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It looks like “Hurricane season” won’t end today after all. The Hurricanes just scored with 51.7 seconds left, and now it’s 4-2 Carolina.

UPDATE: ‘Canes 4, Sabres 2, final. It’ll be Carolina vs. Edmonton in the Stanley Cup final. :(

Really, it’s amazing Buffalo even came close to winning this series, considering the ridiculous litany of injuries they suffered. Winning would have been a miracle. That said, if only Max Afinogenov had scored on that breakaway chance in Game 5, instead of shooting the puck directly into the goalie’s chest…

Amid all this talk about hurricanes, the Hurricanes, and other miscellaneous topics of interest, there’s one truly momentous news story — of a rather more personal nature — that I’ve been sitting on for some time. I hinted at it in a P.S. back in April, and at least one of you guessed it, but I’ve been waiting to announce it until I had more complete information, and until I was 100% certain that I had permission of the parties involved to reveal all of said information. Now, both of those criteria have been met, so I can finally tell you all…

Shannon’s having a baby!!!

I give Shannon a congratulatory hug after learning the big news.

Shannon, one of Becky’s bridesmaids and SHA girls and one of our dearest friends, and her boyfriend P.J. are expecting! (P.J. is a really great guy. He’s the one with glasses standing directly behind me in this picture, which was taken a few minutes after Shannon told us the news.) The soon-to-be Mom and Dad both very excited.

Shannon is nearly five months pregnant now. They already know the sex of their baby — it’s a boy! — and I just found out today that they’ve picked a name, the name that the SHA girls were lobbying heavily for: Logan! (No word on whether the sonogram indicated the presence of any adamantium. :)

Here’s a pair of photos that we took while maternity shopping with Shannon back in late April — when she wasn’t yet four months pregnant. With the pillow and without the pillow:

Hehe. :)

I forget Shannon’s exact due date, but it’s sometime in late September, which should make for a very busy few weeks in SHA girl world, considering Marissa and Keith are getting married on October 7!

Anyway… so now you know. Hooray for Logan! :)

GOOO SABRES, BEEEAT HURRICANES!!!

UPDATE: Carolina leads, 1-0, at the end of the first period, on the strength of a fluke goal that resulted from a faraway slapshot that deflected in off two Buffalo players.

UPDATE 2: Carolina still leads, 1-0, late in the second period — and Buffalo was just robbed of a legitimate power play when an “evening up” penalty was called on Daniel Briere for “hooking” his own teammate. But… NEVERMIND!!! BUFFALO JUST SCORED!!! WOOHOO!!! It’s 1-1!

UPDATE 3: BUFFALO SCORES AGAIN!!!! With 4.7 seconds left in the second period, the Sabres take a 2-1 lead!!!!

UPDATE 4: Buffalo blogger “Thingy” writes a letter to the hockey gods:

Dearest hockey gods: Buffalo hasn’t won a championship in any sport, ever. The Bills came close four straight times, and in ‘99 the Sabres made it to the Stanley Cup finals, when the infamous “goal” happened. After that, all iffy goals have been reviewed by a team of spectacled analysts up in Canada, just to be absolutely sure they get the critical calls right. Again, after “no goal” happened.

Well, the Sabres are back in position. They just need to win tonight and they’ll face the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup finals. They lost their top goal scorer to a concussion. Then they lost one of their best defensemen with a broken ankle. Then they lost their steadiest defenseman to a goin injury. Then they lost another defenseman to a broken arm. A guy who was +14 in the playoffs, which is unheard of. They’ve had to start three rookies in a rotation. These kids haven’t played hockey in over a month, let alone NHL hockey, and double let alone NHL playoff hockey. And now, guess what? We’ve lost our best shot blocker, yes…another defenseman. Jay McKee. Tough as nails, but bad infections are bad infections. If they lose one more guy, they might have to ask me to lace ‘em up, and I haven’t skated in a decade.

