The Weather Notebook: Reflections On A Hurricane

Reflections On A Hurricane
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Dave Thurlow, Host

Today on The Weather Notebook, some hurricane memories from writer Jay Allison in Massachusetts.

Hurricane Bob - August 1991
"Our last hurricane out here on Cape Cod, relatively mild for the breed, but still a no nonsense storm, had the companionable name of Bob.

Hurricane Bob hit in August 1991. The old timers say it wasn't anything compared to the '54 or the '38, but of course, it's their job to say that. They don't make hurricanes or anything else like they used to. But still there are some things worth remembering in the aftermath of Bob. The smell, for instance. It was the intense poignant smell of hundreds of broken trees, many of them soon to die, exhaling the sweet scent of life into the wet air. And there was a corollary effect from those cracked open uprooted trees, everyone got stung. Thousands of bees and hornets swarmed about, crazed and angry, lost, blaming us for their sudden homelessness.

None of this though, deterred the customary flurry of summer weddings, held that year on salt scorched lawns, beneath the browning trees. Love is not thwarted by strong winds. At one wedding we attended, during the vows, a lone yellow jacket became trapped in the bride's veil. It was a nervous moment for all who watched, a reminder of disaster in the midst of celebration, of sickness amid health, of the wild and uncontrollable, which like the weather itself, will always play a part in any plans we make."

That was writer, Jay Allison, who also happens to be The Weather Notebook's senior consulting producer, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Funding for the program comes from The National Science Foundation with additional support from Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive.