Tag: Hurricane Center

Ernesto As In Pest(o)

After last year’s breakneck pace, this year’s hurricane season has been… well, it’s been a non-event.

This time last year Katrina was in the Gulf. Katrina was the 11th named storm. Ernesto, our current storm, is number five.

Ernesto is an interesting storm because reality and what the Hurricane Center is saying are two entirely different things!

Ernesto has crossed Cuba, an island with a spine of substantial mountains. The Hurricane Center says top winds are 40 mph. I don’t think so. I see no evidence of that kind of wind.

I’m not saying there’s chance Ernesto will rejuvenate in the warm water between Cuba and Florida. Still, it is what it is. I’m not sure what their purpose is.

A friend who’s a hurricane researcher says Ernesto has been a tropical depression for the last 12 hours. I with that.

Meanwhile, it’s all academic. The more pressing concern is what will Ernesto be when it hits Florida? My guess is tropical storm – but that’s just a guess – nothing scientific.

I haven’t called my folks to ask them to roll the hurricane shutters yet. That probably says more of how I feel than anything else.

Some long range projections bring Ernesto north, toward New England, this weekend. It will be working against a big high pressure system. Even as a non-hurricane, Ernesto might give us more wind than Cuba is seeing tonight.

These storms are always interesting, always perplexing, never user friendly.

Where Are The Hurricanes?

During last years exceptional hurricane season, some global warming advocates pointed to a connection between the storms and warmer oceans.

By the end of July last year we were already finished with the “G” storm. This year we’ve only seen the “B.” By the end of the first week in August 2005, we had added two more storms to the list. Right now, the Hurricane Center is looking at some candidates, but none with imminent potential.

In other words, it’s likely we’ll still be at “B” at the point in 2005 we were looking at “I.”

Will any of last year’s advocates return to explain what’s changed? To quote a famous Connecticut furniture salesman, “I doubt it.”

Alberto The Squirto

Sometimes I wonder how much of public hurricane forecasting is science and how much is public relations?

It’s difficult for me to believe Tropical Storm Alberto is (currently) anywhere near the 70 mph sustained winds the Hurricane Center has reported. There’s nothing I see on a satellite or radar image that lends itself to that conclusion.

It’s a storm with an exposed center, little deep convection in that center, and wind shear already affecting it’s northern flank.

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of rain, which will cause trouble – there is. But this storm is being sold as more than it is. There is no offshore buoy showing even 40 mph. Winds on land are lower still.

We will have big storms this season. There’s no need to rush it.

You Never Forget Your First… Storm

So, here we are on June 10, and the first tropical system has formed in the Caribbean. Winds are ‘light’ at the moment. The storm remains an unnamed (only numbered) tropical depression.

Last year’s first storm formed on June 8 and in a similar place. It became Arlene and was an early non-entity.

People in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands have been dealing with torrential rains from this system for the past few days. We’re talking feet of rain, not inches!

I’m curious to see how this hurricane season plays out. For me, there’s awareness of every system – after all, it’s my job. Most people only perk up for the big ones… or at least that was the case until last year.

Will people hang on every word about storms destined to stay with the fishes? Probably – at least for a while. In years past, we often disregarded them on TV. This year, disregard at your own peril.

When this year’s season is over, and the hurricane count is down from 2005 (as it almost certainly will be), will those who make the connection between tropical systems and global warming make excuses? Probably.

If the count is up, I’ll certainly reevaluate my beliefs.

This first system… this little Alberto wannabe… looks like it will cross Florida and then parallel the East Coast. This time of year it’s tough for a storm to maintain any strength in the relatively chilly Atlantic. It’s also tough for a storm to have any westward motion – critical for it ‘hitting’ land from the Atlantic.

As far as I can tell, there’s never been a landfalling hurricane on the East Coast that moved through the Gulf.

Lots of eyes will be on this system. Lots of eyes will be on the Hurricane Center and anyone who forecasts the weather.

The “A” storm is usually pretty docile. Sort of like training wheels for weathermen. Except when they aren’t – Andrew, for instance.

Those were the ‘good old days.’ Back in 1992, Andrew didn’t form until mid-August. By August 16, 2005, we’d already seen Irene.

Blogger’s note: On the right side of the page, you’ll see links to the Hurricane Center’s official forecasts. Those are dynamic links which update through the season dozens of times a day.

Wilma At A Snail’s Pace

I am so glad my parents will be leaving Saturday for Las Vegas, instead of Tuesday. Sure they’ll have a few more days of fun, but they’ll also miss Hurricane Wilma as it moves across Florida.