Hey, I’m not complaining, ye gods. [Genuflect] I’m just giving you the facts in case your omniscience is temporarily disabled. [Genuflect] I’m truly not worthy to get in your face and demand a successful outcome for this young team of overachievers, who by the way are up against a team from Carolina, where the fans can’t sell out a game 7 conference final. They didn’t even have a flake of snow this past winter. Do you really want them to represent in the Cup finals? The Sabres have suffered. Western NY has suffered. Throw them a bone, will ya? [Genuflect]

And if you need anything more to convince you that the Sabres should win game 7 tonight by a score of 33-0, then you should know that Clay Aiken is a Hurricane fan and they brought him in to “sing” a “song” during the pre-game warmup. Ready your barf bags.

Heh. (Hat tip: Bethie Bee.) Well, 33-0 isn’t going to happen, but if Buffalo could just… DAMMIT… I was about to say “if Buffalo could just hold onto the 2-1 lead,” but Carolina just scored. 2-2! AAAH!!

18:21 to go. It was a seven-game series. Then it was a five-game series. Then it was a three-game series. Then it was a one-game series. Now it’s an 18-minute, 21-second series. Who will win?

LET’S GO, BUFF-A-LO!!!

UPDATE 5: Dammit! ‘Canes score a power-play goal, and take a 3-2 lead with 8:30 to go!!! AAAAHHH!!!!!

Two more weatherbloggers have weighed in on the official start of hurricane season. Weather Channel meteorologist Matt Newman writes:

The first day of hurricane season appears to be off to a calm start. One must remember 1992 when Andrew struck Florida. Yes, it was in late August and it was the first named system of that season. Do not be fooled by a calm start. How active the season will be has no relationship to the impact on the U.S. All it takes is one tropical system to cause harm and destruction. Keep in mind, even tropical storms can be very dangerous.

Bottom Line: Everyone should always be prepared!

And weatherblogger extraordinaire Dr. Jeff Masters writes:

The hurricane season of 2006 is here! The date June 1 has taken on a notoriety second only to 9/11 in the consciousness of many of us, and the arrival of summer now has an ominous flavor–thanks to the unbelievable Hurricane Season of 2005. As I sat at my desk back on New Year’s Day this year writing a blog on Zeta, the 28th named storm of that season, I wondered if the Hurricane Season of 2005 would ever end. Would an endless series of tropical storms develop through the winter, making the traditional June 1 start of hurricane season seem meaningless? Well, I am happy to report that the atmosphere sometimes does behave in a logical and predictable way. We’ve had a normal five straight months of no tropical storm activity in the Atlantic, leading up to today’s official start to the season. And if you’re not ready for hurricane season yet, then the Atlantic Hurricane Gods have benevolently granted you an extension to your preparation period–this year’s season will have a slow start. …

High wind shear is going to be a severe impediment to tropical storm formation for at least the first two weeks of June. The jet stream has split into two branches–the polar jet, located over the northern U.S., and the subtropical jet, which is blowing over the Gulf of Mexico. As long as the subtropical jet is blowing over the Gulf of Mexico with 30 - 50 knots of wind like it is now, no tropical storm formation is likely in the Gulf. If we do get Tropical Storm Alberto in the next two weeks, it will have to form in the western Caribbean south of Cuba. Steering currents would then likely take the storm north across Cuba and then northeastward across the Bahamas and out to sea. The Gulf Coast from Texas to the Florida Panhandle will be protected from any tropical storms by the strong subtropical jet steam. I’m predicting only a 10% chance of a tropical storm in the Atlantic by June 15 this year.

The GFS model predicts that the subtropical jet will continue to generate high levels of wind shear over the prime June breeding grounds for hurricanes for at least the next 12 days. After that, I suspect the subtropical jet will weaken, and we will get one tropical storm forming in late June over the western Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico.

Dr. Masters is so confident in his prediction of a slow start to the season, he’s taking the next two weeks off:

Given that the next two weeks are likely to be the quietest time in what promises otherwise to be another long and busy hurricane season, I’m outta here. This will be my final “live” blog until June 13, as I’m taking my main summer vacation early. I plan to spend some time at Cape Hatteras before any hurricanes threaten! … If Alberto does surprise us while I’m gone, the other meteorologists at wunderground will post the latest analysis here for you.

