The Washington Post article about me is online.

Becky, true to form, steals the show with her quote:

His fascination with weather is “just one of the little eccentricities that make Brendan the man he is,” says his longtime girlfriend and now fiancee, Zak, 23. The two will marry on Dec. 30. “It’s mildly frustrating because he tends to allow his blog to monopolize his priorities — well, for example, he’ll blog instead of doing his reading for class. That kind of thing. But at the end of the day, he knows that if it’s between me and blogging, I always win.”

LOL! Ain’t that the truth?

Read the whole thing.

P.S. But did they have to use that photo? After all the nice blogging photos I sent them, they had to search the Reuters wire and find the South Bend Tribune pic where I look like I’m constipated and getting ready to grope someone. Argh! Oh, well… as it happens, I was explaining an eyewall replacement cycle when that picture was taken, so I guess it fits with the headline:

P.P.S. Don’t forget about my online chat on the WaPo website from 1-2 PM EDT Monday. You can submit questions now.

Hurricane Wilma, still a Category 2, is back over water and beginning to show signs of increased organization. She could become a major hurricane again tomorrow — although the dominance of her large outer eyewall could inhibit development. Wilma will soon start accelerating toward Florida, and should make landfall Monday morning. The exact location of landfall is still uncertain. Here’s the latest NHC forecast track, here’s the AccuWeather track, and here are some computer model tracks.

Tropical Storm Alpha, meanwhile, is strengthening as it (he?) approaches Hispaniola, where there is “a strong likelihood of life-threatening flash floods and mud-slides.” Dr. Jeff Masters writes that “given the storm’s expected track over Haiti, the 8-12 inches of rain expected may cause heavy loss of life in that country due to the inability of the deforested hillsides to handle flood waters.” It is entirely possible that Alpha will be devastating enough that the “name” will need to be retired — meaning the Greek alphabet will “start” with Beta from now on! (Well, for hurricane-naming purposes, anyway.) But let’s hope and pray not. There has been enough death and destruction already this hurricane season.

Alpha may dissipate over the mountains of Hispaniola, but if not, it is expected to be absorbed by the dominant circulation of Wilma in two days:

INITIAL 23/0300Z 17.7N 70.1W 45 KT
12HR VT 23/1200Z 18.9N 71.5W 30 KT…INLAND
24HR VT 24/0000Z 22.0N 72.5W 30 KT…OVER WATER
36HR VT 24/1200Z 26.0N 73.0W 30 KT…DISSIPATING
48HR VT 25/0000Z…ABSORBED WITHIN CIRCULATION OF WILMA

However, the Perfect Storm II scenario does not appear to be favored by forecasters. Dr. Masters writes, “Wilma should pass close enough to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to bring 40 mph winds there. Wilma is not expected to bring high winds to New England, but could bring 50 mph winds to Nova Scotia five days from now.”

Masters also writes that something that I definitely agree with:

Ever since the formation of two major hurricanes in July made it clear that the Hurricane Season of 2005 was going to challenge 1933 as the busiest season ever, I’ve been expecting to see the words “Tropical Storm Alpha” emblazoned on a hurricane tracking chart. Well, we’ve got the record now. The formation of Tropical Storm Alpha, the 22nd storm of the season, now makes 2005 the busiest hurricane season of all time. Still, it looks really strange to see the words “Tropical Storm Alpha” on the hurricane tracking charts, and gives a surreal cast to Hurricane Season of 2005 as we approach the Halloween season.

Yup.

I just took this picture of Becky, and I love it:

This is what she’s looking at:

More pics here.

Its half time, Cal leads 28-10 over WSU.

The 3rd quarter starts and like an elephant stampede Wazzu pounds back scoring 28 unanswered points of their own.

Fourth quarter, is Cal going to Coug’ it??

Then the tide changed. The Cougars decided to call a fake punt, and the Bears shut it down, sparking a come back of two touchdowns, enough to put them over the top of the Cougars 42-38.

So there you have it, two weeks in a row the Coug’s fall apart in the fourth to a California team and blow great opportunities.

Way to Coug it boys.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

The game started off with a bang! On the opening kickoff the Huskies returned the ball all the way to the Trojan 10 yard line, and the stadium absolutely erupted. Was this it? Was this the turning point the Huskies had been waiting for? Was this going to be the miracle upset? Well the Huskies walked away from this field position with a mere field goal. For the Huskies the rest of the day would be a mix of excitement and frustration.

The final score is a little decieving. Certainly the Trojans were the better team, and won the game outright, but the Huskies gave them a bit of a boost. A bad handoff led to a Husky fumble, recovered by the Trojans around the Husky 30, and a quick Trojan score. Not long after on another Washington posessions Isaiah Stanbacks attempted a quick pass to a back in motion, that was dropped and unfortunately for the Huskies had been a backwards pass, meaning live ball and another Trojan recovery which led to another short touchdown drive for the Trojans.

Reggie Bush, LenDale White, and the Trojan line easily pushed the Huskies line around all day, and the Huskies anemic secondary let Leinert just throw whereever he wanted. And he did. The Trojans offense was clicking on all cylinders today and you could see in his decision making all game long why he won the Heisman and is one of the best quarterbacks ever. And Reggie Bush showed that the Heisman for this year is truly his to lose.

Although it was a loss, for the Huskies it really was a pretty good game, and gives me hope for the rest of the season, i think we might have a couple more wins before the end of the season.

For the Trojans it was a great solid win.

