Tropical Storms

Dr. John Groninger for their continuous support. I am thankful to SIU-Carbondale and the Department of Plant Biology for support through graduate assistantships. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Mark Woodrey and the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) for on-site support. I am thankful to the many people who have provided invaluable help and support throughout this process and this work would not have been possible without their help. I am thankful to the Plant Biology Greenhouse staffs and John Miller at the Horticulture Research Center Greenhouse, SIU-Carbondale. I had a lot of help with my field and lab work from the Battaglia lab. Many thanks to Matt Abbott,

Litter production and decomposition are key processes controlling the capacity of wetland to store and cycle carbon (C) and nutrients. Typhoons deposit large amounts of green and semi-green (between green and withered) plant tissues and withered litter (normal litter) on wetland soils, generating a pulse of litter production. Climatic models project an increase in typhoon intensity and frequency. Elucidating the impacts of typhoons on C, N and P cycles and storage capacities in subtropical and tropical wetland areas is thus important. We analyzed the patterns and changes of litter decomposition after a typhoon in the Minjiang River estuary in southeastern China. Green litter decomposed the fastest, and the loss of mass did not differ significantly between semi-green litter, withered litter and mixed litter (all soil litter after a typhoon). During the decomposition process the remaining green litter had the highest, and withered litter the lowest N and P concentrations. The biomass loss rate of litter during the studied period was related to the initial litter N and P concentrations. Remaining litter generally increased its N:P ratio during decomposition. The ratio of the released N and P was consequently lower than the initial N:P ratio in all litter types. The typhoon enhanced the release of C, N and P from the litter (884, 12.3 and 6 kg ha −1 , respectively) by 264 days after the typhoon. The soil was accordingly enriched with organic matter and nutrients for several months, which should favor microbial growth rates (higher C, N and P availability and lower C: nutrient and N:P ratios) and increase the rates of C and nutrient cycling. If the frequency and/or intensity of typhoons increase, a constant increase in the release of N and P to the soil with lower N:P ratios could change the N and P cycles in wetlands and provide better conditions for the spread of fastgrowing species.

In this publication, we provide a bibliography of 203 peer-reviewed articles identified through a systematic literature review regarding ecological research conducted in the LEF on storms and forests. Through this bibliography, the reader will be acquainted with the research conducted in the LEF. While we are aware the bibliographic list does not contain all published storm and forest studies in the LEF, it does provide a broad resource for researchers, managers, and practitioners to support current and future research and management practices.

High-resolution soil moisture/temperature (SM/ST) are critical components of the growing demand for fine-scale products over the Indian monsoon region (IMR) which has diverse land-surface characteristics. This demand is fueled by findings that improved representation of land-state help improve rainfall/flood prediction. Here we report on the development of a high-resolution (4 km and 3 hourly) SM/ST product for 2001–2014 during Indian monsoon seasons (June–September). First, the quality of atmospheric fields from five reanalysis sources was examined to identify realistic forcing to a land data assimilation system (LDAS). The evaluation of developed SM/ST against observations highlighted the importance of quality forcing fields. There is a significant relation between the forcing error and the errors in the SM/ST. A combination of forcing fields was used to develop 14-years of SM/ST data. This dataset captured inter-annual, intra-seasonal, and diurnal variations under different monso...

This study revisited the association of African easterly waves (AEWs) to Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) development using weather states (WSs) from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, National Hurricane Center best track hurricane data (HURDAT2), and reanalysis products. The WS data are used as a proxy for two different types of deep convection. This study covers July–October 1984–2009. Statistical analysis based on HURDAT2 and objectively tracked AEWs has shown that a small fraction (~20%) of the AEWs that propagate from Africa serve as TC precursors. About 80% of the AEWs from the continent were non-developing. As in the past work, our study showed an important difference between developing and non-developing AEWs. Composites based on developing AEWs revealed well-organized large scale deep convection (one type, composed of mesoscale systems and thick anvil clouds) is tightly coupled to the AEW trough, while scattered, less well-organized deep convection (second...

Motivated by the conjectured existence of trends in the intensity of tropical storms, this paper proposes new inferential methodology to detect a trend in the annual pattern of environmental data. The new methodology can be applied to data which can be represented as annual curves which evolve from year to year. Other examples include annual temperature or log-precipitation curves at specific locations. Within a framework of a functional regression model, we derive two tests of significance of the slope function, which can be viewed as the slope coefficient in the regression of the annual curves on year. One of the tests relies on a Monte Carlo distribution to compute the critical values, the other is pivotal with the chisquare limit distribution. Full asymptotic justification of both tests is provided. Their finite sample properties are investigated by a simulation study. Applied to tropical storm data, these tests show that there is a significant trend in the shape of the annual pattern of upper wind speed levels of hurricanes.