I have no fear their place will be able to take whatever the diminished Wilma will dish out, but who wants to sit in the dark and wait it out. There hasn’t been a storm yet that didn’t douse their lights, sometimes for days.

The speed at which Hurricane Wilma was moving this evening was nearly criminal – just 2-3 mph. At that rate any given area could spend the better part of a day with hurricane force winds. Can you imagine?

The radar image shows Wilma is not the vigorous system it was when it was totally over water. There seems to be light rain that’s infiltrated the eye. The last reading from the Hurricane Center said 140 mph, but I doubt that right now.

It’s still a monster. It was a MONSTER!

No one who weathered this storm in Cancun or Cozumel will ever forget the terror they’ve experienced. I can say that without fear of contradiction, even though I’ve spoken to no one there. My raw data makes it perfectly clear.

Why Wilma Scares Me

Just in case you’re counting, Hurricane Wilma is currently 1735 miles southwest of me. That’s ‘as the crow flies’ miles. Because this hurricane is ready to make a sweeping right hand turn, it would have to travel significantly farther.

How can I be worried about something 1735 miles away? It’s easy – I’ve seen this scenario before. I didn’t live it. It predates me. I’ve studied it because it is the benchmark for New England hurricane grief.

Before you feel my pain, let me talk a little about my parents. They’re ensconced in Boynton Beach, FL. Hurricane Wilma is 640 miles south-southwest of them.

As it stands now, the official Hurricane Center prediction takes Wilma right over… or reasonably close to them. Though the storm will be coming over land, it’s swampy land. There’s warm water and low friction in the Everglades. It’s not perfect for a hurricane but it won’t kill it either.

My folks have hurricane shutters and live in a substantial building. I think they’ll be OK, though I’ll revisit this with them later today.

Here’s the one bit of good news. Hurricane Wilma will be ‘booking’ as she passes through Florida. Coast-to-coast will be 10, maybe 12 hours. The faster Hurricane Wilma moves, the sooner the trouble is over.

Nature adapts to this kind of trouble. Palm trees have decidedly less wind resistance than the deciduous trees we have here in Connecticut.

The Hurricane Center forecasts 110 mph winds at landfall in Florida, dropping to 80 mph by the time the storm reemerges in the Atlantic&#185. Even 80 mph, a small hurricane, is substantial if it passes close by. Most of us have never experienced 80 mph winds… and we’ve all seen plenty of wind damage.

The Hurricane Center used to talk about 80 mph storms as minimal hurricanes. They don’t anymore. That’s a change for the better.

I am anticipating moderate to severe damage on the West Coast of Florida with minimal to scattered moderate damage on the East Coast. There will be a much smaller radius of damage in the east.

Once the storm leaves Florida the guessing game begins. It will really accelerate. This is the part that starts resembling the Hurricane of ’38.

From PBS’ American Experience: Within 24 hours, the storm ripped into the New England shore with enough fury to set off seismographs in Sitka, Alaska. Traveling at a shocking 60 miles per hour — three times faster than most tropical storms — it was astonishingly swift and powerful, with peak wind gusts up to 186 m.p.h. The storm without a name turned into one of the most devastating storms recorded in North America. Over 600 people were killed, most by drowning. Another hundred were never found. Property damage was estimated at $300 million — over 8,000 homes were destroyed, 6,000 boats wrecked or damaged.

Though the storm struck Connecticut’s coast in Fairfield County, the strongest damage was experienced at the opposite end of the state and into Rhode Island.

Here’s what’s most troubling. A storm barreling up the East Coast will leave minimal time for warning. Look at the map. Florida to New Jersey in 24 hours! I couldn’t drive it that quickly.

To get a Hurricane Warning out 24 hours in advance would mean alerting most of the Northeast. An error of a few degrees in course could mean Atlantic City versus Boston.

And where would all these people go? Imagine sending everyone in Coastal New England west on I-95!

This is the worst case scenario. A direct hit to New England would cause as much destruction, and possibly as many deaths, as the unpredicted storm in 1938!

The current projections bring Hurricane Wilma far enough east to spare New England. But there is very little margin for error over a five day forecast. I’m certainly not confident in it. Just a few degrees off…

So now we wait and watch. Like I said, there will be lots of phone calls to Florida tomorrow. I want to make sure my parents have every possible advantage. Then we’ll bring the worries closer to home.

Hurricane Wilma scares me to the bone.

&#185 – The Hurricane Center readily admits, of all the things it does, predicting intensity is the thing it does worst.

