1.
Surface weather analysis
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Surface weather analysis is a special type of weather map that provides a view of weather elements over a geographical area at a specified time based on information from ground-based weather stations. The first weather maps in the 19th century were drawn well after the fact to help devise a theory on storm systems, use of surface analyses began first in the United States, spreading worldwide during the 1870s. Use of the Norwegian cyclone model for frontal analysis began in the late 1910s across Europe, surface weather analyses have special symbols that show frontal systems, cloud cover, precipitation, or other important information. For example, an H may represent high pressure, implying clear skies, an L, on the other hand, may represent low pressure, which frequently accompanies precipitation. Various symbols are used not just for frontal zones and other surface boundaries on weather maps, areas of precipitation help determine the frontal type and location. The use of charts in a modern sense began in the middle portion of the 19th century in order to devise a theory on storm systems. The development of a network by 1845 made it possible to gather weather information from multiple distant locations quickly enough to preserve its value for real-time applications. The Smithsonian Institution developed its network of observers over much of the central, the U. S. Army Signal Corps inherited this network between 1870 and 1874 by an act of Congress, and expanded it to the west coast soon afterwards. The weather data was at first less useful as a result of the different times at which weather observations were made, the first attempts at time standardization took hold in Great Britain by 1855. The entire United States did not finally come under the influence of time zones until 1905, other countries followed the lead of the United States in taking simultaneous weather observations, starting in 1873. Other countries then began preparing surface analyses, the use of frontal zones on weather maps did not appear until the introduction of the Norwegian cyclone model in the late 1910s, despite Loomis earlier attempt at a similar notion in 1841. Since the leading edge of air mass changes bore resemblance to the fronts of World War I. The effort to automate map plotting began in the United States in 1969, hong Kong completed their process of automated surface plotting by 1987. In the United States, this development was achieved when Intergraph workstations were replaced by n-AWIPS workstations, recent advances in both the fields of meteorology and geographic information systems have made it possible to devise finely tailored weather maps. Weather information can quickly be matched to relevant geographical detail, for instance, icing conditions can be mapped onto the road network. This will likely continue to lead to changes in the way surface analyses are created and displayed over the several years. The pressureNET project is an attempt to gather surface pressure data using smartphones. When analyzing a weather map, a model is plotted at each point of observation
2.
South Florida
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South Florida is a region of the U. S. state of Florida, comprising the southernmost part of the state. It is one of Floridas three most common directional regions, the others being Central Florida and North Florida and it includes the populous Miami metropolitan area, the Florida Keys, and other localities. South Florida is the part of the continental United States with a tropical climate. As with all regions, South Florida has no official boundaries or status and is defined differently by different sources. A2007 study of Floridas regions by Ary Lamme and Raymond K. Oldakowski found that Floridians surveyed identified South Florida as comprising the southernmost sections of peninsular Florida and that area includes the Miami metropolitan area, the Florida Keys, and the interior region known as the Glades. Additionally, Southwest Florida, representing the states southern Gulf Coast, has emerged as a vernacular region. Some respondents from as far northwest as the southern Tampa Bay area identified their region as being in South Florida rather than Southwest or Central Florida, some entities alternately designate this region South Florida. Its definition includes much of the territory as Lamme and Oldakowskis report as well as additional area. It includes Monroe County and the three counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, as well as the three Treasure Coast counties of Indian River, St. Lucie, and Martin to the north. The demographics of South Florida residents can be segmented as following, the Miami accent is a regional accent of the American English dialect spoken in South Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties. The accent was born in central Miami, but has expanded to much of South Florida in the past few decades, the Miami accent is most prevalent in younger, native south Floridians. Lamme and Oldakowski identify several demographic, political, and cultural elements that characterize South Florida, politically, South Florida is more liberal than the rest of the state. While less than 10% of people in either North or Central Florida felt their area was liberal, 38% characterized the area as conservative, 26% as moderate. The economy in South Florida is very similar to that in Central Florida, compared to the more diversified economy in North Florida, tourism is by far the most significant industry in South and Central Florida, with a much smaller but vibrant agricultural industry. Lamme and Oldakowskis survey also found some cultural indicators distinguishing South Florida, South Florida is the only region of the state where ethnic foods are as popular as general American cuisine. Additionally, while there was little variation for most styles of music. Country was significantly less popular in South Florida than in North or Central Florida, the Anthony J. Catanese Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University notes the unusual growth pattern of South Florida. The developed area is urbanized and increasingly continuous and decentralized
3.
Bar (unit)
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The bar is a metric unit of pressure, but is not approved as part of the International System of Units. It is defined as equal to 100000 Pa, which is slightly less than the current average atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea level. The bar and the millibar were introduced by the Norwegian meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes, use of the bar is deprecated by some professional bodies in some fields. The International Astronomical Union also lists it under Non-SI units and symbols whose continued use is deprecated, as of 2004, the bar is legally recognized in countries of the European Union. Units derived from the bar include the megabar, kilobar, decibar, centibar, the notation bar, though deprecated by various bodies, represents gauge pressure, i. e. pressure in bars above ambient or atmospheric pressure. The bar is defined using the SI derived unit, pascal,1 bar ≡100000 Pa. Thus,1 bar is equal to,100 kPa 1×105 N/m21000000 Ba, notes,1 millibar =1 one-thousandth bar, or 1×10−3 bar 1 millibar =1 hectopascal. The word bar has its origin in the Greek word βάρος, the units official symbol is bar, the earlier symbol b is now deprecated and conflicts with the use of b denoting the unit barn, but it is still encountered, especially as mb to denote the millibar. Between 1793 and 1795, the bar was used for a unit of weight in an early version of the metric system. Atmospheric air pressure is given in millibars where standard sea level pressure is defined as 1013 mbar,101.3,1.013 bar. Despite the millibar not being an SI unit, meteorologists and weather reporters worldwide have long measured air pressure in millibars as the values are convenient, for example, the weather office of Environment Canada uses kilopascals and hectopascals on their weather maps. In contrast, Americans are familiar with the use of the millibar in US reports of hurricanes, in fresh water, there is an approximate numerical equivalence between the change in pressure in decibars and the change in depth from the water surface in metres. Specifically, an increase of 1 decibar occurs for every 1.019716 m increase in depth, in sea water with respect to the gravity variation, the latitude and the geopotential anomaly the pressure can be converted into meters depth according to an empirical formula. As a result, decibars are commonly used in oceanography, many engineers worldwide use the bar as a unit of pressure because, in much of their work, using pascals would involve using very large numbers. In the automotive field, turbocharger boost is often described in bars outside the USA), unicode has characters for mb and bar, but they exist only for compatibility with legacy Asian encodings and are not intended to be used in new documents. The kilobar, equivalent to 100 MPa, is used in geological systems. Bar and bara are sometimes used to indicate absolute pressures and bar and this usage is deprecated and fuller descriptions such as gauge pressure of 2 bar or 2 bar gauge are recommended.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL. Non-SI units accepted for use with the SI
4.
Pascal (unit)
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The pascal is the SI derived unit of pressure used to quantify internal pressure, stress, Youngs modulus and ultimate tensile strength. It is defined as one newton per square meter and it is named after the French polymath Blaise Pascal. Common multiple units of the pascal are the hectopascal which is equal to one millibar, the unit of measurement called standard atmosphere is defined as 101,325 Pa and approximates to the average pressure at sea-level at the latitude 45° N. Meteorological reports typically state atmospheric pressure in hectopascals, the unit is named after Blaise Pascal, noted for his contributions to hydrodynamics and hydrostatics, and experiments with a barometer. The name pascal was adopted for the SI unit newton per square metre by the 14th General Conference on Weights, one pascal is the pressure exerted by a force of magnitude one newton perpendicularly upon an area of one square metre. The unit of measurement called atmosphere or standard atmosphere is 101325 Pa and this value is often used as a reference pressure and specified as such in some national and international standards, such as ISO2787, ISO2533 and ISO5024. In contrast, IUPAC recommends the use of 100 kPa as a standard pressure when reporting the properties of substances, geophysicists use the gigapascal in measuring or calculating tectonic stresses and pressures within the Earth. Medical elastography measures tissue stiffness non-invasively with ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging, in materials science and engineering, the pascal measures the stiffness, tensile strength and compressive strength of materials. In engineering use, because the pascal represents a small quantity. The pascal is also equivalent to the SI unit of energy density and this applies not only to the thermodynamics of pressurised gases, but also to the energy density of electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields. In measurements of sound pressure, or loudness of sound, one pascal is equal to 94 decibels SPL, the quietest sound a human can hear, known as the threshold of hearing, is 0 dB SPL, or 20 µPa. The airtightness of buildings is measured at 50 Pa, the units of atmospheric pressure commonly used in meteorology were formerly the bar, which was close to the average air pressure on Earth, and the millibar. Since the introduction of SI units, meteorologists generally measure pressures in hectopascals unit, exceptions include Canada and Portugal, which use kilopascals. In many other fields of science, the SI is preferred, many countries also use the millibar or hectopascal to give aviation altimeter settings. In practically all fields, the kilopascal is used instead. Centimetre of water Metric prefix Orders of magnitude Pascals law
5.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
6.
