Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose, etc.

[onejayhawk]

The first really big hurricane of the decade is about to hit the beaches of Texas. This could be the most severe US storm since Katrina.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-harvey-nhc-idUSKCN1B409K

We are currently on the track but 180 miles (290 km) from landfall. It would be a minor change for the storm to hit full on Houston.

J

 

[Perfection]

J, you in Houston? What's the current rain/wind prediction?

 

[FriendlyFire]

Category 3 only
Katrina was Category 5

 

[Perfection]

Category 3 only
Katrina was Category 5

Katrina was Category 3 when it made landfall on New Orleans

 

[Zkribbler]

Accuweather predicts Harvey will stall over Texas and, over a 3-5 day period, drop up to 2 feet of rain!

 

[FriendlyFire]

Katrina was Category 3 when it made landfall on New Orleans

Time to start panicking then

 

[onejayhawk]

We are in the 2"-4" band at the moment. Houston is expecting 1-2 feet of rain.

Tomorrow will tell a lot. The storm is still a low grade hurricane, but the pressure dropped all day, hence the belief it will significantly intensify. Landfall is still on the lightly populated coast between Corpus Cristi and Brownsville. There is actually a town named Harvey in Texas. It's on the storm track but well inland. "Only" 4"-8" of rainfall expected.

J

 

[stfoskey12]

I have a friend going to college in Houston. He said classes are canceled there. This is looking like quite the hurricane.

 

[JollyRoger]

"Only" 4"-8"

That's what she said

 

[Perfection]

It's looking like Houston will be spared from Hurricane force winds, just will have to deal with the flooding which is looking to be pretty brutal. (I have family in Houston so I'm mostly watching out for them)

 

[Perfection]

@JollyRoger you anywhere near this mess, IIRC you're in Texas but don't know where.

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[onejayhawk]

Just keep the tornadoes in Dallas. We don't need any.

Harvey upgraded to a category 4 about six hours prior to landfall. This makes it the most powerful storm in Texas since the Galveston hurricane that killed 8000-12,000 in 1900. It is also one of the largest ever to make landfall in USA, larger than Katrina which had downgraded to a category 3 before landfall.

Fortunately, the storm surge will first strike the barrier islands of Padre, Matagorda, and Galveston. None the less, a surge of almost two meters (over six feet) is expect in the early morning all along the coast. The islands may be overwashed. This is what happened in 1900.

J

 

[Zkribbler]

This is what happened in 1900...

...with absolutely no warning. There we no weather satellites back then.

Be safe, J.

Kudos to the mayor of one town under mandatory evacuation. He issued a message to his townsfolk: "If you chose to ignore this order and stay, please write your name and social security number on your forearm. It will help us to identify your body."

 

[stfoskey12]

...with absolutely no warning. There we no weather satellites back then.

I seem to recall reading that the Cubans knew there was a storm (it hit Cuba first), but they had no idea how much it would intensify and news of the storm didn't get relayed to the mainland Americans, because the American meteorologists in Cuba thought the Cubans were overreacting.

Kudos to the mayor of one town under mandatory evacuation. He issued a message to his townsfolk: "If you chose to ignore this order and stay, please write your name and social security number on your forearm. It will help us to identify your body."

Here's what the mayor of Corpus Christi said yesterday: "I think people are smart enough to make their evacuation decisions & they don't need the government telling them what to do." I wonder if he still holds that view.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Harvey upgraded to a category 4 about six hours prior to landfall.

Clearly a Hoax by Gyna
Well at least the US has the resources and know how to both handle such a massive hurricane with minimal lose of life, hopefully the damage isnt too widespread.
Perhaps its a good time to look at rebuilding inland.

 

[LucyDuke]

That's an absolutely bonkers amount of wet. Hope anyone that wants to gtfo does, safely. Anyone that doesn't want to, well, yeah, people that are smart enough will make their own evacuation decisions.

Sure will be interesting to see how the feds respond.

 

[Berzerker]

I know its a drop in the bucket (or less) and most of it will run right back into the ocean, but I wonder how much sea level dropped because of the hurricane

 

[LucyDuke]

Somewhere on the order of 1mm to 1cm, unless my approximations are garbage, to flood the entirety of Texas 1m deep. More than I'd've guessed. Cool.

 

[Zkribbler]

Sure will be interesting to see how the feds respond.

Trump's vacationing at Camp David, where he claims he's "closely monitoring the situation."

I'm surprised he has time, what with all the pardoning of racist, law-breaking sheriffs and bashing trans who only want to serve in the military.