Tropical Storms and the Panama Canal

I know this is a rare occurrence. Storms usually do not form or travel that far south. but we now have TS Otto parked practically at the entrance in the Caribbean. Coral Princess is scheduled for a partial transit Wednesday, Veendam westbound on Friday and Island Princess a western partial Fri/Sat. Would they cancel transits due to high winds? Seems like a very risky thing to try...EM

Are the projected paths taking the storm anywhere near Panama?

Are the projected paths taking the storm anywhere near Panama?

I believe I stated it is right at the entrance to the Canal....which is in Panama...

You can see how things are going in real time here....

http://visitcanaldepanama.com/en/webcams/

In my years living there was only one Ts/hurricane came as close as Otto is now, so a rare event to say the least. According to the map I looked at, tropical storm strength winds are brushing the north coast just a bit east of the Canal. By 7AM on Wednesday it should be further west of the Atlantic entrance. The only ship that could be impacted would be the Island Princess. I believe that transits will continue, however it is possible the master could exercise some discretion... I would hate to hear the reaction from the affected passengers.

Transits for later in the week won't be affected as the storm should have crossed Costa Rica/Nicaragua and be in the Pacific by Friday... according to the forecast.

I believe I stated it is right at the entrance to the Canal....which is in Panama...

 

Excuse me. You did say "at the entrance to the Caribbean ", which when taking about hurricanes and tropical storms, could be anywhere, and my first thought was eastern Caribbean, as that is where these storms typically come from.

My apologies.

Excuse me. You did say "at the entrance to the Caribbean ", which when taking about hurricanes and tropical storms, could be anywhere, and my first thought was eastern Caribbean, as that is where these storms typically come from.

 

My apologies.

No.. the post says "at the entrance IN the Caribbean " . The word "to" was not used. I think the meaning of the post is clear. You're misquoting and misreading it.

You can see how things are going in real time here....

 

http://visitcanaldepanama.com/en/webcams/

Nice to see the cams are up now, were down yesterday.

https://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html?cam=Miraflores

EM

At this time the link that thinfool provided, the visitcanalde... seem to be the only web cam link working. The web cam links from the regular pancanal site... not so good.

Anyway, the reason for the post is the weather conditions at Gatun look to be good and the Coral Princess is inside the breakwater according to marinetraffic, headed for Gatun Locks. Cruise on!:)

On a more somber note, there was at least one death caused by a falling tree and a number of slides (not in the Canal, but in populated areas).

Quick aside for you Bill, did you see that the new USS Zumwalt both hit the lock and had a propulsion failure in the locks? And folks claim Carnival is poor on maintenance! :p

Yes I did and they had to tow it to Rodman, the former Naval Base... not a good day:o!

Another aside... my source down there told me that they were having to run dummy lockages at the new Pacific Locks due to high salt concentrations at the south end of Gaillard Cut. This is where the intakes are for the water plant at Miraflores which supplies a good part of the water for Pacific side. No conclusive answers as to why... yet, I'm sure the new locks and the water saving basins are at the root of all of it. I'm not sure if they were doing this on the Atlantic side too.

TS/Hurricane Otto has moved north, but Coral Princess seems to be stuck inside Gatun Lake. I can understand her not being able to make Limon tomorrow...But I hope they haven't stranded their excursion passengers in Colon...EM

I hope they get through ok!

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Perhaps they are going to skip Limon and just opted to spend the time at anchor in Gatun Lake?? Lock back out today and go to the next port of call?