Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

The depression had sustained winds of 35 miles per hour (56 km per hour)....

Tropical depressions .. become named tropical storms when their sustained winds reach 39 mph (63 kph).

If this system reaches that benchmark, it would become Tropical Storm Alex.

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/tropical-depression-forms-in-caribbean-3610438

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil


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[LaMenchos]

Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Atlantic Tropical Storm ALEX Advisory Number 7 [
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/MIATCPAT1.shtml ]"Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:58:23 -0500"
...

ADVISORY NUMBER 7 NWS
TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL012010 400 AM CDT SUN JUN 27 2010 ...ALEX
STILL A TROPICAL STORM AS IT MOVES ACROSS THE SOUTHERN YUCATAN PENINSULA... SUMMARY
OF 400 AM CDT...0900 UTC...INFORMATION
...
$$ FORECASTER STEWART

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Tropical Storm Alex heads for the Gulf of Mexico

Published: Sunday, June 27, 2010, 8:01 AM Updated: Sunday, June 27, 2010, 9:55 AM


Tropical Storm Alex headed overland toward the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, drenching Belize, northern Guatemala and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with torrential rains.

Meteorologists project Alex, which made landfall on Belize's coast late Saturday, will weaken as it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula but will regain strength once it emerges Sunday afternoon over the Gulf of Mexico, where warm waters could fuel its growth into a hurricane.

According to the most recent predictions, Alex is expected to make a second landfall midweek on the Mexican Gulf coast -- far south and west of the region where a deep-sea oil spill is slicking the U.S. coastline.

Hundreds of tourists and residents fled low-lying islands off Belize on Saturday as Alex swept in with torrential downpours. Winds were at 60 mph (95 kph) when the storm made landfall but had decreased to about 40 mph (65 kph) by Sunday morning. Many stocked up on gasoline, water, canned food and other emergency supplies.

Belize officials opened storm shelters in the island tourist resort of San Pedro, as some 1,400 people fled for the mainland by plane and by boat.
Along Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast, officials warned tourists to stay out of rough surf kicked up by the storm. But there were no immediate reports of damage to popular beach destinations such as Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen or Tulum.

State Public Safety director Miguel Ramos Real said 25 fisherman were evacuated and 17 navy personnel were brought to the mainland from a base on Banco Chinchorro, an atoll off the Mexican coast. Three shelters were opened, and ports were closed to small craft.

Now all eyes turn to the Gulf of Mexico.

When Alex became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, officials immediately worried what effect it could have on the millions of gallons of crude spilled in the Gulf -- and on efforts to clean up the slick and cap the leak deep below the waves.

A cap has been placed over the blown-out undersea well and it is carrying some of the oil to a surface ship where it is being collected. Some of the oil is being brought to the surface and burned. Other ships are drilling two relief wells, projected to be done by August, and are the best hope to stop the leak.

For the time being, the storm appears likely to miss the oil-slicked region and make landfall in Mexico, somewhere near the border of Tamaulipas and Veracruz states -- but meteorologists warned that a storm's track can quickly change.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said early Sunday that Alex was centered about 105 miles (170 kilometers) west of Chetumal, Mexico. It was speeding to the west-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph).

.../

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2010/06/tropical_storm_alex_heads_for.html

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Alex may head north to Texas or Louisiana
Posted by: JeffMasters, 18:36 GMT le 27 juin 2010

Tropical Depression Alex has held together fairly well during its passage over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and stands poised to re-intensify back into a tropical storm once it emerges from the coast tonight. Alex brought heavy rains to northern Honduras, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and Belize over the weekend. It was not a good beach day in Cozumel yesterday, as 9.25" of rain fell. Cancun received 2.05" over the weekend, and Belize City received 4.57". Satellite loops show that Alex's heavy thunderstorms are mostly gone near the center, though there are some impressive bands of precipitation well away from the center. There is an upper-level high pressure system a few hundred miles west of Alex, and the clockwise flow air around this high is bringing upper-level winds out of the northwest of about 5 knots over the storm, contributing to the 5 knots of wind shear observed in this afternoon's wind shear analysis from the University of Wisconsin's CIMSS group. Sea Surface Temperatures are very warm, 29 - 30&#176;C, and dry air is currently not a problem for Alex.

