Position: 27.9N 61.6W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [290°] near 10 mph [17 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph [ 55 kph].
Wind Gusts: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1011 mb.

Currently about 360 miles [580 km] South-Southeast of Bermuda.

A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Bermuda.

This will probably be TS Gert in the morning, and it is on track for Bermuda.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Reading the BBC article, Cameron’s law: PM planning crackdown on rioters, the first thing that came to mind was ‘unintended consequences’. If you have rioting, isn’t it possible that some people wouldn’t be organizing looting, but might need an ambulance, the fire service, or other emergency responders? If someone dies because they can’t get help due to the communications shutdown, whose fault is that?

CNN is reporting that Cameron is talking to former NYC and LA chief of police, Bill Bratton, about dealing with gangs. I can’t imagine why, as Bratton is going to tell him that the police have to improve relations in the community and earn the respect of local people. Cameron wants to throw people in jail to prove he’s ‘tough on crime’.

The oddest thing I’ve encountered regarding the riots is this BBC video featuring historian David Starkey. The man claims that the riots prove that Enoch Powell‘s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech predicted these riots.

The guy should have been wearing white robes and a hood for his appearance. Even though the only common characteristic of the rioters was class, he still wants to make it a race war, with whites as the victims. He claimed that the white rioters were subsumed in ‘the black culture’ which is somehow connected to the Jamaican form of English. Apparently if the people in the communities spoke with a ‘Received Pronunciation’ [RP] accent, the riots wouldn’t have occurred, or some such general silliness.

Most readers would be unfamiliar with Enoch Powell, but he was George Wallace with an upper-class British [RP] accent. He was using the turmoil in the United States in 1968 to justify racial discrimination in Britain.

Position: 39.7N 55.5W [ 4PM CDT 2100 UTC].
Movement: East-Northeast [070°] near 22 mph [35 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Wind Gusts: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 80 miles [130 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1004 mb.

Currently about 730 miles [1170 km] Northeast of Bermuda.

Franklin is in the North Atlantic, due East of New Jersey and due South of the island of Newfoundland. It will not approach land and the water is getting colder, so it will fade out of existence.

I won’t be following Franklin, but there are three Invests in the Atlantic which I’m watching. One of them might pose a threat in the next few days. The most recent years have been very strange.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]