hurricane coming...

Thinking of those towns and small cities (Joshua Tree, Barstow) that I'm sure aren't built to run off that much rainfall, let alone much rainfall at all.

i’m hearing mountains supposedly 4”-8” on saturday? holy fuck it’s going to wash away sixth grade camp

I mentioned this on the LA thread, but we got 7" of rain in the heaviest of the January storms. Eastern San Diego county looks like a very bad place to be. Fingers crossed for Slab City

Some light reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARkStorm

I was in Baja California (~750 miles south of San Diego) for Hurricane Odile and that sucked. Similar energy as this one. 4-6" of rain and 100+mph winds.

5 deaths, total damage amounted to MXN$16.6 billion (US$1.25 billion)

The house we were staying at (and evacuated from) was heavily damaged, as was the airport which made getting home a bit of a challenge. The Red Cross helped us with evacuations as roads were flooded/washed out, <3 to those folks.

In typical modern myopia, it was less than 9 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Odile

my parents go fishing with their retired friends in loreto (not too far from la paz but on the pacific side), worried about the friends in loreto and la paz

sorry i got that scrambled. they go to some no name one horse town on the pacific side from loreto, after flying into to la paz and driving to loreto. geography obviously my worst subject (plus they don’t take the 40 year old kids, old ppl only)

If there's only going to be one hurricane called Hilary you'd think somebody'd put it in the right ocean and aim it at certain parts of Florida like.

I wondering how much more severe this will make the Tulare Lake situation.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/californias-long-dry-tulare-lake-has-returned-180982507/

I was hearing that the land was too dry to allow any rain to do anything other than run off it. Is it being kept in one place likely to mean anything remotely positive at any point, actually having any effect on aquifers or anything? Or just gradually go stangnant.

old hat for us Floridians by now, never gets less annoying.

wondering how close the intensity forecast will be to what actually happens.

Hopefully be be thus:

actual intensity < fellas, it's too rough to feed ya < fellas, it's been good to know ya

The water is frighteningly hot. I worry about anyone in this thing's direct path.

I've never known anyone to live in the Big Bend aka the Armpit of Florida though.

this annoying dude is canesplaining to me at work right now. I'm like...I just told you I lived in FL, what part of that made you think I need to be explained hurricanes like I'm a 3 year old

tempted to pretend I'm scared and tell him I'm logging off for the week so I can evacuate

We just moved to central FL a couple months ago (hi Floridians!) so this is the first hurricane we've had a watch for so far. Obv knew it was inevitable living here but we're not on the coast and everyone we've talked to here seems to downplay hurricanes. Still a bit anxious tho

No, never downplay hurricanes.

I think you can rest easier with this one, though.

part of the reason assholes people downplay hurricanes is that they don't actually pay attention to what their local meteorologists are saying. they either ignore the cone and think they're being given GPS directions for the exact street the hurricane will come down and get mad when it wobbles slightly at the 11th hour. or they're like one of my friends, who is a nice guy but a bit of a dim bulb about some things, where he'll see a storm is projected to be a Category 3 at 130 mph, thinks they're saying everybody in FL is going to get 130 mph, and then when we get 40 mph winds because we're inland will say the storm was 'overhyped'. even though that's what the meteorologists were always saying was what we were going to get if they'd paid attention.

stay safe and welcome to Central Florida! agree with Alfred can probably rest easier on this one, but never downplay, always prepare for the worst and hope for the best. they get less nerve-racking after a while (though the right storm can be nerve-racking no matter how many times you've been through it!).

as usual, i'm expecting to not even lose power or internet, which means no hooky from work, though I could always pretend.

Yeah, this comes down to people never watching local news. I do, in part because it's the most accurate place to learn about weather condidtions.