Hurricane Wilma – The Hurricane Center Catches On

Earlier, I wrote about the radical track shift on some of today’s computer guidance on Hurricane Wilma. It looks like the Hurricane Center has caught on to that.

AGREEMENT AMONG THE TRACK GUIDANCE MODELS…WHICH HAD BEEN VERY GOOD OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF DAYS…HAS COMPLETELY COLLAPSED TODAY. THE 06Z RUNS OF THE GFS…GFDL…AND NOGAPS MODELS ACCELERATED WILMA RAPIDLY TOWARD NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF A LARGE LOW

PRESSURE SYSTEM IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION. ALL THREE OF THESE MODELS HAVE BACKED OFF OF THIS SOLUTION…WITH THE GFDL SHOWING AN EXTREME CHANGE…WITH ITS 5-DAY POSITION SHIFTING A MERE 1650 NMI FROM ITS PREVIOUS POSITION IN MAINE TO THE WESTERN TIP OF CUBA.

THERE IS ALMOST AS MUCH SPREAD IN THE 5-DAY POSITIONS OF THE 12Z GFS ENSEMBLE MEMBERS…WHICH RANGE FROM THE YUCATAN TO WELL EAST OF THE DELMARVA PENINSULA. WHAT THIS ILLUSTRATES IS THE EXTREME SENSITIVITY OF WILMA’S FUTURE TRACK TO ITS INTERACTION WITH THE GREAT LAKES LOW. OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF DAYS…WILMA HAS BEEN MOVING SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT OR SOUTH OF THE MODEL GUIDANCE…AND THE LEFT-MOST OF THE GUIDANCE SOLUTIONS ARE NOW SHOWING WILMA DELAYING OR MISSING THE CONNECTION WITH THE LOW. I HAVE SLOWED THE OFFICIAL FORECAST JUST A LITTLE BIT AT THIS TIME…BUT IF WILMA CONTINUES TO MOVE MORE TO THE LEFT THAN EXPECTED…SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES TO THE OFFICIAL FORECAST MAY HAVE TO BE MADE DOWN THE LINE. NEEDLESS TO SAY…CONFIDENCE IN THE FORECAST TRACK…ESPECIALLY THE TIMING…HAS DECREASED CONSIDERABLY.

Remind me not to switch jobs with the forecasters at the Hurricane Center. This is tough stuff with a lot on the line.

Their typical response to radical forecast shifts is to wait and make sure it’s not one piece of unexpected bad data that’s thrown things off. If the models continue this trend of turning, tonight’s 11 PM EDT update will move the forecast in a big way… and people in Florida will exhale.

How Long Can You Maintain Perfection?

How Long Can You Maintain Perfection? That’s a valid question in the world of hurricanes – certainly a question that was asked yesterday about Hurricane Rita and answered today.

When I told some people Rita wouldn’t continue to strengthen and would most likely diminish, some seemed disappointed. I don’t think they wanted people hurt or displaced, we’re just conditioned to see superlatives become more superlative.

Everything in a hurricane has to be functioning perfectly for a storm to get to 175 mph&#185, as Rita did last night. If any one or two parameters change, even in a small way, the storm reacts.

No storm stays at Category 5 for long. It is a fact of life.

Meanwhile, a Category 4 or even 3 storm can do a tremendous amount of damage. Don’t fixate on what happened in New Orleans. New Orleans is a special case. Galveston could get flooding (which would quickly recede) and wind. Think the kind of damage that happened in Mississippi and Alabama.

More of a mind boggle is what could happen in Houston. The effect of hurricanes on tall structures has been thought about, but we haven’t seen too many real world examples.

If (and this is a big if) Hurricane Rita goes inland and comes close to Houston, a brand new set of problems will arise. There are lots of tall buildings. One is 75 stories tall! The wind there will be much stronger than at ground level.

I’m not saying these tall buildings will be blown over, but there would most certainly be exterior damage and the possibility of interior damage if/when the windows are blown out and the wind is funneled between the floors.

There is also concern for the ‘wind tunnel’ effect as winds get shunted into the canyons between the buildings of a city. I just don’t know how the calculations get made – though I assume they have.

I know enough to know Houston, inland as it is, is very vulnerable.

Today’s official forecast looks farther to the right… farther north… closer to the Louisiana border for landfall.

There continues to be nothing good about this storm.

