Tag: Hurricane Center

Where Is The Federal Government?

“Good afternoon…there is a desperate, desperate race to try to save those who made it through the storm, but may not survive the aftermath. This may be one of the saddest spectacles I have ever seen.” – Shepard Smith, Fox News Channel

I’m not in New Orleans nor the Gulf Coast. I only know what I see on television and read in the newspaper. I am not happy with what I’m seeing.

Times-Picayune

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Looting on Tchoupitoulas Avenue

By Michael Perlstein

Staff writer

Looting in New Orleans was so widespread Wednesday that police were forced to prioritize their overwhelmed enforcement effort.

The officers were rushing to a break-in next door at the Sports Authority, desperate to secure the store’s stockpile of guns and ammunition.

“I think we ran them off before they got any of it,” said the commanding officer at the scene. The cops secured the store with heavy plywood before moving on to other emergencies.

There’s more, but it’s too depressing.

Where is FEMA? Where is Homeland Security? Where is the National Guard? Where are tents and cots and kitchens?

Why on Wednesday is this first being announced by President Bush&#185?

That Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast was no surprise. It was well forecast, both intensity and track. The predictions from the Hurricane Center were dire with some of the strongest cautionary language I’ve ever read relating to weather.

Wasn’t anything brought in to be ready?

As we have a moment to step back from this tragedy, maybe it’s time to question how the resources allocated for emergency services are deployed. If I were in New Orleans or the Mississippi and Alabama coastal towns, I’d be more than steaming right now. I’d want answers.

&#185 – Though President Bush is ‘in charge’, operational decisions should have been made at lower governmental levels.

What Katrina’s Forecasters Are Thinking

I’m writing this from the Mohegan Sun Hotel in Eastern Connecticut. Tomorrow I’ll be emceeing a program for Norwich Free Academy. It starts so early, the only way to make it work was to stay on site.

What a spectacular hotel. It is attached to a spectacular casino, which would be a great place for me to go… but they don’t have poker anymore.

More on all of this tomorrow. Tonight there are bigger fish to fry in the form of Hurricane Katrina.

I’ve got WWL-TV streaming here on the computer. This is much better than watching coverage on the cable networks.

The cable networks are more polished and hard hitting. This local New Orleans station is providing the kind of news people there need.

Carl Arredondo, who I remember from The Weather Channel, is their chief meteorologist. He’s pretty solid.

I just watched another met do a fascinating explanation of the radar display. There’s no time for this except on New Orleans TV where tonight, there’s nothing but time!

I know what the forecasters are thinking… the local guys and the PhD’s at the Hurricane Center. Am I right? Did I miss anything?

Forecasters have spent the last few days scaring the living… well, you know… scaring people. Now they have a moral dilemma.

If the forecast comes true, people get hurt (maybe die) and property loss is great. If they’re wrong, they become the goat. “Why did you make us leave? For this?”

Snow forecasts are similar, but the downside to this is so much greater. This really is a life and death forecast. And, accuracy of track to the degree people want and a good intensity forecast are beyond the current state of the art.

We can be close. We cannot get it exactly right – ever, except maybe by accident.

Tonight I spoke with a friend in the Miami area. She had been through Hurricane Katrina last week when Katrina was a ‘minimal hurricane’. She only got her power back today. She still has no phone service.

New Orleans will be hit so much harder.

She also said, fill up the car tonight. Gasoline prices will skyrocket tomorrow. I’m afraid she’s right on that forecast.

Katrina Gets Stronger

Hurricane Katrina has grown to 160 mph or Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

These numbers don’t mean much to most of us. What frame of reference is there? You’ve never experienced 160 mph winds (and hopefully never will).

The Hurricane Center’s categories are based on a scale which relates winds speed to specific damage. Here’s what Category 5 really means:

Winds greater than 155 mph (135 kt or 249 km/hr). Storm surge generally greater than 18 ft above normal. Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings. Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away. All shrubs, trees, and signs blown down. Complete destruction of mobile homes. Severe and extensive window and door damage. Low-lying escape routes are cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the center of the hurricane. Major damage to lower floors of all structures located less than 15 ft above sea level and within 500 yards of the shoreline. Massive evacuation of residential areas on low ground within 5-10 miles (8-16 km) of the shoreline may be required.