The morphology of sandy beaches is highly dynamic. They are influenced by the geology of the coastal area and external hydrodynamic forcing. On long timescales (years to decades), it is more efficient and convenient to monitor beach evolution through remote sensing technics rather than through direct field measurements. Erosion is a major problem along the coastline of Ghana with over 25 erosion hotspots, including James town. Here, tides, ECMWF EraInterim re-analysis wave data and images covering the beach area have been obtained for the 2013-2014 period. This paper presents preliminary results of the first efforts in processing video-derived observations of waves and shoreline change in Ghana. The pilot application shows a strong potential of the video system in providing fair quality wave data for beach management purposes where video wave characteristics are in good agreement with EraInterim global reanalysis (daily RMSE = 0.8 m and 0.7 m for H b and T p , respectively). Shorelines extracted from video suggest large monthly variability driven by wave seasonality while shoreline change shows a subsequent erosion/accretion cycle.

 In this study, we re-examined the Official Hurricane Database from the National Hurricane Center (HURDAT-NHC), an agency associated with NOAA, for tropical cyclone activity from 1851 to 2012for the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Basin.  We performed analyses at two different levels for the island (i.e., all of the storm tracks in the Caribbean Basin near to the study area that made landfall and all of the events that crossed the Dominican Republic from a radius of 300 km from the coastline). This study includes the statistical occurrence of these phenomena during the study period and the climatological analysis of all tropical cyclone tracks (112 total events) by decadal seasonal distribution, fifty-year seasonal distribution and monthly seasonal distribution to show the lowest and highest activities. We performed wavelet analysis on the continuous data over a long time series to determine the important frequencies. This analysis provided a general ...

This paper assesses the morphological storm-event impact, seasonal cycles, trends of wave forcing, and beach's response at the coastal area of Grand Popo, Benin. Three and a half years' worth of data were collected from 2013 to 2016, using a video system calibrated with field data collected during a 10 day experiment. A comparison was carried out with Wavewatch III IOWAGA wave hindcast data. The along-shore-averaged shoreline position exhibited a seasonal pattern, which was related more to the average wave height than the average storm intensity. Storms occur in austral winter (June, July, August, and September). Based on 12 storms, the results revealed that the average storm duration was 1.6 days, with a mean erosion of 3.1 m. The average post-storm beach recovery duration was 15 days, and the average recovery rate was 0.4 m/day. The impact of storms was more or less amplified depending on the eroding and accreting periods of the wave climate. There was an inter-annual eroding trend of about −1.6 m/year, but the causes of this trend could not be explained.

Urban flooding is one of the major issues in many parts of the world, and its management is often challenging. One of the challenges highlighted by the hydrology and related communities is the need for more open data and monitoring of floods in space and time. In this paper, we present the development phases and experiments of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based wireless sensor network for hydrometeorological data collection and flood monitoring for the urban area of Colima-Villa de Álvarez in Mexico. The network is designed to collect fluvial water level, soil moisture and weather parameters that are transferred to the server and to a web application in real-time using IoT Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol over 3G and Wi-Fi networks. The network is tested during three different events of tropical storms that occurred over the area of Colima during the 2019 tropical cyclones season. The results show the ability of the smart water network to collect real-time hydrometeorolog...

The morphology of sandy beaches is highly dynamic. They are influenced by the geology of the coastal area and external hydrodynamic forcing. On long timescales (years to decades), it is more efficient and convenient to monitor beach evolution through remote sensing technics rather than through direct field measurements. Erosion is a major problem along the coastline of Ghana with over 25 erosion hotspots, including James town. Here, tides, ECMWF EraInterim re-analysis wave data and images covering the beach area have been obtained for the 2013-2014 period. This paper presents preliminary results of the first efforts in processing video-derived observations of waves and shoreline change in Ghana. The pilot application shows a strong potential of the video system in providing fair quality wave data for beach management purposes where video wave characteristics are in good agreement with EraInterim global reanalysis (daily RMSE = 0.8 m and 0.7 m for H b and T p , respectively). Shorelines extracted from video suggest large monthly variability driven by wave seasonality while shoreline change shows a subsequent erosion/accretion cycle.