Forecast for Alex: which model should you trust?

While the track forecast for Alex today through Monday is fairly well-assured, the longer range forecast has become highly uncertain. An increasing number of our reliable models are now indicating Alex may take a more northerly track beginning on Tuesday, with possible landfall on the Texas coast near Galveston on Friday (according to the 8am run of the GFS model) or into western Louisiana on Wednesday (the 8am run of the Canadian model.) The key question remains how Alex will react to the trough of low pressure expected to swing down over the Eastern U.S. on Monday and Tuesday. Most of the models were predicting that the trough would not be strong enough to swing Alex to the north, and several of them continue to predict this. The 8am runs of the NOGAPS and ECMWF models, for example, take Alex into the Gulf coast of Mexico 150 miles south of Texas, on Wednesday. The GFDL and HWRF models split the difference, with the GFDL predicting a Thursday landfall in southern Texas near Brownsville, and the HWRF predicting a Thursday landfall near Corpus Christi. Morris Bender of the GFDL group has just provided me the track forecast from an improved experimental version of the GFDL that shows landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston. So which model should you trust? Last year, the best performing models at the 3 - 4 day forecast range were the GFS and the Canadian, and these are the models that are currently calling for the more northerly track towards the upper Texas coast and Louisiana. Residents of those areas should review their hurricane preparedness plans and anticipate that Alex could make landfall as early as Wednesday in their vicinity. Residents of the Mexican coast south of Brownsville should make similar plans, as Alex could just as easily hit there.

Re-intensification of Alex is likely once the center of Alex moves offshore, though this will initially be slow due to the current disorganized state of the storm and the relatively low total ocean heat content in the 100-mile-wide stretch of water on the west side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Once Alex moves more than 100 miles from the Yucatan, total heat content of the ocean increases substantially, and Alex will have the opportunity to intensify significantly. A longer time spent over water will give Alex more of a chance to strengthen, and it is possible Alex could intensify into a major hurricane if landfall is delayed until Thursday or Friday. However, Alex's intensification may be limited the farther north it gets, as water vapor satellite images show plenty of dry air over Texas that might interfere with development. Wind shear might also be an issue for Alex if it pushes far enough north, and a slow-moving storm tends to pull up cold water from the depths, limiting intensification. In short, Alex has the potential to intensify into a major hurricane, but there are plenty of roadblocks that make this only a 10&#37; probability in my estimation.

.../

http://french.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1521

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Caribbean Storms Strengthen, May Head for Oil Spill

By Dan Hart - Jun 27, 2010

Alex, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, weakened to a tropical depression as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Gulf of Mexico today on a track that may keep it away from the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

The storm was moving into the southwestern Gulf as of 4:30 p.m. Miami time, according to an advisory from the U.S. National Hurricane Center, and was forecast to return to tropical storm status tomorrow, regaining the strength it lost while over land.

The center?s official storm track predicts Alex will then curve west toward Mexico City, rather than north and east into the worst of the BP Plc oil spill, though forecasters warn it?s too early to say for sure.

?Odds are it is not an issue for the cleanup,? Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., said in a telephone interview today. He said the storm is likely to intensify to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale before making its final landfall near Tampico on June 30.

Sustained winds were about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour and it was moving west-northwest at 9 mph, the hurricane center reported.

Track Monitored

Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist for Planalytics Inc., a weather adviser to energy interests, said he recommends preparing for ?the worst case scenario.? He said it was likely that Alex would head north in the Gulf, becoming a hurricane June 29 and possibly a major hurricane by July 1.

