What's with hurricane season?

[Kimby]

Well, Debby is arrived, and she’s a wet one. Surge made it over the new “protective dunes” that were built at great expense on Sanibel, and now the water is trapped and can’t get back to the gulf! Haven’t heard how things are in our neighborhood yet.

[bixaorellana]

Hope you get some reassuring news, Kimby.

I came on here to check on htmb, as Debby is moving across her area now.
From live updates (6 minutes ago) from the Gainesville region:
As Hurricane Debby made landfall in Florida's Big Bend area Monday morning, its impacts were still being felt across North Central Florida. Flooding rains, widespread power outages, fallen trees — as is typical when tropical systems move through the area — have been reported. source

[htmb]

Thanks for checking, Bixa. That about sums it up for us. Lots and lots of flooding rain. I’ve heard that about 50% of my area is without power. Fortunately, our power has remained on during much of the storm. The system is now moving very slowly, so we expect more of the same heavy rain and high winds throughout the day. I’m not sure about the areas along the northern gulf coast.Lots of water in Cedar Key and Steinhatchee, but I think it’s too early to assess damage because there is concern about the next high tide.

[bixaorellana]

Relatively good news, Htmb -- thanks for letting us know. It's good that you're not having to rely on phone data to stay in touch. I hope everyone in your area remembers to power up all devices while the electricity is on -- and of course hope it stays on.

[kerouac2]

One of the French news channels actually had a reporter in Cedar Key, not to show damage but to show how sturdily it is now built with most of the houses on stilts, safe from flooding.

[htmb]

Good thing they went to Cedar Key and not to Steinhatchee, a little further north. They have yet to recover from the last storm and things were looking pretty bad there last I checked.

Cedar Key seems to have been very proactive in looking towards the near future. They have moved their town hall to a safer location. They also shut down water and the sewer system before the storm, while also requiring a mandatory evacuation. There is only one way in/out of the town by road and the main bridge was shut down until several hours after the storm passed through.

On the other hand, I have not visited CK in a few years - even though it’s only an hour drive from my home - because I became very tired of the politics of many of the business owners and residents.

[bixaorellana]

Glad you're okay, Htmb. I assume you're referring to the right-wing disease infesting parts of Florida.

[kerouac2]

From the Washington Post:

Now, the Atlantic is making history for an unexpected and confounding distinction: It’s the longest stretch in more than half a century without a single late-summer cyclone, a time of year when several often churn at once.

[kerouac2]

Looks like Louisiana and Mississippi are getting ready for Francine.

[kerouac2]

And now here comes Hélène.

[casimira]

Grateful to have doged Helene.

Here's hoping that our friends HTMB and Kimby and anyone else in it's path stay safe and are spared any major damage and or otherwise.

Although we are far away enough the storm has created lovely breezes and cool dry air.

[htmb]

Fortunately, we’re okay here in my part of North Central Florida, but now that we have power I’m starting to read about the horrors experienced from the along the gulf coast of Florida, all the way through, at least, Western North Carolina.

[kerouac2]

I saw that Cedar Key got hammered again.

[htmb]

Cedar Key will never be the same again. Several buildings in the old section of the town have been destroyed and many were just swept away.

[Kimby]

Sanibel got smacked by Helene, too. Not the damaging winds of Ian, and not the height of storm surge, but much of the island is under water. Glad we’re on stilts, but not looking forward to shoveling muck again…


(There should be no water in this view.)

[kerouac2]

Hélène definitely turned out to be more ferocious than expected. The European media are still talking about the aftereffects every day. Places like North Carolina sometimes expects hurricanes along the Atlantic coast but never in the western part of the state. This caught just about everybody off guard. The death toll is now up to 133.

[kerouac2]

Apparently Florida has not had enough so now Milton is on the way.

[Kimby]

Apparently Sanibel is in for another round of wind and storm surge.

Unless the landfall is to our south, be will be on the “dirty side” of the storm, with onshore winds pushing up sea water on top of tides.

I don’t wish ill on either Tampa or the Florida Keys, but I don’t want Milton to undo all the restoration we’ve done and watched our neighbors do on Sanibel either.

Perhaps a hit on the largely uninhabited Everglades could be arranged?

[Kimby]

Floridians are perhaps waking up to the threats presented by a warming climate:

Interval between major Sanibel Hurricanes
1926 (unnamed)
1960 Donna (34 years)
2004 Charley (44 years)
2017 Irma (13 years)
2022 Ian (5 years)
2024 Helene (2 years)
2024 Milton (2 weeks!)
And there’s more in the pipeline I hear…

[Kimby]

The latest models are out and it’s not looking good for us. The spaghetti model (lower image) is all over the place and none of the projections are good. Latest trend is farther south, towards SWFL, worst case for us. Fingers crossed.

(We haven’t even seen how our place did with Helene….

[kerouac2]

France is supposed to get the remnants of Kirk once it finishes crossing the Atlantic.  But in my experience, whenver they predict that, the storm usually ends up in England or Scotland.

[Kimby]

Another spaghetti model. All those red lines are going right over Sanibel.

[kerouac2]

Fingers crossed.

[htmb]

Looks like Kirk is impacting France after all.

[Kimby]

Looking pretty grim this morning. 8-12 feet storm surge projected for all of Sanibel…



This projection is a bit less ominous.



Rooting for #2. Which would still be as bad as Ian but maybe surviveable.

[htmb]

Grim sounds like a good descriptive word for what we are also hearing here in NCFlorida. We are only under a tropical storm warning for our area, but the expectation for much of Florida to the south of us, and along the east coast up towards Jacksonville, is worst-case scenario, unfortunately. Many people have evacuated from the Tampa Bay Area and the barrier islands like yours, knowing they might not have anything left to return to after the storm. Here in NCFlorida, we are facing possible flooding, but winds should be way less intense.

[bjd]

It probably rained more further north of us, but for the past hour or two we have been having pouring rain and 70 km/hour gusts of wind.

[kerouac2]

Oct 9, 2024 14:41:17 GMT htmb said:

Looks like Kirk is impacting France after all.

Yes, it's been pouring rain all day, but there has been no wind in Paris... yet.

[mickthecactus]

Thinking of all you guys. This looks pretty horrible.

[kerouac2]

The heavy rain is trivial in Paris compared to what is about to happen in Florida, but I definitely recognise it as driving and relentless "hurricane rain." And there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon.