as many as 275 million trees had been broken or uprooted just days before, while streets reached near record, or record flood levels in Middletown and Hartford, and more than 15,000 homes were seriously damaged or destroyed. No corner of the state, no city, escaped the fury of the storm and the obliteration of the shoreline was little different from what we see now in those images from coastal Mississippi. But within three days of the historic storm, Val and Kay were determined to start a new and long life together. A lot of us our ready to see the weather go onto a new way of life. But, this punishing hurricane season is not simmering down. We are beginning to run low on names from this year's list, and after the designated 21 names are used, the National Weather Service says that any additional names will be drawn from the Greek alphabet – alpha, beta, gamma, delta. The expectation is that this season is part of a long term cycle. And, my jellyfish watcher friend, Joe, tells me that these jelly fish are still swarming out on the Sound. When he saw them way back in May, that was a tip off that a warm summer and busy hurricane season would be very possible for this year.  There has been a very strong, warm ocean circulation in the Atlantic which could have helped the jelly fish while providing fuel to the hurricane fire. The circulation appears periodically, and when it does, we experience long spells of active hurricane weather. That happened before during the 1950s. It's a theory, but on the flip side, if the circulation doesn’t move on, we could be looking at a slow start to winter this    season. The Old Farmer's Almanac is leaning that way. I don’t know if they count jelly fish, too, but from the way things are turning out, you might be able to schedule some outdoor weddings in early December this year. What would a little snow mean among lovers? Everyday is Valentine's Day.

 

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