And, like the old time movies with the heroine tied to the railroad tracks, a lumbering train is moving toward New Orleans and there’s no way to escape.

Katrina’s Forecast Stabilizes

Over the past few days I’ve commented on some of the wide swings in the forecast for Hurricane Katrina. Now, it looks like the swings have stopped.

THE MODEL CONSENSUS TRACK HAS HARDLY MOVED SINCE THE LAST FORECAST CYCLE AND IS VERY CLOSE TO THE PREVIOUS OFFICIAL FORECAST…WHICH THE NEW FORECAST BASICALLY JUST UPDATES. THE SPREAD IN THE MODEL TRACKS ALONG THE NORTHERN GULF COAST IS AT MOST 90 MILES… SO CONFIDENCE IN THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS RELATIVELY HIGH.

Is this the meteorological kiss of death? Is the Hurricane Center patting itself on the back too soon?

The satellite presentation is massive with a well defined eye. This is still a devastating forecast for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Katrina And My Sleep Schedule

We’ve got a little coverage problem at work. I’ve been asked to work Sunday morning – airtime: 6:00 AM! So, I’ve napped a bit this evening and will try and catch a few more hours of sleep before then.

In essence, I’m trying to put myself on ‘jet lag’.

As long as I’m up, another look at the hurricane progress. Since leaving Florida, Hurricane Katrina has been left alone in the open Gulf of Mexico. She’s intensified, but not as much as I would have thought. Still, the official number at this hour is 115 mph – that’s a wickedly powerful storm.

The forecast path is still a worst case scenario for New Orleans&#185

A common hurricane misconception is that its winds are only affected by the outside environment. Is there warm water? Are the feeders and outflow unimpeded? Is the hurricane being dragged near rough terrain, like mountains on an island? Things like that.

Often missed is the eyewall cycle. Hurricanes are constantly reforming their eyewall, shedding the old one for a new one. During this cycle, the strength of the hurricane’s winds are temporarily reduced, only to spring right back up. If this happens as a storm approaches land, you’ve dodged a bullet… or at least lowered the caliber.

That’s what’s being talked about in this discussion from the Hurricane Center:

CHANGES IN THE INNER CORE STRUCTURE BEFORE LANDFALL MAY MODIFY THE INTENSITY OF KATRINA UP OR DOWN…BUT UNFORTUNATELY…THESE CHANGES ARE NOT POSSIBLE TO FORECAST NOWADAYS WITH OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE. WE CAN ONLY DESCRIBE THEM AS THEY OCCUR.

At the home page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, there is no new news – none! The website seems to be untouched since Saturday morning, or more likely Friday night. I can’t believe that, under these critical circumstances, but it’s true.

WWL-TV is up-to-date, including information on “contraflow.” Some interstates and other highways now have all their lanes heading north! It works moderately well, but it’s confusing.

New Orleans needs to empty out now. There is no longer enough time to consider the forecast might be wrong. People staying in New Orleans, or much of the rest of Southern Louisiana, do so at their own peril.

&#185 – When meteorologists talk weather, they often abbreviate, using the airport identifier. Bradley International is BDL, Kennedy in New York is JFK, West Palm Beach is PBI. Some are non-intuitive. New Orleans is MSY. I cannot think of New Orleans without MSY popping into my head.

Katrina – Telling Someone To Leave

As much as she fears leaving the house, she needs to fear staying even more. Riding out a hurricane is something people only do once

I just got off the phone with my friend’s mom in New Orleans.

We’ve never met in person, but she knows me. I’ve fixed her computer by remote control. She’s seen me on TV while visiting her daughter in Connecticut. I’ve known her son for over 25 years and he’s a trusted friend.

She understands I’m looking out for her.

“Leave,” I said. “Leave now.”

This morning’s Times-Picayune showed the path well to the east of New Orleans. That’s changed.

The latest from the Hurricane Center, and all my other normally reliable sources say, Hurricane Katrina is major trouble. She has the potential to be as devastating as any hurricane in my lifetime.

Over the phone my friend’s mom has always sounded younger than her chronological age. Speaking to her now, her real age showed.

