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Battle stations, people!
By adamg on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 11:57am
Brace for impact! Earl as seen from space a couple days ago
The French Toast Alert is now at SEVERE, with the National Hurricane Center issuing a Hurricane Warning for the coast from the Cape to Hull - which means they expect hurricane-force winds to hit that area within 48 hours. Even away from the immediate coast, there's a good chance we'll be hit with tropical-storm-force winds - sustained winds of at least 39 m.p.h.
Of course, this means you should secure anything that could go flying in a storm - patio umbrellas, deck chairs, cows, etc.
Chances of getting hit with 39 m.p.h. or higher winds
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Comments
Headwinds
So, it looks like I'll be able to bike like a racer going north or west, but if I want to get home...
storm coverage on the news
It's always bugged me that once a storm has passed east of Cape Ann (winter or summer) the weather forecasters and news people behave like the thing fell off the face of the earth. Earl may or may not drift into Massachusetts but he sure looks like he's hell-bent for an Anne Murray concert up in Nova Scotia.
I'd be just as interested to know what people in, say, Antigonish were doing to prepare for this as I would with people in Falmouth. Which is to say, I don't really care what people are doing to prepare, I just want to see cool pictures of extreme weather in the area -- and that would include our polite cousins in the Maritimes.
Hopefully everyone makes it through Earl with no loss of life or limb (except for the idiot surfers).
So you're bugged that the
So you're bugged that the local news covers, you know, local news?
In case you missed it, Canada is now connected to the internet.
http://www.thecasket.ca/stories.asp?id=1555
Forecasters still can't agree
Watching the lovely J.C. Monahan on ch. 5 live at noon as she reported the "eye" could now come within 15 miles of Nantucket, much closer than previously thought, greatly increasing the potential for problems. Hop into my car at 12:15 and hear ch. 4 veteran Barry Burbank live on WBZ radio saying all indications are that the storm will be "at least 50-75 miles" off Nantucket and he and other meteorologists are now seeing indications that a significant part of the storm will "collapse". Take your pick.
A big elephant
Considering all weather data comes from NOAA the only way to understand different weather reports is that they are the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. Each is only looking at one aspect of data and reporting on that piece.
More Like *Biased* Blind People!
You just know the pressure is on the TV weather presenters to make the storm as sensational as possible to rope in viewers. That is also the main reason why the presenter is likely to be some good-looking youngster rather than an experienced scientist.
If you want real information, your best bet is to just go to the NOAA website on the storm.
No bias, no poufed-hair and makeup, just data.
Now THAT will be a storm surge
Cat 2 headed up the Bay of Fundy on an incoming tide. Tsunami model anyone?
Looks like the Bay of Fundy may be hit
But because of its location, Antigonish will probably just experience a windy rainstorm. I'd say Yarmouth and possibly Lunenburg & Halifax (should the storm bear a bit eastward) will bear the brunt of what will then be Tropical Storm Earl's fury..
New Bruinswick, too
Not too much there, but I wouldn't want to be in Alma or Hopewell rocks when those typical 40' tides they have get that extra bit of Earl on them.
Depends on where the storm goes
If the storm tracks east of Fundy, the wind will be N to E, pushing against any incoming tide. I don't see the excitement you see.....
Not wind
Storm surge. Water pushed ahead of the storm. Not wind. These depend on tide and forward speed of the storm.
The tide, forward speed, and force of the 1938 hurricane barrelled the Naragansett and created a storm surge to rival a tsunami. Note high water marks on older buildings in Providence - 4 and 5 stories high.
Storm surge is caused by wind
Storm surge is basically wind pushing water and will cause higher tides than normal. But, if the wind is blowing down Fundy from the NE, there would be no storm surge. Storm surge just doesn't happen, something has to be causing it, and that's what the wind does. It really is just wind pushing water, no more than that.
Plus, storm surge is more apparent when the water has no place to go, like a bay, like Narragansett Bay or the Bay of Fundy. In the Narragansett Bay scenario, if you got strong S winds and the high tide, you've got all this water being pushed up the bay with nowhere to go - so it goes up. In a more open environment, like the ocean side of Cape Cod, the storm surge isn't as large because the water can spread out.
Maybe I missed your point, but wind and storm surge go together.
Yes and no
The forward push of the storm itself is like the wake in front of a boat. One reason 1938 was so horrific was that the monster cat 3 storm was also moving at 60mph as it ran over Long Island and rammed into Narragansett Bay.
The water had no where to go and that raised the surge, but the storm was pushing a lot of water ahead of it too.
From http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/storm_surge.s...
Pressure, size, and forward speed are all inputs to the most commonly used predicition model (SLOSH): http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/surge/slosh.s...
What's the difference?
I said this:
Your quote from NOAA said this:
Gee, what's the difference? And believe it or not, I hadn't even looked at the NOAA site.
The main reason '38 was so bad, particularly in SE MA and RI was because it veered inland over CT and went just west of Providence. This caused the area to get hammered with S winds (not N) and push the water up 'Gansett bay and Buzzards Bay. Providence got whacked, along with New Bedford, Fall River, etc. If the storm had gone E of these ares, the surge would not have been nearly as large.
SLOSH
Look at the second link.
Note the variables involved, chiefly the FORWARD SPEED of the storm.
When you said "wind pushing water" I took to mean "wind driven waves" because you were speaking of wind direction and speed in wasy that implied a more local scale. That is MUCH different from the more massive effect of the entire storm driving water ahead of it, even though the storm itself is wind. The wind direction at point of landing is less important than the effect of the entire massive storm moving into an area - otherwise, you would see "suckouts" if the wind was blowing out to sea during a hurricane or when a hurricane made landfall at a coast line - which you do not.
