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CozumelWorld Class Marine Park drift diving, renown cuisine and great hospitality. The island with a Mexican heart and a Caribbean soul! You’ve seen the Corona commercials, come experience the reality.
Please note: The last reply in this thread was more than 3 month(s) ago.
After last year having to evacuate for Hurricane Dean, and heading to Cozumel this week, I think it is a topic worth bringing up.
Scubawife...thank you..we were posting at the same time.
TS's are nothing...that was my point...just a bunch of rain and higher winds than usual for a day or two at most. People that don't live in areas of tropical weather don't understand how mild TD's and TS's are. As it is, as of 11:00pm here, on an off showers, no wind to speak of and the most updated satellite image shows the worst part passing north of us. I haven't even lost a signal on my satellite dish yet which happens with non named weather.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be watched...I just don't think extra attention should be brought to it based on my observations of how freaked out people get over some rain and wind...it's a bad thunderstorm. Normal precautions and warnings were given...but "Dolly" was not expected to be a big threat per forecasters and they appear to be correct as of this hour.
BTW...Dean hit WAY south of us (100+ miles south) and we barely even got any rain from him. Last year, Dave of Aldora posted a great explanation of hurricanes and the difference of a direct hit and being in the cone, etc. If I can find it, I'll bring it back up or maybe Dave will if he sees this.
Again, if it stays like this, I expect that we will all be sending boats out on schedule tomorrow.
Who's getting worked up??? I said by Tuesday (day after tomorrow) we'll be back to blue skies....I don't get you comment...
:icon5:
It's weather, we talk about it. Thank you for posting the voice of reason.
Last year's H.Dean was a baaad one, and I wanted to stay so much, but retreating was the thing to do. I'm glad it did veer south of Coz well, but the prudent action for hotel tourists was to fly away.
It's great to be optimistic about the boats, but alternate ideas might be considered. Like I said elsewhere - hope the bet for y'all. From Cozumel, Mexico Forecast : Weather Underground
Quote:
Monday
Thunderstorm. High: 87° F. / 31° C. Wind SSE 15 mph. / 25 km/h. Chance of precipitation 100%.
Tropical Storm Dolly
» Distance from this city: 63 mi / 101 km
» Estimated wind speed: 39 mph / 62 km/h
Monday Night
Thunderstorm. Low: 73° F. / 23° C. Wind SE 15 mph. / 25 km/h. Chance of precipitation 100%.
Tropical Storm Dolly
» Distance from this city: 63 mi / 101 km
» Estimated wind speed: 39 mph / 62 km/h
Tuesday
Chance of a Thunderstorm. Overcast. High: 91° F. / 33° C. Wind SE 15 mph. / 25 km/h. Chance of precipitation 50%.
Updated maps show that Dolly should blow by or over by Monday and wind down after that for Coz....
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8:30am - Port is open for all boats...current conditions are flat seas, MILD wind and light rain...not one leaf off my trees
Yes Don, Dean was bad...didn't say it wasn't and evacuating tourists was prudent since there was still a possibility of us getting hit. Luckily, we had a total miss. The difference is that Dean was a Cat 5 hurricane and Dolly was barely a TS...no evacuation or worry needed.
I've had a few late summer and fall trips Caribbean and Mexico where a TS or TD has decided to join us. The worst we had was in Grand Cayman - a day of rain and a day following waiting for seas to calm down. We had a car so we drove around the island and actually had a great day seeing some areas we otherwise would have never gotten to.
Nortes have impacted more vacation and dive days for me then tropical storm systems.
Good to be aware of named storms coming your way in case they do develop beyond a TS, but keep it in perspective. The forecast for Dolly read like a pretty typical fast moving summer storm. If they didn't name it I don't think anyone would have noticed the difference from seasonal tropical weather.
The sun is coming out and the rain is moving out, the port is open and dive trips are heading out.
Dolly took a hard turn north, literally sucked up into the Gulf between the Yucatan and Cuba, and it was a quiet night.
You never would have guessed this from the frantic and exaggerated reaction here in Cozumel by the local government, it's obvious they were caught off guard and wanted to make up for it by going into "Red Alert", closing businesses last night, setting a curfew, and generally spreading panic among people, on the local TV last night they were talking like we were about to get hit by a Cat.4, I think it was grossly exaggerated, and shows they have little experience in how to handle a situation, nor how to read a weather map and report.
(end rant)
Looks like we'll have great weather the rest of the week btw...
The sun is coming out and the rain is moving out, the port is open and dive trips are heading out.
Dolly took a hard turn north, literally sucked up into the Gulf between the Yucatan and Cuba, and it was a quiet night.
You never would have guessed this from the frantic and exaggerated reaction here in Cozumel by the local government, it's obvious they were caught off guard and wanted to make up for it by going into "Red Alert", closing businesses last night, setting a curfew, and generally spreading panic among people, on the local TV last night they were talking like we were about to get hit by a Cat.4, I think it was grossly exaggerated, and shows they have little experience in how to handle a situation, nor how to read a weather map and report.
(end rant)
Looks like we'll have great weather the rest of the week btw...
Better safe than sorry. I have seen tropical storms escalate into bad hurricanes virtually overnight and very close to land. It could happen, and better to be overprepared than under. YMMV, but I wouldn't be so critical of their response.
The other thing is how fast the storm keeps moving. When I was talking to some locals in the hurricane zones in the US, they say that slow moving Tropical Storms or cat 1 Hurricanes do as much if not more damage just in rainfall than the faster moving more powerful storms do.
Glad to hear this storm is not an issue and looking forward to flying down this weekend!
