October 15. The temperature is fair, at seventy degrees, although the air seems somewhat thick and humid. A soft breeze gently skims the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Dark clouds group in clusters far away over the endless waters. Seagulls nonchalantly fly overhead, and the waves roll on continuously. A fishing boat splashes over the waters, homeward bound. It is a tranquil day, and nobody knows the terror waiting to emerge…

At the National Weather Service Center, Meteorologist Kate Greene analyzed the latest Doppler readings on her computer screen. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, in humid air dangling over warm waters, twisting with converging winds, were several thunderstorms, the first step in creating a—

Bbrrriiinngg! Bbrriinnngg! Kate picked up the telephone. “Hello. This is meteorologist Kate Greene.” The voice on the other li

The warm waters of the Atlantic churned furiously, rising and dropping. Several thunderstorms had banded together, rotating with the converging winds. Lightning roused the waters. Vapor sifted into the air, towards the dark skies…

October 16. Rubbing her eyes anxiously, Kate turned her radio to the weather station. A deep voice spoke. “And now for your midnight weather forecast! There is a tropical storm over the Atlantic at this time. The storms have grown immensely overnight, changing from a disturbance to a depression to a storm in less than twenty-four hours. Remember, a tropical disturbance is an organized area of thunderstorms, a tropical disturbance is organized and circulating storms with winds of 38 miles per hour or less, and a tropical storm is a cyclone with winds of no greater than 74 miles per hour. Continued growth of a tropical storm leads to a hurricane. Forecasters predict that within twelve hours Tropical Storm Cody will have developed into a hurricane, the first of this hurricane season—which runs from June 1st to November 30th.”

Spinning and spinning, the organized thunderstorms circled around in the ominous sky, like a top. The waters were restless. The winds were whipping with fury. The depression was expanding its reaches, waiting to kill, like a black hole of the sea.

Every year hurricanes take hundreds of lives and cost millions of dollars.

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