hurricane coming...

otoh who fucking knows. We will late Sunday.

yeah this thing ain't done shifting I don't think. I'm preparing for 100+ mph wind gusts, if we don't get that, that's a win IMO.

4 pack of St Bernardus acquired

(we aren't currently projected to get that, mind you - just what i'm preparing for).

our local meteorologist told us he's not evacuating and that it's better for us to just hunker down since we're in no real danger of life-threatening flooding here

Strongest winds are northeast of the eye, no?

Storm surge too, but that's not a factor where I live.

yeah, Orlando is on the stronger side of the storm. the original track pre-5 pm yesterday had us on the weaker side. we're projected to get hurricane force winds currently of Cat 1 strength (maybe lower 2)

I've been through that before, but with Charley that thing was zipping at 20 mph so it wasn't for as long. Currently gearing up to be the strongest one I've ever been through.

I miss the 90s. when all the hurricanes were CAt 1 pussies.

(well obv except for Andrew, just meaning there weren't so many juggernauts out there in one season)

no idea if this is incorporating 5 pm track, but...neat lil site. layout's a little confusing, the defaults election clearly states the speed is in "knots" but if you look at the bottom it's actually mph.

https://digital.weather.gov/?zoom=6&lat=27.06051&lon=-80.20394&layers=F00B0TTTTTT®ion=0&element=10&mxmz=false&barbs=true&subl=TFFFF&units=english&wunits=english&coords=latlon&tunits=localt

latest forecast sayin maybe only cat 1 winds and it's overnight Monday. woohoo sleep through it!

(for where I'm at obv)....if it keeps going west, who knows.

feel like at this point the 11 pm forecast will say it's going to hit San Jose

plz don't die anybody

I'm sipping an old-fashioned and reading James Salter.

"Cause of death?"

"He kept drinking and reading."

"...yes but he did that for 90 years, at least."

My friend in Tampa secured a flight back home to NYC for tomorrow morning.

well that's some good news

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/21433271_10155651077998610_6336336347277006900_n.jpg?oh=14bd62d4120384a464bc0658c86c8deb&oe=5A1B24E3

By dying last words on this forum will be: "so I decided to stay". Sigh. Tampa's doomed.

My *co-workers* are mostly in our main office in florida and I keep wanting to send them some kind of email but I can't think of anything that doesn't sound either too glib or too maudlin.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 8 September 2017 03:03 (yesterday) Permalink

In addition to concern for my remote co-workers, who are good people and some of whom have small kids, it has occurred to me that I just really, really hope they have good backup for their servers/data, which we in NY work remotely off of.

Great Tim Duncan piece here, ties in with his effort to fundraise for the US Virgin Islands

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/tim-duncan-hurricane-irma-us-virgin-islands/amp/

Things are looking better and better for South Florida.

Seems like Tampa is not looking good right now.

Yeah. It's shifting westward

oi....I got four friends there, two of em are savvy enough to not be reckless, two of em are young and naive. hoping for the best for all of em

meanwhile, although it poses no current threat to the mainland, Jose is a Cat 4, near Cat 5.

this is *insane*

fucking hell

jesus christ

stay safe everyone

the thing about this, particularly re: climate change, is prior to 2004, hurricane seasons in the Atlantic were pretty chill things, relatively speaking. I remember being a hyper-anxious kid stressing about *Tropical Storm Gordon* in 1994, this weenie little thing that didn't even wind up hitting us. The only hurricane I'd experienced in Orlando as a kid was 1995's Hurricane Emily, which was a dinky Cat 1 and barely impacted us.

Destructive hurricanes happened then, sure (Andrew, Hugo, Donna, etc), but they were much rarer things that occurred - juggernauts. Now these behemoths are the norm and that is fucking scary. after 2004-2005, the tropics calmed a bit for several years, I'm hoping we can get a return to that soon.

re: Tampa, from Weather.com

"The center of Hurricane Irma's forecast path, the most likely forecast track, now introduces the chance of the eyewall of Irma raking across part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area.

Fortunately, it looks like Irma won't be the worst-case scenario for storm surge that area residents fear.