There is wind, and then there is wind. What you said sounded like you were implying that the wind direction at a point was more important than the power of a massive STORM driving a wake ahead of it. As I noted above, harbors don't get sucked out in hurricanes - they get storm surges at any wind direction. Take SLOSH for a few spins and you'll see.
UFC 118.25
Step right up and see the Cliff Clavin grudge match to the death (ours)!
In this corner SwirlyGrrl, all-knowing corrector of everyone's way of being!
Her opponent, the mighty Merlinmurph! Let's see who can prove that they have the biggest engineers' socially-retarded attitude of always having to be right AND have the last word/post!
Throw in red meat, sharp objects and debates over bicycle etiquette and watch the blood FLOW!!!
How about an open water swim challenge
Absent the Great Whites, it'll be less blood, more fun.
My money's on da grrl
I mean you've already lectured us on the proper technique for swimming out of rip currents and how to spot them from land and da murph-man will be weighted down with that bike lock that he was looking to crown you with.
Or we throw you both in the canned pudding pit and let you go at it as the storm howls about us. (Any Joe Lansdale fans out there..?)
Or, maybe SwirlyGrrl & Merlinmurph can just get room
n/t
Reports are saying it's still
Reports are saying it's still tracking west. Which means even this could change and the eye might even hit the mainland.
Gonna be interesting 48 hours!
Let's hope
it's better than the last time a Hurricane crushed Boston.
Go 'Canes!
i laughed, then i cried.
i laughed, then i cried.
You misspelled "Whalers"
o/~ DAH DAH DAH dah dah dah dah DUM! o/~
(No subject)
+10 to Dave and Innismir
+10 to Dave and Innismir
Add a half case to the list
Harpoon = emergency rations.
How come
The chances of getting hit with 39 m.p.h. or higher winds goes back up to 60%-70% outside the under 20% area? :-)
How come your car loses speed
When it hits a snowbank?
IF the hurricane rubs the coast, it loses power - slower wind speed. Also, it is moving over colder water as it heads north and loses power. That is why the category will drop from 4 to 3 to 2 and down.
Um...
Thanks for the meteorology lesson, but I was just making a (dumb) joke about the colors on the map that Adam posted.
What every family MUST have
The complete list from the bunker people at the Mass. Emergency Management Agency.
Looking at the list, we are woefully unprepared, although at least we have plenty of rope caulk, since I buy the stuff every winter and then my wife gets so disgusted at me buying more of it that she puts it somewhere where I can never find it until the next winter when ...
I am curious, though, why MEMA put "coffee and tea" under its list of "canned goods and nonperishable foods that do not need cooking." I supposed in a pinch you could just eat the stuff raw ...
i could make a ten page list...
... of things i think are critical to have during a natural disaster, and i can tell you right now that canned pudding would not make the list.
Especially if you can't do any cooking
Because how can you have your pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Reminds me
To make a new batch of cold-press coffee tonight. Thanks.
Oh, no, not Ecum Secum!
The Canadian Hurricane Centre has issued a tropical storm watch from Ecum Secum to Medway Harbour. No, that is not a typo.
Jimi Mi'kmaq
there's an Ecum Secum over yonder...
Wankum
Does Wankum have Ecum Secum covered?
ew...
There's been some folks on the T who've engaged in a little too much Wankum resulting in Ecum Secum... uhm...I'm going to stop now.
Mentioned on Radio Boston
They talked about the French Toast Alert on Radio Boston this afternoon.
State of Emergency
Let's hear it for the preëmptive state of emergency. Always makes me feel better.
Halfassery at West Roxbury Home Depot
Near the front, they now have two "Storm Relief Centers," both of which consist of a couple of shelves on wheels with a few plastic downspouts and pairs of rubber gloves.
Naturally, I panicked and bought them both out.
Well, OK, no, I didn't.
Gloria
For giggles and snorts, I looked up Gloria to see what she hit us with;
http://www.stormpulse.com/hurricane-gloria-1985
She was weaker than they are currently forcasting for Earl, but she went inland, passing west of Boston. In my neighborhood in Brookline we were without power for several days.
Better go buy some canned pudding, apparently...
Hurricane Gloria
I was in the eye of Hurricane Gloria right after it came ashore in Long Island, New York. It might have been weaker when it got up here, in part thanks to its crossing of Long Island, but when it came ashore there it was a pretty good storm. It was the most surreal experience I can remember. Literally within about 90 seconds, it went from unbelievable wind and rain to bright sunshine and no wind. It lasted about 20 minutes, and then we were right back into the storm. We were out of school for at least a week (there were trees down all over the place) and some people were without power for at least 10 days.
Eye of Bob
We were all bunkered in our houses. Then the howling wind stoppped and the sky suddenly cleared and everybody popped out of their houses in my Arlington neighborhood to check up and say "whoh - Soviet Union is game over????". Then, just as suddenly, within a few minutes the wind built to a roar, limbs flew, and people took cover.
Boston area now under tropical storm warning
As opposed to a watch, which means the odds are excellent we'll get hit. Hull to the Cape is still under a hurricane warning. But the National Hurricane Center also says Earl is weakening and seems to be moving a bit more to the east than earlier predicted. However, it's still a big storm.
Adam,
there's a good french toast recipe in this week's transcript! ;-)