&#185 – Even while saying Hurricane Rita had attained top winds of 175 mph, the Hurricane Center implied they might be higher. After saying, in very technical jargon, how they came up with the wind speed and what data they didn’t have to work with they ended with: “THE PRESSURE-WIND RELATIONSHIP FOR AN 897 MB PRESSURE IS 160 KT.” 160 knots translates to 184 mph.

Rita On My Mind

I woke up late this morning to hear Hurricane Rita had been upgraded to 140 mph. This is a major hurricane.

My favorite observational tool is radar. You really get a feel for the structure of the storm with radar that you can’t get with satellite imagery, but Rita’s now too far from shore to get a meaningful radar return.

The satellite shows everything you don’t want to see. Rita remains symmetrical. There don’t seem to be any external forces distorting the shape, implying Rita is not being tugged or prodded by the outside environment. Further strengthening in the short term seems likely.

The Hurricane Center has shifted the projected landfall south. That’s farther away from Galveston and Houston… but still in the neighborhood.

There is an area between Houston and Corpus Christi that seems to be less densely populated. It’s not as desolate as the area closer to Brownsville. Still there is a nuclear plant there. There’s also a large industrial complex I can’t identify, except to say a railroad line runs right through it

We don’t have any say in this.

I don’t envy the people of Texas. A train is coming down the tracks – they can see it, but they can’t stop it. And, the memory of Katrina is so fresh in everyone’s mind.

What Are They Waiting For?

The 0600Z advisory is out and Rita is still Tropical Storm Rita.

I’m not saying that isn’t so, but I can’t believe the Hurricane Center still hasn’t made this storm into a hurricane. That small wind speed change would make a huge difference in perception.

The outward signs say Rita has already graduated.

We’ll see what happens at 5:00 AM. Well, we’ll see much later. I’ll be fast asleep at 5:00 AM.

Surprised By The Hurricane Center

I was surprised tonight when the Hurricane Center’s 2100Z (5:00 PM EDT) advisory came out and Rita was still a tropical storm. The difference between 70 and 75 mph is minimal when it comes to a storm’s fury, but the word hurricane has much more weight to it than tropical storm.

I suppose the question should be, should the Hurricane Center fudge the truth (aka: lie) in the pursuit of a more useful forecast.

All 75 mph winds are not equal. Key West is a very vulnerable spot.

I suspect when the late night advisory comes out, Rita will have reached hurricane strength. Wouldn’t it have been better to have gotten six more hours of impetus for people to board up and bug out?

Would lying here have been so bad?

Now It’s Rita That’s Got Me Worried

I should have started this over the weekend, because a new storm was the source of almost immediate ‘meteo chatter.’

Ophelia passed to my south. Phillippe is out-to-sea where he will cause little harm. Rita is in a bad spot with the promise of intensification.

There’s no doubt, New Orleans is the most vulnerable city for hurricanes in the US – duh. After that, Key West and Galveston are high up on the list. The official track projection for this storm, still a tropical storm and not a hurricane, impacts both cities!

Key West is an island with little land significantly above sea level. It is possible that during a significant hurricane (which Rita probably won’t be at the time) the entire island could briefly disappear as it was overwashed. There wouldn’t be the lasting flooding of New Orleans.

Galveston too is an island and prone to hurricane surges. Isaac’s Storm, the scariest book I’ve ever read, describes Galveston during the 1900 Hurricane. It stands as America’s most deadly natural disaster. Somewhere between 6-12,000 were killed, with most bodies never found.

From Wikipedia:

Since its formal founding in 1839, the city of Galveston had weathered numerous storms, which the city survived with ease. Residents believed any future storms would be no worse than previous events. In order to provide an official meteorological statement on the threat of hurricanes, Galveston Weather Bureau section director Isaac Cline wrote an 1891 article in the Galveston News in which he argued not only that a seawall was not needed to protect the city, but that it would be impossible for a hurricane of significant strength to strike the island.

The seawall was not built, and development activities on the island actively increased its vulnerability to storms. Sand dunes along the shore were cut down to fill low areas in the city, removing what little barrier there was to the Gulf of Mexico.

Rita isn’t much more than 24 hours from Key West. If the people there are lucky, the storm won’t intensify much, nor will it jog to the north.

Galveston has a bigger question mark. The five day forecast from the Hurricane Center aims squarely at Galveston (for purposes of this entry, let the cone of uncertainty be damned).

If you were living there, what would you do today? The storm is five days away and most likely will find another track before it arrives… or maybe not.

Why Ophelia Worries Me

Tonight, Tropical Storm Ophelia became Hurricane Ophelia. What, no graduation party? Mazel tov anyway.