Turks and Caicos Islands
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They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population is 31,458 as of 2012 of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands lie southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola and the other Antilles archipelago islands. Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island about 1,042 kilometres east-southeast of Miami, the islands have a total land area of 430 square kilometres. The first recorded European sighting of the now known as the Turks. In the subsequent centuries, the islands were claimed by several European powers with the British Empire eventually gaining control, for many years the islands were governed indirectly through Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the islands received their own governor, in August 2009, the United Kingdom suspended the Turks and Caicos Islands self-government following allegations of ministerial corruption. Home rule was restored in the islands after the November 2012 elections, the Turks and Caicos Islands are named after the Turks cap cactus, and the Lucayan term caya hico, meaning string of islands. The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, who crossed over from Hispaniola sometime from AD500 to 800, together with Taino who migrated from Cuba to the southern Bahamas around the same time, these people developed as the Lucayan. Around 1200, the Turks and Caicos Islands were resettled by Classical Taínos from Hispaniola, the southern Bahama Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands were completely depopulated by about 1513, and remained so until the 17th century. The first European documented to sight the islands was Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the islands passed from Spanish, to French, to British control, but none of the three powers ever established any settlements. Bermudian salt collectors settled the Turks Islands around 1680, for several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts. From 1765–1783, the islands were under French occupation, and again after the French captured the archipelago in 1783, after the American War of Independence, many Loyalists fled to British Caribbean colonies, in 1783, they were the first settlers on the Caicos Islands. They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry, in 1799, both the Turks and the Caicos island groups were annexed by Britain as part of the Bahamas. The processing of sea salt was developed as an important export product from the West Indies. Salt continued to be an export product into the nineteenth century. In 1807, Britain prohibited the trade and, in 1833. British ships sometimes intercepted slave traders in the Caribbean, and some ships were wrecked off the coast of these islands, in 1837, the Esperanza, a Portuguese slaver, was wrecked off East Caicos, one of the larger islands. While the crew and 220 captive Africans survived the shipwreck,18 Africans died before the survivors were taken to Nassau, Africans from this ship may have been among the 189 liberated Africans whom the British colonists settled in the Turks and Caicos from 1833 to 1840
7.
The Bahamas
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The Bahamas, known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an archipelagic state within the Lucayan Archipelago. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence, the designation of the Bahamas can refer either to the country or to the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. As stated in the mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas is the site of Columbus first landfall in the New World in 1492. At that time, the islands were inhabited by the Lucayan, although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera, the Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas, they brought their slaves with them, Africans constituted the majority of the population from this period. Slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834, Today the descendants of slaves and free Africans make up nearly 90% of the population, issues related to the slavery years are part of society. The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch, in terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas, with an economy based on tourism and finance. The name Bahamas is derived from either the Taino ba ha ma, alternatively, it may originate from Guanahani, a local name of unclear meaning. In English, the Bahamas is one of two countries whose self-standing short name begins with the word the, along with The Gambia. Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 11th century and they came to be known as the Lucayan people. An estimated 30,000 Lucayan inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus arrival in 1492, Columbuss first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador. Some researchers believe this site to be present-day San Salvador Island, an alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbuss log. Evidence in support of this remains inconclusive, on the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayan and exchanged goods with them. The Spanish forced much of the Lucayan population to Hispaniola for use as forced labour, the slaves suffered from harsh conditions and most died from contracting diseases to which they had no immunity, half of the Taino died from smallpox alone. The population of the Bahamas was severely diminished, in 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers, led by William Sayle, migrated from Bermuda. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera—the name derives from the Greek word for freedom and they later settled New Providence, naming it Sayles Island after one of their leaders. To survive, the settlers salvaged goods from wrecks, in 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America
8.
Florida
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Florida /ˈflɒrᵻdə/ is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U. S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States, the Miami metropolitan area is Floridas most populous urban area. The city of Tallahassee is the state capital, much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south, the American alligator, American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatee can be found in the Everglades National Park. It was a location of the Seminole Wars against the Native Americans. Today, Florida is distinctive for its large Cuban expatriate community and high population growth, the states economy relies mainly on tourism, agriculture, and transportation, which developed in the late 19th century. Florida is also renowned for amusement parks, orange crops, the Kennedy Space Center, Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and continues to attract celebrities and athletes. It is internationally known for golf, tennis, auto racing, by the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee, the Timucua, the Ais, the Tocobaga, the Calusa and the Tequesta. Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited and settled by Europeans, the earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León spotted and landed on the peninsula on April 2,1513 and he named the region La Florida. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is a myth, in May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described seeing a wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet. Very soon, many smokes appeared along the whole coast, billowing against the sky, the Spanish introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language, and more to Florida. Both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success, in 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was abandoned by 1561. Spain maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the tribes to Christianity. The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English settlements to the north, the English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times. Florida attracted numerous Africans and African-Americans from adjacent British colonies who sought freedom from slavery, in 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano established Fort Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose near St
9.
Alabama
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Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 24th-most populous of the U. S. states. At nearly 1,500 miles, Alabama has one of the nations longest navigable inland waterways, Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is also known as the Heart of Dixie and the Cotton State, the state tree is the longleaf pine, and the state flower is the camellia. The largest city by population is Birmingham, which has long been the most industrialized city, the oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many states in the southern U. S. suffered economic hardship, like other southern states, Alabama legislators disenfranchised African Americans and many poor whites at the turn of the century. Following World War II, Alabama grew as the economy changed from one primarily based on agriculture to one with diversified interests. The state economy in the 21st century is based on management, automotive, finance, manufacturing, aerospace, mineral extraction, healthcare, education, retail, in the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo. The word Alabama is believed to have come from the Alabama language, the words spelling varies significantly among historical sources. As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, other spellings of the name have included Alibamu, Alabamo, Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, Allibamou. Sources disagree on the words meaning, some scholars suggest the word comes from the Choctaw alba and amo. The meaning may have been clearers of the thicket or herb gatherers, the state has numerous place names of Native American origin. However, there are no correspondingly similar words in the Alabama language, an 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed it meant Here We Rest. This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek, experts in the Muskogean languages have not found any evidence to support such a translation. Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before the advent of European colonization, trade with the northeastern tribes by the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period and continued until European contact. The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 AD, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. This is the second-largest complex of the classic Middle Mississippian era, after Cahokia in present-day Illinois, Analysis of artifacts from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no links to Mesoamerican culture
10.
Mississippi
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Mississippi /ˌmɪsᵻˈsɪpi/ is a state in the southern region of the United States, with part of its southern border formed by the Gulf of Mexico. Its western border is formed by the Mississippi River, the state has a population of approximately 3 million. It is the 32nd most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States, located in the center of the state, Jackson is the state capital and largest city, with a population of approximately 175,000 people. The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, before the American Civil War, most development in the state was along riverfronts, where slaves worked on cotton plantations. After the war, the bottomlands to the interior were cleared, by the end of the 19th century, African Americans made up two-thirds of the Deltas property owners, but timber and railroad companies acquired much of the land after a financial crisis. Clearing altered the Deltas ecology, increasing the severity of flooding along the Mississippi, much land is now held by agribusinesses. The states catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States, since the 1930s and the Great Migration, Mississippi has been majority white, albeit with the highest percentage of black residents of any U. S. state. From the early 19th century to the 1930s, its residents were mostly black, whites retained political power through Jim Crow laws. In 2010, 37% of Mississippians were African Americans, the highest percentage of African Americans in any U. S. state, since gaining enforcement of their voting franchise in the late 1960s, most African Americans support Democratic candidates in local, state and national elections. Conservative whites have shifted to the Republican Party, African Americans are a majority in many counties of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, an area of historic settlement during the plantation era. Since 2011 Mississippi has been ranked as the most religious state in the country, the states name is derived from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary. Settlers named it after the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi, in addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains,807 feet above sea level. The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast, the states mean elevation is 300 feet above sea level. Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain, the coastal plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills. The Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast have somewhat higher elevations, yellow-brown loess soil is found in the western parts of the state. The northeast is a region of black earth that extends into the Alabama Black Belt. The coastline includes large bays at Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, the northwest remainder of the state consists of the Mississippi Delta, a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain
11.
Louisiana
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Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Louisiana is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States and its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the state in the U. S. with political subdivisions termed parishes. The largest parish by population is East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana is bordered by Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, Texas to the west, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Much of the lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh. These contain a rich southern biota, typical examples include birds such as ibis, there are also many species of tree frogs, and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a process in the landscape. These support a large number of plant species, including many species of orchids. Louisiana has more Native American tribes than any other state, including four that are federally recognized, ten that are state recognized. Before the American purchase of the territory in 1803, the current Louisiana State had been both a French colony and for a period, a Spanish one. In addition, colonists imported numerous African people as slaves in the 18th century, many came from peoples of the same region of West Africa, thus concentrating their culture. Louisiana was named after Louis XIV, King of France from 1643 to 1715, when René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane. The suffix -ana is a Latin suffix that can refer to information relating to an individual, subject. Thus, roughly, Louis + ana carries the idea of related to Louis, the Gulf of Mexico did not exist 250 million years ago when there was but one supercontinent, Pangea. As Pangea split apart, the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico opened, Louisiana slowly developed, over millions of years, from water into land, and from north to south. The oldest rocks are exposed in the north, in such as the Kisatchie National Forest. The oldest rocks date back to the early Tertiary Era, some 60 million years ago, the history of the formation of these rocks can be found in D. Spearings Roadside Geology of Louisiana. The sediments were carried north to south by the Mississippi River
12.