Driving long distances are very tiring to her. She didn’t know where there would be shelters to accommodate her. She wasn’t quite sure where ‘north’ was, when I said to drive north past Lake Ponchartrain as far as she could go.

As much as she fears leaving the house, she needs to fear staying even more. Riding out a hurricane is something people only do once. Once is enough to make them realize they never want to do it again.

And, as has been said by me and others, New Orleans is a special case. It is incredibly susceptible to flooding. It floods regularly from heavy rain. Flooding from the direct hit of a Category 4 storm would be of historic proportions.

I wish I could run down and toss her over my shoulder, carrying her to safety. It’s not that easy. There’s no access. She’s alone. She’s probably coming to the realization that there’s something to fear.

As I hung up the phone, I said, “Next week when we speak, I want you to complain that I made you leave your home… and for what? I want to be wrong about Hurricane Katrina.”

I’m scared I won’t be.

Katrina Shifts West Again

Earlier this afternoon, before the Hurricane Center issued its 5:00 PM update on Katrina, I sent an instant message to my friend Bob at FSU. I told him I was putting up a dollar that Katrina’s forecast would be shifted left.

It was.

I had the exact same feeling tonight… and NHC moved it again.

Maybe feeling is the wrong word, because this isn’t intuition or guesswork. I could see signs. The storm was refusing to make the predicted right turn. In fact, it was traveling south of west.

To the north there was some sort of convergence. Feeder bands from the hurricane were meeting something moving from the north. Clouds were showing up bright white – a sign they were developing vertically.

Whatever it was to the north, it would impede that right turn forecast at the Hurricane Center.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. The best hurricane information is often contained in the forecaster’s technical discussion. These really were meant to be ‘internal use only’ documents, but you can’t do that when you work for the government.

In these the lead forecaster discusses what has gone into the latest forecast package. I’m sure it’s very helpful at NHC after the hurricane season is over or whenever post mortems are done.

I’ll attach tonight’s at the end of this message so you can get a feel for yourself. This one was written by Dr. Lixion Avila, one of NHC’s hurricane specialists. Four of the six specialists are Ph D’s. This is specialized work.

Sometimes, I sense, things are thrown in with the understanding that it’s more than meteorologists reading.

KATRINA IS FORECAST TO MOVE DIRECTLY OVER THE WARM

LOOP CURRENT OF THE GULF OF MEXICO…WHICH IS LIKE ADDING HIGH

OCTANE FUEL TO THE FIRE

No one trained in weather needed that line. Some surface water in the Northern Gulf of Mexico is 90&#17+. Without a doubt, this is a dangerous storm and getting more dangerous by the minute.

My biggest fear is Katrina will head west of New Orleans and strike the coast there. A Category 4 storm (which is the forecast) in that location would be devastating. For a variety of reasons, New Orleans is incredibly vulnerable and a strike like that would be the worst of all possible scenarios!

IT IS WORTH NOTING THAT THE GUIDANCE SPREAD HAS DECREASED AND MOST OF THE RELIABLE NUMERICAL MODEL TRACKS ARE NOW CLUSTERED BETWEEN THE EASTERN COAST OF LOUISIANA AND THE COAST OF MISSISSIPPI. THIS CLUSTERING INCREASES THE CONFIDENCE IN THE FORECAST.

Man, I hope he’s right. So far, this storm has been poorly forecast&#185. And, recently, each succeeding forecast has moved the path farther left… farther to the west.

Today alone, the center of the forecast path for landfall has moved a few hundred miles.

More on Katrina later. We have a few days with this storm at sea before the real trouble begins.

&#185 – By poorly forecast, I don’t mean NHC did a bad job. I mean the ability to forecast this particular storm was beyond the capabilities of science at the moment. Something’s there that no one can get a handle on. That we don’t know exactly why it went wrong is as troubling as it going wrong… maybe more.

Continue reading “Katrina Shifts West Again”

Katrina And The Gulf

Katrina has left Florida. I’m not there, but I’m still betting there are lots of upset people in Dade County. The forecast track was too far north.

Now Katrina is in the Gulf of Mexico and intensifying. Already today NHC has shifted the probable Gulf Coast landfall 150 miles west.

That’s not a sign of confidence.

For years I’ve heard how difficult hurricane forecasting is. I’m not disputing that. I’m just not sure it’s any more difficult than any type of forecasting.