This has been an interesting storm to watch, even if it seems to be working in slow motion.

If you looked at it yesterday, closed your eyes for 24 hours, and then looked again today, you haven’t missed anything. Though marginally stronger, Ophelia hasn’t really moved. That, to me, is where the fear is.

Hurricanes are steered by upper level winds. Any small puff will push them along. But there’s barely any upper wind at all in the vicinity of Ophelia. She is spinning like a top on a table… including the wobble.

The more well defined the upper winds, the easier it is to predict where the storm will go. Even if those winds waver, inertia is at work. An object in motion wants to stay in motion.

Conversely, light winds make forecasting ridiculously difficult. Yesterday, one of the official Hurricane Center forecasts had this storm dead in its track for three consecutive days. It’s not that they really felt that way… it’s that they didn’t have anything better to put.

It was as close as you’ll ever get to a non-forecast!

This would all be academic if Ophelia was out in the Atlantic. She’s not. She’s under 100 miles off the Florida Coast.

If I were living in Daytona Beach or Jacksonville or Charleston, I’d try not to be far from the radar until Ophelia moves out, if she ever does.

Which Storm Is Next?

Tropical Storm Lee came and went in an instant. There’s a Tropical Depression in the Atlantic that will probably be Maria. It’s in a place that doesn’t favor a North American threat.

Next would be Nate.

There is a chunk of moisture with thunderstorms popping up in the Eastern Atlantic. It is very far away. The Hurricane Center has not seen fit to give it a name or track it in any but the most basic way. It’s a possibility for Nate.

Earlier tonight, my friend Bob, the hurricane expert (PhD and teaching position in meteorology at a fine large university), said this blob of cloudiness deserved watching… and so I have joined its observers.

These small clusters of thunderstorms pop up off the west coast of Africa all the time during this part of the hurricane season. Hurricane birth is very much a movable feast. There are different climatologically favored areas, depending on the time of year.

Most of them collapse under their own weight. Only a few grow.

Even when they grow, there’s a good chance they’ll be like Lee – far away from people and not very long lived. There are many more Lees than there are Katrinas.

Hurricanes are difficult to predict. A lot of that has to do with the very light steering winds they encounter. A mile or two per hour or the change of a few degrees in wind direction make a big difference in where a hurricane will move over an extended length of time.

Then there’s the water temperature. Have we accurately observed what it is… or have we been fooled (because satellites, radar and our other tools aren’t quite as good as the general public thinks they are when a system’s very far from ground based instruments)?

Hurricanes are also compact systems. They’re too small to be easily or accurately picked up by the conventional computer models we use. And, we need dates far in the future for something closer to Africa than America. Our errors are multiplied with time.

After all that, knowing we’ll mostly be wrong, we look anyway. We often chatter among ourselves over these left field predictons. I’m not entirely sure why.

I’m attaching part of a computer model which picks up this pre-Nate cluster, allows the storm to engorge itself on warm, tropical, Atlantic water until it reaches hurricane strength, and then curves it up the East Coast.

I don’t believe it is true. I don’t think this forecast will happen. But, it’s all we have right now. It’s what the geeky boys are currently talking about

Will there be a Nate and will he be right off the New England coast Tuesday, September 13, 2005 at 8:00 PM EDT (9/14/2005 0000Z) as this maps shows? Stay tuned.

Stranger things have happened.

The More I Watch, The More Unhappy I Am

Hurricane Katrina ceased being a weather story days ago. I now watch as an interested bystander. I am very unhappy with what I see.

If FEMA or any other part of Homeland Security has had an impact on those people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, I haven’t seen it. Again, this storm wasn’t a surprise. I told people here in Connecticut how bad I thought it would be… but I wasn’t alone.

Reading the pre-Katrina statements from the Weather Service’s New Orleans office, there was no doubt this was being portrayed as a killer… a once in a lifetime type event. The Hurricane Center was saying the same thing.

Where was FEMA?

Where was Homeland Security?

Where are they today?

How can we allow our fellow citizens to suffer, as these people are certainly suffering? Where is the humanity that symbolizes America? These poor citizens deserve comfort.

New Orleans is a city filled with poor, black people. I would be easy to think this was racist or classist treatment. I don’t think so. I think this is a case of inept agencies. They would have poorly served any group so affected, regardless of station in life.

It looks like there are still people dying from this storm. How disgusting is that?

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

A doctor in University Hospital telephoned a Baton Rouge TV station, hoping to call attention to the desperate plight at his hospital. The hospital was running low on food and water, and had no power, the doctor said.