THE LASTEST NATURAL DISASTER: Hilary

The Lahaina Apocalypse death toll remained the same, which is good news, but the missing number has not changed, which is bad. The Bidens are now in Reno, and arrive on Monday, which means Air Force One needs to leave before Tropical Storm Hilary gets close. This not a political statement.

But speaking of politics, I noticed that MSNBC and CNN are not covering the 9PM EDT First Republican Debate, which will be televised by the Fox channels. I wondered why, and found a June 2023 article indicating that the Republican National Committee asked for news companies to bid, and Fox won. MSNBC and CNN, of course, will have their top panelists analyze for two hours the results from 11PM EDT.

The other newsworthy item of the day has to do with natural disasters. The more topical event is now Tropical Storm Hilary. The media makes Hilary sound like it will the first time ever for the Southern California to be so threatened. Actually, while hardly frequent, they do occur.

The most recent were Hurricane Nora in 1997 and Hurricane Lester in 1992, and of course, both were tropical storms over California. In 2022, Hurricane Kay headed for California, but curled westward before reaching Southern California. Yet, Kay brought a 109 MPH gust to Cuyamaca Peak in San Diego County. Keep in mind that Hurricane Dora was far away from Maui when she passed to the south, but those high winds came with her presence, destroying Lahaina. There have been a couple of incursions over Southern California since 1950.

The bigger question is why do so few impact this region?

The California Current brings cool water moving south along the state.
Also, during the summer, high pressure brings stable air near the West Coast.

The danger of Hilary, thus, is that mountains will amplify winds and concentrate rainfalls into valleys for flash flooding. This type of weather phenomenon occurs so infrequently in this region that local governments have had not had previous experience. Hawaii, Florida and a few other states suffer from them annually.

In any case, Hurricane Hilary is now Tropical Storm Hilary, and the area around the eye will be less than half of hurricane velocity when she impacts California.
Almost miraculously, the track will sufficiently miss San Diego and Los Angeles to the east, Las Vegas to the west, far away from San Francisco, east of Sacramento and west of Reno. In other words, the serious part of this storm will, save for Palm Springs, move over desert areas. Furthermore, while most hurricanes travel in the 12-20 MPH range, Hilary seems to be maintaining a 25 MPH speed, meaning that rainfalls will be less.
A few days ago computer models had the eye of Hilary eventually over Boise, Idaho, with far weaker winds, but still a lot of moisture. A more recent projection saw the eye somewhat west of this city.

If you've wondered why you keep reading about those Canadian wildfires, it is because this is their worst season ever, by far.

I'll add yet another wildfire, now surging through Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

I've always wanted to visit the Canaries, primarily because I mentioned this location in one of my books dealing with mega-tsunamis. In 2012 I wote MEGA TSUNAMI TO WIPE OUT FLORIDA?

I'll end with a treat. Let It Be, by Dolly Parton, with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Peter Frampton and Mick Fleetwood. McCartney wrote the song and the Beatles had that hit in 1970, only 52 years ago. For Parton, this album will her 49th, and will feature 21 covers of classic songs, including 9 or hers, and 40 guest artists on 30 tracks. Who? Well, Miley Cyrus, Sheryl Crow, Lizzo, Elton John, Stevie Nicks, Sting...and others. Below with McCartney, Starr and Fleetwood. She is 76 years old.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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