Litter production and decomposition are key processes controlling the capacity of wetland to store and cycle carbon (C) and nutrients. Typhoons deposit large amounts of green and semi-green (between green and withered) plant tissues and withered litter (normal litter) on wetland soils, generating a pulse of litter production. Climatic models project an increase in typhoon intensity and frequency. Elucidating the impacts of typhoons on C, N and P cycles and storage capacities in subtropical and tropical wetland areas is thus important. We analyzed the patterns and changes of litter decomposition after a typhoon in the Minjiang River estuary in southeastern China. Green litter decomposed the fastest, and the loss of mass did not differ significantly between semi-green litter, withered litter and mixed litter (all soil litter after a typhoon). During the decomposition process the remaining green litter had the highest, and withered litter the lowest N and P concentrations. The biomass loss rate of litter during the studied period was related to the initial litter N and P concentrations. Remaining litter generally increased its N:P ratio during decomposition. The ratio of the released N and P was consequently lower than the initial N:P ratio in all litter types. The typhoon enhanced the release of C, N and P from the litter (884, 12.3 and 6 kg ha −1 , respectively) by 264 days after the typhoon. The soil was accordingly enriched with organic matter and nutrients for several months, which should favor microbial growth rates (higher C, N and P availability and lower C: nutrient and N:P ratios) and increase the rates of C and nutrient cycling. If the frequency and/or intensity of typhoons increase, a constant increase in the release of N and P to the soil with lower N:P ratios could change the N and P cycles in wetlands and provide better conditions for the spread of fastgrowing species.

The study aimed to determine the impact of sound land use management to the runoff in Kabuntalan, Maguindanao in Tamontaka river basin. This was done through simulation and the comparison of the three land cover scenarios such as 2015 land cover, 2025 projected land cover and desired land use to determine its difference in terms of runoff. Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System was used for simulating runoff. The geographic Information system was used for the preparation of the land use/cover and as an interface between GIS and HEC-HMS. Based on the result, 2025 land cover values in runoff volume and peak outflow increase from 2015 land cover while decrease in desired land use. There is shorter time to peak in 2025 land cover than desired land use. The 2025 land cover, represented the land cover without intervention, showed that agriculture will dominate the area with 78.28% of the total area, closed canopy forest and open forest cover will reduce with 4.57% and 6....

Seventeen site characteristics associated with the location of incubation mounds of the Orange-footed Scrubfowl Megapodius reinwardt were measured for three habitat types: monsoon forest, regeneration forest and a sandy coastal vine thicket adjacent to an intertidal zone. The three habitats differed with respect to shrub cover, litter cover, canopy cover and several tree measurements. Mound sites differed from random sites with respect to several variables, and these differences can be attributed to the littercollecting activities of the birds, which disrupt the vegetation on and near the mounds. Internal mound temperatures were recorded over a 12 month period in 10 active mounds, two disused mounds and at two control sites. Active mound temperatures in all three habitats were similar despite significant mound site differences, particularly with respect to canopy cover and incident solar radiation. Whereas the decomposition of litter was the primary source of heat for the mounds in the monsoon and regeneration forests, both solar radiation and microbial decomposition contributed to the heat of the mounds in the sandy coastal vine thicket. Soil temperatures in disused mounds and at control sites decreased with the onset of monsoonal rains, but active mound temperatures remained stable during this period. Behavioural observations were recorded over a 19-week period for a pair of Orange-footed Scrubfowl at an active mound. The collection and incorporation of leaf litter into the mound increased significantly as monsoonal rains intensified. The birds were most active during the early morning period. Hatchlings and juvenile birds were observed in the study area throughout the eight months of field work and one colour banded bird was observed defending two mounds on several occassions.

Recent years have shown the tremendous damage and loss of life that can be caused by Atlantic Basin hurricanes. The majority of these hurricanes start as African easterly waves (AEWs) over the African continent. In this paper we provide evidence showing the connection between lightning activity over eastern Africa, and the AEWs that leave the west coast of Africa, some of which develop into hurricanes. We have analyzed the 2005 and 2006 hurricane seasons, one a very active hurricane year (2005), and the other a very quiet year (2006). More than 90% of the tropical storms and hurricanes during these 2 years were preceded by periods of above average thunderstorm activity in eastern Africa. During the 2006 season not only was the east African lightning activity 23% lower than during 2005, but there was 36% less lightning activity over the entire African continent during 2006. We suggest the possibility that lightning activity in tropical Africa may represent an important precursor of Atlantic hurricane formation.

