Tropical Cyclone Summaries

    Finally, after a few days of figuring out a reasonable format, I present the first of my tropical cyclone summaries, or at least half of one. Due to the large number of active systems, I'm limiting this summary to storms of at least tropical storm strength.
    A few notes: the first series of numbers listed after intensity are part of a system used to estimate storm intensity based on their satellite presentation. This method is called the Dvorak method, and the satellite images used have a high grey scale utilizing high contrast shades, the third image (called Basic Dvorak) is of this type. As for the other numbers near the top, the first is the maximum sustained winds (MSW) on one minute averages, the next is the minimum pressure at the center of the storm, after that is the coordinates of the center of the storm, finally the last set is the direction the storm is moving and how fast.
    I'll get into what the microwave images, the ones labeled 85GHz and 37GHz, mean later. the last image is the latest forecast from the appropriate agency, along with the time that the forecast was issued. I'm sure I'll find other details about these summaries to talk about, but for now, I'll happy to finally get this started.