?As of this morning, I grow more concerned Alex will shift his gun sights further up the Texas coast and possibly into southwestern Louisiana during the last half of this week,? Rouiller said in an e-mail today. ?This potential track would send a much higher surge of sea water into the oil spill area, along with possibly shutting down containment efforts that would result in a resumption of free-flowing oil into the Gulf.?

The Gulf of Mexico measures about 500 miles from north to south between the Mississippi River delta and the Yucatan, and about 1,000 miles west to east, according to the website of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Government Watching

U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government?s national incident commander for the spill, said officials are monitoring Alex carefully.
?We understand that (the storm) is moving westerly at this point, and does not threaten the site,? Allen said yesterday during a conference call. ?But we know that these tracks can change and are paying very close attention to it.?

About 6,000 vessels involved in cleanup, oil-recovery and relief drilling efforts would begin evacuating when the National Weather Service forecasts gale-force winds at the well site, Allen said. BP said today it was evacuating non-essential workers from three rigs in the western Gulf as a precaution.

Rainfall amounts of as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) may fall over the Yucatan, southern Mexico, northern Guatemala, most of Honduras and Belize, the hurricane center said. As much as 15 inches may fall in mountainous areas, potentially causing ?life-threatening flash floods and landslides.?

Some 1,500 tourists and residents were evacuated from Belize?s resort island of San Pedro, Timrose Augustine, a coordinator for the national emergency agency, said by telephone. At least five landslides were reported in Guatemala, washing out stretches of highway, according to David de Leon, a spokesman for the national disaster agency.

.../

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-26/tropical-storm-alex-threatens-mexico-may-spare-oil-spill-cleanup-efforts.html

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

<TABLE class=blueTop cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=hCenter>Alex slowly organizing; a Texas or Mexico landfall most likely</TD><TD class=hRight></TD></TR><TR><TD class=sLeft></TD><TD class=sCenter></TD><TD class=sRight></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class=full cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=full>Posted by: JeffMasters, 14:13 GMT le 28 juin 2010</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>


Excerpt:

Track forecast for Alex: which model should you trust?
Our most reliable computer models have come into much better agreement this morning. A consensus forecast arrived at by averaging together most or all of the tracks of our top models--the GFS, ECMWF, GFDL, NOGAPS, HWRF, UKMET, and Canadian--is pretty much what NHC always uses as the basis of their forecast. This consensus forecast has narrowed in on the region near the Texas/Mexico border as being the most likely landfall location, with the usual cone of uncertainty surrounding it. The northernmost landfall location is Port O'Connor, as predicted by the Canadian model. The southernmost landfall location is near Tampico, Mexico, as predicted by the ECMWF model. Alex's landfall time varies from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning. Which model should you trust? Last year, the best performing models at the 3 day forecast period were the GFS, Canadian, ECMWF, and GFDL. Three out of four of those models are predicting a landfall between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, with only the ECMWF model predicting a landfall well south of the Texas border. With steering currents relatively weak, the uncertainty in landfall location is high. The average error in an NHC 72-hour track forecast last year was 230 miles, which is about the distance from Brownsville to Port O'Connor. Consider also that the NHC cone of uncertainty is the region where 2/3 of the time (using the last 5 years of statistics) the center of a storm will go. That means that 1/3 of the time a storm will not be in the cone of uncertainty. Given the slow motion of Alex and the recent uncertainty of the computer models, people living just beyond the edge of the cone of uncertainty should not be confident yet that Alex will miss them.

To get the probability of receiving tropical storm force winds or hurricane force winds for your location, I recommend the NHC wind probability forecasts. The 5am EDT (09 UTC) wind probability product predicted that Brownsville, Texas had the highest odds of getting a direct hit from Alex:

Brownsville, TX: 64% chance of tropical storm conditions (winds 39+ mph), 14% chance of hurricane force winds (74+ mph). This is the cumulative probability through Saturday morning. The wind probability forecasts also include separate probabilities for each 12-hour period between now and three days from now, and each 24 hours for the period 4 - 5 days from now.

