Hurricane Irma

[BigWayne]

Barbuda is the first place that is going to get hit.
Winds are picking up now. Up to ~30 MPH as I write this.

https://www.wunderground.com/MAR/buoy/BARA9.html

Got up to 118 MPH before the wind sensor stopped transmitting.

barbuda2.jpg

[BigWayne]

Same thing happened in St Thomas. Got up to 113 and then either the monitor broke or they lost communications.

So far, Barbuda, Anguilla, St Bart, St Thomas/John, and the BVI took a direct hit.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

This hurricane's path reminds me what an anomaly Harvey was. Just sitting on top of Houston for days seems unnecessarily cruel.

[duketaylor]

Projected path now seems bound towards many of us. Gonna make sure generator is working and buy some xtra gas and x-cords. Might cancel one golf tourney, oh well!

[Deslok]

Feeling quite fortunate right now. My parents sold their St John home(technically their 2nd one, they lost one to Marilyn in 1995) just this July. Have had one their since 1978. Still know a lot of folks that we are anxious to hear are ok. Glad they are currently on vacation in Europe as they now only have a house in Jupiter. FL which is going to be hit pretty hard it looks like, Thoughts and prayers to all who have either already endured its force or are in the projected path.

[OldPhiKap]

I just checked my local weather forecast for Monday. Calling for gusts up to 90 mph. This thing just got real, yo.

[devildeac]

I just checked my local weather forecast for Monday. Calling for gusts up to 90 mph. This thing just got real, yo.

Gulp. Might be a great time to visit Chicago...

[BigWayne]

Good links?

Found this page today: http://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/fvGFS/fvGFS_products.php

You can pick the different dates and see the model forecasts for each run. The simulated IR is the easiest for me to use to see what they are predicting.
This is coming from the people that used to do the GFDL model, which I recall being the most reliable one back when I lived in Georgia and really tracked these storms. The track that Wunderground shows labeled GFS is coming from these guys.

One of the most interesting things is to pick the different runs and see how much the forecast changes each day or even after just another 6 hours. You really can't trust anything coming out of these models beyond 2 days.

The big thing with this one is predicting when it's going to turn. Every time the model runs, that point is changing around and has a dramatic effect on what the human impact will be. Right now, this model shows that turn happening Sunday morning and keeping the eye off the coast of Florida going almost straight North raking the entire coast of FL. The run on Tuesday had that turn happening the same time on Sunday but placing the storm just past Key West when it did, which would have raked the west coast of FL. The run on Monday had it plowing into Cuba and mostly breaking up.

Another interesting thing is the wind shear simulations. These all show a pretty good stream of wind running east over Georgia that should weaken the storm when it gets that far North. That has not changed much in the last few days of simulations.

[OldPhiKap]

Storm still shifting east through Georgia. Good news, eye sliding away. Bad news, northeast "dirty" quadrant.

All of Georgia east of I-95 (including Savannah, Brunswick, Golden Isles) have mandatory evacuations per agovernor Deal. Schools in town already closed for next Monday through Wednesday because they act as inland shelters for coastal evacuees.

At least I have plenty of Zima and Pop Tarts. Gonna ride on through.

[YmoBeThere]

Storm still shifting east through Georgia. Good news, eye sliding away. Bad news, northeast "dirty" quadrant.

All of Georgia east of I-95 (including Savannah, Brunswick, Golden Isles) have mandatory evacuations per agovernor Deal. Schools in town already closed for next Monday through Wednesday because they act as inland shelters for coastal evacuees.

At least I have plenty of Zima and Pop Tarts. Gonna ride on through.

Appears NHC has it now drifting west, blanketing all of FL, through the heart of Georgia and headed straight to Nashville.

[JasonEvans]

Meanwhile, following in Irma's wake is another Cat 3 hurricane, Jose, and over in the Gulf is a Cat 2, Katia. Yup, 3 hurricanes at one time. There is a chance Katia reaches Cat 3 at the same time as the other 2 marking the first time in recorded history we would have 3 major Atlantic hurricanes at the same time. Yay, history!



Luckily, the fact that Jose is closely following the path Irma set means Jose is facing colder waters (Irma stirred them up pretty good) so it is not likely to get quite a strong as Irma. Jose is expected to turn north before it gets to the larger islands of the Caribbean, though I think there are some places that will have gotten hit by 2 major hurricanes in one week... simply stunning. Katia is, thankfully, headed toward Mexico, not the coast of Texas, though I would imagine some bands of storms from Katia will still reach the areas that are still flooded from Harvey.

