There seems to be this belief that withiut the yearly hectoring nobody will prepare. People in hurricane areas are quite aware of hurricane risks, outside of Louisiana levy authorities, but they have been crooked as the day is long.

No one can frighten us into non-stop shopping, but we all know that the corporations view hurricane season like Christmas - by any means necessary.
People need to learn to read the maps and check daily to see if anything is in their neck of the woods.

I need to stay on top of these hurricanes in WW.

Hurricane Sandy (unofficially known as "Superstorm Sandy&quot was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. Classified as the eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane and second major hurricane of the year, Sandy was a Category 3 storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba.[1] While it was a Category 2 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles (1,800 km)).[2][3] Estimates as of March 2014 assess damage to have been over $68 billion (2013 USD), a total surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina.[4] At least 286 people were killed along the path of the storm in seven countries.[5]

Sandy developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later. Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually intensified. On October 24, Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, re-emerged a few hours later into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane. On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 26, Sandy moved through the Bahamas.[6] On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 29, Sandy curved north-northwest and then[7] moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds.[1][8]

She was also not major by hurricane strength - peaking in Cuba at Cat 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

long before anyone saw what she would do to the US mainland.

But we all got the impression it was a major storm because of two factors.

First, it hit an area woefully unprepared. Had a storm of equal magnitude hit the gulf coats it would have been a short new blurb and life would have been back to normal in a few days for the most part.

It hit NYC, home to most of the major news networks. Since it hit close to home and actually affected decision makers there, it got a lot more coverage.

Irene in 2011 went over NYC, but it's major damage was done in Southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. The region I live in had 86% of all homes knocked offline from the power grid. My town (Montville), was 100% in the dark for days (over a week). Now the gas stations managed to get back up on generator, so gasoline supplies were fine. With no lights, friends and neighbors came by and we sat around tables with candles and fumed at Connecticut Light & Power, who was fixing the western portions of the state first before moving on to other topics.

NYC on the other hand congratulated themselves on their invulnerability to the storm and so they thought Sandy would be the same and took no action to prepare. Sandy dropped the lights in CT again, but we both came back faster and had none of the gasoline disruptions that NY/NJ had. Having invested in a generator and transfer switch, I got to watch it all on the TV (with antenna).

One of the things I distinctly remember was people in NYC calling Irene "sensationalism" because they were not impacted. And yet when Sandy hit, it was the "storm of the century". Meh - I got my power back in two days. Irene was far worse for me.

That led to Sandy's devastation? Did you see the size of that fugging storm?

Or even Miami.

Areas that see a lot of hurricanes take better steps to prepare, and have more experience dealing with them. This mitigates much of the damage and trouble.

Also areas that take a lot of storms don't have as many older and more vulnerable structures, they have been damaged and replaced/repaired to stronger specs after previous storms.

It was bad, for sure. But a lot of that was because of the areas it hit and their level of preparedness and the way the homes, business and infrastructure existed that made it all much more vulnerable.

This applies even down to the individual level. You never see the long lines for gas after a tropical storm or moderate hurricane in the areas that normally see them- people there including putting gas back as part of getting ready. Most of the gas shortage and long lines we saw after sandy were due to people not having any set back so going into panic mode when they couldn't buy any right away.

Katrina and Rita were in 2005, and each was a 3 when they landed although both had been 5's while in the Gulf.

Certainly not in the Atlantic, and I don't think they are in the Gulf either. The low level clouds are moving in a different direction to high level. This prevents the clouds from really jacking up, getting the height they need to build to a powerful storm. The tops get sheared off in other words.

Living in Georgia for most of the last twenty years, I have studied the storms every single year. As an amateur, I'm not bad at guestimating the storm path, and I've learned what builds them up, and what keeps them from building. Warm water of course builds them up, but it takes a confluence of events, it's never one thing, to make them powerful. Low level and high level winds need to be going the same direction before the storm can build. It has to have time to build up. Andrew is the exception, like someone who wins the lottery, but otherwise the storms build on a predictable curve.

As for me, I've already got food, batteries, medical supplies, and a couple weather radios set aside. I start putting that stuff together about February, so that I enter the season ready, not trying to finish up. So far we've been lucky and only lost power for a few hours during the tail of the storms, but one can't count on luck forever.

Personally, I don't think the season will be all that bad, at least the first half. It barely got to the low 90's in Georgia during May. The bad years seem to come when we have an early and savage heat wave. So far, we aren't. But again, Andrew proves that you can't rule things out, it came late in the season, and was horrific.

I use a couple tracking programs and of course the NWS hurricane page. I've signed up for weather emails from both my tracking software sites, and the NWS. Perhaps I'm egotistical, but I like the tracking software, it allows me to examine the raw data and make my own decisions. More access to information thanks to the internet.

Haiti, occasionally Jamaica, Cuba and parts of Florida. Most of this comes from the Eastern Pacific.

The real Atlantic season gets hot at the end of August into the second or 3rd week of September.
That said, we've had serious hurricanes earlier and later than peak season.

We're ready for 2014.