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- Updates from the Islands -- - Aruba - - |
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| - surf is up | |
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| - Little Lighting & Thunder | |
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| - Thunder Lighting And Loads Of Rain!!! | |
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| - HOT |
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Wow-where did the wind go? I know I am leaving on vacation tomorrow- and I think the wind went on vacation too. I know- you wonder if you live in Aruba- where do you go on vacation. Easy-- to Mom & Dad's in New Jersey!! It also has something to do with the 20th high school reunion (I am SO sure I can't possibly be that old 'cause I don't feel that old) Anyway- today there is little or no wind-hot, hot, hot- an ice cold Balashi (our local beer) in the shade is sinfully good. The ocean looks like a polished mirror and the lack of Sahara dust gives a crisp edge to the horizion, brillant blue skys and puffy clouds high in the sky. Last night we had heat lightning that was awesome. I dragged my boyfriend out of the house and we drove to the north coast. No ambient light and the show was beautiful-pink, orange and white lit up the clouds. Crossing the lagoon to work today, the water was so clear and calm you could see every barrel sponge and fish swimming merrily. If I didn't have a meeting or have to pack- I would have been overboard and swimming with them until sunset. For snorkeling and diving- it doesn't get better than this- 80-100' vis and 84 degree water- my next week of vacation I am taking it here!! Let there be calm weather and no "interests" for a while. Take care! _________________________________________________________________ News, entertainment and everything you care about at Live.com. Get it now! http://www.live.com/getstarted.aspx |
| - Rain Rain and More Rain... |
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Hi All,
Here it's again weekend and ofcourse rainy again....
Saw yesterday the big dot on the satelite images and thought it would only rain at night, but the stormsystem stays above our heads...
Giving us more rain and thunders and lighting... (hope it's only at night)
Have a nice day
Bren
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| - Rain and some strong wind guts | |
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| - A beautiful day | |
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| - Whew- time for a nap??? |
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Good evening- We got lucky again. I was helping where I could at the command post. For the last three days fire department, police, Red Cross, social services, public works, meteo services and OEM have been meeting and preparing for whatever could pass. We were ready to rumble as they say. I was so happy to be a part of the team and participate in however I could- watching the teamwork was aweome. We had a burst of rain about 9am that lasted for a bit, there was some flooding in the usual places, but after Ivan, lessons were learned- drainage improved or built and known trouble spots trouble shot. My last assesment drive around of my district about 4pm showed a big difference from our 9am drive around- puddles drying, low spots draining well and the dams below capacity. Some crazy fools were even surfing, bodyboarding and windsurfing (next time guys- if warnings are given NOT to go in the water-please listen, one day your luck will run out!!!) Now we just need to watch the blob over Venezuela and hope it stays away. I will update tomorrow. PS- my boyfriend- dispite my advice did his own drive thru after the rains ended. I will try to edit the video tomorrow and post a link. (Thank you Dave! good footage) To our friends in Felix's path- our prayers are with you!! Take care. _________________________________________________________________ Discover the new Windows Vista http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=windows+vista&mkt=en-US&form=QBRE |
| - Pictures of the Beaches right after Felix Passed... | |||||||||
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| - Hurricane Felix passing by...Lot's of rain... | |||||||||||||||||
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| - another little update for felix cat 2 hurricane | |||||||||||||||||
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| - Now We Are In It |
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The rain is coming down so hard now visibility is at a minimum. Wind gusts are strong and frequent. The streets are flooded and now some TV channels are out. We were going to try to go out and take some photos but now is not the time. Hopefully later.
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| - Black Skies and Rain |
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Currently, Aruba is experiencing heavy downpours and light winds. If you look to the south of the island, you almost think you can go to the beach BUT if you look to the north, the skies are filled with ominous black clouds. We still have electricity but no Digicel service. Maybe we'll get lucky and this will just turn out to be a rain event. I hope.