La Pesco, MX: 59% tropical storm, 9% hurricane.

Tampico, MX: 42% tropical storm, 6% hurricane.

Corpus Christi, TX: 38% tropical storm, 5% hurricane.

Freeport, TX: 23% tropical storm, 2% hurricane.

Galveston, TX: 18% tropical storm, 1% hurricane.

Intensity forecast for Alex
Alex is currently over a region of ocean with relatively low total ocean heat content (about 10 - 30 kJ/cm^2). By Tuesday and Wednesday, the heat content will increase to 40 - 70 kJ/cm^2, which is high enough to allow Alex to rapidly intensify. Wind shear is currently a moderate 15 knots, and is projected by the SHIPS model to decrease to the low range, below 10 knots, on Tuesday and Wednesday. The combination of low wind shear and high ocean heat content should allow Alex to intensify into a hurricane. NHC is giving Alex an 81% chance of being a hurricane on Wednesday morning, and a 17% chance it will be a major hurricane at that time. Water vapor satellite images, though, show plenty of dry air over Texas and the adjoining waters, and this dry air may turn out to be a significant detriment to Alex. Another factor limiting Alex's intensification may be that the atmosphere is more stable than usual right now--temperatures at 200 mb are a rather warm -50?C, and are expected to warm an additional 1 - 2 degrees by Wednesday. Another factor limiting Alex's intensification may be its slow forward speed. Alex is moving at just 6 mph, and it would not take much of a slackening of the steering currents to stall out the storm. A slow-moving storm tends to pull up cold water from the depths, limiting intensification. In fact, the ECMWF model predicts that Alex could stall out right at landfall on Thursday. In short, Alex has the potential to intensify into a major hurricane, but there are plenty of roadblocks that make this only a 20% probability in my estimation.

<B><BIG>Elsewhere in the tropics</B></BIG>
None of the reliable computers models is calling for tropical storm formation over the the next seven days in the Atlantic.

<B><BIG>Wind and ocean current forecast for the BP oil disaster</B></BIG>
It currently appears that Alex will not directly affect the oil slick location, other than to bring 2 - 4 foot swells to the region on Wednesday. However, because Alex is such a deep low pressure region, strong east to southeast winds of 20 - 25 knots will develop over the oil slick region today through Thursday, according to the latest marine forecast from NOAA. The resulting currents should act to push oil to the west and northwest onto portions of the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts, according to the latest trajectory forecasts from NOAA and the State of Louisiana. Oil will also move westward along the central Louisiana coast towards the Texas border.

.../

http://french.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1523

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

DATE: June 28, 2010 22:36:50 CST

Press Briefing by National Incident Commander June 28, 2010

Excerpt:

Harry Webber: Yes. Harry Webber at the Associated Press. Admiral Allen just so I understand you correctly, are you saying that if a hurricane forced an evacuation of the workers drilling the relief well, that could shut down those operations for roughly 14 days based on the amount of time that it would take to move the equipment?

And two, have you had to move any equipment at all that's being used in the containment zone because of the tropical weather that we heard about?

Thad Allen: That's correct. The current action that we have right now if we had to break production and stop drilling will be 14 days. There is no impact on the current relief wells that are being drilled on the production right now as a result of the weather that's passing. Though the impact we're having right now is delay in the preparation (inaudible) production online. So the product of 53,000 barrels by the end of June will be sometime in early July and we're monitoring it.

Harry Webber: Thank you.

Operator: Again, to ask a question, press star, then the number one. Your next question comes from Richard Harris.

Richard Harris: Hi. Admiral Allen, I wonder if you could tell us how rough the seas have to get before the Enterprise has to pull off the well?
I think previously you said that once there are 8-foot seas, the cap has to come off. The ship has to move off the wellhead. Is that still your estimate, and if so, it sounds like we're getting close to that possibly.