The problem is, every part of a hurricane forecast is critical. Many parts of my day-to-day forecast are not. I can get close and be considered right. I though 40% clouds, we had 60% – who cares? I figured .5″ rain, we got .75″ – who cares? The Hurricane Center doesn’t get that free pass.

This storm will continue to hold my attention. There’s actually 90&#186+ water in the Gulf. That’s like gasoline near an open flame.

Katrina Goes South

The Hurricane Center says, don’t fixate on the center line. How can you not?

Katrina made land around Hallandale Beach in Southern Broward County. Then, instead of heading west, it headed southwest. It’s now in Central Dade County – in the swamp I believe.

I’ll watch the news out of Florida tomorrow, and I expect to see angry people… unprepared people… because this tracked south of the line.

My guess, based on radar imagery, is we’ll see 10″+ rain from around Miami Beach. Maybe more.

Katrina Comes Calling

I woke up and turned on the computer. The Miami radar showed Katrina closer than I expected. I think people in Florida are surprised it’s this close this soon. A friend in South Florida says the Hurricane Center’s personnel are on TV ‘tap dancing’.

I called my folks. “Put down the hurricane shutters,” I said. Hours later, the shutters were still up.

None of the neighbors had theirs down, my mom told me.

The shutters are down now. The wind is beginning to blow. The heaviest rain and wind are still to come.

Most likely they will not need the shutters, just as most likely I won’t need my seat belt on the drive home tonight.

They are currently with phone service but without electricity. The no electricity thing is the part they didn’t want to go through again.

Almost Katrina

The Hurricane Center has just christened a tropical depression. Though it hasn’t yet graduated to tropical storm or hurricane status, “we’ve already picked out a name” – Katrina.

I am concerned by Katrina because it is likely to head toward South Florida, a densely populated area and where my parents live!

It doesn’t look like Katrina will be a major hurricane… but a minimal hurricane is enough for me.

You’ll be reading a lot more about this storm on this site over the next few days.

Dennis Is Major Trouble

After cruising over Cuba, Hurricane Dennis diminished in intensity. That was to be expected. And, it was easy to expect it to regain some strength over the open and warm waters of the Gulf.

What we got was more than expected. Here’s what Dr. Jack Beven, lead forecaster tonight at the Hurricane Center, had to say in his 11:00 PM EDT tech discussion:

AFTER DEEPENING AT A RATE THAT BORDERED ON INSANE DURING THE AFTERNOON…DENNIS HAS CONTINUED TO STRENGTHEN AT A MORE NORMAL RATE THIS EVENING. REPORTS FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT SHOW THAT THE CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS FALLEN TO 941MB…WITH MAXIMUM FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS OF 122 KT IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT. BASED ON THIS…THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS 110 KT&#185.

I read these all the time. I’ve never seen anything like that before – never. This was the lead forecaster at the Hurricane Center, not some schmo on the street who said, “BORDERED ON INSANE !

&#185 – 110 knots is approximately 125 mph (give or take).

Hurricane Info – Where To Go

This time of year, a lot of what I do is follow hurricanes. Many of the tools that are useful the rest of the year fail miserably with tropical systems.

There are a number of problems. Hurricanes… even big ones like Dennis, are often relatively small enough to fall between the cracks of the numerical weather prediction programs. So the computer models I’d normally follow aren’t particularly helpful.

Hurricanes can be very interesting when they’re far from land – away from radar and surface observations. Our government’s NEXRAD network is worthless until the storm is poised to hit land.

Here are some of the secondary sites I follow to try and get more info than would normally be available.

The spinning radar on the left side&#185 is from one of Cuba’s network of weather radars. On any given day, half of them might be out of service. In Cuba, that’s not unusual.

On the other hand, there are seven. That’s a lot for an island of Cuba’s size.

Even though the south coast of Cuba is within range of the Key West radar, there are mountains in the way. I think the Cuban radar does a better job at this position. It’s always surprised me that the Cuban images are on the net. I’ve used their sites for at least three years.

The College of DuPage, a two year college where you wouldn’t expect big time meteorology, has one of the best sites for ‘domestic’ imagery like satellites and radar images. DuPage has the full NIDS suite, meaning you can see the Doppler portion of Doppler radar – winds!

