WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

14-18 May 2018

Item of Interest:

Higher than normal tide anticipated this coming week along East Coast -- According to the NOAA National Ocean Service's High Tide Bulletin for Spring 2018, above average tides are expected between 15 and 18 May for most of the Atlantic Coast of the US, stretching southward from Maine to the eastern coast of Florida. A new moon occurring on Tuesday morning (15 May 2018 at 1148Z or 8:48 AM EDT), coupled with lunar perigee nearly two and a half days later when the Moon is closest to Earth, is responsible for the perigean spring tide with higher than normal high tides. Tides will increase during the weeks leading up to and after the summer solstice (21 June 2018), due to the position of the sun relative to the equator. Furthermore, mean sea level is typically higher due to changing weather patterns and increasing water temperatures. [NOAA National Ocean Service News] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/high-tide-bulletin/spring-2018/
Hurricane Awareness Week -- North Carolina will be observing its Hurricane Preparedness Week between 13 and 19 May, while Oklahoma will have its Hurricane Preparedness Week between 15 and 21 May 2018.
Hurricane season to begin in the eastern North Pacific -- The official 2018 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean basin begins this Tuesday, 15 May 2018. The hurricane season in the central North Pacific basin and the North Atlantic basin, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico will begin in two weeks on 1 June. The official hurricane seasons in all of these basins end on 30 November 2018.
Zenithal Sun -- This week marks one of the two times during the year when the noontime sun is directly overhead to residents on the Big Island on about 14 May at South Cape (Ka Lae at 18.9 deg North latitude and 155.68 degrees West longitude) and on 18-19 May at Hilo; those on Oahu (Honolulu metropolitan area) will experience the noon sun at the zenith in approximately two more weeks (25-27 May). The sun will again be over the Big Island during the last week of July. [US Naval Observatory, Data Services]
North American Safe Boating Week -- On this upcoming Saturday (19 May), the 2018 National Safe Boating Week will start and run through Friday, 25 May. This week helps launch the 2018 North American Safe Boating Campaign. Check the Safe Boating Week site maintained by the National Safe Boating Council. In addition, Friday 18 May has been designated as "Wear Your Life Jacket to Work Day".
National Marine Sanctuaries celebrates Pacific Islander/Asian American Heritage Month -- The month of May has been designated Pacific Islander/Asian American Heritage Month to recognize the history, concerns, contributions, and achievements of Pacific Islander/Asian Americans. Therefore, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries is celebrating the achievements and contributions of Pacific Islander and Asian Americans in its system of national marine sanctuaries and marine national monuments. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News] (Note: Additional information on Pacific Islander/Asian American Heritage Month is available.)

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity was found in both the eastern and western sections of the North Pacific basin during the last week.

In the eastern North Pacific, an area of low pressure organized into Tropical Depression 1E (TD-1E) last Thursday afternoon over the open waters of the Pacific approximately 1310 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. This tropical depression was moving toward the west-northwest. By Friday morning, vertical wind shear caused TD-1E to be torn apart, becoming a remnant low pressure system nearly 1600 miles to the southwest of San Diego. Additional information and a satellite image for TD-1E is available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
In the western North Pacific, Tropical Depression 4W (TD-4W) formed this past Saturday (local time) in the vicinity of the Northern Mariana Islands. Traveling initially toward the west, TD-4W intensified to become Tropical Storm 4W before taking a turn toward the northwest by early Sunday. During the afternoon, Tropical Storm 4W was approximately 400 miles to the southeast of Iwo To (formerly known as Iwo Jima). However, this system began weakening, becoming a tropical depression and finally dissipating by early Monday as it was located 150 miles to the northwest of Agrihan, an island in the Northern Mariana Islands.

