The Hurricanes Are Here

Bad news: the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, although tardy to begin, is now in full swing. Hurricane Danielle reached Category 4 over the open Atlantic today and two more possible bogeys are following her closely. Good news: A steering pattern seems in place, at least for the moment, that is recurving these storms out to sea, and keeping them away from the North American and Caribbean land masses. We'll just see how long this lasts. Best news of all: the oil spill is plugged and no hurricane ever went across the slick while the oil was still flowing. That's not to say a hurricane couldn't still cause a mess with all the oil in the water. But a worst case scenario has likely been averted (due to sheer luck, not due to anything BP did). Eric Berger and Jeff Masters have much more technical analysis and commentary.