Ernesto Mania

It's that time of year again. The time of year when TV people cling to palm trees, oil prices arbitrarily climb higher based on fear, and panic sweeps the coastlines. Yes, it's hurricane season!

Much to the dismay of television news, which has been wishcasting a category 3 strike in NYC this year, it has been a relatively calm season so far - especially compared to last year's hurricane season from hell. But things are starting to heat up down in the land of coconut rum and Red Stripe.

The first "contender" of the year is this pest named Ernesto. So far it's been giving forecasters fits because it's track and intensity hasn't followed the predictions. Originally it was forecast to head toward Texas, then New Orleans, then Destin (which frustrated the heck out of me), and now toward Tampa. The way the ridge over Florida is breaking down, I wouldn't be surprised to see it miss the US completely to the east.

The storm only briefly reached hurricane strength this morning before weakening considerably due to land interaction. The tropical storm is currently dropping heavy rain on Haiti and Cuba. Who knows where it will go tomorrow. You know you're dealing with an unpredictable storm when one of yesterday's computer models was on crack (it initialized wrong and contained bad data), yet it turned out to be correct for today. We'll just have to see what happens, but so far every Hurricane Center advisory for this storm has seemed to contain surprises.