1926 Atlantic hurricane season
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The 1926 Atlantic hurricane season featured the highest number of major hurricanes at the time. At least eleven tropical cyclones developed during the season, all of which intensified into a tropical storm, six hurricanes deepened into a major hurricane, which is Category 3 or higher on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. The first system, the Nassau hurricane, developed near the Lesser Antilles on July 22, moving west-northwest for much of its duration, the storm struck or brush several islands of the Lesser and Greater Antilles. However, the Bahamas later received greater impact, at least 287 deaths and $7.85 million in damage was attributed to this hurricane. The next cyclone primarily effected mariners in and around the The Maritimes of Canada, with boating accidents, in late August, the third hurricane brought widespread impact to the Gulf Coast of the United States, especially Louisiana. Crops and buildings suffered $6 million in damage and there were 25 people killed, the next three storms left relatively little to no damage on land. The strongest and most damaging storm of the season was Hurricane Seven, peaking as a Category 4 hurricane, the hurricane struck the Bahamas and Florida at a slightly weaker intensity. Much of the Miami metropolitan area was devastated by the storm, inland, a storm surge on Lake Okeechobee flooded towns such as Clewiston and Moore Haven. The storm was a factor in ending the Florida land boom of the 1920s, overall, the Miami hurricane resulted in at least 372 deaths and $125 million in damage. However, adjusted for wealth normalization in 2010, the toll would be $164.8 billion – far higher than Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The eight, ninth, and eleventh tropical cyclones left only minor or not impact on land, however, the tenth storm, nicknamed the Havana-Bermuda, devastated Cuba, the Bahamas, and ships in the vicinity of Bermuda. At least 709 deaths were linked to the system, with 600 in Cuba alone, damage to towns on the island exceeded $100 million. Collectively, the storms of this season left over $267.4 million in damage, the season featured twelve named storms and eight of which strengthened into hurricanes. With six of those storms reaching major hurricane intensity, this was the highest number in a season on record, until being tied in 1933 and 1950 and then being surpassed in 1961. There were several cyclones that brought devastating effects, including the Nassau hurricane, the Louisiana hurricane, the Miami hurricane, collectively, the storms of this season left over $267.4 million in damage and at least 1,554 fatalities. Tropical cyclogenesis began on July 22 with Nassau hurricane, followed by the storm on July 29. Only one system, the Louisiana hurricane, developed in the month of August, September was much more active, featuring the forth, fifth, six, seventh, and eighth storms of the season. On September 17, four tropical cyclones existed simultaneously in the Atlantic Ocean, in October, the ninth and tenth storms formed
13.
Tropical cyclone
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Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane, typhoon /taɪˈfuːn/, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface and this energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as noreasters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of momentum imparted by the Earths rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they form within 5° of the equator. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km in diameter, Tropical refers to the geographical origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively over tropical seas. Cyclone refers to their nature, with wind blowing counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. The opposite direction of circulation is due to the Coriolis effect, in addition to strong winds and rain, tropical cyclones are capable of generating high waves, damaging storm surge, and tornadoes. They typically weaken rapidly over land where they are cut off from their energy source. For this reason, coastal regions are vulnerable to damage from a tropical cyclone as compared to inland regions. Heavy rains, however, can cause significant flooding inland, though their effects on human populations are often devastating, tropical cyclones can relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes. Tropical cyclones are areas of low pressure in the troposphere. On Earth, the pressures recorded at the centers of tropical cyclones are among the lowest ever observed at sea level, the environment near the center of tropical cyclones is warmer than the surroundings at all altitudes, thus they are characterized as warm core systems. The near-surface wind field of a cyclone is characterized by air rotating rapidly around a center of circulation while also flowing radially inwards. At the outer edge of the storm, air may be nearly calm, however, due to the Earths rotation, as air flows radially inward, it begins to rotate cyclonically in order to conserve angular momentum. At an inner radius, air begins to ascend to the top of the troposphere and this radius is typically coincident with the inner radius of the eyewall, and has the strongest near-surface winds of the storm, consequently, it is known as the radius of maximum winds. Once aloft, air flows away from the center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds
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Miami metropolitan area
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The Miami metropolitan area, also known as the Greater Miami Area or South Florida, is the 67th largest metropolitan area in the world and the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. It is entirely located in the portion of the U. S. State of Florida. Its land area is 6,137 sq. mi, the three counties together have principal cities including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton. Besides its association with the South Florida region, is also synonymous with an area known collectively as the Gold Coast. This includes the four counties of Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River. The Miami metropolitan statistical area is longer than any other urbanized area in the United States except for the New York metropolitan area and it was the eighth most densely populated urbanized area in the United States in the 2000 census. As of the 2000 census, the area had a land area of 1,116 square miles, with a population of 4,919,036. Miami and Hialeah had population densities of more than 10,000 per square mile, the Miami Urbanized Area was the fourth largest urbanized area in the United States in the 2010 census. The Miami metropolitan area includes several urban clusters as of the 2000 Census which are not part of the Miami Urbanized Area. The following is a list of the twenty largest cities in the Miami metropolitan area as ranked by population, the Miami area is a very diverse community with a large proportion of foreign-born residents, in large part due to its proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean. Another large factor are residents who were former snowbirds from the Northeast and, to a lesser extent, politically speaking, the region is heavily Democratic. Broward County is the second most reliably Democratic county in the state, as of the 2005 American Community Survey,5,334,685 people lived in the metropolis. The Miami area has a very large Jewish community,10. 2% of the population was Jewish in the 2000 Census, There is also a sizable Muslim community numbering at 70,000. Population, As of the 2010 U. S. Census,2.8 million were females and 2.6 million were males. The median age was 38.6 years, 24% of the population were under 18 years and 15% were 65 years and older. There were 2,097,626 households, and 1,378,108 families residing in the Miami metropolitan area, among people at least five years old living in the region in 2005, 52% spoke English at home while 48% spoke some other language at home. Of those speaking a language other than English at home, 78% spoke Spanish, households and families, There were 2,338,450 households, The average household size was 2.6 people. Families made up 65% of the households in the Miami area and this figure includes both married-couple families and other families
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Gulf Coast of the United States
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The Gulf Coast of the United States is the coastline along which the Southern United States meets the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, the economy of the Gulf Coast area is dominated by industries related to energy, petrochemicals, fishing, aerospace, agriculture, and tourism. The Gulf Coast is made of many inlets, bays, the coast is also intersected by numerous rivers, the largest of which is the Mississippi River. Much of the land along the Gulf Coast is, or was and these landforms protect numerous bays and inlets providing as a barrier to oncoming waves. The central part of the Gulf Coast, from eastern Texas through Louisiana, the eastern part of the Gulf Coast, predominantly Florida, is dotted with many bays and inlets. The Gulf Coast climate is humid subtropical for the most part, although the tip of Florida. Much of the year is warm to hot along the Gulf Coast, while the 3 winters months bring periods of cool, the area is vulnerable to hurricanes as well as floods and severe thunderstorms. Tornadoes are infrequent at the coast but do occur, however the frequency at which they occur in inland portions of Gulf Coast states is much greater. Earthquakes are extremely rare to the area, but a surprising 6.0 earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico on September 10,2006, the Gulf Coast is a major center of economic activity. The marshlands along the Louisiana and Texas coasts provide breeding grounds, the Port of South Louisiana and the Port of Houston are two of the ten busiest ports in the world by cargo volume. As of 2004, seven of the top ten busiest ports in the U. S. are on the Gulf Coast. The discovery of oil and gas deposits along the coast and offshore, the coast contains nearly 4,000 oil platforms. S. Before Europeans arrived in the region, the region was home to several kingdoms that had extensive trade networks with empires such as the Aztecs. Shark and alligator teeth and shells from the Gulf have been found as far north as Ohio, the first Europeans to settle the Gulf Coast were primarily the French and the Spanish. The Louisiana Purchase and the Texas Revolution made the Gulf Coast a part of the United States during the first half of the 19th century. As the U. S. population continued to expand its frontiers westward, the development of sugar and cotton production allowed the South to prosper. Two major events were turning points in the history of the Gulf Coast region. The first was the American Civil War, which caused damage to some economic sectors in the South
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Inflation
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In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time resulting in a loss of value of currency. When the price rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange. A chief measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index. The opposite of inflation is deflation, Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by a growth of the money supply. However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation, some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like pushing on a string. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied, low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth. Today, most economists favor a low and steady rate of inflation, the task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Rapid increases in quantity of the money or in the money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history. By diluting the gold with other metals, the government could issue more coins without also needing to increase the amount of used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way and this practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and these goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Song Dynasty China introduced the practice of printing paper money in order to create fiat currency, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the government spent a great deal of money fighting costly wars, and reacted by printing more money, leading to inflation. Fearing the inflation that plagued the Yuan dynasty, the Ming Dynasty initially rejected the use of paper money, historically, large infusions of gold or silver into an economy also led to inflation. This was largely caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World into Habsburg Spain. The silver spread throughout a previously cash-starved Europe and caused widespread inflation, demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with European population growth after depopulation caused by the Black Death pandemic
