Her Name Will Be Faith by Christopher Nicole Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christopher Nicole
is travelling, is monitored from minute to
minute."
"Gosh," she said.
"That looks absolutely terrifying. Have you ever been in one of those?"
He grinned. "Nope. Nothing
like that. Anita was a big storm. She carried sustained winds, for a little while, of 150 miles
an hour, which made
her a Category Four storm, and in fact, damned near a Category Five. She didn't make it, but in
terms of wind speed she was the biggest storm
in the Atlantic area for twenty years."
"Gosh," she said again,
and paused. "May I ask you a $64,000 question?"
"Sure."
"Well, you have just convinced me how accurate
all your observations and tracking systems
are. That being so, how come the forecasts you hear are so often
wrong?"
He held up a forefinger. "Not
wrong. They are sometimes inaccurate as to timing, and sometimes the weather does quite
unpredictable things. I'm
afraid not the most sophisticated apparatus in the world can guarantee a system will do what it should
do, by all the rules. There are certain rules on which we can rely, as I have
outlined. If you have a low-pressure area
in the northern hemisphere, the winds will rotate around it in an
anti-clockwise direction. There is no possibility of them doing otherwise. Just
as winds will always flow from high pressure to low; they will never blow up a
pressure gradient. And tides rise and fall in approximately twelve-hour cycles,
no matter what the weather may be doing. These are natural laws. But a weather system is its own boss. For instance, we
might track a system all the way from its beginning, off, say, the West
Coast of Africa, around Cape Verde, and for seven consecutive days it may
travel due west at 15 knots. Now, we can say with absolute certainty that there
is bad weather coming. And after seven days we might be tempted to say that in
twenty-four hours from now the storm center is going to be 360 nautical miles due west of its present position.
But at any moment, without warning, it may change course, increase
speed, decrease speed, or stop altogether. We
do know that there are rivers of air in the atmosphere, along which storm systems flow like driftwood in a river.
We also know that tropical storms spawn, and can only flourish, over warm
water. But we can still never be absolutely certain what they are going to do
next. And incidentally, if you are going to use any of this, be sure you point up the difference between the speed
at which the system may be travelling, and the wind speeds it is
generating. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that the faster a
hurricane is travelling the more dangerous
it is, whatever the wind speeds circulating round the eye happen to be.
That is quite wrong. In fact, in most cases, the reverse is true. Hurricane winds are generated by heat, not by
speed. Therefore, the slower a
hurricane is travelling, the more time, for instance, it spends over warm water, the stronger the winds round the
center are likely to be. Equally, the faster a system is travelling, the
faster it will hit you and be on its way again."
"Yes," she said. "I
think I have it. Gosh..." she looked at her watch. "I have taken up an awful
amount of your time. Really, I could sit here and talk to you forever, but..."
"I haven't told you about hurricanes yet,"
he pointed out. "Well, maybe..."
"We can talk about them over lunch," he told
her.
Jo was taken by surprise. She hadn't had a chance to
analyze what she felt about this man, and it was necessary to feel something
about him if she was going to write about
him. And if she had often lunched with other interviewees, it had never been on a day quite like this, when she
should have been supporting Michael
at the Four Seasons... and if not, munching a sandwich at the office.
But she only hesitated for a moment before
accepting – she wanted to feel she could get some of her own back for
that slap this morning.
He took her to a trattoria. "I can recommend the
pizzas here," Richard told her, across the red-chequered
minute."
"Gosh," she said.
"That looks absolutely terrifying. Have you ever been in one of those?"
He grinned. "Nope. Nothing
like that. Anita was a big storm. She carried sustained winds, for a little while, of 150 miles
an hour, which made
her a Category Four storm, and in fact, damned near a Category Five. She didn't make it, but in
terms of wind speed she was the biggest storm
in the Atlantic area for twenty years."
"Gosh," she said again,
and paused. "May I ask you a $64,000 question?"
"Sure."
"Well, you have just convinced me how accurate
all your observations and tracking systems
are. That being so, how come the forecasts you hear are so often
wrong?"
He held up a forefinger. "Not
wrong. They are sometimes inaccurate as to timing, and sometimes the weather does quite
unpredictable things. I'm
afraid not the most sophisticated apparatus in the world can guarantee a system will do what it should
do, by all the rules. There are certain rules on which we can rely, as I have
outlined. If you have a low-pressure area
in the northern hemisphere, the winds will rotate around it in an
anti-clockwise direction. There is no possibility of them doing otherwise. Just
as winds will always flow from high pressure to low; they will never blow up a
pressure gradient. And tides rise and fall in approximately twelve-hour cycles,
no matter what the weather may be doing. These are natural laws. But a weather system is its own boss. For instance, we
might track a system all the way from its beginning, off, say, the West
Coast of Africa, around Cape Verde, and for seven consecutive days it may
travel due west at 15 knots. Now, we can say with absolute certainty that there
is bad weather coming. And after seven days we might be tempted to say that in
twenty-four hours from now the storm center is going to be 360 nautical miles due west of its present position.
But at any moment, without warning, it may change course, increase
speed, decrease speed, or stop altogether. We
do know that there are rivers of air in the atmosphere, along which storm systems flow like driftwood in a river.
We also know that tropical storms spawn, and can only flourish, over warm
water. But we can still never be absolutely certain what they are going to do
next. And incidentally, if you are going to use any of this, be sure you point up the difference between the speed
at which the system may be travelling, and the wind speeds it is
generating. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that the faster a
hurricane is travelling the more dangerous
it is, whatever the wind speeds circulating round the eye happen to be.
That is quite wrong. In fact, in most cases, the reverse is true. Hurricane winds are generated by heat, not by
speed. Therefore, the slower a
hurricane is travelling, the more time, for instance, it spends over warm water, the stronger the winds round the
center are likely to be. Equally, the faster a system is travelling, the
faster it will hit you and be on its way again."
"Yes," she said. "I
think I have it. Gosh..." she looked at her watch. "I have taken up an awful
amount of your time. Really, I could sit here and talk to you forever, but..."
"I haven't told you about hurricanes yet,"
he pointed out. "Well, maybe..."
"We can talk about them over lunch," he told
her.
Jo was taken by surprise. She hadn't had a chance to
analyze what she felt about this man, and it was necessary to feel something
about him if she was going to write about
him. And if she had often lunched with other interviewees, it had never been on a day quite like this, when she
should have been supporting Michael
at the Four Seasons... and if not, munching a sandwich at the office.
But she only hesitated for a moment before
accepting – she wanted to feel she could get some of her own back for
that slap this morning.
He took her to a trattoria. "I can recommend the
pizzas here," Richard told her, across the red-chequered