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| - Felix Upgraded to a Cat.2 Hurricane!! | |||||||||||||||||
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| - Now we wait...... |
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Well- a long day that will turn into a long weekend. The updates have Felix wobbling a bit. We have made all the preps we can here. All teams are in place- just in case, ready to roll for anything but truly hoping for nothing. At work today, we got everything ready, and as a preemt- are closed for tomorrow. I hope we only get a great light show, but you can never tell what mother nature has planned. Word to the surfers- please don't think about it- look from shore, but be smart. For the rest- I just had a huge dinner (first time I got a chance to eat today) and now I will try to take a nap- albiet with my cell phone next to the pillow. I will try to check in tomorrow- but we will see. Side note- at work there were NO fish to be seen in the shallow snorkel are, but we had a very high waterline; and my cats are starting to act pretty skitzy. hmmmmm _________________________________________________________________ News, entertainment and everything you care about at Live.com. Get it now! http://www.live.com/getstarted.aspx |
| - Tropical Storm Felix strengthened now to a hurricane cat 1 | |||||||||||||||||
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| - Very Warm and Still | ||||||||||||||||
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It is extremely warm here in Aruba and the winds have died down immensely. We are now under mostly cloudy skies. We had a brief clap of thunder about an hour ago with black clouds which soon passed. I suppose these are the outer bands of the storm as reported in Curacao. Our cousin works at The Marriott Hotel which has now gone into an emergency planning mode. This same planning was executed pre-Ivan. All managers may be called to stay at the Marriott until the storm passes. Now it appears the TS will become a Cat 1 when it is at it's closest to Aruba. Here is the most recent report on Felix's path and timetable:
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| - Another Beach Day | ||||||||||||||||
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Although we are under a Tropical Storm Warning, currently the skies are clear and sunny with wind at 18 mph from the east. It looks like Sunday may be an entirely different story.
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| - Calm Before The Storm? |
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Here in Aruba the weather could not be more beautiful. The sun is high in the sky with intermittent cloud cover. Perhaps it is the calm before the storm. I just returned from Eagle Beach where the ocean is calm and there is a steady breeze with the occasional gust-not unique for Aruba. Temperature 91 F/33 C Wind 17 mph/28 km/h (East) Pressure 29.83 in/1010 hPa (Falling) Waves 5 ft/1.6 m If the depression reaches Aruba, which appears to be the case, we
should feel the affects sometime on Saturday and conditions will change greatly. I will keep you posted.
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| - some video from the Eclipse |
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Dave- thanks for the heads up. My boyfriend woke me up for this- I saw a few minutes then promptly fell back asleep (I need my 7 hours). He was nice enough to tape it- you can see the highlights at www.youtube.com/arubasfx I missed the totality, but I need to figure out how to do frame by frame edit (anyone who knows how iMovie works, please feel free to email me, as when it comes to the fancy stuff in the computer I am clueless!! ;-) Hope you enjoy _________________________________________________________________ Play free games, earn tickets, get cool prizes! Join Live Search Club. http://club.live.com/home.aspx?icid=CLUB_wlmailtextlink |
| - Tornado in front of Tamarijn Beach Aruba |
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Hi There, Before I went to the beach today I looked on stormcarib to watch if the clouds would move away and if we would get good weather.... Looked on the satelite pic's that the front with rain and thunderstorms was moving away from our island... I still had the feeling of taking my camera because there were really black clouds but what could happen so I left it at home...Stupid of course and yes I regret that big time, from now on my camera goes with me everywhere... When I came near to the beach where I come most of the time Tamarijn, the ocean looked like a mirror, no little wave to see, but something right in front of where I was driving happened....a tube was forming....2 minutes later i parked my car and went on the beach, right in front of me was a tornado which had just touched the water...The bottom of the tube was which I believe about 20 meters wide, Picked up water and looked absolutely beautiful. Something you might see oncde in your lifetime as it's not a normal thing on Aruba... I was glad that at least I had taken my cellphone which has a crappy camera but at least something (most of the time I leave my cell at home too...) The pictures are not that good of a quality but at least you can see about what I've been following.... It started with a tornado or wind hose and it stayed there for about 5 minutes, went from the right side of the beach to the left, the current was changing too waves came in from the left, something which is not happening normally and they because quit big too...wind changed directions all the time and the clouds were so strange going in all directions, being pitch black, something I've never witnessed before. After the first tornado went around the corner of tamarijn beach it fell apart, then after about 3 minutes another tornado formed at that placed a little further, more towards the renaissance....After that one went there was loud thunder and lighting and after about 10 minutes (can be more because everybody was so excited about what happened at the beach, came back about 17.30 (so must have been quit some time...)it started raining heavily too... Pictures of that one will follow...and also a movie... hope you enjoy the pics, even when they are very small. Bren Change is good. See what's different about Windows Live Hotmail. Check it out! Attachment:
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| - WOW |
