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Hurricanes Do Come to Baja California Sur
Yes,
once again tis the season to turn our weather eye south, to the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) and watch tropical waves and seas sureface temperaures. These are the compoents that bring tropical cyclones to Baja Sur. When these storms come, how do you know what is really
happening? (see Hurricane History in Baja)
You want the truth about what is going on, sign up for our tropical updates
and look for real time reporting from sites like ours with real time reporting from others that are actually in
the Hurricane affected areas.
Yes, some tropical cyclone might actually arrive and still have the power
of a hurricane or tropical storm , but strangers to Baja need to realize
that Baja California, Mexico, like a lot of other places in the world is
a tropical area where tropical cyclones (hurricanes) can and do come.
That is not to say all hurricanes are as devastating as Karina that hit
the United States or Wilma that devastated Cancun, Mexico so badly in
recent years. Most of the time these hurricanes bring heavy rains that
can cause flooding, strong winds, and some destruction to a few specific
areas. They are generally not that devastating and in many case like
Hurricane John of last year that didn’t even make a hiccup in Cabo it
did do some serious damage to the East Cape area and Mulege in the
northern part of Baja California Sur.
The
point being, that even though the international media loves to
sensationalize the news whether it is a natural disaster, economic
situations, political conflict or a war – it does not mean that is the
truth. You can read my Hurricane
Hysteria article from last year concerning this problem of what is
true and what is news.
Unfortunately news services like CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Weather Channel, Televisa or the BBC and many others around the world pick up their information via freelance writers, photo and video journalist that will make things look worse than they really are just to get their material purchased by these new services. These International news services will also get part of a story and add their opinions to it, leaving you without really knowing what the facts are.
I believe the best way these days, thanks to the Internet, is for people
to look for real time reporting from sources
that
are actually there. For example during Henriette a few weeks ago we had
great real time reports on our Baja Blog, from many different locations
all over Baja that really let people know around the world what was
true. I want to personally thank all of those that did provide these
incredibly valuable reports and invite them and others to do the same
again. We received a lot of praise for our coverage from those that have
homes, boats and family or friends down here at that time helping put
them at ease. The praise should go to those that really helped us
provide this much more accurate information.
There may be other sites as well offering real time reports and while in
many cases they may be amateur weather people, I believe they offer more
truth than relying on these International and National news services
that are just looking to get more viewers or readers. Sorry if I offend
you Big Boys and Girls but I’m tired of my phone ringing off the hook
and answering emails because people saw on the television that Cabo is
being evacuated and 7500 tourist are stranded. The truth is there was
never any evacuation and the only reason people were “stranded” was
because the Mexican Government closed the airport and marine ports as a
responsible safety measure.
We,
at www.BajaInsider.com, take this responsibility very serious. We need
to warn people of possible danger but do not want to be crying “the sky
is falling” when it is not. It is a difficult task to forecast and
report on these storms accurately, while the national Hurricane center
and others do a great job of trying to make these forecasts there are of
course no guarantees when it comes to Mother Nature. This is why we fell
real time reporting is so valuable.
We will continue to provide as much real information, photos and videos
as much as we can because we know more and more people are relying on us
to do so and we take this job very seriously. Just ask Tom Zyber, my
partner and master of the web. He gets up in the middle of the night to
publish the latest updates, videos and photos while many times he would
rather just stay in bed.
Thank you once again for reading
www.BajaInsider.com and most importantly thank you to those for
helping us with these real time reports.