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Ivan had seemed to drift out into the ocean, but that was only half the story. Quite literally, because Ivan split in two. It was the lower half that drifted out to sea. It was still spinning slowly, but was now below the radar of the forecasters, in both senses of the phrase. The satellites and Doppler radars ignored what was happening, and the forecasters had more serious things on their minds. Lisa had behaved even more oddly than usual for a tropical storm, and was now heading eastward instead of westward, away from the Caribbean and North America. The satellites kept a still-wary eye on her, but paid more attention to Jeanne, already a hurricane and heading, alas, for Florida. The midlevel high that had prevented the month's storms from their normal northerly recurvature had broken up, and Jeanne could easily pound Florida and then head up the coast. The configuration of the jet stream was such that it was possible—not likely, but possible—that Jeanne could race up the coast and intersect with Maritime Canada. That was enough to catch northern attention. Even had anyone been paying attention to the leftover Ivan, they would not have taken it seriously.

This part of Ivan, call him Low Ivan, drifted slowly southward in a leisurely clockwise circle, and ended up—where else this year?—on the Florida coast, as it turned, once again, westward. The winds were moderate by tropical cyclone standards—not much more than 20 to 23 miles an hour—although there was a fair amount of precipitation. This low drifted across the Florida peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico. There, like an old warhorse smelling action, it encountered the warm water of the Gulf, was reenergized, and took on the familiar organization characteristics of a tropical depression—spinning a little faster, warm moisture-laden air ascending, high-altitude cold convection currents, accelerating winds . . .

The Hurricane Center wryly admitted on the evening of September 22 that there had been <( considerable and sometimes animated in-house discussion of the demise [or supposed demise] of Ivan. In the midst of a low-pressure and surface frontal system over the eastern United States . . . the National Hurricane Center has decided to call the tropical cyclone now over the Gulf of Mexico Tropical Depression Ivan. While debate will surely continue here and elsewhere . . . this decision was based primarily on the reasonable continuity observed in the analysis of the surface and low-level circulation." Whatever the name, satellite images and buoys in the Gulf showed that the disturbance was organized enough to be called a tropical depression, and the low level of the shear indicated to the forecasters that the depression might very well become a tropical storm by landfall, expected sometime along the Texas Gulf coast. A tropical storm warning was issued for the Gulf coast from the mouth of the Mississippi in Louisiana to Sargent, Texas.

This was a nasty surprise to the Texans, who had been relieved to see Ivan pass by them to their east a week earlier, and had no wish to reprise what Alabama and Florida had then suffered.

As it turned out, the Hurricane Center forecast was a little pessimistic. Ivan did cross the Gulf coast near Cameron, Louisiana, but with winds that seldom exceeded 30 miles an hour, even in gusts, and was weakening rapidly. It turned toward Texas, passed over the town of Port Arthur before turning southwest, and finally sighed to a halt near the coast on the early morning of Sunday, September 26. There was no need to drive a spike through its heart. It simply expired.

So much for half the story, Low Ivan. What of High Ivan?

Peter Bowyer takes up the story: (< The upper half of Ivan was picked up in the prevailing southwesterlies and flew up into eastern Canada. It was not strong enough to produce damaging winds on its own, but coincidentally a frontal system coming in from the west was developing. That storm would have happened anyway—we would have had winds gusting to perhaps 80, go kilometers,