Also on wunderground, over at weatherguy03’s blog, they’re having a prediction contest for when Alberto will form. Nearly everyone thinks he will form by the end of June, even though the climatological odds of that are around 50-50.

Along the same lines, but with more at stake, over at TradeSports.com you can actually bet money on which state(s) will get hit by major hurricanes this season (Florida has a clear lead, followed by Louisiana and then… New York?! Clearly, they’ve been drinking too much of the AccuWeather kool-aid), and what you think will be the last named storm of the season (Patty and Rafael are the favorites).

Speaking of names, Charles Fenwick takes a look at the history of this year’s set of names. He calls the exercise “a little bit of fun (in the weather geek sense) for the start of hurricane season.” The only one I have a strong recollection of is Hurricane Gordon, which in 1994 seemed for a while like a legitimate threat to hit New England, where I was an eighth-grader at the time. But it confounded forecasters and took a wacky southward turn, and ultimately weakened before hitting Florida as a tropical storm.

Major international powers agree on a package of incentives and penalties for Iran to halt nuclear program. Visit CNN for the latest.

The state legislature of South Carolina is currently considering expanding the death penalty to two-time child molesters.

Just your bright, happy fact for today.

My template has mysteriously died and replaced itself with the WordPress default, again. No idea why. I thought I’d fixed this problem. Harumph!!

UPDATE: Fixed, for now. Incidentally, this is what the new layout should look like. If it looks less like that, and more like you’ve ventured onto Casey’s blog, that means it’s replaced itself with the default again.

UPDATE 2: It broke itself again… but then I just implemented a workaround. Since my WordPress database keeps spontaneously reverting to the “default” layout, I changed the name of my desired layout to “default” (and renamed the original “default” to “kubrick”). So far, it seems to be working! (NOTE: If the page looks messed up, try clearing your cache and reloading. My stylesheet has moved, and your browser may not be processing it properly.)

The National Hurricane Center’s first Atlantic Tropical Weather Outlook of 2006 has just been issued, meaning the Atlantic hurricane season is officially underway. Excerpt:

TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
530 AM EDT THU JUN 01 2006

FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC…CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO…

TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED THROUGH FRIDAY.

TODAY MARKS THE FIRST DAY OF THE ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON…WHICH WILL RUN UNTIL NOVEMBER 30TH.

That’s from Forecaster Beven. He then proceeds to go through the list of names for the coming season, followed by a summary of the various NHC advisory products. Nothing too exciting, I’m afraid. But the bottom line is, the season has begun.

As I pointed out before, this is really an arbitrary milestone. The statistical likelihood of tropical storm formation increased only infinitesimally, if at all, between yesterday and today. Still, we’ve now officially crossed that imaginary line in the sand, and there’s no going back — at least not until November 30.

Dmytro from NDLS called me a few hours ago and left me a voicemail wishing me a “Happy Hurricane Season.” Heh.

Here is The Storm Track’s post kicking off the season. Bryan minces no words:

Ready or not, Hurricane Season 2006 is here! What will this year have in store? Some fear mongers from AccuWeather (*cough* Bastardi *cough*) want nothing more than media attention and will pray on your fear to get it. (I can say that. Many thanks to State of Connecticut for extending journalism protections to the Internet.) Insurance companies, especially those based overseas and free of domestic political pressure, are cancelling policies up and down the East Coast as they are finally recognizing that hurricane losses are exceeding official government estimates. Did I mention that the National Weather Service is part of the Executive Branch?

He goes on to say, “I would not want to own property on the Outer Banks this year,” and then takes a look at the potential for tropical development right now, given the sea-surface temperatures. (Tropical-storm activity is possible over a wide area, but only the northern Caribbean has warm water deep enough to “support real hurricane activity” at the moment. That’s pretty typical for June.)