The geographic position of Puerto Rico within the Atlantic basin exposes it to tropical cyclones from June to November. Research about the occurrence of tropical cyclones on the island tends to focus on intense and land-falling systems. Yet, the island and its residents are also at risk from cyclones that are of minor intensity or do not hit the island directly. In this short communication, we present the results of a spatiotemporal analysis of non-land-falling tropical storms and hurricanes near Puerto Rico between 1851 and 2018. We also present examples of the impacts and damage some of those systems have caused on the island and to its residents and argue that it is important to learn about such systems and take them into consideration for cyclone preparedness and management.

Dr. John Groninger for their continuous support. I am thankful to SIU-Carbondale and the Department of Plant Biology for support through graduate assistantships. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Mark Woodrey and the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) for on-site support. I am thankful to the many people who have provided invaluable help and support throughout this process and this work would not have been possible without their help. I am thankful to the Plant Biology Greenhouse staffs and John Miller at the Horticulture Research Center Greenhouse, SIU-Carbondale. I had a lot of help with my field and lab work from the Battaglia lab. Many thanks to Matt Abbott,

High-resolution soil moisture/temperature (SM/ST) are critical components of the growing demand for fine-scale products over the Indian monsoon region (IMR) which has diverse land-surface characteristics. This demand is fueled by findings that improved representation of land-state help improve rainfall/flood prediction. Here we report on the development of a high-resolution (4 km and 3 hourly) SM/ST product for 2001–2014 during Indian monsoon seasons (June–September). First, the quality of atmospheric fields from five reanalysis sources was examined to identify realistic forcing to a land data assimilation system (LDAS). The evaluation of developed SM/ST against observations highlighted the importance of quality forcing fields. There is a significant relation between the forcing error and the errors in the SM/ST. A combination of forcing fields was used to develop 14-years of SM/ST data. This dataset captured inter-annual, intra-seasonal, and diurnal variations under different monso...

Dr. John Groninger for their continuous support. I am thankful to SIU-Carbondale and the Department of Plant Biology for support through graduate assistantships. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Mark Woodrey and the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) for on-site support. I am thankful to the many people who have provided invaluable help and support throughout this process and this work would not have been possible without their help. I am thankful to the Plant Biology Greenhouse staffs and John Miller at the Horticulture Research Center Greenhouse, SIU-Carbondale. I had a lot of help with my field and lab work from the Battaglia lab. Many thanks to Matt Abbott,

Rapid intensification (RI) of tropical cyclones (TC) is a major error source in TC intensity forecasting. In order to improve the estimates of RI probability, association rules are used to facilitate the process of mining for candidate sets of conditions. Compared to the relation analysis method, the technique of association rules can simply explore associations among multiple conditions. Our mining results identified a reduced predictor set with fewer factors identified in previous studies but improved RI probabilities. That is, the RI probability with three conditions satisfied: low vertical shear, high humidity, and the TC being in an intensification phase is higher than that with five satisfied conditions including high sea surface temperature and an intensity far away from the maximum potential intensity in addition to the above three.

Building information produced from earth observation data is now being widely used in the development and simulation of different studies. The manual method of obtaining the building footprints is laborious and time-consuming hence this study aims to create a method that will cater an automatic extraction of building footprints. This study focused on the exclusive use of LiDAR-derived Digital Surface Model (DSM) and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) in order to obtain the Normalized Digital Surface Model (NDSM) and be able to extract building footprints of the area. Using NDSM and the knowledge on building geometric characteristics, such as height, slope, area and the shape, the researcher would be able to separate the buildings from the other featuresexisting on the surface. The extraction of the building footprints are exclusively done in ArcGIS and by the used of its existing tools. The result of this study should provide tools for end-to-end process of building extraction for the convenience of the user.

In this paper, we discuss how an academe-local government partnership can lead the way for the effective use of geospatial technologies for smarter and geospatially-informed decision making before, during, and after a flood disaster. In Jabonga municipality, in the province of Agusan del Norte, in Mindanao, Philippines, two significant flooding events occurred in the year 2014 which were caused by overflowing water bodies due to continuous heavy rains. These flood events inundated populated areas, caused massive evacuation, made roads un-passable, and greatly damaged sources of incomes such as croplands and other agricultural areas. The partnership between Caraga State University and the local government of Jabonga attempts to improve localized flood disaster management through the development of web-based Near-real Time Flood Event Visualization and Damage Estimations (Flood EViDEns) application. Flood EViDENs utilizes LiDAR-derived elevation and information products as well as oth...

