OT: Matthew Hurricane
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
Nothing funny about it. It's true. All it takes is a phone call.
And while we're on the subject, all local first aid squads have "Priority Response Lists". Individuals with chronic medical conditions requiring urgent response can register with the squad and those lists are reviewed by crew members on a regular basis. When a 911 call is made to respond to an address on the list, the responding crews are prepared with any relevant information regarding medical history and specific patient requirements.
MSN now reporting 800+ now confirmed dead in Haiti/Bahamas. One confirmed death in Florida. Closing in on 1,000,000 without power.
The hurricane hype started with hurricane Fran in September of 1996. The Weather Channel realized that advertisers would pay them more money if they hyped the hurricane.
LC I think you've been reading too much Drudgereport.com-or have suffered from too much "Livingston Medium". Little differences in the pivot of the hurricane made a BIG difference in South/Central FLA. That said elements might be partially true. I personally love (haven't seen it here yet) when,say Jim Cantore is saying how bad things are and 3-4 yeehas run across the screen!
I thought it started with the one back in Sept of '85...Gloria? I remember all the hype and then, at least here, pretty much nothing IIRC.
Not sure what you mean by "really big storms" and how they supposedly used to be rare and now they're "a regular occurrence", but if you're referring to hurricanes striking the US (making landfall), the opposite is true. No major (cat 3 or above) hurricane has made US landfall since 2005, a record-breaking streak that extends back as far as records have been kept (1851), and which beats the 2nd place no-hurricane streak by at least 2 1/2 years.
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/major-hurricane-us-landfall-drought-study
Storm is getting very close to Savannah and that area is at high tide, so flooding from Savannah to Hilton Head and in much of the SC low country is likely to be severe. Michael Lowry, who is on at TWC right now (a hurricane/storm surge expert), is talking about Matthew making landfall earlier than expected, between Hilton Head and Charleston in the next few hours (NHC forecast has it coming closest to landfall around Charleston).
The only saving grace for Charleston would be that the storm will be closest to that city around 7-8 am, which will be near low tide, which makes a huge difference (5' in that area). Also winds should be down to about 90-95 mph by then (now at 105 mph, as weakening is underway), which is still a serious storm, especially if it's actually making landfall a few hours from now, SW of Charleston, as that would put Charleston in the strongest quadrant of the storm.
The only saving grace for Charleston would be that the storm will be closest to that city around 7-8 am, which will be near low tide, which makes a huge difference (5' in that area). Also winds should be down to about 90-95 mph by then (now at 105 mph, as weakening is underway), which is still a serious storm, especially if it's actually making landfall a few hours from now, SW of Charleston, as that would put Charleston in the strongest quadrant of the storm.
Please - media outlets can only hype a system so much, as they all use the NHC forecast track, intensity, and storm surge data and the NHC has no profit motive to hype their predictions (it's the government remember) - their # priority is accuracy.
As I said last night, I knew people would start criticizing the NHC for their Florida forecast being "wrong" but it was actually a superb forecast over the last 3-4 days for Florida - ever since the 11 pm Monday forecast, they had the track within 50-75 miles of the FL coast, paralleling nearly the entire coast, which verified.
Of course the track ended up being "off" by maybe 20-30 miles vs. the Thursday forecasts, which obviously had a significant impact in the observed weather and impacts, but a 20-30 mile track error is well within forecast error at that point. Authorities had to "hype" this storm to a certain extent to get people to evacuate from coastal areas, since evacuations have to be made a day or two in advance and the best forecast at that time was for the storm to be 20-30 miles closer to the FL coast than actually occurred. Winds would've been 100 mph+ at the coast if the storm had followed that track. Just watch the loop to see how good the forecast was.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2016/graphics/al14/loop_5W.shtml
This is the most spectacularly wrong thing ever to be posted on the Football board.
NHC just downgraded the winds to 85 mph, as the storm nears Charleston (it's 20 miles SSW of there as of 8 am). It actually did not "officially" come ashore overnight, but the NW part of the eyewall, with the worst winds, did come ashore from Hilton Head to Charleston; the center of circulation needs to be over land for there to be an official landfall.
Storm surge is still a major issue, although fortunately, it's near low tide in the Charleston area, so the 5-8' surge will not result in major flooding for most. Rainfall amounts have been off the charts for the entire SE coast and inland, with most places having gotten 10-15" of rain, so river and urban flooding is a major issue right now - even I-95 in SC is closed.
As the system is now moving NE at 12 mph, it's still paralleling the coast, as it has been doing since Thursday night as it approached Florida, and it's expected to continue paralleling the coast until it passes Wilmington, NC, after which it will more more to the ENE and then E, heading out to sea. It's not clear if it will officially make landfall anywhere, which would be remarkable, given how close it has been to the FL/GA/SC coasts for the last ~500 miles or so. Best chance is the beaches just south of Charleston, like Folly Beach.
Beyond the NC coast, Matthew will likely do the loop down to the Bahamas, weakening to a tropical depression along the way and it is unlikely to restrengthen again. However, some models show the weakened tropical storm not quite going to the Bahamas, but heading towards Bermuda and then NE into the Atlantic.
NHC just downgraded the winds to 85 mph, as the storm nears Charleston (it's 20 miles SSW .....
Looks like Matthew could use a little Viagra.
Yes, but consider that hurricane damage has been increasing over the last few decades as more and more people move to hurricane vulnerable areas such as Florida (and such as the Jersey shore). (Florida now has 29 electoral votes, and I remember when it had only 10 back in the1950s; the state has grown spectacularly in both absolute and relative terms. )Thus there is more news coverage of hurricanes than they're used to be, and this can create the incorrect impression that there are more storms now than in the past.
Got home at noon. I live 1 block from here and remarkably had no flood damage. Minor leaks where water got in from wind. What a few days.
On a side note at my office the door on a balcony was ripped off by the wind. It was off for 24 hours because I know when the alarm went off. I had a total of less than 1 glass of water in building. Have no idea how that happened.
On a side note at my office the door on a balcony was ripped off by the wind. It was off for 24 hours because I know when the alarm went off. I had a total of less than 1 glass of water in building. Have no idea how that happened.
NJ is getting rain from this storm when self proclaimed experts said it would buttonhook out east then south again. They were wrong.
Also, show me the spaghetti's, but the prediction cone? That thing is totally unreliable past 6 hours.