For prediction, I have been paying close attention to the MM5 model being run at Florida State by Bob Hart (originally of North Branford, CT). The MM5 was initially formulated at Penn State and runs on off the shelf hardware (though still beefier than what you’ve got at home).

What makes FSU’s iteration of the MM5 so special is its superior ability to properly see topography, ‘bogused’ data from the actual hurricane (to better set the initial parameters, and sophisticated physics.

Bob is among the smartest people I’ve ever known. It’s no surprise this forecast tool is run under his supervision.

Hurricanes are so difficult to accurately predict, especially using conventional methods. Any improvement in the state of the art becomes a possible life saver! What could be sweeter than doing your job and saving lives?

Finally, I look at the Hurricane Center‘s output. For me, seeing just the Hurricane Center’s work product removes the fun of doing it myself.

I do religiously read their technical forecast discussions. The link, unfortunately, changes each time they issue a new one. Links to NHC products are also on the right side of this webpage and on the Hurricane Center homepage.

&#185 – Because this webpage will live on long after Dennis is gone, this is a captured radar image. The link goes to the real thing.

What We Don’t Know About Hurricanes

I always knew hurricanes were tough to predict. I just never knew how tough they were to accurately observe.

Actually, the problem is more complex than that. We’re trying to put a finite number on a system that is complex. Maybe one number is not the way to do it.

Tonight, as an example, the Hurricane Center fixed the top winds of Tropical Storm Cindy at 70 mph. Then I got this:

DURING THE PAST HOUR…AN OFFSHORE OIL PLATFORM NORTHEAST OF THE CENTER REPORTED A WIND GUST TO 99 MPH AT A HEIGHT OF 150 FT.

The 70 mph in the earlier advisory was a sustained wind figure… and from ground level, not 150 feet over the open water. Still, these numbers are so close to hurricane status that you have to wonder, why no Hurricane Watch or Warning?

Maybe the oil rig reading is too high (unlikely) or the stated wind is too low (probably). This is not to say it wasn’t 70 mph back when that number was issued. These things pulse and change rapidly.

It would also be a great stretch to assume that the only observation taken from near the center of the storm just happened to catch its highest wind. If we read 99 mph there, someplace else probably received more.

Years ago I assumed the National Hurricane Center’s published numbers were gospel. They are not. Unlike most of what’s recorded weatherwise, these ‘observation’ are really estimates – and often poor estimates. That’s not NHC’s fault necessarily. They can only work with what they’ve got and hurricanes are usually situated where observations are difficult, if not impossible.

The Hurricane Center walks a difficult path. Report a number too high and you’re calling wolf. No one will believe you the next time. Underestimate and you leave people in harm’s way.

Tonight, I think they’re on the low side and their public statements may leave people unprotected. There’s a Tropical Storm Warning on the Gulf Coast. There should be a Hurricane Warning. My friend Bob, the hurricane maven, said it before I did.

He’s right.

Even if they were to up the category right now, it’s too late to help. The storm is already affecting Louisiana and will come onshore before first light Wednesday.

The Quandary of Nicole

What’s the Hurricane Center to do? There’s a strong system out in the Atlantic. If it were to pass over your house (or more appropriately in this case, your boat) it would seem like a tropical storm. Winds are around 40 mph, seas are high, the wind is pouring down.

It is not a tropical storm.

Tropical storms have certain characteristics which make them a special kind of animal. Without going into the minutiae of meteorology, Nicole doesn’t qualify.

So, what does the Hurricane Center do? They could say, “not my problem,” and let it be dealt with the way other mid-latitude storms are. Or, it can be named and treated like other named systems.

That’s exactly what the Hurricane Center chose to do, but there’s a problem. I guess it’s against some unspoken code to mislabel it, so Nicole become Subtropical Storm Nicole.

Subtropical is a word that isn’t recognized by my spellchecker… and for good reason. It’s obscure. And, to most people trying to figure out what’s going on, it’s confusing.

On TV, along with whatever else I explain, I have to stop and acknowledge this weird name.

You know, I’m not sure what I’d do if I was at the Hurricane Center. Maybe there’s really no good answer to this – but tropical or not, these storms need to be acknowledged.