Yes, once again this is the season to turn our weather eye south, to the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) and watch tropical waves and seas surface temperatures. These are the components that bring tropical cyclones to Baja Sur. When these storms come, how do you know what is really happening? (see Hurricane History in Baja) You want the truth about what is going on, sign up for our tropical updates and look for real-time reporting from sites like ours with real-time reporting from others that are actually in the Hurricane affected areas.

Yes, some tropical cyclone might actually arrive and still have the power of a hurricane or tropical storm , but strangers to Baja need to realize that Baja California, Mexico, like a lot of other places in the world is a tropical area where tropical cyclones (hurricanes) can and do come. That is not to say all hurricanes are as devastating as Karina that hit the United States or Wilma that devastated Cancun, Mexico so badly in recent years. Most of the time these hurricanes bring heavy rains that can cause flooding, strong winds, and some destruction to a few specific areas. They are generally not that devastating and in many cases like Hurricane John of last year that didn’t even make a hiccup in Cabo it did do some serious damage to the East Cape area and Mulege in the northern part of Baja California Sur.

The point being, that even though the international media loves to sensationalize the news whether it is a natural disaster, economic situations, political conflict or a war – it does not mean that is the truth. You can read my Hurricane Hysteria article from last year concerning this problem of what is true and what is news.

Unfortunately news services like CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Weather Channel, Televisa or the BBC and many others around the world pick up their information via freelance writers, photo and video journalist that will make things look worse than they really are just to get their material purchased by these new services. These International news services will also get part of a story and add their opinions to it, leaving you without really knowing what the facts are.

I believe the best way these days, thanks to the Internet, is for people to look for real-time reporting from sources that are actually there. For example during Henriette a few weeks ago we had great real time reports on our Baja Blog, from many different locations all over Baja that really let people know around the world what was true. I want to personally thank all of those that did provide these incredibly valuable reports and invite them and others to do the same again. We received a lot of praise for our coverage from those that have homes, boats and family or friends down here at that time helping put them at ease. The praise should go to those that really helped us provide this much more accurate information.

There may be other sites as well offering real-time reports and while in many cases they may be amateur weather people, I believe they offer more truth than relying on these International and National news services that are just looking to get more viewers or readers. Sorry if I offend you Big Boys and Girls but I’m tired of my phone ringing off the hook and answering emails because people saw on the television that Cabo is being evacuated and 7500 tourists are stranded. The truth is there was never any evacuation and the only reason people were “stranded” was because the Mexican Government closed the airport and marine ports as a responsible safety measure.

We, at www.BajaInsider.com, take this responsibility very serious. We need to warn people of possible danger but do not want to be crying “the sky is falling” when it is not. It is a difficult task to forecast and report on these storms accurately while the national Hurricane center and others do a great job of trying to make these forecasts there are of course no guarantees when it comes to Mother Nature. This is why we fell real time reporting is so valuable.

We will continue to provide as much real information, photos, and videos as much as we can because we know more and more people are relying on us to do so and we take this job very seriously. Just ask Tom Zyber, my partner, climatologist and master of the web. He gets up in the middle of the night to publish the latest updates, videos and photos while many times he would rather just stay in bed.\

Thank you once again for reading www.BajaInsider.com and most importantly thank you to those for helping us with these real-time reports.