The crewmembers aboard the space station took a short break Saturday to get a look at the storm from their vantage point. Even from space, the storm expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico Aug. 21 and gain strength as a potential Cat 5 storm, impresses the crew with its size.

"We're eventually going to get a strong enough storm in a densely populated area to have a major disaster," he said. "I know people don't want to hear this, and I'm generally a very positive person, but we're setting ourselves up for this major disaster."

More than 1,300 deaths across the Gulf Coast were attributed to Hurricane Katrina, the worst human toll from a weather event in the United States since the 1920s.

But Mayfield warns that 10 times as many fatalities could occur in what he sees as an inevitable strike by a huge storm during the current highly active hurricane cycle, which is expected to last another 10 to 20 years.

His apocalyptic vision of thousands dead and millions homeless is a different side of the persona he established as head of the hurricane center.

What is lacking in the United States is the political will to make and impose hard decisions on building codes and land use in the face of resistance from the influential building industry and a public still willing to gamble that the big one will never hit, he said.

"It's good for the tax base" to allow developers to put up buildings on the coastline, Mayfield said in explaining politicians' reluctance to deter housing projects that expose residents to storm risks.

"I don't want the builders to get mad at me," he said, "but the building industry strongly opposes improvement in building codes."

Consumers also have yet to demand sturdier construction, Mayfield added. A builder gets a better return on investment in upgraded carpet and appliances than for safety features above and beyond most states' minimal requirements, he said.

Seven feet of seawater swamps Key Biscayne and 45 miles of coastline from Miami Beach to Deerfield Beach. Saltwater surges through some houses in Hollywood, Coconut Grove and elsewhere. Waist-deep freshwater blankets vast regions of suburban Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Ferocious winds crush tens of thousands of roofs and gut numerous office buildings. Residents who defy orders to evacuate skyscrapers in Miami Beach, on Hollywood's beach and along Miami's downtown corridors could be blown out of their apartments. Power outages persist for months rather than weeks.

According to simulations conducted for The Miami Herald by scientists at the National Hurricane Center and interviews with a wide range of experts, those are not merely theoretical worst-case scenarios.

A new, unpublished research paper by Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology torpedoes one of the few comforting thoughts of this storm-racked era: The notion that our current spree of active hurricane seasons is part of a natural cycle that's due to calm down in 10 or 20 years.

Instead, Emanuel says, the culprit is probably global warming.

As a result, "it's unlikely we'll ever see a quiet decade for the next 100 years in the Atlantic," said Emanuel, a professor of tropical meteorology and climate, and author of the respected 2005 hurricane text Divine Wind. "I don't think there's any evidence of anything you would call a cycle."

We still could see some calm years here and there, he said — maybe because of a periodic El Niño, which depresses Atlantic hurricanes.

The new paper, co-written with Penn State researcher Michael Mann, promises to stoke a debate Emanuel inspired last summer — when he published research tying global warming to an increase in hurricane strength in both the Atlantic and North Pacific since the 1970s.

In the 1970s, the average number of intense Category 4 and 5 hurricanes occurring globally was about 10 per year. Since 1990, that number has nearly doubled, averaging about 18 a year.

Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds from 131 to 155 mph. Category 5 systems, such as Hurricane Katrina at its peak, feature winds of 156 mph or more. Last year, Wilma packed wind speeds of 175 mph and set a record as the strongest hurricane in terms of barometric pressure.

While some scientists believe this trend is just part of natural ocean and atmospheric cycles, others argue that rising sea surface temperatures as a side effect of global warming is the primary culprit.

According to this scenario, warming temperatures heat up the surface of the oceans, increasing evaporation and putting more water vapor into the atmosphere. This in turn provides added fuel for storms as they travel over open oceans.

In some spots Thursday morning, the snow looked like it was tinted chocolate-brown, prompting calls from concerned area residents.

"It's pretty much statewide," said Ethan Greene, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. "We've had reports from the San Juans, Winter Park ... all over."

Greene said exceptionally dry conditions in Northern Arizona contributed to the dust event, with a wind plume carrying the dust across most of Colorado.

Greene said the Copper Mountain ski patrol reported possible impacts to snow stability from the dust layers, with some easy shears occurring in the snowpack where new snow accumulated atop the dust.

The Dust Bowl, which lasted from 1931-1939, was a severe drought that struck a wide swath of the Great Plains. It was a catastrophic blow to the U.S. economy, which was already staggering under the weight of the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl was the worst drought in U.S. history, eventually covering more than 75 percent of the country. Solar radiation heating the parched and blighted land caused temperatures in the region to rise to record-breaking levels.

