hurricane coming...

Reports on TV that people in certain areas of SouthEast Houston have been driven to their attics by flood water (shades of Katrina).

There are no words. pic.twitter.com/zbrFENCDsA

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 27, 2017

Up next?

These are the highest windspeed forecasts I've ever seen in my 10 yrs of Atlantic hurricane forecasting. #Irma is another retiree candidate. pic.twitter.com/e6nMsp1myY

— Michael Ventrice (@MJVentrice) August 31, 2017

Fuck me running

uh

No way to sugar coat potential for catastrophic Hurricane #Irma nearing South Florida this weekend. Please monitor & be prepared.

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) September 4, 2017

getting a wee bit tired of the histrionics from some on my feed (Orlando). obv this is a motherfucker of a storm and we should all be refreshing the latest forecasts (as I do on the minute) but even in recent years w/ forecasts tightening to incredible precision, the average error in miles at the 5-day point is 200+ miles, and we're at like 6-7 days out.

Cent Florida has a tendency to unnecessarily pre-emptively cause gasoline shortages in situations like this by doing what I saw some dickhead doing an hour ago and filling like five humongous canisters of it.

I was already planning on hitting the Carolinas from 9/13 - 9/15, depending on where this ting goes, might either cancel that or might force me to go earlier.

like I don't blame anybody for anxiety after Harvey but it helps to focus on facts ("this is the current forecast") vs unquantifiable hysteria ("this is the WORST CASE SCENARIO", as our local news said on two separate forecasts for the same storm last year).

Strength-wise, we seem to be back to the 2004-2005 era of hurricanes where the warm waters churn out consistent mega-beast storms. I miss the tropics of my youth, small # of storms, few making landfall, all of them Cat 1s. Oi.

Cent Florida has a tendency to unnecessarily pre-emptively cause gasoline shortages in situations like this by doing what I saw some dickhead doing an hour ago and filling like five humongous canisters of it.

― Neanderthal, Monday, September 4, 2017 11:44 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

been dealing with this bullshit in south texas for the last few days. gas lines and empty pumps all over the place.

is there gouging as well?

hi!

heh was gonna ask if you're stocked up yet

Uh, no.

ME NEITHA

Too early. The forecast track still puts the middle line skirting Cuba, where I can hope the mountains will sap some of Irma's strength. But we're talking about six days hence.

And, yeah, local coverage has been hysterical. The tone is "Please party safely this Labor Day weekend BUT YOU'RE GONNA DIE NEXT SATURDAY DON'T YOU SEE."

I have one friend who basically does his best "You're all doomed"-guy from F13 impression every year, like he doesn't remember how ridiculous he got last time.

guys, take a few minutes out of your day to be prepared

it's a holiday, come on

I've been living here for 30+ years. I know how this works

I am -- cocktails at 5 p.m.

I have to buy the week's arugula at Publix in a few minutes. I'll grab water and batteries.

Cocktails, arugula, water and batteries should get most folks through most emergencies.

Aperol!

Aperol and/or Campari makes everything better.

I plan to get some bud if things go down.

btw my earlier response wasn't meant to be snippy, more like "I got this, I ain't dyin any time soon" :)

i just want you to be safe! I'm sure you've got it under control tho

is there gouging as well?

― Neanderthal, Monday, September 4, 2017 1:17 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There was a little. Prices in general jumped up about 50 cents a gallon, it seems.

here too with the latter.

one of my friends irresponsibly took to FB to tell all Floridians like, two weeks ago to stock up with canister upon canister of gasoline cos of a rumor she heard saying prices would skyrocket due to Harvey (in a sense they did, but she was for some reason thinking like $4/gallon). really glad nobody listened to her, woulda caused more widespread shortage in the Gulf region and had a longer impact on the price (really learning how dumb a lot of people on my feed are these past few weeks).

Damn, I just saw the current forecast for Irma, and...ouch.

Classic Florida post from my Ike thread:

I really hated the sensationalist local media over in Florida, who almost seemed to want to will Ike over here with their constant ominous warnings.

