Aha! A Hurricane?

I have been watching with keen interest developments in the Atlantic Basin as of late. In particular, since mid-July, models have been consistently showing a storm charging out of the mass of clouds and storms coming off the coast of Africa, going across the Atlantic, and possibly threatening the US East Coast and a few islands. The latest few runs of the Global Forecasting System (GFS) show this storm going "fish"; that is, out to sea. (from "fishspinner", a term for a hurricane that stays out at sea and does nothing more than spin the fish around). But I am still keeping an eye on it.

But now we have another threat. A bunch of storms to the east of the Leeward Islands has formed a tropical storm, christened Chris. (I suppose Beryl was berylled and Alberto was alberted). The GFS has shown this for a few days, as a little squibbler of a storm that peters out in the Atlantic. We now have a tropical storm, but the models don't show it much. I can't get anything on the storm out of UK-Meterological Services (UKMET), Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC), MM5, or Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS). The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory model (GFDL) does show it, but it shows it petering out in the Bahamas. Not much of a storm, then?

For some reason, the National Hurricane Center thinks it is going to become a Category 1 hurricane with winds of about 80 mph. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. GFS shows it stronger this morning but still shows it petering out into a small light green area in the Gulf of Mexico that may not even generate showers. But "hurricane" is all that people need. The hypermedia is all of a sudden screaming "Hurricane, Hurricane!" and the markets are reacting. The price of crude oil jumped over a dollar today to around 75 1/2 dollars a barrel.

If you are into trading day by day with oil-related securities, here's a good opportunity to rake in a profit. Wait a day or two for oil to climb higher, then sell out. If indeed the models are correct and this storm fizzles out, oil and related investments will plummet. After that, buy back in. But this is not good for people investing in the long run.

We will see what happens. I know that we have been through a lot with hurricanes. But I feel this storm has more hype than bite to it. I am more concerned about the storms coming around the middle of the month (Debby, Ernesto), that are right now building just off the west coast of Africa.