"1936 was the hottest summer ever recorded across much of the Midwest and East," said Abrams. "Many of the single-day and monthly record-high temperatures across the eastern two-thirds of the country are from that year."

The Dust Bowl was also noted for the huge dust storms that billowed across the Great Plains and swallowed millions of acres of farmland at a time. While a Dust Bowl-level drought could occur again, it is highly unlikely that the nation will see a return of the dust storms.

A hurricane's winds are mostly horizontal, not vertical. So the vertical churning that leads to lightning doesn't normally happen.

Lightning has been seen in hurricanes before. During a field campaign in 1998 called CAMEX-3, scientists detected lightning in the eye of hurricane Georges as it plowed over the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The lightning probably was due to air forced upward—called "orographic forcing"—when the hurricane hit the mountains.

"Hurricanes are most likely to produce lightning when they're making landfall," says Blakeslee. But there were no mountains beneath the "electric hurricanes" of 2005—only flat water.

It's tempting to think that, because Emily, Rita and Katrina were all exceptionally powerful, their sheer violence somehow explains their lightning. But Blakeslee says that this explanation is too simple. "Other storms have been equally intense and did not produce much lightning," he says. "There must be something else at work."

DVORAK CLASSIFICATIONS AT 18Z WERE T3.0...OR 45 KT...FROM TAFB AND SAB...WHILE AFWA GAVE ZETA A SUBTROPICAL T2.5 CLASSIFICATION. BASED ON THESE CLASSIFICATIONS...THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS HELD AT 45 KT. THE WELL-DEFINED BANDING STRUCTURES SEEN THIS MORNING HAVE ALREADY BECOME RAGGED...AND WATER VAPOR IMAGERY SHOWS DRY WESTERLIES BEGINNING TO IMPINGE ON THE WESTERN PORTION OF THE CIRCULATION. WHILE THERE COULD BE BRIEF ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT DURING TONIGHT'S CONVECTIVE MAXIMUM...STRONG WESTERLIES ARE NOT FAR FROM THE CYCLONE AND SHOULD OVERTAKE ZETA WITHIN 24 HOURS.

26 Named Storms (previous record: 21 in 1933)

14 Hurricanes (previous record: 12 in 1969)

Four major hurricanes hitting the U.S. (previous record: three in 2004)

Three Category 5 Hurricanes (previous record: two in 1960 and 1961)

Seven Tropical Storms before August 1 (previous record: five in 1997)

Two-Year Consecutive Total of Tropical Storms: 41 (previous record: 32 most recently in 1995-96)

Two-Year Consecutive Total of Hurricanes: 23 (previous record: 21 in 1886-87)

Two-Year Consecutive Total of Major Hurricanes: 13 (ties record in 1950-51)

Two-Year Consecutive Major Hurricane Landfalls: Seven (previous record: five in 1954-55)

Two -Year Consecutive Florida Major Hurricane Landfalls: Five (previous record: three in 1949-50)

Three-Year Consecutive Total of Tropical Storms: 57 (previous record: 43 most recently in 2002-04)

Three-Year Consecutive Total of Hurricanes: 30 (previous record: 27 in 1886-88)

Three-Year Consecutive Total of Major Hurricanes: 16 (ties record in 1949-51 and 1950-52)

Costliest Atlantic Season ($107 billion+) (previous record 2004, $45 billion)

Costliest Hurricane: Katrina ($80 billion+) (previous record Andrew, $26.5 billion - 1992 dollars)

Deadliest U.S. Hurricane since 1928: Katrina (at least 1,200)

Strongest Hurricane in the Atlantic Basin: Wilma 882 millibars (mb) (previous record: Gilbert at 888 mb)

Three of the six strongest hurricanes on record: Wilma 882 mb (1st), Rita 897 mb (4th), Katrina 902 mb (6th)

July hurricane: Emily (155 mph top sustained winds) (previous record: Dennis (150 mph) in 2005; Hurricane #1 (140 mph) in 1926.

Hurricane Epsilon became the longest lasting Atlantic hurricane on record for the month of December.

The team's first extended-range forecast for the 2006 hurricane season anticipates 17 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and Nov. 30. Nine of the 17 storms are predicted to become hurricanes, and of those nine, five are expected to develop into intense or major hurricanes (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.