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Great Depression
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The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the economy can decline. The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4,1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s, however, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%, unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries, farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time, john D. Rockefeller said These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come, prosperity has always returned and will again. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April and this was still almost 30% below the peak of September 1929. Together, government and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom had suffered losses in the stock market the previous year. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S, by mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928, prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930
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Tropical cyclogenesis
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Tropical cyclogenesis is the development and strengthening of a tropical cyclone in the atmosphere. The mechanisms through which tropical cyclogenesis occurs are distinctly different from those through which mid-latitude cyclogenesis occurs, tropical cyclogenesis involves the development of a warm-core cyclone, due to significant convection in a favorable atmospheric environment. Tropical cyclones tend to develop during the summer, but have been noted in every month in most basins. Climate cycles such as ENSO and the Madden–Julian oscillation modulate the timing, there is a limit on tropical cyclone intensity which is strongly related to the water temperatures along its path. An average of 86 tropical cyclones of tropical storm intensity form annually worldwide, of those,47 reach hurricane/typhoon strength, and 20 become intense tropical cyclones. While these conditions are necessary for tropical cyclone formation, they do not guarantee that a tropical cyclone will form. Normally, a temperature of 26.5 °C spanning through at least a 50-metre depth is considered the minimum to maintain the special mesocyclone that is the tropical cyclone. These warm waters are needed to maintain the core that fuels tropical systems. This value is well above 16.1 °C, the average surface temperature of the oceans. Tropical cyclones are known to even when normal conditions are not met. In a moist atmosphere, this rate is 6.5 °C/km, while in an atmosphere with less than 100% relative humidity. Under a cold cyclone,500 hPa temperatures can fall as low as −30 °C and this also explains why moisture in the mid-levels of the troposphere, roughly at the 500 hPa level, is normally a requirement for development. However, when dry air is found at the same height, at heights near the tropopause, the 30-year average temperature was −77 °C. A recent example of a cyclone that maintained itself over cooler waters was Epsilon of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Emanuels model is called the maximum intensity, or MPI. Maps created from this equation show regions where tropical storm and hurricane formation is possible and this does not take into account vertical wind shear. A minimum distance of 500 km from the equator is normally needed for tropical cyclogenesis, the Coriolis force imparts rotation on the flow and arises as winds begin to flow in toward the lower pressure created by the pre-existing disturbance. The existence of a significant Coriolis force allows the developing vortex to achieve gradient wind balance, even with perfect upper level conditions and the required atmospheric instability, the lack of a surface focus will prevent the development of organized convection and a surface low
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Virgin Islands
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The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, and form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Politically, the group is divided into the British, Puerto Rican, the archipelago is separated from the Renaissance Islands by the Anegada Passage and from the main island of Puerto Rico by the Virgin Passage. Christopher Columbus named the islands after Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, the official name of the British territory is the Virgin Islands, and the official name of the U. S. territory is the Virgin Islands of the United States. In practice, the two groups are almost universally referred to as the British Virgin Islands and the U. S. Virgin Islands. European colonists later settled here and established plantations, at least one tobacco plantation. The plantations are gone, but the descendants of the remain the bulk of the population. In 1916 and 1917, Denmark and the U. S. respectively, in the 1990s a Puerto Rican tourism campaign renamed the Passage Islands as the Spanish Virgin Islands, though they are seldom identified as such on maps and atlases. They are part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, located east of the island of Puerto Rico. They are closer to St. Thomas than St. Thomas is to St. Croix. Motor vehicles are driven on the side of the road in both the British and the U. S. Virgin Islands, although the steering wheels on most cars are located on the left side. In the Spanish Virgin Islands, vehicles are driven on the side of the road. Paradise Comes of age, The U. S. Virgin Islands
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Turks and Caicos
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They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population is 31,458 as of 2012 of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands lie southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola and the other Antilles archipelago islands. Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island about 1,042 kilometres east-southeast of Miami, the islands have a total land area of 430 square kilometres. The first recorded European sighting of the now known as the Turks. In the subsequent centuries, the islands were claimed by several European powers with the British Empire eventually gaining control, for many years the islands were governed indirectly through Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the islands received their own governor, in August 2009, the United Kingdom suspended the Turks and Caicos Islands self-government following allegations of ministerial corruption. Home rule was restored in the islands after the November 2012 elections, the Turks and Caicos Islands are named after the Turks cap cactus, and the Lucayan term caya hico, meaning string of islands. The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, who crossed over from Hispaniola sometime from AD500 to 800, together with Taino who migrated from Cuba to the southern Bahamas around the same time, these people developed as the Lucayan. Around 1200, the Turks and Caicos Islands were resettled by Classical Taínos from Hispaniola, the southern Bahama Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands were completely depopulated by about 1513, and remained so until the 17th century. The first European documented to sight the islands was Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the islands passed from Spanish, to French, to British control, but none of the three powers ever established any settlements. Bermudian salt collectors settled the Turks Islands around 1680, for several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts. From 1765–1783, the islands were under French occupation, and again after the French captured the archipelago in 1783, after the American War of Independence, many Loyalists fled to British Caribbean colonies, in 1783, they were the first settlers on the Caicos Islands. They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry, in 1799, both the Turks and the Caicos island groups were annexed by Britain as part of the Bahamas. The processing of sea salt was developed as an important export product from the West Indies. Salt continued to be an export product into the nineteenth century. In 1807, Britain prohibited the trade and, in 1833. British ships sometimes intercepted slave traders in the Caribbean, and some ships were wrecked off the coast of these islands, in 1837, the Esperanza, a Portuguese slaver, was wrecked off East Caicos, one of the larger islands. While the crew and 220 captive Africans survived the shipwreck,18 Africans died before the survivors were taken to Nassau, Africans from this ship may have been among the 189 liberated Africans whom the British colonists settled in the Turks and Caicos from 1833 to 1840
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Miami
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Miami is a seaport city at the southeastern corner of the U. S. state of Florida and its Atlantic coast. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, Miamis metro area is the eighth-most populous, Miami is a major center, and a leader in finance, commerce, culture, media, entertainment, the arts, and international trade. In 2012, Miami was classified as an Alpha−World City in the World Cities Study Groups inventory, in 2010, Miami ranked seventh in the United States in terms of finance, commerce, culture, entertainment, fashion, education, and other sectors. It ranked 33rd among global cities, in 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Miami Americas Cleanest City, for its year-round good air quality, vast green spaces, clean drinking water, clean streets, and citywide recycling programs. According to a 2009 UBS study of 73 world cities, Miami was ranked as the richest city in the United States, Miami is nicknamed the Capital of Latin America and is the largest city with a Cuban-American plurality. Miami has the third tallest skyline in the U. S. with over 300 high-rises, Downtown Miami is home to the largest concentration of international banks in the United States, and many large national and international companies. The Civic Center is a center for hospitals, research institutes, medical centers. For more than two decades, the Port of Miami, known as the Cruise Capital of the World, has been the number one cruise port in the world. It accommodates some of the worlds largest cruise ships and operations, Metropolitan Miami is the major tourism hub in the American South, number two in the U. S. after New York City and number 13 in the world, including the popular destination of Miami Beach. The Miami area was inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous Native American tribes, the Tequestas occupied the area for a thousand years before encountering Europeans. An Indian village of hundreds of people dating to 500–600 B. C. was located at the mouth of the Miami River, in 1566 the explorer, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, claimed it for Spain. A Spanish mission was constructed one year later in 1567, Spain and Great Britain successively controlled Florida, and Spain ceded it to the United States in 1821. In 1836, the US built Fort Dallas as part of its development of the Florida Territory and attempt to suppress, the Miami area subsequently became a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. Miami is noted as the major city in the United States conceived by a woman, Julia Tuttle, a local citrus grower. The Miami area was known as Biscayne Bay Country in the early years of its growth. In the late 19th century, reports described the area as a promising wilderness, the area was also characterized as one of the finest building sites in Florida. The Great Freeze of 1894–95 hastened Miamis growth, as the crops of the Miami area were the ones in Florida that survived. Julia Tuttle subsequently convinced Henry Flagler, a tycoon, to expand his Florida East Coast Railway to the region
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Lake Okeechobee
