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Ebbs and Flows
Caymanians are all too familiar with the need to prepare for Hurricanes, with Hurricane Ivan in 2004 being a “200-year storm” event that absolutely devastated Grand Cayman.
Preparation is one thing. You can prepare, as a Hurricane is a finite event that will have foreseeable outcomes depending on intensity levels.
Forecasting, though, is quite another thing. Despite decades and many millions of dollars, the leading forecasters in the world remain the first to acknowledge that forecasting is inexact. Yes, we know what regions of the world hurricanes and typhoons are likely to strike. Yes, we know the probability of them occurring in different parts of those regions at different times of year. Despite that, though, we cannot tell with any exactitude when Hurricanes will occur, where they will strike, how intense they will be.
I use this as a way of looking at Ebbs and Flows in a more general sense. You see, Hurricanes are very closely tied to weather cycles and, as the forecasters call them “super-cycles”. We know about annual seasonal influences that generate and strengthen hurricanes, we know about highly short term cycles of such things as current air pressure. In addition to that, though, there are multiple “super-cycles” that each occur over multi-year periods, some over fifty years in duration for each cycle.