THE END IS IN SIGHT. IT REALLY REALLY IS. BUT IN THE MEANTIME... EPSILON CONTINUES TO MAINTAIN HURRICANE STATUS. HI-RES DATA FROM THE 2037Z QUIKSCAT PASS SHOWED SOME VERY REASONABLE-LOOKING 60 KT VECTORS IN MUCH OF THE EYEWALL...AND ALLOWING FOR THE HORIZONTAL RESOLUTION OF THE INSTRUMENT...IT IS LIKELY THAT THERE ARE STILL SOME 65 KT WINDS PRESENT IN THE CIRCULATION. DVORAK INTENSITY ESTIMATES FROM TAFB AND SAB ARE ALSO STILL 65 KT. WATER VAPOR IMAGERY...HOWEVER...SHOWS NORTHWESTERLY FLOW BEGINNING TO IMPINGE ON AND DISRUPT THE OUTFLOW TO THE NORTH OF THE CYCLONE.

Epsilon refuses to obey the rules. Not only has Epsilon refused to die as expected -- it has strengthened in the past day to near Category 2 strength. Epsilon is traversing 22-23C waters, which are a full four degrees C (7 F) below what is normally thought of as the minimum needed to allow a hurricane to strengthen. The upper level winds are unfavorable -- Epsilon was been under 20 knots of shear the past two days. It is unusual to see a hurricane intensify in the face of 20 knots of shear (although Wilma managed to do so). It is unheard of for a hurricane to intensify in the face of 20 knots of shear, and with 22C water temperatures under it. Like I've been saying about this entire Hurricane Season of 2005, the normal rules do not apply. Epsilon is another storm that we do not understand, and I hope someone out there in grad school is taking data on this storm and writing a Ph.D. thesis on it!

The death toll rose after strong winds blew a man off his roof, which he was apparently trying to repair on the island of Fuerteventura as the storm approached, emergency officials said.

Storm Delta also claimed the lives of six African migrants who drowned off the Canary Islands on Monday as waves swept their makeshift boat.

The islands of Tenerife and La Palma were worst hit by the storm, which had passed over by mid-morning. Uprooted trees and landslides forced the closure of roads on the picturesque islands.

About 223,000 customers had no electricity, and the lack of power was also affecting some telephone services.

A STRONG AND LARGE NON-TROPICAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER THE CENTRAL ATLANTIC CENTERED ABOUT 1050 MILES SOUTHWEST OF THE AZORES ISLANDS IS MOVING SLOWLY SOUTH-SOUTHWESTWARD. THIS SYSTEM IS GRADUALLY ACQUIRING TROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND COULD BECOME A TROPICAL STORM ON WEDNESDAY. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS SYSTEM CAN BE FOUND IN HIGH SEAS FORECASTS ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE...UNDER AWIPS HEADER NFDHSFAT1 AND WMO HEADER FZNT01 KWBC.

Forming in the western Caribbean on Friday, Tropical Storm Gamma was projected to aim for southwest Florida by Monday afternoon and arrive over this region by that evening possibly with winds up to 65 mph, heavy rains and a high potential for tornadoes -- exactly one month after Wilma.

The good news, at this point: Gamma was not expected to grow into a hurricane but rather remain a tropical storm. Further, a cold front could weaken the storm or guide south of the state, said Jamie Rhome, meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami Dade County.

Residents should watch it carefully, but don't panic, he said.

"While we want people to pay really close attention to this system, we don't want mass hysteria, given South Florida's sensitivity to tropical systems," he said.

1. Total Destruction of Earth
2. Gulf Coast Tsunami
3. East Coast Tsunami
4. Heat Waves
5. Midwest Earthquake
6. Supervolcano
7. Los Angeles Tsunami
8. Asteroid Impact
9. New York Hurricane
10. Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake

The record 13th hurricane of this year's Atlantic storm season made landfall Sunday on Nicaragua's central coast, about 320 kilometres northeast of Managua, as a Category 2 hurricane before quickly weakening to a tropical storm and eventually becoming a tropical depression before beginning to dissipate.

Col. Mario Perez Cassar, Nicaragua's civil defence chief, said 80% of the buildings on the central coast were heavily damaged or destroyed.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT TWO MODELS WHICH BRING BETA NORTHWARD TOWARD CUBA AND FLORIDA...LBAR AND THE CANADIAN...HAVE SHOWN A NORTHWARD BIAS IN PREVIOUS SIMILAR SITUATIONS. THEREFORE...WHILE NOT BEING RULED OUT AS POSSIBILITIES THEY ARE BEING GIVEN LITTLE WEIGHT AT THIS TIME.

An early nor'easter reinforced by distant Hurricane Wilma on Tuesday pounded beaches with 20-foot waves, knocked out power to thousands of people and spread rain across the Northeast, where many residents were still cleaning up from flooding earlier in the month.

