The Pacific Ocean has seen an active season this year. Two days ago a tsunami hit Samoa and American Samoa after a massive earthquake nearby. There had been a terrible loss of life, my prayers are with those families that have lost relatives as well as loss of property. As you see from the picture I am posting with this blog, we currently have 3 tropical weather systems at the same time in the western Pacific. Supertyphoon (cat 4) is set to hit Luzon Island, Philippines in a couple of days or so. Typhoon Melor (cat 3) is set to pass through the Northern Mariana Islands, a couple of weeks ago they had another system go through. We also have Tropical Depression 18 starting to spin up. The likely culprit: El Nino, warming up the tropical regions of the east to central Pacific producing conditions conducive to cyclonic weather systems to spin up with favorable upper atmospheric conditions. When El Nino happens, people in my neck of the woods – the Caribbean, specifically the Virgin Islands, breathe a sigh of relief, because, as we’ve seen this year, hardly any activity. When a system looks like its spinning up off Africa, as soon as it gets half way across the Atlantic, the upper level winds out of the west shear the system right off and it breaks down to a tropical wave – something we can deal with, and frankly, we can use the rain.