In this paper, we discuss the methods and results of our field surveys that we conducted to gather information on flood extents that are necessary for assessing the accuracy of flood hazard maps. This activity is a major part of the CSU LiDAR 1 project which we currently undertake for the purpose of generating flood hazard maps of river basins of Caraga Region in Mindanao, Philippines. CSU LiDAR 1 is one of the several projects under the "Phil-LiDAR 1: Hazard Mapping of the Philippines using LiDAR" program funded by the

Aim: The lives of juvenile leatherback turtles are amongst the most enigmatic of all marine mega-vertebrates. For these cryptic organisms, ocean models provide important insights into their dispersion from natal sites. Here, corroborated by fisheries bycatch data, we simulate spatio-temporal variation in hatchling dispersion patterns over five decades from the World's largest leatherback turtle nesting region. Location: Equatorial Central West Africa (3.5°N to −6°S) spanning the Gulf of Guinea in the North, Gabon and the Republic/Democratic Republic of the Congo in the South. Results: Due to dynamic oceanic conditions at these equatorial latitudes, dispersion scenarios differed significantly: (1) along the north to south gradient of the study region, (2) seasonally and (3) between years. From rookeries to the north of the equator, simulated hatchling retention rates within the Gulf of Guinea were very high (>99%) after 6 months of drift, whilst south of the equator, retention rates were as low as c. 6% with the majority of simulated hatchlings dispersing west into the South Atlantic Ocean with the South Equatorial Current. Seasonal dispersion variability was driven by wind changes arising from the yearly north/southward migration of the intertropical convergence zone resulting in the increasing westerly dispersion of hatchlings throughout the hatching season. Annual variability in wind stress drove a long-term trend for decreased retention within the Gulf of Guinea and increased westerly dispersion into habitats in the South Atlantic Ocean. Main conclusions: Shifts in dispersion habitats arising from spatio-temporal oceanic variability expose hatchlings to different environments and threats that will influence important life history attributes such as juvenile growth/survival rates; anticipated to impact the population dynamics and size/age structure of populations into adulthood. The impacts of local and dynamic oceanic conditions thus require careful considerations, such as subregional management, when managing marine populations of conservation concern. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

In this paper, we present a combined geospatial and two dimensional (2D) flood modeling approach to assess the impacts of flooding due to extreme rainfall events. We developed and implemented this approach to the Tago River Basin in the province of Surigao del Sur in Mindanao, Philippines, an area which suffered great damage due to flooding caused by Tropical Storms Lingling and Jangmi in the year 2014. The geospatial component of the approach involves extraction of several layers of information such as detailed topography/terrain, man-made features (buildings, roads, bridges) from 1-m spatial resolution LiDAR Digital Surface and Terrain Models (DTM/DSMs), and recent land-cover from Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI images. We then used these layers as inputs in developing a Hydrologic Engineering Center Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC HMS)-based hydrologic model, and a hydraulic model based on the 2D module of the latest version of HEC River Analysis System (RAS) to dynamically simu...

Nha Trang beach in Vietnam is regarded as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. However, its degradation in recent years is a serious problem for its economic development. Understanding the mechanisms of shoreline evolution is thus part of an integrated management strategy of the area. In this study, the evolution of Nha Trang shoreline is investigated in detail with a high resolution (2Mp) and high frequency (2Hz) video camera system installed from May 2013 to present. The surfzone cross-shore profiles, shoreline positions and wave characteristics (height and period) extracted from the video data are calibrated with in-situ measurement from two field experiments (from 23/05 to 01/06 and 03/12 to 10/12 2013) and bathymetry measurement during the Haiyan typhoon event. The study shows a marked seasonal evolution of the Nha Trang shoreline with accretion from March to September and cumulated seasonal amplitude of about 15 m. The impact of Nari and Haiyan typhoons to the shoreline is also dramatic with changes of 4 to 8 m in each case. The recovery to individual events is fast, of the order of one and half month.