Twenty-foot waves eroded New Jersey beaches. Dozens of flights were canceled at Boston's Logan Airport and gusts to 70 mph were reported on Cape Cod.

The storm was drawing moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Wilma, which was passing far offshore after battering Florida a day earlier.

"It's getting some energy from Wilma, but it's its own separate system," said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton. The nor'easter is "going to be a good storm in it's own right."

AT 18Z...A SHIP REPORT FROM C6FN4 HAD A 22 KNOT SOUTHWEST WIND ABOUT 30 NM SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER WITH A 1007 MB PRESSURE. BASED UPON THE ABOVE INFORMATION THE CYCLONE HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO TROPICAL STORM ALPHA. ALPHA IS THE TWENTY-SECOND NAMED STORM THIS SEASON AND OVERALL MAKES THE 2005 HURRICANE SEASON THE MOST ACTIVE ON RECORD.

Finally, by Saturday, strong westerly winds will build in behind the trough and carry Wilma rapidly northeastward across South Florida or the waters between Florida and Cuba. The absolutely critical thing is -- where will Wilma stall out? The GFDL model believes Wilma will push inland over the tip of the Yucatan, and spend two days overland, and weaken to a tropical storm. The UKMET model believes Wilma will stall in the Yucatan Channel, and not lose much strength. The other models have modest variations on these two themes. The difference in postions is only 100 miles or so. This is impossible to reliably forecast even 12 hours in advance, given the weak steering currents that are likely to exist Friday. Will will just have to wait and see what happens. Very small changes in storm position will cause huge changes in Wilma's intensity.

DATA FROM A RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT HURRICANE WILMA HAS BECOME AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. THE RECONNAISSANCE PLANE MEASURED 175 MPH WINDS AND ESTIMATED A MINIMUM PRESSURE OF 892 MB. THIS IS THE LOWEST PRESSURE OBSERVED IN 2005 AND IS EQUIVALENT TO THE MINIMUM PRESSURE OF THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS.

AN AIR FORCE PLANE MEASURED MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS OF NEAR 150 MPH...240 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. WILMA IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. THE HURRICANE COULD BECOME A CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE TODAY.

LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE JUST REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE PLANE WAS IS 901 MB...26.61 INCHES.

THE HISTORICAL RECORD SHOWS NO TROPICAL CYCLONE EVER MAKING LANDFALL ON THE IBERIAN PENINSULA. BASED ON SURFACE REPORTS FROM FARO PORTUGAL...THE CENTER PASSED JUST TO THE SOUTH OF THE COAST OF PORTUGAL...BEFORE BECOMING THE FIRST TROPICAL CYCLONE TO MAKE LANDFALL IN SPAIN.

"I have been worked for NOAA for roughly 15 years," said a NOAA employee speaking of both the Department media policy and the Teet email. "There has never been a blanket policy of needing approval before granting an interview with a national media outlet."

Another NOAA employee, also wishing to remain anonymous, concurred.

"This is a big change in our policy with the media," he said. "This comes all the way down from DOC," he added, indicating that such media decisions were formerly made at the local level.

The beaches of Cameron Parish, Louisiana were located just east of the point of landfall for Hurricane Rita, in the right-front quadrant where winds and surge were a maximum. Some small towns in this zone no longer have any structures remaining. The combination of low elevations and a storm surge approaching 6 m (20 ft) that swept across the coast, resulted in bare concrete slabs and less-than-vertical pilings where buildings had been located.

If 2005 goes down as the worst hurricane season on record in the North Atlantic, it will join 2004 as one of the most violent ever. And these two seasons are part of a trend of increasingly powerful and deadly hurricanes that has been playing out for more than 10 years. Says climatologist Judy Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology: "The so-called once-in-a-lifetime storm isn't even once in a season anymore."

Head-snapping changes in the weather like this inevitably raise the question, Is global warming to blame? For years, environmentalists have warned that one of the first and most reliable signs of a climatological crash would be an upsurge in the most violent hurricanes, the kind that thrive in a suddenly warmer world. Scientists are quick to point out that changes in the weather and climate change are two different things. But now, after watching two Gulf Coast hurricanes reach Category 5 in the space of four weeks, even skeptical scientists are starting to wonder whether something serious might be going on.

"There is no doubt that climate is changing and humans are partly responsible," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate-analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. "The odds have changed in favor of more intense storms and heavier rainfalls." Says NCAR meteorologist Greg Holland: "These are not small changes. We're talking about a very large change."

While the headline-getting weather news story has been Hurricane Rita, temperatures have been ridiculously high for this time of year across a good chunk of the country. I mean, c'mon ... highs in the 90s all over the place and even 100+ degrees in many locations, within a week or two of October?!