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Lake Okeechobee, locally referred to as The Lake, Floridas Inland Sea, or The Big O, is the largest freshwater lake in the state of Florida. It is the seventh largest freshwater lake in the United States, however, it is the largest freshwater lake completely within a single one of the lower 48 states. Okeechobee covers 730 square miles, approximately half the size of the state of Rhode Island, the lake is divided between Glades, Okeechobee, Martin, Palm Beach, and Hendry counties. All five counties meet at one point near the center of the lake, the name Okeechobee comes from the Hitchiti words oki and chubi. The oldest known name for the lake was Mayaimi, reported by Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda in the 16th century, slightly later in the 16th century René Goulaine de Laudonnière reported hearing about a large freshwater lake in southern Florida called Serrope. By the 18th century the largely mythical lake was known to British mapmakers and chroniclers by the Spanish name Laguna de Espiritu Santo, the modern Port Mayaca on the east side of the lake preserves that name. The lake was also called Lake Macaco in the early 19th century, on the southern rim of Lake Okeechobee, three islands—Kreamer, Ritta, and Torey—were once settled by early pioneers. These settlements had a store, post office, school. The fertile land was challenging to farm because of the muddy muck, over the first half of the twentieth century, farmers used agricultural tools—including tractors—to farm in the muck. By the 1960s, all of these settlements were abandoned, in 1926 the Great Miami Hurricane hit the Lake Okeechobee area, killing approximately 300 people. Two years later in 1928, the Okeechobee Hurricane crossed over the lake, the Red Cross reported 1,836 deaths which the National Weather Service initially accepted, but in 2003, the number was revised to at least 2,500. In both cases the catastrophe was caused by flooding from a storm surge when strong winds drove water over the 6. 6-foot mud dike that circled the lake at the time, after the two hurricanes, the Florida State Legislature created the Okeechobee Flood Control District. The organization was authorized to cooperate with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in actions to prevent similar disasters. U. S. President Herbert Hoover visited the area personally, and afterward the Corps designed a plan incorporating the construction of channels, gates, and levees. The Okeechobee Waterway was officially opened on 23 March 1937 by a procession of boats which left Fort Myers, Florida on 22 March and arrived at Stuart, the dike was then named the Herbert Hoover Dike in honor of the president. The 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane sent a larger storm surge to the crest of the new dike. Three recent hurricanes - Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma – had no adverse effects on communities surrounding Lake Okeechobee. Tropical Storm Ernesto increased water levels by 1 foot in 2006, however, the lakes level began dropping soon after and by July 2007, it had dropped more than 4 feet to its all-time low of 8.82 feet
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Storm surge
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Most casualties during tropical cyclones occur as the result of storm surges. The deadliest storm surge on record was the 1970 Bhola cyclone, the low-lying coast of the Bay of Bengal is particularly vulnerable to surges caused by tropical cyclones. The deadliest storm surge in the twenty-first century was caused by the Cyclone Nargis, the next deadliest in this century was caused by the Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the central Philippines in 2013 and resulted in economic losses estimated at $14 billion. Louis, Diamondhead and Pass Christian in Mississippi, a high storm surge occurred in New York City from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, with a high tide of 14 ft. The pressure effects of a tropical cyclone will cause the level in the open ocean to rise in regions of low atmospheric pressure. The rising water level will counteract the low pressure such that the total pressure at some plane beneath the water surface remains constant. This effect is estimated at a 10 mm increase in sea level for every millibar drop in atmospheric pressure, strong surface winds cause surface currents at a 45° angle to the wind direction, by an effect known as the Ekman Spiral. Wind stresses cause a phenomenon referred to as wind set-up, which is the tendency for water levels to increase at the downwind shore, intuitively, this is caused by the storm simply blowing the water towards one side of the basin in the direction of its winds. Because the Ekman Spiral effects spread vertically through the water, the effect is proportional to depth. The pressure effect and the wind set-up on an open coast will be driven into bays in the way as the astronomical tide. The Earths rotation causes the Coriolis effect, which bends currents to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. When this bend brings the currents into more contact with the shore it can amplify the surge. The effect of waves, while powered by the wind, is distinct from a storms wind-powered currents. Powerful wind whips up large, strong waves in the direction of its movement, although these surface waves are responsible for very little water transport in open water, they may be responsible for significant transport near the shore. When waves are breaking on a more or less parallel to the beach. The rainfall effect is experienced predominantly in estuaries, Hurricanes may dump as much as 12 in of rainfall in 24 hours over large areas, and higher rainfall densities in localized areas. As a result, watersheds can quickly surge water into the rivers that drain them and this can increase the water level near the head of tidal estuaries as storm-driven waters surging in from the ocean meet rainfall flowing from the estuary. This situation well exemplified by the southeast coast of Florida
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Levee
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A levee, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines, the word levee, from the French word levée, is used in American English. It originated in New Orleans a few years after the founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The name derives from the trait of the ridges being raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains. The modern word dike or dyke most likely derives from the Dutch word dijk, the 126 kilometres long Westfriese Omringdijk was completed by 1250, and was formed by connecting existing older dikes. The Roman chronicler Tacitus even mentions that the rebellious Batavi pierced dikes to flood their land, the word dijk originally indicated both the trench and the bank. It is closely related to the English verb to dig, in Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced as dick in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the lie in digging a trench. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or the bank, thus Offas Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench though it once had raised banks as well. In the midlands and north of England, and in the United States, a dike is what a ditch is in the south, a property boundary marker or small drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a dike as in Rippingale Running Dike. The Weir Dike is a dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen. In the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, a dyke may be a ditch or a narrow artificial channel off a river or broad for access or mooring, some longer dykes being named. In parts of Britain, particularly Scotland, a dyke may be a field wall, Levees can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high-floods, along lakes or along polders. Furthermore, levees have been built for the purpose of empoldering, the latter can be a controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by levees. Levees have also built as field boundaries and as military defences. More on this type of levee can be found in the article on dry-stone walls, Levees can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions built hastily in a flood emergency. When such a bank is added on top of an existing levee it is known as a cradge
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Gulf of Mexico
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The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U. S. states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas border the Gulf on the north, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or sometimes the south coast, in juxtaposition to the Great Lakes region being the north coast. One of the seven main areas is the Gulf of Mexico basin. The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics, the Gulfs basin is roughly oval and is approximately 810 nautical miles wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U. S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, with the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km2, almost half of the basin is shallow continental shelf waters. The basin contains a volume of roughly 2,500 quadrillion liters, the consensus among geologists who have studied the geology of the Gulf of Mexico, is that prior to the Late Triassic, the Gulf of Mexico did not exist. It was created by the collision of plates that formed Pangea. As interpreted by Roy Van Arsdale and Randel T. Cox, geologists and other Earth scientists agree in general that the present Gulf of Mexico basin originated in Late Triassic time as the result of rifting within Pangea. The rifting was associated with zones of weakness within Pangea, including sutures where the Laurentia, South American, first, there was a Late Triassic-Early Jurassic phase of rifting during which rift valleys formed and filled with continental red beds. Second, as rifting progressed through Early and Middle Jurassic time and it was at this time that tectonics first created a connection to the Pacific Ocean across central Mexico and later eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. This flooded the basin created by rifting and crustal thinning to create the Gulf of Mexico. While the Gulf of Mexico was a basin, the subsiding transitional crust was blanketed by the widespread deposition of Louann Salt. Initially, during the Late Jurassic, continued rifting widened the Gulf of Mexico and progressed to the point that sea-floor spreading, at this point, sufficient circulation with the Atlantic Ocean was established that the deposition of Louann Salt ceased. During the Late Jurassic through Early Cretaceous, the occupied by the Gulf of Mexico experienced a period of cooling. The subsidence was the result of a combination of stretching, cooling. Initially, the combination of stretching and cooling caused about 5–7 km of tectonic subsidence of the central thin transitional
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Fort Myers, Florida
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Fort Myers is the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. Fort Myers is a gateway to the Southwest Florida region and a major tourist destination within Florida, the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford are a primary tourist attraction in the region. The city is named after Colonel Abraham Myers, the geographic statistical area is serviced by Southwest Florida International Airport, located southeast of the city. Fort Myers was one of the first forts built along the Caloosahatchee River as a base of operations against the Seminole Indians during the American Indian Wars, during the Seminole Wars, Fort Myers was a strategic location for its visibility and access to Atlantic waterways. During the American Civil War, Confederate blockade runners and cattle ranchers called Fort Myers home and these settlers prospered through trading with Seminole Indians and Union Soldiers. The Fort Myers community was founded by Captain Manuel A. Gonzalez on February 21,1866. Captain Manuel A. Gonzalez was familiar with the area as a result of his years of delivering mail and supplies to the Union Army at the Fort during the Seminole Indian Wars. When the U. S. Government abandoned the Fort following the Civil War, Gonzalez traveled by sailing vessel from Key West, three weeks later, Joseph Vivas and his wife, Christianna Stirrup Vivas, arrived with Gonzalezs wife, Evalina Gonzalez, and daughter, Mary Gonzalez. Gonzales had shipped supplies and carried mail during the war and settled his family near the abandoned Fort Myers to begin the towns first trading post, Gonzalez traded tobacco, beads, and gunpowder, and sold otter, bobcat, and gator hide, to the neighboring Seminole Indians. In 1881, the wealthy industrialist Hamilton Disston of Philadelphia came to the Caloosahatchee Valley to dredge, diston connected Lake Okeechobee with the Caloosahatchee River, which allowed steamboats to run from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Okeechobee and up the Kissimmee River. On August 12,1885, the town of Fort Myers—all 349 residents—was incorporated. By that time, it was the second largest town on Florida’s Gulf Coast south of Cedar Key, in 1885, inventor Thomas Alva Edison was cruising Florida’s west coast and stopped to visit Fort Myers. He soon bought 13 acres along the Caloosahatchee River in town, after the Lodge was completed in 1886, Edison and his wife, Mina, spent many winters at their home in Fort Myers. Edison also enjoyed local recreational fishing, for which Fort Myers had gained national notoriety, in 1898, Fort Myers became a nationally known winter resort destination with the building of the Royal Palm Hotel. On May 10,1904, access to the Fort Myers area was improved with the opening of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. This route provided Lee County both passenger and freight railroad service, in 1908, the Arcade Theater was constructed in downtown Fort Myers. It served originally as a house, and was an auditorium that Fort Myers resident Thomas Edison sat in to view his first films, with his friends Henry Ford. The Arcade Theatre was eventually converted into a movie house
27.