For many species, there is broad-scale dispersal of juvenile stages and/or long-distance migration of individuals and hence the processes that drive these various wide-ranging movements have important life-history consequences. Sea turtles are one of these paradigmatic long-distance travellers, with hatchlings thought to be dispersed by ocean currents and adults often shuttling between distant breeding and foraging grounds. Here, we use multi-disciplinary oceanographic, atmospheric and genetic mixed stock analyses to show that juvenile turtles are encountered 'downstream' at sites predicted by currents. However, in some cases, unusual occurrences of juveniles are more readily explained by storm events and we show that juvenile turtles may be displaced thousands of kilometres from their expected dispersal based on prevailing ocean currents. As such, storms may be a route by which unexpected areas are encountered by juveniles which may in turn shape adult migrations. Increas...

Floods are one of the most common natural hazards in global range and could threat the human life, health, environment and infrastructure. The aim of this paper is the estimation and the delimitation of the likely flood hazard zones, for different rainfall intensities in the upper part of Gallikos river basin (central Macedonia) according to the European directive 2007/60. For the analysis of the meteorological data and the construction of flood zone maps, HYDROGNOMON, HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS free software packages were used. The thematic maps were constructed with ESRI GIS. The results are depicted in flood inundation maps, delimitating and visualizing the scale of the flood hazard effect in the area. The construction of flood prediction models is a very useful tool towards the direction of the design of an efficient flood management framework.

Prior to writing his 1947 novel, Cyclone, Queensland author Vance Palmer drafted out many of his ideas for the story in three earlier short stories: ‘Cyclone’(1932), ‘Big Wind,’ and ‘Tempest,’ both published in 1936. In these stories and the later novel, Palmer develops the cyclone as trope of apocalypse, an unveiling and realization of the new inherent within the destruction of the old. As a result of experiencing both the terror and the mystery of the apocalyptic cyclonic event, Palmer’s characters realize they have transcended fears and inadequacies within themselves, enabling them to re-create new lives and new worlds.

Kemp's ridley sea turtles were on the verge of extinction in the 1960s. While these sea turtles have slowly recovered, they are still critically endangered. In the last few years, the number of strandings on the beaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts has increased by nearly an order of magnitude relative to preceding decades. This study uses a combination of ocean observations and a well-respected ocean model to investigate the causes and transport of cold-stunned sea turtles in Cape Cod Bay. After validating the model using satellite-tracked drifters and local temperature moorings, ocean currents were examined in Cape Cod Bay in an attempt to explain stranding locations as observed by volunteers and, for some years, backtracking was conducted to examine the potential source regions. The general finding of this study is that sub 10.5°C water temperatures in combination with persistently strong wind stress (>0.4 Pa), results in increased strandings along particular sections of the coast and are dependent on the wind direction. However, it is still uncertain where in the water column the majority of cold-stunned turtles reside and, if many of them are on the surface, considerable work will need to be done to incorporate the direct effects of wind and waves on the advective processes.

The geographic position of Puerto Rico within the Atlantic basin exposes it to tropical cyclones from June to November. Research about the occurrence of tropical cyclones on the island tends to focus on intense and land-falling systems. Yet, the island and its residents are also at risk from cyclones that are of minor intensity or do not hit the island directly. In this short communication, we present the results of a spatiotemporal analysis of non-land-falling tropical storms and hurricanes near Puerto Rico between 1851 and 2018. We also present examples of the impacts and damage some of those systems have caused on the island and to its residents and argue that it is important to learn about such systems and take them into consideration for cyclone preparedness and management.

Flooding is one of the most occurring natural hazards every year risking the lives and properties of the affected communities, especially in Philippine context. To visualize the extent and mitigate the impacts of flood hazard in Malingon River in Valencia City, Bukidnon, this paper presents the combination of Geographic Information System, high-resolution Digital Elevation Model, land cover, soil, observed hydro-meteorological data; and the combined Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System and River Analysis System models. The hydrologic model determines the precipitation-runoff relationships of the watershed and the hydraulic model calculates the flood depth and flow pattern in the floodplain area. The overall performance of hydrologic model during calibration was “very good fit” based on the criterion of Nash-Sutcliffe Coefficient of Model Efficiency, Percentage Bias and Root Mean Square Error – Observations Standard Deviation Ratio with the values of 0.87, -8.62 a...