Before all this stuff was so easy to find in a zillion weather sites online, people went on Caribbean vacations in the summer and fall and came home saying, "it was great, just a bit of rain." Now it's, "oh no, there's a Tropical (insert weather system here). There goes the vacation."
Or they'd go, return saying "Wow. We ran right into a hurricane. Had no idea to expect that! Why don't they want us?" And they still do. I saw people arriving at the hotel just a few hours before I left in advance of H.Dean. "Hurricane? What hurricane?" My brother, who has never been out of the US, did phone me to say that he saw on the news that people were still arriving there, ignorant of the storm - but I was already at CUN with boarding pass by then. CUN had hundreds in line begging for seats when I arrive, some who had slept on the floor the night before. H.Emily catching so many unprepared and begging for rescue even after it passed kinda made an impression on some.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christi
8:30am - Port is open for all boats...current conditions are flat seas, MILD wind and light rain...not one leaf off my trees
Yes Don, Dean was bad...didn't say it wasn't and evacuating tourists was prudent. The difference is that Dean was a Cat 5 hurricane and Dolly was barely a TS...no evacuation or worry needed.
Super, great to hear! Looks like the wind is 7 mph and even tho out of the SSE, that's got to be better than NNW. I'm happy for y'all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by CozumelAntonio
The sun is coming out and the rain is moving out, the port is open and dive trips are heading out.
Dolly took a hard turn north, literally sucked up into the Gulf between the Yucatan and Cuba, and it was a quiet night.
You never would have guessed this from the frantic and exaggerated reaction here in Cozumel by the local government, it's obvious they were caught off guard and wanted to make up for it by going into "Red Alert", closing businesses last night, setting a curfew, and generally spreading panic among people, on the local TV last night they were talking like we were about to get hit by a Cat.4, I think it was grossly exaggerated, and shows they have little experience in how to handle a situation, nor how to read a weather map and report.
(end rant)
Looks like we'll have great weather the rest of the week btw...
They went Red?! Hehe, I guess that's better than pretending there was no risk, as there was - albeit small. It could have done what these storms do at times: Surprise, surprise, surprise, Gomer Pyle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by georoc01
The other thing is how fast the storm keeps moving. When I was talking to some locals in the hurricane zones in the US, they say that slow moving Tropical Storms or cat 1 Hurricanes do as much if not more damage just in rainfall than the faster moving more powerful storms do.
Glad to hear this storm is not an issue and looking forward to flying down this weekend!
Flooding is indeed the #1 killer. Last year for H.Dean I was taking suggestions here as our group leader didn't seem to be talking about it until the morning the retreat was called. Someone suggested I go inland; having no experience that far on the mainland, I rejected that idea. I didn't want to get caught up in a mainland problem.
That Canadian high school group was going to do that; I suggested to a sponsor that was not an idea that I'd accept. Was glad to see them change their mind and fly home.
Looks like Dolly is gonnnnnne for Coz and headed for the RGV. Hope she just delivers some nice rains that refill the reservoirs.
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Last edited by DandyDon; July 21st, 2008 at 03:33 PM.
Better safe than sorry. I have seen tropical storms escalate into bad hurricanes virtually overnight and very close to land. It could happen, and better to be overprepared than under. YMMV, but I wouldn't be so critical of their response.
Señor Gordon:
I do respect your opinion, and do agree with you that almost-nothings can turn into big-bad-somethings overnight, as Wilma did a few years ago (went from a barely Cat 1 to a Cat 5 overnight).
I've been watching these things for years, as my business is weather related, and from my years of watching and reading the NHC and NOAA site's I dare say I would qualify as an amateur meteorologist, I read not only the Advisory, but also the Forecast and Discussions which have more in-depth and technical language, which I have also grown to understand somewhat. I have a plotter map on my computer and have plotter maps of many storms going back to 2000 when I got involved in the diving business here.
I am very critical of the exaggerated response we saw here yesterday, because it is irresponsible to create a general panic, when one is not warranted, and it certainly was not, to anyone paying close attention to this for a few days previous, as I had. I watched the first puffs of L94 when they moved into the Caribbean Tuesday or Wednesday, and kept watching, and I knew that it could develop. What happened is that L94 did not get a name until Sunday at 10:45am, though it had been forecasted as a "something" before it got a name, and that's the problem and reason for the overreaction. I believe that until a system gets a name on the NHC system, no one here pays attention (city officials), and I'm sure that just by looking at the IR satellite picture (at 10:45am on Sunday) someone thought it could be a major storm, had they been watching before it got a name, and had they read the in-depth information about Dolly, and had they watched the satellite picture all day, they might have realized that Dolly was barely TS strength, did not even have a defined center, much less an eyewall, and was far from a dangerous storm, as their overreaction made it out to be. I think because it caught them by surprise, they tried to make up for it by seeming do to something big about it, to appear to be doing the right thing, when in fact their reaction shows the opposite.
Because of the alarming way in which they broadcast the presence of Dolly, some large boats ran to Isla Mujeres harbor, which in fact put them directly in the path of Dolly, had they stayed put, they would have saved alot of trouble, time and money. If the local authorities were well informed and in a timely fashion, they could have relayed the correct information to the population, and prevented panic, stress and wasted time and money, as it turned out they did not prevent it, but rather caused it.
Of lesser importance, the wife and I decided to order some tacos from Otates last night at 8pm, they said they couldn't because they were shutting down on orders, so did the movie theater, and other businesses. I wholeheartedly agree that if there is imminent danger that any and all measures need to be taken to protect life and property, but misinformation and ill-taken decisions only cause headaches and innecessary loss of business and tasty taco dinners....
If you're gonna cry wolf, you should make sure, don't you think...?
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