Speaking of “typical for June,” Charles Fenwick points out that “even with all of the above average activity [since 1995], on average, the first tropical storm didn’t form until 30 days into the season, and the first hurricane didn’t form until 63 days into the season.” He shares my concern that all this unprecedented start-of-hurricane-season hype may cause a backlash if nothing much happens in the tropics over the next few weeks… which would not be at all unusual, nor necessarily indicative of a less-active-than-expected rest of the season.

Anyway… stay tuned for hurricane coverage here on the Irish Trojan’s Blog throughout the season. I’ll be doing my share of weather-blogging (when I’m not at work) over the coming months, especially once there are active storms out there, but in addition to that, I’m hoping to introduce my new “hurricane guestbloggers” within the next few days. And of course, you should be sure to peruse my list of links at top right. In particular, Fenwick and Dr. Jeff Masters are superstars when it comes to cogent analysis of the storms once they form. It was their blog posts, in addition to the computer models and NHC advisories, that really provided the source material for much of my Katrina-blogging last year. They deserve more credit than they’ve gotten for “sounding the alarm” just as vigorously as I was. And unlike me, they actually have the meteorological education to prove they know what they’re talking about! :) Anyway, I highly advise reading their blogs if you want to know what’s going on in the tropics. The Storm Track, too, and the others linked in my right sidebar.

P.S. Oh, and one other thing I wanted to mention. The Weather Channel is airing the “lost episode” of “It Could Happen Tomorrow” — the one they filmed before Katrina about the hypothetical New Orleans doomsday scenario — on Sunday at 9:00 PM Eastern and Pacific. Should be interesting.

P.P.S. With regard to my hurricane blogroll… if anyone has any suggestions for worthwhile sites that I’m missing, please leave them in comments!

Kevin of Bfloblog was at Game 6 of the Sabres-Hurricanes series on Tuesday, and he describes a memorable moment at HSBC Arena:

When that Carolina goal hit the back of the net with four minutes left [to tie the game 1-1], I slumped back in my seat and pulled my hat down over my eyes. It was a moment of disbelief, and a jumble of thoughts went through my head that could be best summed up as “Oh, crap. We’re done.�

And then as quickly as the noise was sucked out of the building, it started. Suddenly and loudly. “Lets Go Buff-A-Lo.� Over and over, building quickly to top volume.

I had goosebumps, and I was embarassed that I was caught thinking that way. Imagine the effect it had on our players. I was never so proud of our City.

“There’s room on the believers’ bandwagon!” declared Sabres announcer Rick Jeanerette in his call of the winning goal in overtime. “It’s leaving for Game Seven in Carolina on Thursday!” Something tells me the Buffalonians at the bars will be so loud, they just might be able to hear ‘em all the way down in Raleigh. :) LET’S GO BUFF-A-LO!! (Game time is 7:30 PM EDT, 4:30 PM MST.)

I mentioned previously that the Newington High School girls tennis team won the CCC South championship for the second straight year (and eighth time in the last decade). Well, they didn’t stop there: the Indians advanced to the state quarterfinals, which rarely happens (in tennis, the downstate teams from wealthy towns tend to dominate at states), by beating Naugatuck on Monday, 4-3, in a first-round match that must have been a real thriller. Alas, the #7-seeded Indians then lost on Wednesday in the quarters to #2-seed Cheshire, 7-0. But, much like their season-ending loss to Greenwich last year, there’s no shame in that. Congrats to the Indians on a great season!

Today and tomorrow, two more Newington teams will be in action, both against school in more fantsy-pants Connecticut towns. :) The #6-seeded baseball team (18-3 in the regular season), having beaten #38 New Milford in the first round 4-0, hosts #11 Simsbury today at 3:30 PM EDT. And then tomorrow, the #4 seeded boys’ volleyball team (16-2), which had a bye all the way through to the quarterfinals, plays host to #5-seed Shelton, a 3-0 winner over #12 Danbury yesterday. The winner probably gets a semifinal matchup with traditional NHS archrival and personal Brendan Loy bogeyman Southington, the #1 seed in the state.

GO INDIANS!!