"Despite all forecasts indicating that Ike is going into the Gulf, OMG U DONT KNOW IT MIGHT TURN BAK ARUOUND AND HIT PENSACOLEAS AN LOOT UR BUILDINGS AND RAPE UR WOMENENE OMG AND UR DAUGHTER IS HAVIN TEH SEX"

― Officer, I Just Shot Seven People (Bo Jackson Overdrive), Thursday, September 11, 2008 11:09 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

DON: well, yeah

oi that was me in a previous (terrible) incarnation.

been dealing with this bullshit in south texas for the last few days. gas lines and empty pumps all over the place.

― Rob Lowe fresco bar (m bison), Monday, September 4, 2017 1:15 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was in austin a few days ago and my gf and i ran into gas station pandemonium, it was bizarre

Things look grim for Florida at present

I have a friend training for work in Tampa. We've just been messengering and she was supposed to be heading out to New York for the job on Saturday. She wasn't totally aware of the Irma situation, so I may have just accidentally scared the crap out of her.

the models all tend to agree a hard right is coming, many of them disagree on when. and what the intensity will be (which will depend on whether it interacts w/ land and for how long prior to making continental landfall). interestingly, the local network that was the most OTT in Matthew coverage still is non-committal over Central Florida impact (that's a level of restraint they rarely show).

hoping no ILXOR is impacted. (or anybody really). if it does come, I'm not sticking around for it, though would have to make sure not to evacuate somewhere that is also in its forecasted path (which I had many friends foolishly do in 2004, though they all got lucky in the end)

It looks grim!

It's grim down south.

Cuba makes a huge diff as to where it goes

#Irma is the strongest #hurricane in the Atlantic basin outside of the Caribbean Sea & Gulf of Mexico in NHC records https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/P8ebbQJR4k

— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 5, 2017

lord

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DI9_UA2XoAIBT5O.jpg

I hope the forecast keeps it farther west before its eventual turn north.

With this hurricane and Harvey, it's amazing how early out the predictions and models anticipated this.

With Harvey, a few days in advance there was "Houston will be getting rain - most are saying 15-20" and then the European model lol is predicting 60"..."

Cane forecasting has made amazing developments even since 04.

Keys evac orders

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2017/09/05/keys-emergency-manager-you-must-evacuate-you-cannot-afford-to-stay/

PR really doesnt need this now if not ever. Theyre a couple billion in the hole, Congress sucks and is impotent and trying to treat them like Greece, now theyre going to potentially need hundreds of millions in hurricane relief =|

yeah they just closed our PR office. tensions were high among the population when I last visited and they really need a break. I heard they also don't have great relief infrastructure as a lot of relief employees went to the continental states for better opportunities.

5 o'clock update fairly "wait and see" as usual. the fact that my local networks aren't outright flipping out leads me to believe that like the NHC just said, they really don't have a lot of confidence in days 4 and 5 of the forecast due to how divergent all the models are on those days.

i'm gonna make sure I'm gassed up, but can't exactly plan a "where" to go until the other east coast states are out of the woods, which they currently aren't.

meanwhile, TS Jose forms in the Atlantic and isn't currently forecasted to be a threat to land, but way too early to be confident about that. And Trop Disturbance 13 forms in the Gulf but fortunately looks like it's going to die as a weak depression in Mexico (cos Texas really cannot afford having anything come through).

This is a *fun* time of year let me tell you.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/category-5-irma-5th-strongest-atlantic-hurricane-record

Irma poses the most serious hurricane threat to northern Cuba and Florida since at least Hurricane Andrew (1992). Since Sunday night, computer models have agreed that Irma will continue west-northwest before making a fairly sharp right-hand turn in the vicinity of the Florida Straits over the weekend. The level of agreement among models and over time has been quite high for a forecast in the 5-day range. Given this agreement and Irma’s Category 5 strength, residents of Florida must take this hurricane with the utmost seriousness.