Barrier island
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Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a few islands to more than a dozen and they are subject to change during storms and other action, but absorb energy and protect the coastlines and create areas of protected waters where wetlands may flourish. A barrier chain may extend uninterrupted for over a hundred kilometers, excepting the tidal inlets that separate the islands, the longest and widest being Padre Island of Texas. The length and width of barriers and overall morphology of barrier coasts are related to parameters including tidal range, wave energy, sediment supply, sea-level trends, the amount of vegetation on the barrier has a large impact on the height and evolution of the island. Chains of barrier islands can be found along approximately thirteen percent of the worlds coastlines and they display different settings, suggesting that they can form and be maintained in a variety of environmental settings. Numerous theories have been given to explain their formation, lower shoreface The shoreface is the part of the barrier where the ocean meets the shore of the island. The barrier island body itself separates the shoreface from the backshore, characteristics common to the lower shoreface are fine sands with mud and possibly silt. Further out into the ocean the sediment becomes finer, the effect from the waves at this point is weak because of the depth. Bioturbation is common and many fossils can be found here, middle shoreface The middle shore face is located in the upper shoreface. The middle shoreface is strongly influenced by wave action because of its depth, closer to shore the grain size will be medium size sands with shell pieces common. Since wave action is heavier, bioturbation is not likely, upper shoreface The upper shore face is constantly affected by wave action. This results in development of sedimentary structures because of the constant differing flow of waves. Foreshore The foreshore is the area on land between high and low tide, like the upper shoreface, it is constantly affected by wave action. Cross bedding and lamination are present and coarser sands are present because of the energy present by the crashing of the waves. The sand is very well sorted. Backshore The backshore is always above the highest water level point, the berm is also found here which marks the boundary between the foreshore and backshore. Wind is the important factor here, not water, during strong storms high waves and wind can deliver and erode sediment from the backshore. Dunes The dunes are typical of an island, located at the top of the backshore
28.
National Weather Service
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It is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration branch of the Department of Commerce, and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland. The agency was known as the United States Weather Bureau from 1890 until it adopted its current name in 1970, the NWS performs its primary task through a collection of national and regional centers, and 122 local weather forecast offices. As the NWS is a government agency, most of its products are in the public domain, the agency was placed under the Secretary of War as Congress felt military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations. Within the Department of War, it was assigned to the U. S. Army Signal Service under Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, General Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name, The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce. The agency first became an enterprise in 1890, when it became part of the Department of Agriculture. The first Weather Bureau radiosonde was launched in Massachusetts in 1937, the Bureau would later be moved to the Department of Commerce in 1940. On July 12,1950, bureau chief Francis W, the Weather Bureau became part of the Environmental Science Services Administration when that agency was formed in August 1966. The Environmental Science Services Administration was renamed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on October 1,1970, at this time, the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service. NEXRAD, a system of Doppler radars deployed to improve the detection and warning time of local storms, replaced the WSR-57. Bob Glahn has written a history of the first hundred years of the National Weather Service. The NWS, through a variety of sub-organizations, issues different forecast products to users, although, throughout history, text forecasts have been the means of product dissemination, the NWS has been using more forecast products of a digital, gridded, image or other modern format. Each of the 122 Weather Forecast Offices send their graphical forecasts to a server to be compiled in the National Digital Forecast Database. The NDFD is a collection of weather observations used by organizations and the public, including precipitation amount, temperature. Specific points in the database can be accessed using an XML SOAP service. The National Weather Service issues many products relating to wildfires daily, for example, a Fire Weather Forecast, which have a forecast period covering up to seven days, is issued by local Weather Forecast Offices daily, with updates as needed. The forecasts contain weather information relevant to fire control and smoke management for the next 12 to 48 hours, such as direction and speed. The appropriate crews use this information to plan for staffing and equipment levels, the ability to conduct scheduled controlled burns, and assess the daily fire danger. Once per day, NWS meteorologists issue a coded fire weather forecast for specific United States Forest Service observation sites that are input into the National Fire Danger Rating System
29.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
30.
Atlantic hurricane
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An Atlantic hurricane or tropical storm is a tropical cyclone that forms in the Atlantic Ocean, usually in the summer or fall. A hurricane differs from a cyclone or typhoon only on the basis of location, a hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, and a cyclone occurs in the south Pacific or Indian Ocean. Tropical cyclones can be categorized by intensity, Tropical storms have one-minute maximum sustained winds of at least 39 mph, while hurricanes have one-minute maximum sustained winds exceeding 74 mph. Most North Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes form between June 1 and November 30, in recent times, tropical disturbances that reach tropical storm intensity are named from a predetermined list. On average, in the North Atlantic basin 11.3 named storms occur each season, the climatological peak of activity is around September 11 each season. In March 2004, Catarina was the first hurricane-intensity tropical cyclone recorded in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Tropical cyclones are steered by the flow throughout the depth of the troposphere. Specifically, air flow around high pressure systems and toward low pressure areas influence hurricane tracks, south of the subtropical ridge, surface easterly winds prevail. If the subtropical ridge is weakened by a trough, a tropical cyclone may turn poleward and then recurve. Poleward of the ridge, westerly winds prevail and generally steer tropical cyclones that reach northern latitudes toward the east. The westerlies also steer extratropical cyclones with their cold and warm fronts from west to east, generally speaking, the intensity of a tropical cyclone is determined by either the storms maximum sustained winds or lowest barometric pressure. The following table lists the most intense Atlantic hurricanes in terms of their lowest barometric pressure, in terms of wind speed, Hurricane Allen was the strongest Atlantic tropical cyclone on record, with maximum sustained winds of 190 mph. However, these measurements are suspect since instrumentation used to document wind speeds at the time would likely succumb to winds of such intensity, nonetheless, their central pressures are low enough to rank them among the strongest recorded Atlantic hurricanes. Owing to their intensity, the strongest Atlantic hurricanes have all attained Category 5 classification, Hurricane Opal, the strongest Category 4 hurricane recorded, intensified to reach a minimum pressure of 916 mbar, a pressure typical of Category 5 hurricanes. Nonetheless, the pressure remains too high to list Opal as one of the ten strongest Atlantic tropical cyclones, however, this was later superseded by Hurricane Patricia in 2015 in the east Pacific, which had a pressure reading of 872 mbar. Preceding Wilma is Hurricane Gilbert, which had held the record for most intense Atlantic hurricane for 17 years. The 1935 Labor Day hurricane, with a pressure of 892 mbar, is the third strongest Atlantic hurricane, since the measurements taken during Wilma and Gilbert were documented using dropsonde, this pressure remains the lowest measured over land. However, with a pressure of 895 mbar, Rita is the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico
31.
Maximum sustained wind
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The maximum sustained wind associated with a tropical cyclone is a common indicator of the intensity of the storm. Within a mature tropical cyclone, it is found within the eyewall at a distance defined as the radius of maximum wind, unlike gusts, the value of these winds are determined via their sampling and averaging the sampled results over a period of time. Surface winds are variable due to friction between the atmosphere and the Earths surface, as well as near hills and mountains over land. Over the ocean, satellite imagery determines the value of the sustained winds within a tropical cyclone. Land, ship, aircraft reconnaissance observations, and radar imagery can also estimate this quantity and this value helps determine damage expected from a tropical cyclone, through use of such scales as the Saffir-Simpson scale. However, the United States National Weather Service defines sustained winds within tropical cyclones by averaging winds over a period of one minute, measured at the same 10 metres height. This is an important distinction, as the value of the highest one-minute sustained wind is about 14% greater than a sustained wind over the same period. In most tropical cyclone basins, use of the satellite-based Dvorak technique is the method used to determine a tropical cyclones maximum sustained winds. The extent of banding and difference in temperature between the eye and eyewall is used within the technique to assign a maximum sustained wind. Central pressure values for their centers of low pressure are approximate, the intensity of example hurricanes is derived from both the time of landfall and the maximum intensity. The tracking of individual clouds on minutely satellite imagery could be used in the future in estimating surface winds speeds for tropical cyclones, ship and land observations are also used, when available. Doppler weather radar can be used in the manner to determine surface winds with tropical cyclones near land. Friction between the atmosphere and the Earths surface causes a 20% reduction in the wind at the surface of the Earth, surface roughness also leads to significant variation of wind speeds. Over land, winds maximize at hill or mountain crests, while sheltering leads to wind speeds in valleys. Compared to over water, maximum sustained winds over land average 8% lower, in most basins, maximum sustained winds are used to define their category. In the Atlantic and northeast Pacific oceans, the Saffir-Simpson scale is used and this scale can be used to determine possible storm surge and damage impact on land. In most basins, the category of the cyclone is determined from the cyclones maximum sustained wind. Only in Australia is this quantity not used to define the tropical category, in their basin
32.