Thad Allen: Well, actually there?s two different thresholds for the Discover Enterprise. One is their ability to lighter the tanker ship that takes oil ashore, and that is actually five to six feet and they've already lightered and that they can go for eight days.

It depends on the riser piper connection right now. We will become concerned around 12 feet. The decision actually disconnect the cap from the riser would be something that would be made independent, and we'd be consulting with BP, the folks on the scene and the others including wind.

.../

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/718879/

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

<TABLE height=30 cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=200>NHC Updates:

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=780><!-- RSS Feed --><SCRIPT type=text/javascript>var cssfeed=new gfeedrssticker("warnings", "warningsclass", 2500, "_new")cssfeed.addFeed("National Hurricane Center (Atlantic)", "http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index-at.xml") //Specify "label" plus URL to RSS feedcssfeed.setentrycontainer("div") //Wrap each entry with a DIV tagcssfeed.filterfeed(30, "label") //Show 30 entries, sort by labelcssfeed.entries_per_page(1)cssfeed.init() </SCRIPT>Hurricane Local Statement for Brownsville, TX


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- End RSS Feed -->Gulf Waves
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=450 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD background=http://www.myfoxhurricane.com/images/middle1.jpg>

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="1%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width="1%"></TD><TD width="1%"><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=middle width=533><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=533 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>http://weather.myfoxtampabay.com/map...aves_gulf.html</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Gulf Winds

http://www.wwltv.com/weather/hurricane/maps?radar=94692959&img=4&c=y

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Rough seas halt skimming operations off Gulf Coast

Rough seas halt skimming operations off Gulf Coast

by Tom Breen and Michael Kunzelman / Associated Press
wwltv.com
Posted on June 29, 2010 at 12:03 PM
Updated today at 12:40 PM


NEW ORLEANS -- BP and the Coast Guard sent oil-scooping skimming ships in the Gulf of Mexico back to shore Tuesday because nasty weather from Tropical Storm Alex churned up rough seas and powerful winds.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Dave French said all efforts had been halted for now off the Louisiana coast. Efforts also had been halted off the coasts of Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.

French said workers were using the time off the water to replenish supplies and perform maintenance work on equipment.

"We're ready to go as soon as conditions allow us to get those people back out and fighting this oil spill," French said.

The loss of skimming work combined with 25 mph gusts driving water into the coast has left beaches especially vulnerable. In Alabama, the normally white beaches were streaked with long lines of oil, and tar balls collected on the sand. One swath of beach 40 feet wide was stained brown and mottled with globs of oil matted together.

Although Tropical Storm Alex was projected to stay well away from the spill zone before possibly making landfall as a hurricane over Mexico, its outer edges were causing problems out in the Gulf.

Wayne Hebert, who helps manage skimming operations for BP, said all nearshore skimmers were idled off the coasts of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

"Everyone is in because of weather, whether it's thunderstorms or (high) seas," Hebert said.

Waves were as high as 12 feet Tuesday in some parts of the Gulf.

The surging waves and nasty weather make skimming work unsafe and ineffective, and also can mangle oil-soaking boom.

The Coast Guard had to evacuate workers and equipment from coastal areas in Terrebonne Parish because of tidal surges that could cause flooding, French said.

The only vessels left in the water are being used to capture or burn oil and gas leaking from the well and to drill relief wells that officials say are the best hope for stopping the leak for good.

Ten boats that had been removing oil from the coast of Alabama sought shelter in the protected waters of Mobile Bay or Perdido Bay, and a flotilla of vessels that had been trying to prevent oil from entering the pass into Perdido Bay were gone. In Mississippi, four skimmers were riding out the storm beside Petit Bois Island,
Hebert said.

Cleanup crews fought the winds and showers with empty bags blowing across the sand occasionally and the tops of canvas shelters flapping in the breeze.

