What's with hurricane season?

[mich64]

Welcome back Casi! So we should expect to hear that there is a increase in the birth rates 9 months from now?

Glad to read that you endured the storm.

Cheers!

[Deleted]

Thanks good people.
I imagine that statistics will show an increase in the birth rate throughout the area.

Trying to get back to abnormal as it were. It was nice sleeping in an open windowed, overhead fan blown room last nite .

Very few businesses yet to open and hardly any gas stations have fuel. I suppose the price of gas will go back up again.
One store manager told me his store sold $48,000USD of alcohol on Monday.
The garden is a total war zone.....it's gonna take weeks and weeks of work
to tidy up.
The thing I most dread is what is going to be the onslaught of leafblowers all blowing in unison all over the city. They've already started....







That blue house went almost totally undamaged. Talk about luck!!!

[htmb]

Is that downed tree a live oak, casimira?

[bixaorellana]

Missed seeing this in the a.m. Wow. Not only did it miss the house, but that line the tree dragged down was another potential disaster.

[Deleted]

Yes, that's a very old Live Oak. The sidewalk has been buckled up as far as I remember from it's roots.

Bixa, you would remember that tree. It's (was) on Dante Street between Freret and Burthe, just yards away from the New Free Library. The pic is taken facing the river on Dante just off Freret Street.

Alot of people in our immediate neighborhood just got back their power today. We were very fortunate.

[bixaorellana]

Really a shame. You can see it was top-heavy.

Thank goodness for a prompt return of power -- that could have been so much worse.

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LOVE this!

[lola]

Oh, the tree. So sorry. I'm often surprised at how shallow those root systems are.

As muggy as it was here even I was really thinking of you without even the power to turn on a fan. Glad you were able to steam up the windows in other ways.

[htmb]

We now have "Son of Isaac," part of Isaac that moved south through Alabama and is now sitting in the Gulf of Mexico. With Thirty mile per hour winds, we're waiting to see what this storm will do and anticipating a lot more rain headed our way.

[Deleted]

Yes, I was intrigued to see that Isaac was trying to come back from the dead. I don't recall a situation like that before except when a storm crossed land and popped out into a new body of water (Gulf or Atlantic). This is the first time I've seen a storm try to back out and start up again.

[htmb]

I can't remember another situation like this one either. Seems a bit bizarre.

[mich64]

That is certainly unusual about Isaac, I have heard them refer to them as stalling and regrouping but not to back up and start again.

We are concerned about the newest storm Leslie. It is supposed to head for Newfoundland and we hope it is not in the area when we fly out Moday night to Paris.

[Deleted]

I have been on planes that deviated around hurricanes -- generally it didn't even delaay arrival. Just so long as the storm is not on top of you as the plane tries to take off!

[mich64]

Departing from Toronto. Hopefully take off will be fine and with some deviations in the flight plan, I am sure this will decrease any chances of a bad flight. The pilots want a smooth flight as much as we do!

The next day my aunt, uncle and cousin are flying from Toronto to Newfoundland! Hopefully they are not delayed by Leslie.

[Deleted]

So, hurricane season got all the way to Rafael this year, but just about everything stayed out to sea or petered out before even becoming a hurricane.

I wonder if we can get a letter "S" before November 1st. Next up on this year's list would be Sandy.

[htmb]

At this very hour Jamaica is bracing for Tropical Storm Sandy.

[Deleted]

Yes, the alphabet continues. Maybe they will reach the end this year -- they did in 2005 and had to move on to the Greek alphabet at the end of the season.

[htmb]

We are expecting very strong surf along the east coast of Florida due to Hurricane Sandy.

[Deleted]

Yes, there's rising concern that this system could collide with another system in the North Atlantic states and really reek some havoc!! A Nor'easter and hurricane/tropical storm collision !!

[Deleted]

Yes, if it slides a bit to the west, it might rip the bumper stickers off some of those cars.

[Deleted]

I just heard on the radio that's it's been dubbed "Frankenstorm"!!!!

[Deleted]

The latest tracking map is pointing it at New Jersey for Tuesday (much closer than the map above), but no longer at hurricane strength. But things will change before then -- they always do.

[Deleted]

Regardless of whether it remains a hurricane (presently it still is a category 1), once it gets out on open water and veers Northwest and then collides with a mass of Arctic air, a Nor'easter, it could be a massive and very destructive storm.
New England states are preparing with an increase in utility manpower and tree people. They're going to need them....
Good luck to all our Northeastern friends.

