Hurricane Season is Here - What's in Store?

June 1st marks the beginning of hurricane season. Are you ready?

After moving from Colorado back to Alabama, we knew we’re going from hail storms and wildfires right back into hurricane country. No matter where you move, some sort of natural disaster awaits—may it be blizzards, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and the list goes on. Ready to move? Pick your disaster…

Our Most Recent Hurricane Experience

Last August, the weekend of my 50th birthday, hubby decided we were going on a short road trip. He gave me the option of driving north to Huntsville and check out the U.S. Space & Rocket Center or we’d drive south to Mobile and tour the USS Alabama—a great World War II battle ship. Space or Ocean?

We picked Mobile. The problem was, with all the spontaneous travel plans, we forgot there was a hurricane coming our way—a pretty gnarly one on top of that—Hurricane Ida.

When we got down to Mobile. The hotel family members had recommended to stay at was booked out. Actually, we were kind of glad, because the area it was located in looked kinda shady. Realizing that we were trying to find a hotel room on a major evacuation route when a good portion of Louisiana and Mississippi residents were running from the storm was disheartening. But… we jumped online and found a room after all, even though we felt bad that we took a room for a weekend trip and others were evacuating. I know, not ideal.

Before the storm arrived, we did get to tour the USS Alabama battleship and the USS Drum submarine. It was so cool! The sub was super-small inside, and the battleship had a million decks above and below the main deck. Because of some health issues, I had just been released from the hospital two weeks earlier, we only made it through half of the ginormous ship, but it was impressive all the same.

Hubby on the USS Drum. We crawled through that little door to go inside of the submarine. I tell you, it was tight quarters down there. You also see Ida’s outer rain bands to the right.

The next morning, Ida made landfall in Louisiana and swiftly moved into Mississippi and Alabama, prompting several tornado warnings in the Mobile area. We waited in our hotel room until the sideways rain had stopped and the radar cleared, then hit the road to get ahead of the storm on our way back home to Central Alabama. We only stopped for a quick bite to eat on the way out.

The drive home wasn’t too bad. Although, when we got to just south of Montgomery, the heavens opened up and we were white-knuckling until we got home just north of Montgomery. Strangely enough, we arrived to beautiful blue skies and sunshine… Go figure. I think we only got one band of thunderstorms that made it to our town that day, but that was about it—a stark contrast to what was happening in the southern part of the state.

What’s in Store this Hurricane Season?

Even thought we won’t see a peak until around mid-August, that doesn’t mean that nothing will happen until then. Unfortunately, Hurricane Agatha has already devastated parts of South Mexico this past week and the remnants of this storm will impact Florida this weekend. And this storm season is just cranking up.

Colorado State University has updated their earlier prediction as Atlantic surface temperatures were warmer than they had first anticipated. Here’s what they say we can expect this hurricane season.

Category	# of Named Storms	Average
Named Storms	20	14
Hurricanes	10	7
Major Hurricanes	5	3

So let’s hope the upcoming storms making landfall this year will be fairly minor.

Hurricane Beach

I wrote Hurricane Beach while we still lived in Colorado. My passion for watching stormy weather roll in and my love for playing in the waves at the beach were a perfect combination that sparked ideas for the novel that became book #1 of the Southern Storms series.

First, I thought, what if I pair a weather man who is still grieving the loss of his wife and a paramedic who returned home to a small town in Georgia after her divorce? Better yet, make them former high school sweethearts and she’s still upset with him for breaking up with her. But the story needed more, so I gifted them each with teenage daughters who had their own problems. Tie the story in a nice stormy bow and voila! Hurricane Beach was so much fun to write!!!

If you’re a super-fan and already read Hurricane Beach, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you! I really hope you enjoyed the story.

If you haven’t read it yet, you’ll be in for a treat! Let me know what you think after you get a chance to read it! A heads-up, the audiobook version will be on sale for 99c on Chirp from 16 Jun – 13 Jul 2022.