So what happens when a hurricane meets BP oil slick?

Will toxic clouds of petroleum laden water blow inland for miles?

How many miles?

Literally.

sister? :hug:

:hi: That seems to be the answer to all the ills specifically related to this spill. It's all Obama's fault! Didn't you get the meme? So a hurricane on top of that? Guess who will be blamed?

yup!

:hi:

on out?

A fine mist of oil on everything. Nice.

But whatever happens, it will be Obama's fault.

as compared to getting it out of the ocean. We have more methods for cleaning things on land and it will be harder to ignore. I've been wondering that.

I wonder if he will be affected?

How, pray tell, do we clean THAT up???

Its called inversion layer. Anyone in Los Angeles is familiar with how it affects air. The warmer air on the bottom does not mix with the colder air up top.

The opposite is true in water. When the water is disturbed the oil that is being held under the water will surface. That is what a hurricane will do.

a giant vacuum cleaner. A typical hurricane has the force of an atomic bomb going off every 20 minutes, and right now this would act to disperse the oil better than anything we could do chemically. It would not rain oil all over coastal cities... unless BP doesn't cap it for many months. At this rate, who knows though.

about what happens to this oil during a hurricane.

Hurricane could worsen US oil spill

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could grow more disastrous if the looming hurricane season churns up towering black waves and blasts beaches and crowded cities with oil-soaked gusts, experts warn.

With just three weeks before the Atlantic hurricane season begins, odds are more than 40 per cent that a big storm could cross the giant spill gushing from a ruptured well on the seabed.

An April 20 blast sank the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform, killing 11 workers and leaving its uncontrolled well to gush millions of gallons of oil into the gulf waters.

Last month forecasters who issue a closely watched Colorado State University seasonal forecast said there was a 44 per cent chance a hurricane would enter the Gulf of Mexico in the next few months, far greater than the 30 per cent historic average.

"The high winds may distribute oil over a wide area," said National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Dennis Feltgen.

"Storm surges may carry oil inland, mixed with hurricane debris."

The movement of the oil would depend much on the track of the hurricane, said Mr Feltgen, who said a hurricane passing to the west of the slick could drive a large volume of oil to the fragile coastline.

But "high winds and seas will mix and weather the oil, which helps accelerate the biodegradation process," he said.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are studying how an oil spill interacts with a hurricane in a bid to determine whether it reliably weakens or strengthens the storm.

Since storms are fuelled in part by evaporation from the sea surface, if a sufficiently thick layer of oil weakens the process, the slick could actually help minimise the size of the storm, Mr Feltgen said.

More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/12/2897770.htm

BP is sucking in a lot of oil into a tanker on station. If a big storm goes by that tanker may have to drop the hose and leave the scene.

They are also drilling a relief well. The sooner it's done the better.

raises SST (by absorbing more sunlight) then storms could get stronger. On the other hand, if the concentration of oil in the surface layer was enough to affect temperature it could also reduce evaporation, which would weaken the storm.

Out at sea, a hurricane would do a very good job of mixing and dispersing oil. That would make it impossible to clean up, but if the oil isn't going to be removed anyway then the impact will be minimized by dispersing it equally through the water column. In shore, however, any measures preventing oil from entering marshes and estuaries (e.g. booms) will be overwhelmed - oil in the water will go wherever the storm surge goes. Also, cleanup activities both on- and off-shore will have to stop.

As for clouds of oil, it wouldn't blow any farther than sea water does, so you won't see an oil-storm. The gases which have evaporated would blow inland, but they're coming anyway so a storm could help disperse them...