There was a time at which reading anything more into that would have been the last thing you'd ever hear from me. I was a certified Global Warming Skeptic. As most climate scientists came to conclude that humans were changing the climate and those changes were significant, I, priding myself on also being an Objective Meteorologist, vehemently resisted as a result of what I felt was insufficient evidence.

I eventually came to the judgment that I was wrong and global warming was real, largely caused by human activities, and profoundly changing the planet on which we live. Even so, I was particularly opposed to the notion of "blaming" global warming for any single weather event. To this day I think that a lot of discretion needs to be used in making such connections.

The Arctic climate varies naturally, but the researchers conclude that human-induced global warming is at least partially responsible.

They warn the shrinkage could lead to even faster melting in coming years.

"September 2005 will set a new record minimum in the amount of Arctic sea ice cover," said Mark Serreze, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Boulder, Colorado.

"It's the least sea ice we've seen in the satellite record, and continues a pattern of extreme low extents of sea ice which we've now seen for the last four years," he told BBC News.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on.

Max Mayfield told a congressional panel that he believes the Atlantic Ocean is in a cycle of increased hurricane activity that parallels an increase that started in the 1940s and ended in the 1960s.

The ensuing lull lasted until 1995, then "it's like somebody threw a switch," Mayfield said. The number and power of hurricanes increased dramatically.

Mayfield also listed a number of cities and regions in addition to New Orleans he believes are "especially vulnerable" to damage from a major hurricane: Houston and Galveston, Texas; Tampa; southern Florida and the Florida Keys; New York City and Long Island; and New England.

"Katrina will not be the last major hurricane to hit a vulnerable area," he said.

"The number of tornadoes associated with tropical storms and hurricanes was extraordinary and can be partially blamed for the high number of overall tornado reports," McCarthy said. Tropical Storm Bonnie and five land-falling hurricanes—Charley, Frances, Gaston, Ivan and Jeanne—affected the mid-Atlantic and Southeast states during August and September. Tornadoes frequently occur in the northeast quadrant of northward advancing tropical systems or their remnants.

Hurricane Frances produced the most tornadoes for a tropical system with a preliminarily number of 117 reports. Frances tops Hurricane Beulah, which spawned 115 tornadoes in September 1967. Hurricane Ivan was close with 104 tornado reports, and a total of 16 tornadoes were reported in association with Hurricane Jeanne.

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite reveals a remarkable feature in this 3-D cat scan of Hurricane Rita - a pair of gigantic chimney clouds reaching more than 11 miles high. That is equivalent to 60,000 feet, or twice as high as a commercial airplane's cruising altitude. TRMM observed these hot towers in Hurricane Rita on September 19, 2005 during a period of brief intensification.

DATA FROM RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT RITA HAS REACHED CATEGORY FIVE INTENSITY WITH ESTIMATED MAXIMUM SUSTAINED SURFACE WINDS OF 165 MPH. THIS WILL BE REFLECTED IN THE 4 PM CDT ADVISORY.

The entire stretch of coast from 500 miles south of Brownsville, Texas to Mobile, Alabama is at risk -- no one can say with any confidence where Rita will hit this far in advance. Texas and Louisiana are at the highest risk. The current model trend is to recurve Rita earlier and earlier, so residents from Corpus Christi to New Orleans need to be particulary concerned.

Katrina's sustained winds reached 175 mph and its minimum central pressure dropped as low as 902 millibars the fourth lowest on record for an Atlantic hurricane, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported.

The storm weakened slightly before it reached landfall and had less powerful winds than Hurricane Camille, which devastated coastal Mississippi in August, 1969.

But the size of Katrina, with hurricane force winds extending 120 miles from its center, was much larger and the destruction more widespread than Camille.

The central pressure in a hurricane is a good indicator of the strength of the winds of the storm. The strongest observed hurricane in the Atlantic basin was Gilbert in 1988 with a pressure of 888 millibars in the northwest Caribbean. Normal average sea level air pressure is 1,016 millibars.

THIS TROUGH WILL NOT BE DEEP ENOUGH TO SIGNIFICANTLY ACCELERATE THE CYCLONE... HOWEVER...AND THIS IS LIKELY TO RESULT IN AN EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG PASSAGE OF THE HURRICANE ALONG THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. THE SLOW MOTION...COUPLED WITH THE RATHER LARGE RADIUS OF MAXIMUM WIND...IS EXPECTED TO RESULT IN EXTENDED PERIODS OF HEAVY RAINFALL...WITH WINDS AT OR NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OVER MUCH OF THE WARNING AREA.