Satellite observes rare subtropical cyclone off Chile's coast -- An image was obtained last Wednesday from NOAA's GOES-East that shows an extremely rare subtropical cyclone over the waters of the eastern South Pacific Ocean several hundred miles off the coast of Chile. A subtropical cyclone is a hybrid low pressure system that contains some characteristics of both a tropical cyclone and an extratropical (midlatitude) cyclone. Because of cold waters and usually stable atmospheric conditions over the eastern South Pacific Ocean, only one other subtropical cyclone has been reported in recent history near Easter Island in 2015. [NOAA NESDIS News] (Editor's Note: The clouds are spiraling in a clockwise direction around this Southern Hemisphere low pressure system, in a direction opposite the counterclockwise circulation around Northern Hemisphere cyclones. EJH)
National Hurricane Center releases its forecast verification report for 2017 -- During the past week NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) released its 73-page Forecast Verification Report for the 2017 hurricane season in the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins. NHC issued 407 official forecasts for the North Atlantic basin since the 2017 hurricane season had above-normal activity for that basin. The official NHC track forecasts in the Atlantic basin were quite successful in 2017, with records for track accuracy set at all forecast times as indicated by smaller mean NHC official track forecast errors than in previous seasons. However, mean official intensity errors for the Atlantic basin in 2017 were above the 5-year means for forecasts with lead-times ranging from 12 to 48 hours, but near the means at the longer lead times. NHC issued 334 official forecasts for the eastern North Pacific basin, which was close to average. Although the forecasts where skillful, no records for track accuracy were set in this basin in 2017. Official intensity forecast errors in the eastern North Pacific basin were lower than the 5-year means at all forecast times. [NOAA National Hurricane Center]
Powerful Atlantic hurricanes tend to strengthen faster than 30 years ago -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory have found that Atlantic hurricanes tend to intensify more rapidly now than they did 30 years ago due largely to a natural climate phenomenon that affects the water temperature in the Atlantic where hurricanes are strengthening, especially the powerful ones. The researchers analyzed thirty years of hurricane data obtained from satellites. They focused on the rapid intensification process, when the maximum wind speed in a hurricane increases by at least 25 knots (28.8 mph) within a 24-hour period. This process tends to occur in nearly all major hurricanes including two category 4 and two category 5 hurricanes (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) in 2017. The team found a climate cycle known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) to be central to the increasing intensification of hurricanes. The AMO, which has a periodicity ranging from 60 to 80 years, broadly affects conditions such as sea temperature that are known to influence hurricanes. Since the 1990s, the AMO has been positive, which is associated with higher sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory News]
Take an interactive tour of birds found in the National Marine Sanctuaries -- NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries invites the public to explore the variety of birds that are found in its system of 13 national marine sanctuaries and two marine national monuments found in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes. Involvement in bird counts and other citizen scientist projects in these national ocean parks is encouraged. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
Portal provides access to deep-sea coral data -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) along with NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science recently have produced the "NOAA Deep-Sea Coral Data Portal" that provides users with a gateway to data and images involving deep-sea corals and sponges, along with technical reports from research funded by NOAA's Deep-Sea Coral Research and Technology Program and its many partners. NCEI hosts the National Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Database, which contains over 635,000 records, including more than 38,000 images of corals and sponges. Data archived in this database are from more than 50 partner data providers extending from 1842 to 2017. [NOAA NCEI News]
Updated El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion is released -- Late last week forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) released their monthly El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion. They reported that during the month of April 2018, sea surface temperatures (SST) across the equatorial Pacific Ocean (especially in regions called Niño-3+4) approached near-average values, while SST levels remained below-average in the eastern equatorial regions of the basin (in regions identified as Niño-1+2). The SST pattern indicated that ENSO-neutral (neither El Niño nor La Niña) conditions had returned. Atmospheric conditions suggested that the La Niña conditions experienced earlier this year continued to weaken. Most of the prediction models used by the forecasters indicate ENSO-neutral to continue at least through the Northern Hemisphere meteorological summer 2018 (June-August), with some suggesting an increased chance to 50 percent for the onset of an El Niño during the boreal winter of 2018-19. Therefore, the forecasters issued their last La Niña Advisory under CPC's ENSO Alert System Status. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
An ENSO blog for the ClimateWatch Magazine was written by a contractor with CPC that describes the demise of the La Niña that was evident across the Pacific since late 2017. She also reviewed the temperature and precipitation patterns across North America during the recent three months (February-April 2018), shown in the form of anomaly maps (arithmetic differences between observed temperatures or precipitation during the three months in 2018 and the 1981-2010 averages for the corresponding months). She pointed to the temperature pattern in 2018 featuring a cold northern U.S. and southern Canada, but a warm Gulf Coast and Texas. This pattern is quite similar to what is often expected in a La Niña winter. Furthermore, a dry Southwest and a wet Southeast during early 2018 were similar to that associated with a La Niña. Finally, she considered the possibility of the onset of El Niño conditions by next winter. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
An El Niño forecast from Down Under -- Forecasters with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology recently issued an updated forecast, in which they reported that ENSO-neutral conditions were continuing currently across the tropical Pacific, as atmospheric and oceanic indicators of ENSO were generally at near average levels. They also noted that nearly all international forecast models indicated ENSO-neutral conditions should continue through meteorological winter in the Southern Hemisphere (or summer in the Northern Hemisphere) covering June through August, even though sea surface temperatures were expected to increase. Only one model suggested sea surface temperatures reaching the El Niño threshold by September. Therefore, the Bureau's ENSO Outlook status remains as "Inactive." [Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology]
Satellite images show spring colors in the North Sea -- Several natural-color images obtained slightly more than one week ago from sensors on NASA's Landsat 8 and Aqua satellites show a variety of colors in the near surface waters of the North Sea between the British Islands and the northwestern coast of the European continent. A phytoplankton bloom produced swirls of green and milky-white colors in the otherwise dark blue waters of the North Sea. Several days later, plumes of sediment from melting snow and river runoff were also observed. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Arctic Ocean's "old sea ice" is disappearing -- The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) recently reported that as of early March 2018, only two percent of the Arctic's sea ice was at least five years old, which represents the lowest percentage of such old ice during wintertime in the satellite record. The observations were made at the time of year when the sea ice coverage reaches its winter maximum. The record low percentage of multiyear ice this past March continued long-term trend of Arctic sea ice decline. Multiyear or "old sea ice" tends to be thicker than "young ice" and takes longer to melt. A low percentage of "old sea ice" would be indicative of smaller sea ice coverage, as young or first-year ice melts more easily during the summer season. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Rising global temperatures contributed to 2016 record Arctic heat -- A contractor with NOAA's Climate Program Office wrote an article for the ClimateWatch Magazine describing the record warm year of 2016 in the Arctic region, where some daily temperature departures were 30 to 40 Fahrenheit degrees above normal. She documented how this unprecedented warmth is a signature of a changing climate with increasing global temperatures. A map of the observed temperature anomalies during 2016 across the Arctic was compared with two computer simulations of the average temperature for 2016. One of the simulations was based upon only natural influences, using estimated conditions from the late nineteenth century, while the other simulation not only included the natural influences, but also added the effects due to human influences, such as increased greenhouse gas levels. The map produced from the first simulation showed some temperature increase across the Arctic, while the second map generated by the second simulation showed temperature increases comparable to the observed 2016 temperature anomalies. The conclusion drawn by the scientists who ran the simulations was that the record warm Artic in 2016 was due in part by natural variability, including the influence of the strong 2015-16 El Niño event in the tropics, while a significant contribution was due to changes in climate due to human activity. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Historical Events:

