Thursday, August 19, 2021

Miami, The "Beaches" And, The Hurricanes

Miami is considered to have begun when a woman from Cleveland, named Julia Tuttle, got a railroad to link to land that she owned in south Florida. It has since grown to be considered as "The Capital of the Caribbean".


The following scenes begin in downtown Miami.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7667302,-80.1918278,3a,75y,81.21h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slwLV1ni-26Sj1J7RbMy4Tg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlwLV1ni-26Sj1J7RbMy4Tg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D80.259514%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Miami Beach is on a barrier island just offshore. It is on these barrier islands that the beaches facing the ocean are located.

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.8207705,-80.1224991,3a,75y,79h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s2qceqM5XQHodJFk3c223ow!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D2qceqM5XQHodJFk3c223ow%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D79.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is Coconut Grove, south of Miami, beginning in the Vizcaya Gardens.

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7443593,-80.2103932,2a,75y,339.98h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s_v7RLV9jwnBfYpljLS6oTQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D_v7RLV9jwnBfYpljLS6oTQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D341.82986%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Coral Gables is a relatively wealthy residential area, near the University of Miami.

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7189357,-80.2856583,3a,75y,196.61h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sCXYOlgfyhYvEbtVik0rSng!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DCXYOlgfyhYvEbtVik0rSng%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D195.04161%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Hiahleah is a residential area to the northwest of downtown.

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.8587907,-80.277017,3a,75y,316h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZzgQfAXs9MW9Pg7vEvFzWQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DZzgQfAXs9MW9Pg7vEvFzWQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D316.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

As we proceed northward from Miami, there are the "beaches" along the shore. These are towns on the mainland, with beaches on the barrier islands just offshore. Going northward, these "beach towns" are Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and finally, West Palm Beach.

The following scenes begin in the city of Fort Lauderdale.

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.1183461,-80.1372988,3a,75y,79h,88t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPFgE7KFtCcmffgZDbgN7AtD0gLoL-L5fgx7WBQ!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPFgE7KFtCcmffgZDbgN7AtD0gLoL-L5fgx7WBQ%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9999962-ya79.5-ro0-fo100!7i11000!8i5500

These scenes begin on the beach at Fort Lauderdale.

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.1311962,-80.1029424,3a,75y,104.96h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMpGdSQhohrwV_xdACsMOFFy__LqAlYTvU5WMoz!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMpGdSQhohrwV_xdACsMOFFy__LqAlYTvU5WMoz%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya106.571205-ro-0-fo100!7i11000!8i5500

Moving northward, here is Pompano Beach.

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.2364418,-80.0894978,3a,75y,238h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1svySIQTCBNqSoclhi9spKsQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DvySIQTCBNqSoclhi9spKsQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D238.5%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The furthest north of "the beaches", in the Miami area, is West Palm Beach.

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.7138235,-80.0542132,3a,75y,259h,76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPq3nOQYHljqqaffkGl9FXbHrnJN1fE8o2penG7!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPq3nOQYHljqqaffkGl9FXbHrnJN1fE8o2penG7%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-14.933861-ya178.50002-ro0-fo100!7i8192!8i4096

Florida often suffers through hurricanes. But the ironic thing is that the offshore barrier islands, where the popular beaches are located, were actually built by hurricanes over thousands of years. Without hurricanes Miami Beach, for one example, certainly would not be there.

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7960065,-80.1401445,10930m/data=!3m1!1e3

We can tell that the west coast of Florida has a long history of hurricanes also, such as these at Cape Coral, although the barrier islands are not as extensive as those on the east coast of Florida, which faces the Atlantic Ocean.

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.5965813,-82.1949999,43421m/data=!3m1!1e3

There must have been a lot of hurricanes, over a long period of time, to build up the extensive barrier islands off the Texas coast.

https://www.google.com/maps/@27.7040271,-96.6745684,171971m/data=!3m1!1e3

Of course there are going to be hurricanes at Galveston. It is built on a barrier island that was made by hurricanes.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.2335136,-94.813759,42375m/data=!3m1!1e3

The reason that South America does not get hurricanes, like North America does, is that hurricanes require a lot of dust to be swept up into the air by the wind. This dust acts as condensation nuclei for water vapor. When water vapor in the air condenses on particles of so much dust, it lowers the relative humidity of the air so that more water can evaporate, which then condenses on the particles of dust, and so on.

The dust that makes Atlantic hurricanes in the northern hemisphere comes from north Africa. But Africa south of the equator, which could supply the dust to bring comparable hurricanes to South America, is mostly green. There is not enough dust to send hurricanes toward South America, like there is in the northern hemisphere.

Due to the nature of a rotating sphere, like the earth, the nearer a point is to the equator, the faster it is moving with the rotation. This means that the earth underneath the mass of rising water vapor that is closer to the equator is moving eastward, with the earth's rotation, faster than the side that is further away from the equator.

This difference in relative speed, from one side to the other, it what gives the hurricane it's spin. In the northern hemisphere, a hurricane spins counter-clockwise because the side furthest south, and thus closer to the equator, is moving faster than the side that is further from the equator, northward. If you look down on the north or south pole, the direction that the earth appears to be spinning, clockwise or counter-clockwise, is the direction that a hurricane will also spin in that hemisphere.

The hurricane does not actually move westward, as it appears. The earth is rotating eastward and the increasing spin of the hurricane gives it some independence from the earth's gravity, so that it does not move eastward as fast as the earth is rotating eastward. This makes the hurricane seem to move westward.

A hurricane in the northern hemisphere, in addition to moving westward, will also move northward because the earth beneath it is moving eastward faster on the southern side, closer to the equator, and this directs the hurricane to the northwest, instead of due west.

We saw how the relationship between a hurricane and the rotation of the earth resembles a system of gears in the posting on this blog, "The Gear Model Of Hurricanes".

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