For that to happen, the center would have to track in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, then make landfall north of Pinellas County. This would not only bring destructive eyewall winds to much of the metro area, but would also drive a catastrophic storm surge into Tampa Bay.

The so-called Tarpon Springs Hurricane made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in October 1921. According to an NWS model simulation, this hurricane likely drove a 9 to 11-foot surge into Hillsborough Bay, including downtown Tampa, as well as Old Tampa Bay.

At the time, it was the most destructive hurricane in the region since an 1848.

One can only imagine the damage one of these hurricanes would do today in a metro area with a population of around 3 million."

reassuring, hoping the worst-case doesn't happen

Who are our Floridan ilxors? Alfred and... (sorry for my ignorance here)

Stay safe. May Gov. Skeletor protect you.

My brother and his family are in Bradenton. They've decided to stay rather than ride it out in a traffic jam. This is terrifying. Stay safe, Floridian ILXors.

My cell phone woke me up with an ominous loud, sustained beep screaming "hurricane warning".

That was a fun startling 10 seconds

My buddy in Jacksonville invited me up from Tampa. Traffic.com shows zero traffic on I-75 or I-10. I'm just worried about the gas situation.

Dammit, I don't know what to do. It's probably smarter at this point to wait it out. It's so tempting to go.

Stay put!

this guy is...special https://twitter.com/DaDaBuh

musicfanatic - I'd just compare the advisories for both locations, whether they're under evacuation, surge forecast, etc. tend to agree w/ Alfred at this point though. even with the storm a ways away weather is going to start souring soon. best wishes to ya, mate.

wind estimates getting lower and lower for Winter Park (where I'm at). still serious shit but hoping they're right.

local network is about to Nowcast - infamously this is where our local meteorologist predicted the shift in track for Charley a few hours prior to the National Hurricane Center.

My brother- and sister-in-law are in Winter Park. I sent them a concerned text and they waved it off. SIL is still posting Star Wars shit to FB. If they're sweating they're not showing it.

Keep the beverage updates coming imo. I think I'll ask them to do the same.

waiting til later to crack my St Bernardus. mostly cos we're not getting much tonight.

really getting tired of bad received knowledge being passed along, people saying to friends "roads are clogged!" without even bothering to look at the live traffic conditions to even validate if it's true. (Zone B just got evaced in TAmpa apparently, which is what inspired a lot of that).

this infamous 'turn' is supposed to happen soon...

i heard irma's going to pivot to video

Starting to breathe easier...

me too. prediction for winds reduced to trop storm where I'm at. tho then because of shifted track my aunt (who I haven't seen in 14 years) had to evacuate from ft Myers. these tradeoffs, oi.

Poor Tampa, too...

had another St Bernardus, saving the rest for tomorrow. gonna bust out some Sangria in a bit.

watched Goodfellas, reading It....

My friend and her new coworkers did indeed get out of Tampa and up to NYC this morning.

mom is north of tampa, not responding to FB messages

Confirmed reports of tornadoes on the ground have come from central Broward County, as tornado warnings were extended across South Florida.

Residents were urged to take cover immediately. At 7:40 p.m. a confirmed tornado was at Interstate 75 and U.S. 27 near Alligator Alley, moving west at 35 mph, the National Weather Service said. The tornado was located earlier over central Broward.

“At 7:18 PM EDT, a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado was located over Plantation, moving west at 35 mph,” the National Weather Service said. “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. TAKE COVER NOW!”

The weather service said the tornado threatened North Pompano Beach, Markham Park, West Ken-Lark, Ramblewood East, downtown Davie and Broward Estates.

“Heavy rainfall may hide this tornado,” the weather service said. “Do not wait to see or hear the tornado. TAKE COVER NOW!”

fuuck

tornadoes are the one wild card w/ hurricanes that you really can do fuck-all to prepare for. a lot of Orlando's damage from Charley came not from the winds itself but from tornadoes spawned :(.

down to 120 mph now, headed towards Florida now, probably about to re-strengthen. just how much remains to be seen.

Tropical storm force winds in full effect here, including tornado warnings in Broward.