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Jurac´An: Guabancex's Favorite Weapon 1

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Jurac´An: Guabancex's Favorite Weapon 1 JURACAN:´ GUABANCEX'S FAVORITE WEAPON LUIS A. MEDINA Abstract. The Ta´ınopeople, the original inhabitants of Borik´en(Puerto Rico), believed that Juracanes were created by the zem´ıgoddess Guabancex with the assistance of Coatriskie and Guatauba. They claimed she had a bad temperament and used Juracanes against them. They also believed that she used them to fight the almighty Yucah´u,the supreme zem´ıand protector of the Ta´ınopeople. In this manuscript I describe my experiences with Guabancex's Juracanes in the archipelago of Puerto Rico. I also include some hurricane data found on the web. The manuscript was written shortly after Hurricane Mar´ıa’slandfall. 1. Introduction The Ta´ınopeople were the inhabitants of the island of Borik´en(Puerto Rico) at the time the Spaniards arrived to the New World. They had a supreme zem´ı(god), his name was Yucah´uor Yukiy´u,and he was their protector. The zem´ıgoddess of the wind, also known as the Lady of the Winds, was Guabancex. The Ta´ınosclaimed that she had a bad temperament and did not tolerate neglect of the appropriate zem´ı worship. When it pleased her, she asked her assistants, Coatriskie and Guatauba, to provide her the rainfall of Coatriskie and the thunder and lighting of Guatauba. With that at hand, she created Juracanes. The Ta´ınosbelieved that a Jurac´anwas her weapon and that she used it to castigate them and to fight Yucah´u, the great protector. It is an interesting fact that the Ta´ınopeople recognized the cyclonic nature of a Jurac´an(also known as tropical cyclone). This claim becomes clear after one sees the Ta´ıno’sdepiction of the zem´ıGuabancex (Figure 1). From the Ta´ıno word \Jurac´an" comes the Spanish word “Hurac´an"and the English word Figure 1. The Ta´ıno’sdepiction of the zem´ıGuabancex \Hurricane". Today, the most used scale to measure hurricane power is the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (see Table 1). This scale measures strength (maximum sustained wind speed) and intensity (barometric pressure) of hurricanes. A continuous version of this scale can be found on Appendix A. For this manuscript, c-Cat represents the hurricane category under the continuous Saffir-Simpson scale, while Cat represents the category under the regular scale. Hurricanes of Category 3 and beyond are called Major Hurricanes. Major hurricanes are capable of devastating and catastrophic damage.1 Usually, when you hear in the news that a certain hurricane is, say, Category 3, most likely there are referring to its strength, that is, to its maximum sustained wind speed. In this scenario, you would know that the storm carries sustained wind speed between 111 mph and 129 mph. Only in rare occasions news 1This manuscript is not a scientific article; do not cite it as such. The author does not claim expertise in meteorology. The author is not an expert in Ta´ınohistory. Some of the information in this manuscript was collected from different sources on the Internet. This is NOT the common practice in scientific articles. This manuscript was written as a sort of \hobby" after Hurricane Mar´ıahit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. 1 2 LUIS A. MEDINA Saffir-Simpson Cat Sustained wind speed Low pressure Storm surge 1 74-95 mph ≥ 980 mbar 3-5 ft 2 96-110 mph 979 - 965 mbar 6-8 ft 3 111-129 mph 964 - 945 mbar 9-12 ft 4 130-156 mph 944 - 920 mbar 13-18 ft 5 ≥ 157 mph < 920 mbar ≥ 19 ft Table 1: Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Categories may differ by 1 mph from other versions of the scale. networks use intensity to measure a storm. However, intensity is also very important. Think of a boxing match. You may have a boxer that throws the hardest power punches in the sport, but has the capacity of throwing 3 punch combinations. Of course, he can knock you out with one punch, he is strong, but his combinations are not that intense. On the other hand, consider another boxer that is also a strong puncher, but not as strong as the boxer in the first case. However, this other boxer can throw at you 7, 8, or 9 punch combinations. That is intense! He can knock you out because he is a good puncher (strength) and can throw high punch combinations (intense). Of course, hurricanes are not boxers, but this give you an idea. Hurricanes carry a great amount of energy. One way to measure the energy of a hurricane is using the total energy released through cloud/rain formation. In a typical hurricane, this amount is equivalent to 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity [13]. Another way to measure the energy of a hurricane is using the wind energy generated. For a mature hurricane, this amount is