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Well- what an interesting day at work. The pix of the waterspout doesn't do it justice- BEAUTIFUL. I was at work and not happy that I didn't have my video camera. My darling boyfriend, however, knows my addiction to weather. He grabbed the video camera at home and shot about 30 minutes of tape from our backyard. We live about 2 miles from the coast in the middle of the island. We are still getting a slow and steady rain now, but earlier, holy cow....heavy thunder, lightning and rain. At one point at work we had less than 300 meter visiblity. We will edit the tape and post on youtube later tonite, then I will post a link. This weather is very unusual for us, thank goodness, but it is so cool to see. Off for a hot shower (thank you Mom and Dad for the hot water heater- perfect for days like today!!) Mom and Dad gave me the heater for Christmas, no more cold showers. If you have never heard of a point of contact water heater- they are the best. Great on electricity as they only use it when you are running the water, no resivoir and instant hot water! Till later. _________________________________________________________________ Make every IM count. Download Windows Live Messenger and join the i’m Initiative now. It’s free. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGWL_June07 |
| - Waterspouts! |
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 A couple of waterspouts (locally known as a "hos") appeared on the southern coast of Aruba, followed by several lightnings and a heavy rain shower. This picture was taken moments ago at Sombre, Santa Cruz. Right now it's very dark and the rain has stopped at The Airport I have reports that at the west side of the island it's still raining heavily. At 3:50pm several radio stations went off the air. |
| - Today a cloudy day (BUT STILL NO RAIN) |
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Today there's a lot of overcast and sometimes some real dark grey clouds. Thought at about 11 that it would go starting to rain, but only some mini drops and then it stopped again... Sometimes some sun is looking through the clouds but not really much... Still hope on some good heavy rain, good to get the dust away... Temperature is around 29 degrees Celcius... Have a good day. Brenny Play free games, earn tickets, get cool prizes! Join Live Search Club. Join Live Search Club! |
| - Hurricane Dean passed far away Aruba but we can still see something happening |
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Good afternoon, Newspapers are full of what hurricane Dean did for damage on Jamaica and the Peninsula(Mexico). We haven't had any winds when hurricane Dean passed our island, as always when hurricanes are in the area passing by. Neither any rain only a little shower on friday with some thunder and lighting...(We had expected at least some rain!!!)   So it was like hurricane Dean never passed, until you come to the beaches. There where really high tides and big waves crashed onto the beaches taking away big parts of it, giving the beaches back to the ocean. The fishermen were warned and took there boats to higher grounds out of the sea. Where they were safe without getting ripped apart by the rough ocean.
There's loads of seaweed and other ocean stuff in the waters from saturday on still until now. Some which is thrown on the beaches, but they are really busy cleaning them up the whole time. Something which is very good (also for the tourists...)
At the beaches where normally sea turtles are nestling most of what was left of the nests are damaged by the high tides and waves. The nestling season had almost ended but the nests that were still waiting to come out are gone, some of them even that bad damaged that the eggs got thrown on the beach out of the ocean.
Bren Live Earth is coming. Learn more about the hottest summer event - only on MSN. Check it out! |
| - Dean after effects |
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Right now lightning is illuminating the sky, you can see lots of them
coming from the south east part of the island, where Curacao and
Bonaire are.  -- Marko A.J. Espinoza Cangahuala |
| - step on a tigers tail..... |
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Good evening-Well Dean is still leaving us all guessing. I am staying up for the 11pm updates then I will see if I have to change plans again. Most models show Dean going up above 15 north as it passes us, but it doesn't take a direct hit to do damage- like the tail of Ivan the swiped us (love you and your reports and info Dave but can you not mention the "I" word every time you do -it gives me the willies- I am sure Cayman and Jamacia agree) . I hope all those in his immediate path a safe weekend. The thought of my friends and I will be with you. At this point for us it is not the threat of a direct hit, but the thought of what the lower part of the system can bring- rain and waves. We had unusually high water at work today and the fish are starting to move into deeper waters or into the lagoon protected by the mangroves. We also had a great view of a tornado/waterspout that was trying to form. It started as a classic funnel that looked like it reached from the low clouds to half way to the hills on the north coast. It hovered then thinned out, expaned to a beautiful half cone.....then poof- three minutes later it was gone. My coworkers that saw it thought it was cool. Then again- a few think this weekend means that surf is up grab the board and hang ten (NOT!!!-storm waves mean strong breaks on the beach and wicked currents- not good for swimming or surfing). To me these are signs of unstable and nasty weather to come, even though I sorely hope I am wrong. We can only watch and wait. To all-good night and be safe. _________________________________________________________________Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.com/ |
| - Ok now it gets interesting |
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We have been following this storm since last Thursday. Every time someone
mentions the name Ivan I cringe.."Crazy Ivan" dealt us some nasty stuff
without even scoring a direct hit. My friends love to have fun at my
expense sometimes- always over prepared they say. Today I pulled out the
hurricane prep info for work and home for our staff. They weren't laughing.
Everyone focuses on the direct hit, but never discount the size of a storm
and what a close miss even by a hundred miles can bring (like 9" of rain in
4 hours thank you Ivan). I pray that all islands are safe this weekend- for
all of us, prepare in time and stay up to date. The forcast models vary so
much every time they update- it is up to that pressure ridge up north.
Watch and wait is the game now. If my cats start hiding in the closets-
I'll know we are in trouble- they so love to chase lizards and iguanas bad
weather is the only thing that brings them into the house- other than food.