Brendan did forget to mention one thing, Booty, while going 5-6, also had an interception, an interception that the Huskies ran back from a touchdown, which turned out to be the final score of the game Correction, the Trojans scored one more touchdown after the Huskies did, making THAT the last score of the game, although the Dawgs did still beat the spread. (Thanks to Andrew for alerting me to my error)

Its the little things in life that counts sometimes :-)

So on to next week! Beat the Cougars (yeah thats a tough call for me :-) ) and Beat the Sun Devils!

Penn State 56, Illinois 3… at the half.

One last, beautiful sunset in Arizona. Do we *have* to go back to South Bend? :)

Pete Carroll may have given the Washington Huskies locker-room material by implicitly dissing their coach, but Washington couldn’t do anything about it. Matt Leinart threw 19-for-25 for 197 yards and 4 touchdowns — and John David Booty went 5-for-6 with a touchdown of his own — as the Trojans beat the Huskies, 51-24.

Next week: Homecoming against Washington State. Fight on! Beat the Cougars!

Way to go, Irish!

Notre Dame avenged last year’s loss to BYU, and took out their aggressions after last week’s heartbreaker against USC, with a 49-23 win over the Mormons Cougars. Brady Quinn set a new all-time Notre Dame record with six touchdown passes.

Next up: Tennessee, in two weeks. Goooo Irish! Beeeeat Vols!

USC and Notre Dame are both winning easily in the fourth quarter.

Elsewhere, Stanford is beating ASU (!), Duke is keeping it close against Florida State, UConn is losing to Rutgers, Alabama is having a defensive battle with Tennessee, and Texas is exposing Texas Tech as a pretender. Oh, and Purdue sucks.

It’s official:

…ALPHA BECOMES THE TWENTY-SECOND NAMED STORM OF THE SEASON AND BREAKS THE ALL-TIME RECORD FOR THE MOST ACTIVE SEASON ON RECORD…

This is the first time the Greek alphabet has ever been used to name tropical cyclones, and 2005 has now eclipsed 1933’s record for the number of Atlantic basin tropical cyclones in a season.

I’ve been talking about this possibility for months, and it has seemed virtually inevitable for weeks, but I’m still sort of stunned that it’s actually happened.

Here is the new list of the most tropical cyclones in a season:

2005: 22
1933: 21
1995: 19

AP article here.

Here’s a visible image showing Wilma at left and Alpha at right:

Wilma, by the way, is about to emerge over the Gulf of Mexico. She has 100 mph sustained winds, making her a Category 2. Hurricane Watches are up for Florida. Bryan Woods at The Storm Track expects her to regain Category 3 status before weakening back to a Cat. 2 prior to Florida landfall as the wind spear picks up. Hurricane Watches are up for all of south Florida. Steve Gregory has more.

It looks like Andrew was on to something. Bryan Woods of The Storm Track e-mails:

The GFDL model is calling for an interesting development. It wants TD25 to strengthen into Category 3 hurricane Alpha east of the Bahamas. Then once Wilma crosses Florida, it merges the two storms over the Gulf Stream, tracks them up the coast, and place a Cat 2 hurricane off of Cape Cod. Food for thought!

Here is Bryan’s blog post about this possibility, complete with maps of Hurricane Wilmalpha (or whatever). Here’s the GFDL forecast for 2:00 PM Tuesday:

Matt Leinart just tied ASU quarterback Andrew Walter’s Pac-10 record with his 85th career touchdown pass. USC leads Washington, 14-10 at the end of the first quarter.

Brady Quinn is having a good day, too. He’s 21-for-26 and Notre Dame leads BYU, 21-10 late in the second quarter.

Also underway: Texas vs. Texas Tech in a huge battle of Big 12 South unbeatens, and UConn vs. Rutgers in a game between two teams with one Big East loss.

Elsewhere, undefeated, #4-ranked Georgia barely escaped Arkansas, 23-20. That’s the same Arkansas team that USC beat 70-17 last month.

UPDATE: Leinart breaks the record!

From the 2:00 PM EDT advisory on T.D. 25:

…TROPICAL DEPRESSION TWENTY-FIVE NEARING TROPICAL STORM STRENGTH…

We could be mere hours away from breaking the record.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Wilma is down to Cat. 2 status. Dr. Jeff Masters writes:

The most extreme winds of the eyewall have now been battering Cozumel and the mainland Yucatan Peninsula for over 24 hours. Sustained winds of 100 - 140 mph affecting a built-up resort area like Cozumel/Cancun for so long must have done extreme damage. Wilma has weakened to a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds, and may further weaken to a Category 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds today as its center remains over land. Still, the damage to Mexico may double today as structures already weakened by 24 hours of relentless winds continue to receive another 12 hours of stress, and as new areas along the north coast of the Yucatan receive the eyewall’s worst pounding.

Meanwhile, Bryan Woods at The Storm Track is impressed that the Cancun radar is still working (although the website displaying it is down at the moment, probably because of the Drudge link). He writes: “After watching the radar for the past couple of days, I think we need to invite the Mexican engineers to build new radars for NOAA. American radars would never have held up to this type of abuse.” Heh.

Notre Dame and BYU are underway in South Bend.

Up in Seattle, USC-Washington gets underway in less than an hour.

Elsewhere in college football: HOLY CRAP! Northwestern 42, Michigan State 7, end of the third quarter! WTF?

And here’s an interesting fourth-quarter score: 7-5. Heh. (North Carolina over Virginia.)