The study aimed to determine the impact of sound land use management to the runoff in Kabuntalan, Maguindanao in Tamontaka river basin. This was done through simulation and the comparison of the three land cover scenarios such as 2015 land cover, 2025 projected land cover and desired land use to determine its difference in terms of runoff. Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System was used for simulating runoff. The geographic Information system was used for the preparation of the land use/cover and as an interface between GIS and HEC-HMS. Based on the result, 2025 land cover values in runoff volume and peak outflow increase from 2015 land cover while decrease in desired land use. There is shorter time to peak in 2025 land cover than desired land use. The 2025 land cover, represented the land cover without intervention, showed that agriculture will dominate the area with 78.28% of the total area, closed canopy forest and open forest cover will reduce with 4.57% and 6....

Poem: "George Floyd"
The secret was that you were/ murdered; that was the secret/—"I can't breathe." You and Eric/ Garner. That was the secret./ The truth behind the walls/ of lies money has erected/ around the simple majesty/ of human life. Your life mattered/ to many people. You were not/ just a black face skating on a/ poverty white people still find/ embarrassing,/ because like other body functions/ it reveals our commonality/ with breathing and with being./
Your/ face will shine for a while/ like a beacon words attach to,/ but your name has to outlive/ the darkness, outlive what/ will be forgotten. That you/ mattered and others like you/ have a right to matter. A right/ no one must grab and squeeze,/ and take from you.

April 22, 2021
New York, NY

Flooding is one of the most occurring natural hazards every year risking the lives and properties of the affected communities, especially in Philippine context. To visualize the extent and mitigate the impacts of flood hazard in Malingon River in Valencia City, Bukidnon, this paper presents the combination of Geographic Information System, high-resolution Digital Elevation Model, land cover, soil, observed hydro-meteorological data; and the combined Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System and River Analysis System models. The hydrologic model determines the precipitation-runoff relationships of the watershed and the hydraulic model calculates the flood depth and flow pattern in the floodplain area. The overall performance of hydrologic model during calibration was “very good fit” based on the criterion of Nash-Sutcliffe Coefficient of Model Efficiency, Percentage Bias and Root Mean Square Error – Observations Standard Deviation Ratio with the values of 0.87, -8.62 a...

Due to its location within the typhoon belt, the Philippines is vulnerable to tropical cyclones that can cause destructive floods. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these risks through increases in tropical cyclone frequency and intensity. To protect populations and infrastructure, disaster risk management in the Philippines focuses on real-time flood forecasting and structural measures such as dikes and retaining walls. Real-time flood forecasting in the Philippines mostly utilises two models from the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC): the Hydrologic Modeling System (HMS) for watershed modelling, and the River Analysis System (RAS) for inundation modelling. This research focuses on using non-structural measures for flood mitigation, such as changing land use management or watershed rehabilitation. This is being done by parameterising and applying the Land Utilisation and Capability Indicator (LUCI) model to the Cagayan de Oro watershed (1400 km<sup>2</sup>) in so...

A juvenile loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) stranded in Gran Canaria, Spain was necropsied. The turtle was underweight, had sunken eyes, and small amounts of crude oil were in the oral cavity. The most significant lesion was a large esophageal diverticulum at the junction of the esophagus and stomach. The diverticulum was full of gas and green mucoid fluid and a diffuse thick yellow fibrinonecrotic membrane covered the mucosa. The lumen of the diverticulum also contained moderate numbers of cephalopods, crustaceans, and anthropogenic debris including crude oil balls, plastics, and fishing lines. Histologically there was a severe diffuse fibrinonecrotic esophagitis. Aerococcus viridans was isolated from the diverticulum. This is the first report of an esophageal diverticulum in a sea turtle. Although A. viridans is a known pathogen of lobsters and fishes, there are no reports of A. viridans infection in sea turtles.

The relationship between tropical Atlantic hurricanes (Hs), atmospheric easterly waves (AEWs), and West African mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) is investigated. It points out atmospheric conditions over West Africa before hurricane formation. The analysis was performed for two periods, June-November in 2004 and 2005, during which 12 hurricanes (seven in 2004, five in 2005) were selected. Using the AEW signature in the 700 hPa vorticity, a backward trajectory was performed to the African coast, starting from the date and position of each hurricane, when and where it was catalogued as a tropical depression. At this step, using the Meteosat-7 satellite dataset, we selected all the MCSs around this time and region, and tracked them from their initiation until their dissipation. This procedure allowed us to relate each of the selected Hs with AEWs and a succession of MCSs that occurred a few times over West Africa before initiation of the hurricane. Finally, a dipole in sea surface temperature (SST) was observed with a positive SST anomaly within the region of H generation and a negative SST anomaly within the Gulf of Guinea. This SST anomaly dipole could contribute to enhance the continental convergence associated with the monsoon that impacts on the West African MCSs formation.