14 May 1836...U.S. Exploring Expedition authorized to conduct exploration of Pacific Ocean and South Seas, the first major scientific expedition overseas. LT Charles Wilkes USN would lead the expedition in surveying South America, Antarctica, Far East, and North Pacific. (Naval Historical Center)
15 May 1934...Lightship No. 117, occupying the Nantucket Shoals Station, in a dense fog, was struck by the RMS Olympic and sank on station with the loss of seven crew members. (USCG Historian's Office)
15-24 May 1951...Hurricane Able did a "loop-the-loop" north of the Bahamas and reached category 3 strength on the Saffir-Simpson Scale off Cape Hatteras, NC. (The Weather Doctor)
16 May 1917...Marquette, MI had its latest opening of navigation on Lake Superior in history. (Intellicast)
16 May 1951...Hurricane Able performed a loop north of the Bahamas and reached Category 3 strength off Cape Hatteras, NC. (National Weather Service files)
17-21 May 1887...An early season tropical storm raked Cuba and The Bahamas. (The Weather Doctor)
17 May 1970...The Norwegian ethnologist, Thor Heyerdahl, and a multinational crew set sail on a trans-Atlantic voyage from Morocco on Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled after the ancient Egyptian vessels in an effort to prove his theory that Mediterranean sailors reached the Americas in ancient times. After 57 days, the Ra II reached Barbados. (The History Channel)
19 May 1535...French explorer Jacques Cartier set sail on his second voyage to North America with 3 ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona's two sons (whom Cartier kidnapped during his first voyage). (Wikipedia)
19 May 1912...The US Navy established the North Atlantic Ice Patrol following the RMS Titanic disaster. (Naval Historical Center)
20 May 1497...John Cabot set sail from Bristol, England, on his ship The Matthew looking for a route to the west (other documents give a 2 May date). (Wikipedia)
20 May 1498...The Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrived at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut) on the Malabar Coast, after departing Lisbon, Portugal in July 1497. (The History Channel) (Wikipedia)
20 May 1570...Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas. (Wikipedia)
20 May 1845...HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sailed from the River Thames in England, beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage. All hands were lost. (Wikipedia)
20 May 1964...The first U.S. atomic-powered lighthouse was put into operation in the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore Harbor, MD. Designed to supply a continuous flow of electricity for ten years without refueling, the 60-watt nuclear generator generated heat from strontium-90 in the form of strontium titinate, a safe radioisotope. The heat was converted to electricity by 120 pairs of lead telluride thermocouples. Complete with shielding, the unit was only 34.5 inches high and 22 inches in diameter. It was designed and produced by the nuclear division of Martin-Marietta Corp. (Today in Science History)
20 May 1999...A devastating cyclone, packing winds of up to 170 mph and a high storm surge, struck the Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Some 600 villages were devastated and more than 400 people killed. (The Weather Doctor)