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Well, it's that time of year again. Hurricane season 2005. This will be Jim's third season on the severe weather beat and it got off to an early start with Hurricane Dennis making landfall along the Florida Panhandle in mid-July.

Hurricanes present one of nature's most powerful phenomena. Starting as thunderstorms and low pressure centers over Africa or South America, they meander along the southern trade winds, crossing the Atlantic. When they encounter the warm waters of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, they can become major cyclonic events.

Packing winds ranging from 74mph to over 155mph (CAT 1-5), heavy seas and torrential rainfall, they become disruptive events on a major scale when they make landfall. Spinning around a central, signature "Eye," at higher categories they behave like 40 mile wide tornadoes. Reinforced concrete structures are your friend when chasing a powerful "Cane."

While their cyclonic characteristics rapidly deteriorate when they touch a landmass, their potential to do damage continues hundreds of miles from where they come ashore. Tropical force winds, extensive flooding and a tendency to spin off twisters in every direction make them a potential foe far inland. Power outages effecting hundreds of thousands are the norm, as are deaths from storm related incidents.

Severe Weather Operations

Covering a hurricane or other severe weather event is an operational combination of weather, ballistic hazards, seamanship, wilderness survival and civil disturbance. Rarely do so many dangerous operational factors combine simultaneously on such a scale.

As threats come from many different angles and genres, the correspondent needs to be part meteorologist, part sailor, part backwoods Ranger and part war correspondent. If the storm surge or wind driven debris doesn't get you, the more uncivil elements of society in the aftermath will. It's a reporting environment that requires attention to detail across a broad spectrum, an environment where small mistakes can snowball into full fledged emergencies very quickly.

145mph winds turn roofing nails into bullets. Floodwaters send Chevy Suburbans downstream like children's toys. Dirty water becomes a fast track ticket to intestinal distress for months to come. Fuel shortages and people not above taking yours by force can strand a correspondent faster than it takes to say, "Fill 'er up." Preparedness and situational awareness is the name of the game.

The New Hurricane Cycle

The experts are concluding that severe hurricanes are a cyclical phenomena. Running on a roughly 40 year pattern, the coming period of multiple, intense landfalls promises to be a rough period. With present warming trends, expect larger, more powerful storms.

This comes at a time when we have more densely populated coastal regions and a greater dependence on vulnerable infrastructure. Severe storms will impact huge numbers of people and affected regions both physically and economically in ways that have not yet been fully appreciated. In short, it's gonna get real interesting.

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