The relationship between tropical Atlantic hurricanes (Hs), atmospheric easterly waves (AEWs), and West African mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) is investigated. It points out atmospheric conditions over West Africa before hurricane formation. The analysis was performed for two periods, June-November in 2004 and 2005, during which 12 hurricanes (seven in 2004, five in 2005) were selected. Using the AEW signature in the 700 hPa vorticity, a backward trajectory was performed to the African coast, starting from the date and position of each hurricane, when and where it was catalogued as a tropical depression. At this step, using the Meteosat-7 satellite dataset, we selected all the MCSs around this time and region, and tracked them from their initiation until their dissipation. This procedure allowed us to relate each of the selected Hs with AEWs and a succession of MCSs that occurred a few times over West Africa before initiation of the hurricane. Finally, a dipole in sea surface temperature (SST) was observed with a positive SST anomaly within the region of H generation and a negative SST anomaly within the Gulf of Guinea. This SST anomaly dipole could contribute to enhance the continental convergence associated with the monsoon that impacts on the West African MCSs formation.

The evolution of soil moisture is a low-frequency process, wherein, the leakage of soil moisture takes place from land memory to the boundary layer by potential evaporation. This potential evaporation along with the antecedent rainfall plays a key role in controlling soil moisture field capacity. Thus leaked soil moisture interacts with convective rainfall
in temporal scale. The understanding of such a gradual leakage of soil moisture and its governance on the convective rainfall during Indian summer monsoon (ISM) has not been well understood. Current study primarily focuses on the
fundamental feedback mechanism between precedent convective rainfall event, transient soil moisture, and
subsequent convective rainfall event. This feedback mechanism was studied based on the diurnal variation of radiative
and thermodynamic processes that regulates succeeding convective rainfall over a region. For this analysis, Global
Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) 3 hourly dataset, MERRA reanalysis, and CMORPH rainfall datasets were
employed. The analysis was divided into two types based on spatio-temporal variation. In spatial scenario, the
feedback mechanism related to soil moisture & rainfall over Indian land was studied. Case specific (depressions &
upper air cyclonic circulations of 2014 & 2015) interactions of soil moisture & rainfall feedback mechanism was
exploited for temporal variation. The spatial variation analysis reveals the region specific unique interactions between
soil moisture and rainfall during ISM. On the other hand, temporal interactions bring out the lead-lag relationship
between leakage of soil moisture and subsequent convective rainfall during ISM, which is dependent on the Bowen
ratio. Therefore, this work provides essential insights related to the feedback mechanism of soil moisture and
subsequent convective rainfall. Further exploitation of the study will provide in depth knowledge of the feedback
mechanism, which eventually will help in better convective parametrizations.

An unsupervised k-means/k-means++ clustering algorithm was implemented on daily images of standardized anomalies of brightness temperature (T b) derived from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-13 infrared data for the period 1 December 2010 to 30 November 2016. The goal was to decompose each individual T b image into four clusters that captures the characteristics of different cloud regimes. The extracted clusters were ordered by their mean value in an ascending fashion so that the lower the cluster order, the higher the clouds they represent. A linear regression between temperature and height with temperature used as the predictor was conducted to estimate cloud top heights (CTHs) from the T b values. The analysis of the results was performed in two different ways: sample dates and seasonal features. Cluster 1 is the less dominant one, representing clouds with the highest tops and variabilities. Cluster 4 is the most dominant one and represents a cloud regime that spans the lowest 2 km of the troposphere. Clusters 2 and 3 are entangled in the sense that both have their CTHs spanning the middle troposphere. Correlations between the monthly time series of the number of pixels in each cluster and of the entropy with several circulation indices are also introduced. Additionally, a fractal-related analysis was carried out on cluster 1 in order to resolve cirrus and cumulonimbus.

Prior to writing his 1947 novel, Cyclone, Queensland author Vance Palmer drafted out many of his ideas for the story in three earlier short stories: ‘Cyclone’(1932), ‘Big Wind,’ and ‘Tempest,’ both published in 1936. In these stories and the later novel, Palmer develops the cyclone as trope of apocalypse, an unveiling and realization of the new inherent within the destruction of the old. As a result of experiencing both the terror and the mystery of the apocalyptic cyclonic event, Palmer’s characters realize they have transcended fears and inadequacies within themselves, enabling them to re-create new lives and new worlds.