-Jason "pretty sure this is going to be the worst hurricane season in American history... Yay, history!" Evans

[JasonEvans]

Here is Irma's historical track:


And here is Jose's projected track:


Looks like Antigua, Barbuda, and possibly Anguilla could get a double hit. Luckily, those are really affluent places that should have no trouble shouldering the burden of a Cat 5 and then a Cat 3 only days later. [/sacrasm]

[davekay1971]

Here is Irma's historical track:


And here is Jose's projected track:


Looks like Antigua, Barbuda, and possibly Anguilla could get a double hit. Luckily, those are really affluent places that should have no trouble shouldering the burden of a Cat 5 and then a Cat 3 only days later. [/sacrasm]

So you're saying it's my duty to take my tourism dollars to Antigua, Barbuda, and Anguilla? Well, if i must...for a good cause.

JE: what's the word in Atlanta about Monday? I ask since my son is a newly minted freshman at the Georgia Institute of Technology...

[JasonEvans]

So you're saying it's my duty to take my tourism dollars to Antigua, Barbuda, and Anguilla? Well, if i must...for a good cause.

I'm worried if they will still be there after this double-hit. Yikes!

JE: what's the word in Atlanta about Monday? I ask since my son is a newly minted freshman at the Georgia Institute of Technology...

Well, the the caveat that the storm track could certainly change by then...

There will be tons of problems across southern Ga, but the storm will have severely weakened by the time it gets north and west to Atlanta. We are pretty far inland here. The forecast appears to be calling for winds in the 30-45 mph range, which will likely cause some trees/limbs to fall which will lead to some power outages around town, but I doubt it will be a major hazard for the city.

-Jason "In Atlanta, we have more trouble with an inch or two of snow and ice than we do a hurricane" Evans

[BLPOG]

-Jason "pretty sure this is going to be the worst hurricane season in American history... Yay, history!" Evans

That is very much dependent on how you evaluate "worst" (and somewhat also "history"; your earlier statement about "recorded history" is almost certainly incorrect. It should have been "in record" or "in the historical record" or similar).

Certainly, Harvey caused a great deal of destruction and Irma will as well. The closeness in time of Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Katia is another potential measure.

IIRC though, several years back there was a season in which the weather service ran through roughly the whole list of pre-determined names, but they were largely weak storms that didn't make landfall. Should highest count of identified storms be the metric of choice? How well does that metric stand up to changes in storm categorization and the efforts at tracking over the period of record?

Consider the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons, which were very active. They had multiple destructive storms, including several hitting the same areas and not too far apart in time. They were the last actually destructive seasons in the US until recently. I'm not sure we've yet passed those (or Andrew alone in '92) is terms of destruction during the season, although I'd have to look up the figures and I don't recall the extent of their impact in the Caribbean.

Overall though, the measurements for the average energy of the storms have been lower than in the mid-20th century, at least according to my understanding. Should the storms be evaluated by on their thermodynamic properties?

Should "worst" be the hypothetical destruction of a storm based on normalized levels population density, etc, or should we just go by dollar value of destruction? I believe destruction as measured in relation to GDP, even with the more destructive storms like Harvey, has been comparable over many decades.

I'm not sure there is a best way to evaluate how bad a hurricane season is. I think we need to specifically decide our target metric lest we fall into vague hyperbole.

That said, when deciding the worst hurricane in American history, I'd probably have to go with The Great Hurricane of 1780.

[BigWayne]

-Jason "In Atlanta, we have more trouble with an inch or two of snow and ice than we do a hurricane" Evans

Irma should be too weak to hurt Atlanta, if it even gets there. Opal in 1995 was a fast mover and did do damage in Atlanta. Lot of power outages and trees down. I lost 4 or 5 trees and was really lucky the wind was blowing the direction it was, from my backyard to the front. The other way around and I would have had a 100 ft oak tree in my living room.

[Jeffrey]

Amazing how Mother Nature is so beautiful and alluring, but can also be so brutal and destructive.

As an aside, when will society demand we refer to her as Gender Neutral Nature?

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I'm worried if they will still be there after this double-hit. Yikes!



Well, the the caveat that the storm track could certainly change by then...

There will be tons of problems across southern Ga, but the storm will have severely weakened by the time it gets north and west to Atlanta. We are pretty far inland here. The forecast appears to be calling for winds in the 30-45 mph range, which will likely cause some trees/limbs to fall which will lead to some power outages around town, but I doubt it will be a major hazard for the city.

-Jason "In Atlanta, we have more trouble with an inch or two of snow and ice than we do a hurricane" Evans

Yes. In the last twenty hours the track has gone from hitting my beloved town of Asheville head on, to going considerably west, last I checked. That hasn't kept people from panicking well ahead of schedule, just in case. Myself, I'll wait until it at least makes landfall before I start hoarding gas and water. Far too much can change in 48 hours.

[Channing]

21367066_1785892384758610_1716075023015371923_o.jpg

For the sake of comparison - Irma v. Andrew. This feels like end of days type stuff...

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

21367066_1785892384758610_1716075023015371923_o.jpg

For the sake of comparison - Irma v. Andrew. This feels like end of days type stuff...

Wow. That's bananas.

Not to mention how much stronger the winds of Irma have been.