Tropical depression Ana was the first storm of the season, and it didn’t live up to much.  It was torn apart by various weather patterns that made any sort of strengthening a long shot at best, and instead broke up the storm to have it dissipate into a mere depression and eventually back into a tropical wave.

Hurricane Bill, however, met a much different set of circumstances and beefed up to a Hurricane over the weekend.

The storm even looks to intensify as the week progresses.  Bill’s projected path could see it making landfall in the Virgin Islands and Bermuda by the end of the week, becoming the first real storm of 2009 to have any substantial effect on human lives.  We may even see Bill upgraded to a major hurricane.

There is still a good chance no landfall will be made because of the distance Bill has between itself and any civilization.  The Atlantic is a rather large body of water with plenty of possible factors that could sprout up and change the course of the storm, but as the week progresses and the path becomes more clear, we will know whether to be worried or not.

This Microsoft founder wants to become a…wait for it…“hurricane slayer.”

For anyone who has experienced a hurricane, the devastation caused by one is fully known. So, Bill Gates The Hurricane Slayer could prove to become pretty handy.

According to USA Today, a patent application was made public by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, and it belonged to Mr. Gates.

Gates’s idea for calming the storms is to put huge tubs into the ocean, with pipes that will drain warm surface water deeper into the ocean while sucking cool water to the surface. For those of you who don’t know, hurricanes are made stronger by warm surface waters.

(One positive thing that could come of this is the creation of more jobs to put this ridiculous idea into motion.)

The Tampa Bay Times reported that hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said, “If enough pumps are deployed, it is reasonable to expect some diminution of hurricane power.”

If the application is accepted, Gates and co-creators will receive the patent for 18 years. They plan to sell insurance to coastal residents to offset the cost.

Thanks Mr. Gates. Just because you have plenty of money doesn’t mean that everyone living on the coast wants to pay for your idea.

Admittedly, the weather isn’t as unbearable as the remainder of the year, which is probably why NASA decided to base itself at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Kennedy Space Center has successfully shot off many space ships. The only thing NASA usually has to master is making sure the ship itself is ready. For its past attempt, with space shuttle Endeavor, something even NASA couldn’t control got in the way.

That little something is the Florida summer weather.

According to the Associated Press, thunderstorms caused the fifth delay for Endeavor. It was the third day (in a row) that it couldn’t lift off.

Space shuttle Endeavor is attempting to get to up there to finish Japan’s $1 billion space station lab, Kibo. There are 13 astronauts headed up with it. They’ll be taking the third and final piece of the project, as long as they can get up there.

It’s been grounded for a month now, according to the AP. First it was leaks and now it’s, well, more leaks. These just can’t be controlled.

Launch director Mark Polansky, upon realizing there couldn’t be any takeoff informed the crew saying, “The weather has just bitten us again. So sorry about that.”

Yeah, welcome to Florida.

A group of investigators called VORTEX2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2) plan to study the films from this storm as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Principle investigator of VORTEX2 and president of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Colorado, Josh Wurman, said there were 12 “tornado pods” able to document the storm.

From this, researchers hope to find a way to know when a tornado is approaching. The main goal is to be able to give citizens a window of 30 minutes to an hour as a warning a tornado may be headed their way.

The study will consist of looking at radar images to see if any parallels exist among all the tornadoes there are records of.

According to the federal Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., there are about 100 tornadoes each year that kill about 60 people. While the death toll may seem small, the devastation can’t be put into numbers.

USA Today reports that VORTEX2 plans to gather more documentation in the Great Plains next year from May 1 to June 15.