Hope for fair winds and calm seas.......... _________________________________________________________________Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ |
| - perfect |
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Today the sky looks like a brilliant blue polished marble with the smallest
puffy white clouds skittering across the sky. Winds are steady at 22mph- a
perfect day to do laundry (yeech- but ya gotta do it). Still keeping an eye
on 99L hoping it will be nothing more than some light showers to keep the
dust down.
Take care y'all! _________________________________________________________________Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ |
| - clear so far |
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We have big pufy clouds, blue skies and winds cranking at about 22mph. So far it looks like a great day for windsurfing, but if Ann is getting some nasty weather now, Marcus is next ,,,,then us. I will definately be looking at the sat's today. Thanks for the heads up! I will check in later if anything here kicks up I will let y'all know.
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| - wake up |
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Well I did not need my alarm clock this morning. 8am sharp a clap of
thunder just about rolled me off the bed and sent my cats running to hide in
the closet. The downpour (horizontal rain) lasted about 30 minutes and
there were reports of a waterspout on the north coast. It rained hard
enough that I have water leaking in my front windows- and I thought all that
silicone I stuffed in the window frames worked, silly me. I got my video
camera out, but by then the rain had stopped. We are still getting peals of
thunder in the distance, but I hope it will pass by.
The cats are now all in the house lurking in the window sills, but still not
daring to go out yet. Guess I'll hold off cleaning up the muddy paw prints
decorating the house and see if it clears up. I touch base later if it gets
interesting again.
Take care _________________________________________________________________Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.com/ |
| - was that rain? |
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6:45 woke up to a strange noise that took me a minute to figure out- rain! A quick burst lasted about 2 minutes, but it was enough to wet the garden. On the way to work, the sun was out but I drove through a downpour. Again lasting about 2 minutes- this time it was enough to wash my dusty jeep. Now it is calm and beautiful- another flat ocean day. I just might have to go snorkleing today!
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| - the flying ants are out |
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Well- another calm day at work. Winds less than 12 mph,no current, flat
calm seas that are crystal clear for at least 80'- perfect snorkeling
weather to play with our parrot fish (not to mention sailing-wish I had been
off today). It is just a bit too still. The cats are still all in the
house and lurking for high ground. The one strange thing I learned here
from the "old timers" is that when you get the flying ants, rain will follow
withing 24 hours. Well- the critters are out and swarming my yard light.
Hopefully it will be a gentle shower just to quench the garden. The radar
shows nothing much and Ann and Marcus haven't checked in (yet). So I think
tonight will be a good night to sleep with a blanket (aka- cats). Take care
and enjoy the crescent moon.
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| - too calm |
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Woke up this morning to damp garden and the drive to work was on semi-dry roads. At work, the boat ride was over a dead calm lagoon- you could see the fish and barrel sponges lining the bottom. I see Ann & Marcus got some rain- hopefully gentle showers will settle the dust here. I am, however, keeping my eye on that wave that is passing T& T now. I have learned that one of my best indicators of weather that is coming- ALL my cats come in the house and hide high off the floor- just like they did this morning. Hmmmm...
Enjoy the day!
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| - We got lucky... |
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Well the wild weather from Tuesday passed us by, but when I turned on the
computer this morning and I saw the reports from Bonaire and Curacao, I just
about choked on my coffee. On the 10th,I was not there where the schooner
went down, but where I was at work, I swear the wind temp dropped about 20
degrees. On Tuesday when I looked to the east and saw a wall of white, with
the water in the lagoon looking like a pina colada in the blender at high
speed..all I could think of was get everyone out of the water and under
cover. Palm trees bend in half and visiblity dropped to 50 feet for about
10 minutes- then it passed- but what a wake up call. So when I saw the
reports today- out comes the cell phone and heads up calls went out.
We got lucky today. We had winds about 15-20mph- normal for us, but a
sullen grey sky with a persistant drizzle for about 2 hours- no high wind
gusts. A special thank you to Ann in Bonaire for keeping me posted today-
it really helped. I am one who prefers to prepare for the worst and have
nothing happen, then get caught. I got caught once on a 16' Hobie in Duck.
NC when I was 21- nasty squall- and I never wanted to do that again.
Some guests that I spoke with today about Tuesdays freak wind said it was
like watching a movie- either the Mummy or Hidalgo- that scene with the sand
storm. They said it was like a wall of sand, a roaring noise- and then it
was over. I would definately be happy living the rest of my life and never
see that again. Then again- I guess you do have to pay a small price for
living in paradise.
Hope the rest of the season is quiet. _________________________________________________________________Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ |
| Back to top |
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sun and clear skies, this morning at about 7 am we had a little bit of rain and after that the sky cleared up and we got a beautiful day. The ocean looks clear and quiet, (like a mirror) and has the beautiful turquoise and deep blue colors back again 