Martinique
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Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. One of the Windward Islands, it is north of Saint Lucia, southeast of Puerto Rico, northwest of Barbados. As with the overseas departments, Martinique is one of the eighteen regions of France. As part of France, Martinique is part of the European Union, the official language is French, and virtually the entire population also speak Antillean Creole. Martinique owes its name to Christopher Columbus, who sighted the island in 1493, the island was then called Jouanacaëra-Matinino, which came from a mythical island described by the Tainos of Hispaniola. According to historian Sydney Daney, the island was called Jouanacaëra by the Caribs, when Columbus returned to the island in 1502, he rechristened the island as Martinica. The name then evolved into Madinina, Madiana, and Matinite, finally, through the influence of the neighboring island of Dominica, it came to be known as Martinique. The island was occupied first by Arawaks, then by Caribs, the Carib people had migrated from the mainland to the islands about 1201 CE, according to carbon dating of artifacts. They were largely displaced, exterminated and assimilated by the Taino, Martinique was charted by Columbus in 1493, but Spain had little interest in the territory. On 15 September 1635, Pierre Belain dEsnambuc, French governor of the island of St. Kitts, dEsnambuc claimed Martinique for the French King Louis XIII and the French Compagnie des Îles de lAmérique, and established the first European settlement at Fort Saint-Pierre. DEsnambuc died in 1636, leaving the company and Martinique in the hands of his nephew, in 1637, his nephew Jacques Dyel du Parquet became governor of the island. In 1636, the indigenous Caribs rose against the settlers to drive them off the island in the first of many skirmishes. The French successfully repelled the natives and forced them to retreat to the part of the island. When the Carib revolted against French rule in 1658, the Governor Charles Houël du Petit Pré retaliated with war against them, many were killed, those who survived were taken captive and expelled from the island. Some Carib had fled to Dominica or St. Vincent, where the French agreed to them at peace. They were quite industrious and became quite prosperous, from September 1686 to early 1688, the French crown used Martinique as a threat and a dumping ground for mainland Huguenots who refused to reconvert to Catholicism. Over 1,000 Huguenots were transported to Martinique during this period, usually under miserable and those that survived the trip were distributed to the island planters as Engagés under the system of serf peonage that prevailed in the French Antilles at the time. Many of them were encouraged by their Catholic brethren who looked forward to the departure of the heretics, by 1688, nearly all of Martiniques French Protestant population had escaped to the British American colonies or Protestant countries back home
33.
Lesser Antilles
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The Lesser Antilles are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most form a long, partly volcanic island arc between the Greater Antilles to the north-west and the continent of South America, the islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles compose the Antilles, when combined with the Lucayan Archipelago, all three are known as the West Indies. The islands of the Lesser Antilles are divided into three groups, the Windward Islands in the south, the Leeward Islands in the north, and the Leeward Antilles in the west. The Windward Islands are so called because they were more windward to sailing ships arriving in the New World than the Leeward Islands, the trans-Atlantic currents and winds that provided the fastest route across the ocean brought these ships to the rough dividing line between the Windward and Leeward Islands. The Leeward Antilles consist of the Dutch ABC islands just off the coast of Venezuela, the Lesser Antilles more or less coincide with the outer edge of the Caribbean Plate. Many of the islands were formed as a result of the subduction of oceanic crust of the South American Plate under the Caribbean Plate in the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. This process is ongoing and is not only for many of the islands. The Lesser Antilles are divided into eight independent nations and numerous dependent, over one third of the total area and population of the Lesser Antilles lies within Trinidad and Tobago, a sovereign nation comprising the two southernmost islands of the Windward Island chain. Several islands along the north coast of Venezuela and politically part of country are also occasionally considered part of the Lesser Antilles. These are listed in the section below, the main Lesser Antilles are, Virgin Islands St. Thomas St. John St. They are the most southern islands of the Caribbean region, a Brief History of the Caribbean. New York, Facts on File,1992, the dictionary definition of Lesser Antilles at Wiktionary
34.
Atmospheric pressure
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Atmospheric pressure, sometimes also called barometric pressure, is the pressure exerted by the weight of air in the atmosphere of Earth. In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point. As elevation increases, there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation. On average, a column of air one square centimetre in cross-section, measured from sea level to the top of the atmosphere, has a mass of about 1.03 kilograms and that force is a pressure of 10.1 N/cm2 or 101 kN/m2. A column 1 square inch in cross-section would have a weight of about 14.7 lb or about 65.4 N and it is modified by the planetary rotation and local effects such as wind velocity, density variations due to temperature and variations in composition. The standard atmosphere is a unit of pressure defined as 101325 Pa, the mean sea level pressure is the average atmospheric pressure at sea level. This is the pressure normally given in weather reports on radio, television. When barometers in the home are set to match the weather reports, they measure pressure adjusted to sea level. The altimeter setting in aviation, is an atmospheric pressure adjustment, average sea-level pressure is 1013.25 mbar. In aviation weather reports, QNH is transmitted around the world in millibars or hectopascals, except in the United States, Canada, however, in Canadas public weather reports, sea level pressure is instead reported in kilopascals. The highest sea-level pressure on Earth occurs in Siberia, where the Siberian High often attains a sea-level pressure above 1050 mbar, the lowest measurable sea-level pressure is found at the centers of tropical cyclones and tornadoes, with a record low of 870 mbar. Pressure varies smoothly from the Earths surface to the top of the mesosphere, although the pressure changes with the weather, NASA has averaged the conditions for all parts of the earth year-round. As altitude increases, atmospheric pressure decreases, one can calculate the atmospheric pressure at a given altitude. Temperature and humidity affect the atmospheric pressure, and it is necessary to know these to compute an accurate figure. The graph at right was developed for a temperature of 15 °C, at low altitudes above the sea level, the pressure decreases by about 1.2 kPa for every 100 meters. See pressure system for the effects of air pressure variations on weather, Atmospheric pressure shows a diurnal or semidiurnal cycle caused by global atmospheric tides. This effect is strongest in tropical zones, with an amplitude of a few millibars and these variations have two superimposed cycles, a circadian cycle and semi-circadian cycle. The highest adjusted-to-sea level barometric pressure recorded on Earth was 1085.7 hPa measured in Tosontsengel
35.
Saint Kitts
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Saint Kitts, also known more formally as Saint Christopher Island, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the borders the Caribbean Sea. Saint Kitts and the island of Nevis constitute one country. Saint Kitts and Nevis are separated by a shallow 3-kilometre channel known as The Narrows, the island is one of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. It is situated about 2,100 km southeast of Miami, the land area of St. Kitts is about 168 km2, being approximately 29 km long and on average about 8 km across. Saint Kitts has a population of around 35,000, the majority of whom are mainly of African descent, the primary language is English, with a literacy rate of approximately 98%. Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the largest fortress ever built in the Eastern Caribbean, the island of Saint Kitts is home to the Warner Park Cricket Stadium, which was used to host 2007 Cricket World Cup matches. This made St. Kitts and Nevis the smallest nation to ever host a World Cup event, the capital of the two-island nation, and also its largest port, is the town of Basseterre on Saint Kitts. There is a facility for handling large cruise ships there. A ring road goes around the perimeter of the island with smaller roads branching off it, Saint Kitts is 10 km away from Sint Eustatius to the north and 3 km from Nevis to the south. St. Kitts has three groups of volcanic peaks, the North West or Mount Misery Range, the Middle or Verchilds Range. The highest peak is Mount Liamuiga, formerly Mount Misery, a dormant volcano 1,156 m high. There are nine parishes on the island of St. Kitts & Nevis uses the Eastern Caribbean dollar, the US dollar is almost as widely accepted as the Eastern Caribbean dollar. For hundreds of years, St. Kitts operated as a monoculture, but due to decreasing profitability. Tourism is a major and growing source of income to the island, although the number, transportation, non-sugar agriculture, manufacturing and construction are the other growing sectors of the economy. St. Kitts is dependent on tourism to drive its economy, tourism has been increasing since 1978. In 2009, there were 587,479 arrivals to Saint Kitts compared to 379,473 in 2007, as tourism grows, the demand for vacation property increases in conjunction. St. Kitts & Nevis also acquires foreign direct investment from their citizenship by investment program
36.