Hebert said it was impossible to say when the work might resume.

"I don't control the weather," he said.

Meanwhile Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden was visiting with local officials along the Gulf Coast.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/Rough-seas-halt-skimming-operations-off-Gulf-Coast-97401524.html

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

<TABLE class=blueTop cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=hCenter>Alex still not a hurricane</TD><TD class=hRight></TD></TR><TR><TD class=sLeft></TD><TD class=sCenter></TD><TD class=sRight></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE class=full cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=full>Posted by: JeffMasters, 2:19 PM GMT on June 29, 2010</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Excerpt:


Wind and ocean current forecast for the BP oil disaster

It currently appears that Alex's winds will not directly affect the oil slick location. However, because Alex is such a deep low pressure region, strong southeast to south winds of 10 - 20 knots will blow over the oil slick region today through Thursday, according to the latest marine forecast from NOAA. The resulting currents should act to push oil to the west and northwest onto portions of the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts, according to the latest trajectory forecasts from NOAA and the State of Louisiana. Oil will also move westward along the central Louisiana coast towards the Texas border. Alex is expected to bring a storm surge of 2 - 3 feet along the coast in the oil spill region, which will push oil deep into the marshlands in some locations. The long range forecast for the oil slick region is uncertain, due to the possibility a weak area of low pressure might develop late this week along the remains of a cold front draped across the region.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

[LaMenchos]

Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Rough seas halt skimming operations off Gulf Coast-
AP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill :Full Story

Tar balls can be seen in the water as Grayson Flowers takes advantage of the heavy surf to catch a few waves in Destin, Fla., Monday, June 28, 2010. AP ? Tar balls can be seen in the water as Grayson Flowers takes advantage of the heavy surf to catch a few ?
...

By TOM BREEN and JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writers Tom Breen And Jay Reeves, Associated Press Writers ? 1 hr 24 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS ? BP and the Coast Guard sent oil-scooping skimming ships in the Gulf of Mexico back to shore Tuesday because nasty weather from Tropical Storm Alex churned up rough seas and powerful winds.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Dave French said all efforts had been halted for now off the Louisiana coast. Efforts also had been halted off the coasts of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

...
...
The loss of skimming work combined with 25 mph gusts driving water into the coast has left beaches especially vulnerable. In Alabama, the normally white beaches were streaked with long lines of oil, and tar balls collected on the sand. One swath of beach 40 feet wide was stained brown and mottled with globs of oil matted together.

Tropical Storm Alex was projected to stay well away from the spill zone before possibly making landfall as a hurricane as early as Wednesday just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. But its outer edges were causing problems out in the Gulf.

...
...
Waves were as high as 12 feet Tuesday in some parts of the Gulf.

The surging waves and nasty weather make skimming work unsafe and ineffective, and also can mangle oil-soaking boom.

...
The only vessels left in the water are being used to capture or burn oil and gas leaking from the well and to drill two relief wells that officials say are the best hope for stopping the leak for good.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government's point man for the spill response, said this round of rough weather wasn't expected to affect the drilling operation. Nor is it expected to halt the tanker sucking up large quantities of oil through the cap on the well, or a second vessel that is burning off hundreds of thousands of gallons at the surface.

Ten boats that had been removing oil from the coast of Alabama sought shelter in the protected waters of Mobile Bay or Perdido Bay, and a flotilla of vessels that had been trying to prevent oil from entering the pass into Perdido Bay were gone. In Mississippi, four skimmers were riding out the storm beside Petit Bois Island, Hebert said.

...
Hebert said it was impossible to say when the work might resume.
...
Pulling boats and crews off the water could cost precious time, said Nancy Kinner, co-director of the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Equipment has to be stripped down, packed and protected from the force of the storm, and then has to be reassembled and deployed again, she said.