equivalent to about half the world-wide electrical generating capacity [13]. Therefore, any way you measure them, hurricanes turn out to be powerful events. Hurricane is not always the name used for tropical cyclone storms. Tropical cyclones with sustained winds of 74 mph or more are called hurricanes when they formed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean or in the Northeastern Pacific. If a tropical cyclone at that strength is formed in the Northwestern Pacific, then it is called a Typhoon. If such tropical cyclone is formed in the South Pacific or Indian Ocean, then it is simply called tropical cyclone or \severe cyclonic storm". There are seven (7) tropical cyclone basins on Planet Earth. These are [14]: (1) Atlantic basin, including the North Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of M´exico,and the Caribbean Sea. (2) Northeast Pacific basin, from M´exico to about the dateline (3) Northwest Pacific basin, from the dateline to Asia including the South China Sea (4) North Indian basin, including the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea (5) Southwest Indian basin, from Africa to about 100E (6) Southeast Indian/Australian basin (100E to 142E) (7) Australian/Southwest Pacific basin (142E to about 120W). Figure 2. Tropical cyclones basins around the globe. JURACAN:´ GUABANCEX'S FAVORITE WEAPON 3 Tropical cyclones rotate counterclockwise on the northern hemisphere and clockwise on the southern hemisphere. This is due to Earth rotation and the Coriolis effect. Approximately 69% of all tropical cyclones occur in the Northern Hemisphere. In terms of Oceans, 12 % of all tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic Ocean, 57% in the Pacific Ocean and 31% in the Indian Ocean. The most active basin on the globe is the Northwestern Pacific basin with an average of 25.7 \Juracanes". Of those, 16 achieve typhoon status. This basin is active all year-round. This basin also produces the most potent tropical cyclones (measured by low-pressure). The second most active basin is the Northeastern Pacific basin. It ranks fifth as basin with most potent tropical cyclones (behind the basins of Northwestern Pacific, Southwestern Pacific, Atlantic and Southwest Indian [in that order]) . However, Hurricane Patricia, which was the most potent cyclone when measured by 1-minute sustained winds (215 mph), was born in this basin. The Atlantic basin is the third most active basin. The main purpose of this manuscript is to describe my experiences with Guabancex's Juracanes in the archipelago of Puerto Rico. These experiences can be found in the next section. Section 3 includes informa- tion of some Juracanes that had hit Puerto Rico (in my lifetime), but did not affect me directly. Section 4 includes some historical hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico since the USA took over the island. The number of recorded tropical cyclones that affected Puerto Rico since 1508 (by month) is included in Section 5. In Section 6 you can find a recap of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Finally, some tropical cyclones records are given in the last section. 2. Hurricanes that I have lived in Puerto Rico I have encountered five direct hits and one indirect hit of Guabancex's anger (hurricanes) while living in the beautiful archipelago of Puerto Rico. Here is my story of each Jurac´an. 2.1. Hurricane Hugo. September 18, 1989, Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico as a high-end Category 3 hurricane [6]. Sustained winds for this storm were recorded at 127 mph (c-Cat 3.84; see Appendix A). A gust of 170 mph was recorded in the island-municipality of Culebra. The storm made an initial landfall on the island-municipality of Vieques and a second landfall on northeastern tip of the main island, near the cities of Ceiba and Fajardo. It was estimated that nearly 28,000 people were left homeless. Moreover, twelve (12) people lost their life in Puerto Rico. The storm cost $1.8 billion in 1989 US dollars. Figure 3. Hugo's path over Puerto Rico. Picture taken from NOAA. I was eight (8) years old when Hugo hit Puerto Rico. At the time, I lived in the small town of Yabucoa, on the southeast coast of the main island. Our house was built two (2) months before the storm. It was wooden house, so we found shelter in our grandma's concrete house. The arrival of Hugo coincided with my mommy's birthday. She was praying and asking the sky for a birthday gift: for our house not to be destroyed. As just mentioned, I was with my family in a concrete house, so I felt safe. To be frank, I was excited to be experiencing such force. I remember that once in a while my family opened a window for us to see what was going on outside. I was amazed as to how Hugo's winds were destroying trees.
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