Steamship
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A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically drive propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships came into usage during the early 1800s, however. Steamships usually use the designations of PS for paddle steamer or SS for screw steamer. As paddle steamers became less common, SS is assumed by many to stand for steam ship, Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as MV for motor vessel, so it is not correct to use SS for most modern vessels. The steamship was preceded by smaller vessels designed for insular transportation, once the technology of steam was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels, the changed the design of ships for faster. Paddlewheels as the main motive source became standard on these early vessels and it was an effective means of propulsion under ideal conditions but otherwise had serious drawbacks. Within a few decades of the development of the river and canal steamboat, the first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wrights first steamboat Experiment, an ex-French lugger, she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth in July 1813. She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an speed of 8 knots. The American ship SS Savannah first crossed the Atlantic Ocean, another claimant is the Canadian ship SS Royal William in 1833. The SS Archimedes, built in Britain in 1839 by Francis Pettit Smith, was the worlds first steamship to be driven by a screw propeller. It had considerable influence on development, encouraging the adoption of screw propulsion by the Royal Navy. The key innovation that made ocean-going steamers viable was the change from the paddle-wheel to the screw-propeller as the mechanism of propulsion and these steamships quickly became more popular, because the propellers efficiency was consistent regardless of the depth at which it operated. Being smaller in size and mass and being submerged, it was also far less prone to damage. The development of screw propulsion relied on the technological innovations. Steam engines had to be designed with the power delivered at the bottom of the machinery, a paddle steamers engines drive a shaft that is positioned above the waterline, with the cylinders positioned below the shaft. SS Great Britain used chain drive to power from a paddlers engine to the propeller shaft - the result of a late design change to propeller propulsion. An effective stern tube and associated bearings were required, the stern tube contains the propeller shaft where it passes through the hull structure
37.
Universal Time Coordinate
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Coordinated Universal Time, abbreviated to UTC, is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean time at 0° longitude. It is one of closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, the first Coordinated Universal Time was informally adopted on 1 January 1960. This change also adopted leap seconds to simplify future adjustments, a number of proposals have been made to replace UTC with a new system that would eliminate leap seconds, but no consensus has yet been reached. Leap seconds are inserted as necessary to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of universal time, see the Current number of leap seconds section for the number of leap seconds inserted to date. The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC and this abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT, while French speakers proposed TUC, the compromise that emerged was UTC, which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time. Time zones around the world are expressed using positive or negative offsets from UTC, the westernmost time zone uses UTC−12, being twelve hours behind UTC, the easternmost time zone, theoretically, uses UTC+12, being twelve hours ahead of UTC. In 1995, the nation of Kiribati moved those of its atolls in the Line Islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 so that the country would all be on the same day. UTC is used in internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the internet, computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC from a number of official internet UTC servers, for sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals. UTC is also the standard used in aviation, e. g. for flight plans. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones, the International Space Station also uses UTC as a time standard. Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many time zones, UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles under EU and AETR rules. UTC divides time into days, hours, minutes and seconds, days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes, the number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but with an occasional leap second, it may be 61 or 59 instead
38.
Mayaguana
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Mayaguana is the most easterly island and district of the Bahamas. It is one of only a few Bahamian islands which retain their Lucayan names, the population of Mayaguana in the 2010 census was 277. It has an area of about 280 km2 and it is a popular stopover for boaters on a direct route to the eastern Caribbean. It also was one of the first islands that Christopher Columbus landed on during his journey to the new world, Mayaguana was inhabited by Lucayans prior to the arrival of the Spanish following 1492. The Brazilian historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen suggested in 1824 that Mayaguana is Guanahani and his theory has found little support. Mayaguana apparently was the Lucayan name for the island, the first steamship to circumnavigate the globe, the Royal Navy sloop HMS Driver, was wrecked on Mayaguana on 3 August 1861,14 years after the completion of her epic voyage in 1847. During NASAs Project Mercury and the Apollo program, the United States space program had a tracking station on what is now Mayaguana Airport. The station was used to help keep astronauts on course, the Mayaguana Airport was built by US Army Engineers attached to the US Air Force. The airport was built as a runway for jet planes that would follow missiles fired from Cape Canaveral, real time sighting and photography was the best technology of the time for observing the flight of the missiles. The Bahamian government has recently approved working with American investors MMC to turn Mayaguana into a trade zone. Actually, this is 14% of the total landmass but essentially most of the coastal region, the proposal was met with moderate resistance by Mayaguanians, who look forward to economic expansion but are unsure of what change is to come. This development is still in a phase and is trying to maintain the nature of the island as a quiet eco-tourist destination while still creating sustainable economic growth. The largest settlement is Abrahams Bay on the south coast, other settlements are the towns of Betsy Bay. The uninhabited areas of Upper Point, Northeast Point, and Southeast Point are largely inaccessible by road, the least developed Bahamian island, Mayaguana has never seen major growth. It was settled gradually after 1812 by people from the Turks, most people make a living fishing and farming. Considered the most isolated Bahamian island, Mayaguana uses the countrys mail boat system as its form of communication. Mayaguana is visited once a week for delivery and pickup, Mayaguana is known for its fertile soil, which is good for farming, and its woody terrain. Common lignum-vitae, holywood lignum-vitae and other hardwoods can be throughout the island
39.
Nassau, Bahamas
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Nassau is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has an population of 274,400 as of 2016. The city is located on the island of New Providence, which much like a business district. Nassau is the site of the House of Assembly and various departments and was considered historically to be a stronghold of pirates. The city was named in honour of William III of England, nassaus modern growth began in the late eighteenth century, with the influx of thousands of American Loyalists and their slaves to the Bahamas following the American Revolutionary War. Many of them settled in Nassau and eventually came to outnumber the original inhabitants, as the population of Nassau grew, so did its populated areas. Today the city dominates the island and its satellite, Paradise Island. However, until the post-Second World War era, the outer suburbs scarcely existed, most of New Providence was uncultivated bush until Loyalists were resettled there following the American Revolutionary War, they established several plantations, such as Clifton and Tusculum. In addition, slaves freed from American ships, such as the Creole case in 1841, were allowed to settle there, Nassau was formerly known as Charles Town, it was burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684 during one of their frequent wars with the English. The name Nassau derives from the House of Nassau and ultimately from the town of Nassau, due to a lack of effective Governors, Nassau fell on hard times. In 1703 Spanish and French allied forces briefly occupied Nassau, from 1703 to 1718 there was no governor in the colony and by 1713, the sparsely settled Bahamas had become a pirate haven. The Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1,000 pirates in Nassau and they proclaimed Nassau a pirate republic, establishing themselves as governors. Examples of pirates that used Nassau as their base are Charles Vane, Thomas Barrow, Benjamin Hornigold, Calico Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, in 1718, the British sought to regain control of the islands and appointed Captain Woodes Rogers as Royal governor. He successfully clamped down on the pirates, reformed the civil administration, Rogers cleaned up Nassau and rebuilt the fort, using his own wealth to try to overcome problems. In 1720 the Spanish made an attempt to capture Nassau. During the wars in the Thirteen Colonies, Nassau experienced an economic boom, with funds from privateering, a new fort, street lights and over 2300 sumptuous houses were built and Nassau was extended. In addition to this, mosquito breeding swamps were filled, in 1778 after an overnight invasion, American raiders led by Captain Rathburn, left with ships, gunpowder and military stores after stopping in Nassau for only two days. In 1782 Spain captured Nassau for the last time when Don Juan de Cagigal, governor-general of Cuba, attacked New Providence with 5000 men
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Andros, Bahamas
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Andros Island is an archipelago within the Bahamas, the largest of the 26 inhabited Bahamian Islands. Politically considered an island, Andros in total has an area greater than all the other 700 Bahamian islands combined. The three main islands are separated by bights, estuaries that trifurcate the island, connecting the islands east and west coasts and it is 104 miles long by 40 miles wide, at the widest point. Noteworthy for a combination of marine features and ecosystems, Andros is bordered on the east by the 6000 foot deep Tongue of the Ocean. The Andros Barrier Reef is the sixth longest. It runs for 142 miles, averaging a distance of 1–2 miles from the Andros shore, the extensive flats of the Great Bahama Bank lie to the west, northwest and south of Andros. The island has the worlds largest collection of blue holes. Geographically, North Andros is the sixth largest island in the West Indies, at roughly 6,000 km2 in area and 167 km long and 64 km wide at its widest point, and the 153rd largest island on Earth. If all three islands are included, Andros is the fifth-largest island in the West Indies, after Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica. Andros is 30 miles west across the Tongue of the Ocean from the Bahamas national capital of Nassau on New Providence Island and its northern tip lies 138 miles from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Geologically and geographically the Bahamas, including Andros, are not located in the Caribbean, whose boundary is the Windward Passage. Historically, the nation was part of the British West Indies and is considered culturally to be part of the Caribbean. The Bahamian dialect of the English language is distinctively Caribbean in character, similar to those of Jamaica, the township of Fresh Creek is home to the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, operated by the United States Navy. The United Kingdom and United States conduct special operations training, and sonar, the United States Coast Guard also runs rescue and drug interdiction operations from AUTEC. Andros is known in the Bahamas by two nicknames, The Sleeping Giant and The Big Yard, the largest employers on Andros Island are the Bahamian government and the AUTEC base at Fresh Creek. Despite its small population, Andros Island has several ongoing commercial ventures, Western Air maintains its headquarters in a modern facility at the San Andros airport. The Mennonites also run the largest car repair and carpentry shops on the island, androsia, a hand-crafted batik factory founded at Fresh Creek in 1972, produces a vibrant, colourful fabric which has become part of the national dress and identity of the Bahamas. GreenLife Growers, a Bahamian native tree nursery at Young Sound, provides landscaping material to real estate developers, commercial fishing remains a mainstay of the islands economy, conch, lobster, snapper and grouper are all commercially harvested for sale locally and in Nassaus fish markets
