Redstate

By Mark Kilmer Posted in User Blogs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

As part of my Sunday Morning Talk Show Review today, I wrote about Dr. Max Mayfield's appearance on CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:

MAX MAYFIELD ON FTN.  The director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Max Mayfield, was host Schieffer's final guest.  Schieffer asked Mayfield if global warming were causing these hurricanes and intensifying them.  Mayfield said that hurricanes were cyclical, and he pulled out a graph showing that there were many hurricanes in the '50s and '60s, less in the '70s and '80s, and more in the '90s and this decade.  The hurricanes "can be explained without invoking global warming."

He said we could be in the current cycle for another decade, and we should expect another hurricane or two this season.

Schieffer asked him if this were the busiest year for hurricanes, and Mayfield said that there were 19 named storms in 1995.  If they use the entire alphabet for named storms this year, they'll move to the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc.

Schieffer asked him if this many storms had hit land, and Mayfield agreed that more storms have "impacted the United States and the Caribbean than in recent memory.

The difficulties, he said, were in determining the intensity of the storms and where they will strike land.

-- Parenthetically, I should add that Dr. Mayfield's explanation of the cyclical nature of hurricanes and their not being caused by global warming is disputed by no less an authority than than <s>meteorologist/climatologist</s&gt pop singer/Hollywood actress Barbara Streisand.  Appearing on ABC's Primetime Thursday show recently, Ms. Streisand noted:

We are in a global warming emergency state and these storms are going to become more frequent, more intense, there could be more droughts, dust bowls, you know it's amazing to hear these facts, I mean, the Andes have no ice caps on the mountains in winter. The glaciers are melting. I mean, for the United States not to be part of the Kyoto treaty is unforgivable.

Shut up and sing songs, Babs --

And now, Matt Drudge has picked up on Streisand's weather forecasts and adds a few facts Babs seemed not to recall:

But Sawyer did not remind Streisand that a Category 5 hurricane struck the Bahamas with 160 mph winds -- when the singer was five years old, in 1947!

And when Streisand was 8 years old, a Cat 5 hurricane -- named "Dog" -- packing 185 mph churned-away in the Atlantic.

When she was 9, a Cat 5 storm named "Easy" ripped the seas with 160 mph sustained winds.

Streisand was 13 years old when "Janet" hit Mexico with 150 mph winds.

Streisand was celebrating her sweet sixteen as "Cleo" formed with 140 mph.

At 18, Streisand read news about "Donna" AND "Ethel" -- both storms carried 140 mph winds and formed 9 days apart in 1960!

One year later, when Streisand was 19, it happened again: Two Category 5 storms scared the world: "Carla" and "Hattie!"

"Carla" maxed out at 175 mph winds the year Streisand made her television debut on "The Jack Paar Show."

And who could forget Hurricane "Camille" -- which smashed into the United States with 190 mph, just as "Funny Girl" garners eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture and one for Barbra as Best Actress.

In 1985, she sang the aptly named song Send in the Clowns.  Hurricane Gloria reached Category 4 that year.