Tag Archives: in the Gulf of Mexico

‘Life-threatening’ storm to remain major hurricane before Florida landfall, NHC says

Hurricane Milton remained a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico through Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. As of 5 a.m., Hurricane Milton was 300 miles from Tampa, Florida, with sustained winds of 160 mph. It is moving east-northeast at 14 mph. The minimum central pressure is 907 mb. “Milton is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida”, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. In the 5 a.m. update, the National Hurricane Center said Hurricane Milton had sustained winds of 160 mph, making it a strong Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:12

In bluefin tuna, fisheries science is never neat

Pinchin’s eponymous kings are Atlantic bluefin tuna, marine predators that can weigh well over a thousand pounds, “imagine a grand piano shaped like a nuclear weapon,” as Pinchin puts it. Bluefin are extraordinary organisms: warm-blooded, keen-eyed, coated in pigment-producing cells that flash a rainbow of colors when the fish are hauled onto a boat. Pinchin excels at evoking her piscine subjects, whose sickle-shaped tails beat nearly as fast as a hummingbird’s wing. “To stand beside a just-landed giant bluefin, still slick from salt water, feels akin to standing beside a natural marvel like Niagara Falls or an erupting volcano,” writes Pinchin, a Nova Scotia-based science journalist. “There’s beauty, but also danger.” Her book isn’t just an ode to bluefin — it’s about humankind’s obsession with them, a fixation as old as our species. >click to read< 16:29

NRDC petitions NMFS to list a new (and very endangered) species. Of course they do.

About 50 mysterious baleen whales live in an underwater canyon off the Florida Panhandle, making them the only resident baleen whales, aka great whales, in the Gulf of Mexico. Several other baleen species visit the Gulf, but these 50 leviathans are the only ones known to live there year-round. But new genetic testing suggests the 50 Gulf whales might be a distinct subspecies of Bryde’s — or a new species altogether. If so,,, Read the rest here 19:39