Despite the setbacks, the rough weather could give nature a hand in breaking down crude from the spill that's spilled as much as 137.6 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

High waves could help break up the patches of oil scattered across the sea. The higher-than-normal winds that radiate far from the storm also could help the crude evaporate faster.
...
Workers along the South Texas coast were clearing drainage ditches, filling sandbags, positioning heavy equipment and water pumps, and preparing emergency shelters. Some cities also handed out sandbags to residents and urged people to make preparations.
...
All of the uncertainty of what Alex and other storms could do to BP's containment effort gave new urgency to the company's efforts to make its operations at the well as hurricane-resistant as possible.

The company said it hopes to install a new oil-capturing system by next week that would allow BP to disconnect the equipment faster if a hurricane threatens and hook it back up quickly after the storm passes. Right now, BP would need five days to pull out if there is a hurricane. The new system being developed, which uses a flexible hose, would cut that to two days.

The containment system now in place is capturing nearly 1 million gallons per day from the well, which is spewing as much as 2.5 million gallons a day, according to the government's worst-case estimate.

Meanwhile Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden was visiting officials and residents on the Gulf Coast.

___

Reeves reported from Gulf Shores, Ala. Associated Press writers Harry R. Weber in Houston, Brian Skoloff in Pensacola, Fla., Michael Kunzelman and John Flesher in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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Re: Tropical Storm May Threaten BP?s Spill Cleanup, Disperse Oil

Hurricane Alex brings headaches, benefits to oil spill containment

<SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript> function hideCompanion(){ var adDiv = document.getElementById("player_companion"); adDiv.setAttribute("class", "hide"); adDiv.setAttribute("className", "hide"); adDiv.innerHTML = ""; } function showCompanion(){ var adDiv = document.getElementById("player_companion"); adDiv.setAttribute("class", "show"); adDiv.setAttribute("className", "show"); } </SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://www.wwltv.com/includes/swfobject.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>by Maya Rodriguez / Eyewitness News

wwltv.com
Posted on June 30, 2010 at 6:17 PM
Updated today at 6:39 PM

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Another day of heavy surf pounded the shore of Grand Isle on Wednesday, all courtesy of Hurricane Alex spinning hundreds of miles away in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Alex, right now, is more of an aggravation than anything," said Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Director Deano Bonano. "It's not causing any real damage to Grand Isle itself."

During overflights Wednesday morning, emergency managers found slicks of heavy oil, once threatening the island, appeared to have dissipated in the churning sea.

"The storm seems to have broken up a lot of the oil slicks that we had off of the coast of Grand Isle that we were expecting heavy impact from," Bonano said. "We haven't had too many impacts from heavy oil in the last day or so, so that's a positive effect from Alex."

It's not all positive, though: high surf damaged Tiger dams set out to keep oil from encroaching further up the beach. The storm appears to have shifted more oil further west, towards Lafourche Parish.

The rough seas also led to some scouring of rock dams, built by the Louisiana Army National Guard several weeks ago, near Elmer's Island. Oil broke through, entering some of the inland marshes there.

"Sometimes the high seas scour out the sand underneath the rock and the whole levee type situation sinks a little bit and so you have to come back and add more rock on top," Lt. Col. Danny Bordelon with the Louisiana Army National Guard. "As soon as we get some of the materials on site, we are ready to do that."

While the effects of Hurricane Alex may be mild in comparison to past storms on the island, it is giving emergency responders a glimpse into what this hurricane season may hold when it comes to dealing with the oil spill.

"It was a good exercise," said Grand Isle Fire Chief Aubrey Chaisson. "We did execute our hurricane preparedness plan and it did work out well."

The Louisiana National Guard expects to begin repairing the rock dams near Elmer's Island as soon as the weather clears up and they are able to secure additional rock material.

Alex strengthened to a Category 2 storm late Wednesday, with sustained winds of near 100 mph.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/Hurricane-Alex-Brings-Headaches-Benefits-To-Oil-Spill-Containment--97528354.html