Dead Reckoning Read Online Free Page A

appeared.
                  “Nice circulation,” I said as stepped closer and finally realized what I was seeing.              “How long is that loop?”
                  “Four hours.”
                  “Shit. That developed fast.”
                  “Where is it?” I asked, fully expecting it to be forming to our west or south of Hawaii as usual.
                  “Eight, one-seventy-two.”
                  “One-seventy-two…. east ?” I asked nervously.
                  “Yep.”
                  He spun the wheel on his mouse and the image zoomed out one level. The unmistakable outline of Kwajalein Atoll appeared just west of the circulation. My heart jumped. The storm was about 300 miles to our southeast and not moving much.             
                  “What does JTWC think?” I asked.
                  “Just got off the phone with them about fifteen minutes ago. High water temps; low shear; rapid spin-up. Models blow it into a typhoon within twenty-four. They blew off the models earlier today. So did I. But now they can’t find a reason to doubt them.”
                  “What do you think, Chris?”
                  This wasn’t Chris’ first tropical storm. As a tropical meteorologist for over ten years and a former navy weather officer, he’d seen his share of foul weather. I valued his opinion.
                  Chris lowered his glasses and peered over them at the monitor. He flopped down in the chair, and his ample belly folded over his belt and rested on his lap. He let out a sigh.
                  “I don’t like it,” he said.
                  Many thoughts streamed through my mind seemingly at once—thoughts of storm surges, overreactions, wind damage, and missed forecasts. I was paid to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, and a developing tropical cyclone is inherently one of the most uncertain things in meteorology. It doesn’t matter if you have good data, bad data, conflicting data, or no data at all. Forecasters must make a forecast with what they’ve got. I knew what Chris and the JTWC thought. I knew what season it was and what that meant. I knew what I saw and what my experience told me. In a split second, I weighed it all, judged the uncertainty, assessed the risk, and calculated odds. But sometimes the best forecast comes from the gut.
                  “Ok, I’m declaring TCCOR 2,” I said.
                  “I’ll call someone in,” Chris offered, knowing that Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 2 required double forecaster coverage around the clock and automatically set in motion numerous standard operating procedures.
                  “Thanks. And re-work the schedule for the next three days, would you? All days off are canceled.”
                  Chris agreed, so I telephoned the twenty-four hour operations center for Reagan Test Site and asked them to round up the crisis management team. I then telephoned Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Sam Polian, the Range Operations Officer, to ask him to activate the Emergency Operations Center, or EOC.
     
    6:30 PM – EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER (EOC), KWAJALEIN
     
                  When I entered the EOC, the crisis management team was already assembled.
                  In contrast to the sleek, high-tech missile control center on the range, the EOC on Kwaj looked like an afterthought, which probably was not too far from the truth, since that room was rarely ever used. It had a communications console, a short-wave radio set-up, a small external weather station with wind and temperature information, a few computers, and a single, small window which was above the eye level of most people and contained the distinctive crisscrossed wire of reinforced glass.