[Deleted]

Pessimism is growing.

[mich64]

Well this map concerns me...

My husband leaves Sunday to attend a course for work in Rochester, NY. It concludes Wednesday at noon and he then has a 7 hour drive back home in what looks like the path of the storm!

They are also reporting that once the hurricane/tropical storm comes over land it will collide with a forcasted storm that will cause a massive storm that they are calling "Frankenstorm" as it will happen on Halloween.

[Deleted]

The storm still has 5 days to change its mind.

[Deleted]

As do you.

[mich64]

I am going to keep track of this storm, I know this is a projection tool. I am going to encourage my husband to delay his departure, it is just that there are 7 other men traveling together so he is not in control. They are all very responsible individuals though.

[Deleted]

90% chance of 'Frankenstorm' hitting East Coast next week

WASHINGTON — An unusual nasty mix of a hurricane and a winter storm that forecasters are now calling "Frankenstorm" is likely to blast most of the East Coast next week, focusing the worst of its weather mayhem around New York City and New Jersey.

Government forecasters on Thursday upped the odds of a major weather mess, now saying there's a 90 percent chance that the East will get steady gale-force winds, heavy rain, flooding and maybe snow starting Sunday and stretching past Halloween on Wednesday.

Meteorologists say it is likely to cause $1 billion in damages.

The storm is a combination of Hurricane Sandy, now in the Caribbean, an early winter storm in the West, and a blast of Arctic air from the north. They're predicted to collide and park over the country's most populous coastal corridor and reach as far inland as Ohio.

The hurricane part of the storm is likely to come ashore somewhere in New Jersey on Tuesday morning, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecaster Jim Cisco. But this is a storm that will affect a far wider area, so people all along the East have to be wary, Cisco said.

Coastal areas from Florida to Maine will feel some effects, mostly from the hurricane part, he said, and the other parts of the storm will reach inland from North Carolina northward.

Once the hurricane part of the storm hits, "it will get broader. It won't be as intense, but its effects will be spread over a very large area," the National Hurricane Center's chief hurricane specialist, James Franklin, said Thursday.

One of the more messy aspects of the expected storm is that it just won't leave. The worst of it should peak early Tuesday, but it will stretch into midweek, forecasters say. Weather may start clearing in the mid-Atlantic the day after Halloween and Nov. 2 in the Northeast, Cisco said.

"It's almost a weeklong, five-day, six-day event," Cisco said Thursday from NOAA's northern storm forecast center in College Park, Md. "It's going to be a widespread serious storm."

With every hour, meteorologists are getting more confident that this storm is going to be bad and they're able to focus their forecasts more.

The New York area could see around 5 inches of rain during the storm, while there could be snow southwest of where it comes inland, Cisco said. That could mean snow in eastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, western Virginia, and the Shenandoah Mountains, he said.

Both private and federal meteorologists are calling this a storm that will likely go down in the history books.

"We don't have many modern precedents for what the models are suggesting," Cisco said.

It is likely to hit during a full moon when tides are near their highest, increasing coastal flooding potential, NOAA forecasts warn. And with some trees still leafy and the potential for snow, power outages could last to Election Day, some meteorologists fear.

Some have compared it to the so-called Perfect Storm that struck off the coast of New England in 1991, but Cisco said that one didn't hit as populated an area and is not comparable to what the East Coast may be facing. Nor is it like last year's Halloween storm, which was merely an early snowstorm in the Northeast.

"The Perfect Storm only did $200 million of damage and I'm thinking a billion," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private service Weather Underground. "Yeah, it will be worse."

But this is several days in advance, when weather forecasts are usually far less accurate. The National Hurricane Center only predicts five days in advance, and each long-range forecast moves Sandy's track closer to the coast early next week. The latest has the storm just off central New Jersey's shore at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.

As forecasts became more focused Thursday, the chance of the storm bypassing much of the coast and coming ashore in Maine faded, Cisco said.

The hurricane center's Franklin called it "a big mess for an awful lot of people in the early part of next week."

-- from the Associated Press

[htmb]

There's been flooding in south Florida and 20 foot seas are expected along the east coast of the state. Here in north central Florida it's been really breezy and cloudy all day. Weather bands are heading this way, but nothing significant for us, I think, though college football fans heading to the big Florida/Georgia game in Jacksonville may be impacted a bit tomorrow.

It's certainly important for our friends from the North Carolina coast northward to keep a watch on weather forecasts.

[Deleted]

Very scary stuff here!