I get more aggravated at not being able to find shit in the grocery stores and empty gas stations due to hoarders

Thanks guys. I should mention our friends/family are usually downplaying hurricanes to put us at ease (and entice us to stay here long term, which we aren't sure yet). I know at least the family we live with take it seriously

oh for sure, I can understand that. if it puts yours at further ease, I've lived here 42 years and have been through a double digit number of canes and am still kicking.

being in low-lying areas is usually the biggest concern (i.e. 'you don't evacuate wind, you evacuate water' etc)

Looks like the cone shrunk again as of the 11 a.m. advisory. Tampa/St. Pete area looks increasingly good.

we are blessed in the bay area

My aunt (lives in Jensen Beach) is on her way to Australia, and it sounds like she got out just in time!

going to be about 20-30 mph winds here all day and rain. I'll take it.

think they did a fantastic job with the forecast this go around. amazes me how accurate hurricane forecasting has gotten over the last thirty years even.

Seconded. In Florida one becomes an amateur meteorologist, and one thing I noticed different about Idalia coverage is the emphasis on storm surge within and outside the cone. Seems like forecasters at the state and federal level learned from Ian. They even got the intensification correct, a notoriously erratic thing.

daaaamn

CHECK OUT the misty EYE of Hurricane #Idalia from just inside the inner eyewall rainbands. The winds calmed for a solid 30 seconds before returning full force from the opposite direction. pic.twitter.com/jlUsnTiJ0m

— Josh Griffith ⚡ (@JoshGriffithWX) August 30, 2023

are y'all OK? the PBS Newshour is looking pretty scary today

Yeah, roll call?

doing fine here in Winter Park, FL. we didn't get much other than rain and 25-30 mph winds (fortunately).

unfortunately for the folks at St Bernardus

Also fine here, apparently I'm Neanderthal's neighbor!

you guys need to FAP immediately

Oh word, Vinnie!

I kinda get eyerolly at Floridian friends of mine who have lived here for decades, see a massive hurricane that is ten days away from any landfall and currently not projected to impact us, and immediately start yelling OMG BUCKLE UP FLORIDIANS, WE'RE FUCKED. And yet...Lee is here and friends of mine are already msging me, bugging out

Like when a hurricane actually arrives here, you'll be stressed enough, which I know from experience. Why do you want to feel that same terror prior, no good horror films in theaters?

I just got in from talking to one of my next door neighbors. She's panicing, too.

Debated whether to put this here or in the "global warming's terrifying new math" thread.

We now have the earliest category 4 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, which is also the first category 4 hurricane to form in the Atlantic in the month of June. Was still a Tropical Storm 48h ago.

Expected to impact the Windward Islands and enter the Caribbean on Monday.

ironically also the slowest start to a hurricane season since 2014 due to intense heat over the continental us haha fml.

Bear up Houston!

https://i.imgur.com/xj5y3hj.png

Hey, cool! The Eclipse came back!

Just drove through a band or two on the way back to Austin from Houston... my friend needs to go grocery shopping but won't because the Texas power grid is such complete shit he doesn't want to waste money on frozen food if the power ends up going out for a week again.

Seems like in Houston this will less be a grid stability situation and more an infrastructure one .(downing of lines, damage to power stations etc.)

There's cautious optimism right now that all Houston is going to get is several hours of high tropical storm speed winds and rain which will be mostly out of here by lunch time, with some more rain spaced out through the next few days. This shouldn't be an out and out assault like Alison, Ike, and Harvey were. Beryl is a mover.

Otoh, we just went through the derecho, which was like one of those storms compacted into a tight 60-90 minutes and that sure fucked alotta folks up for a good while.

yeah, he's wary because that derecho a few weeks ago knocked out power at his complex for eight days (same storm knocked out power at my house here in Austin, AND at a friend's in Lafayette!)

Right now this is being reported as an Ike-esque Wind/Rain event, just not near as intense or drawn-out.

Austin's rain chances from it have now dropped to near-zero lol... stay safe down there!

This was a little worse than we thought it would be.

2 million currently without power. Some reported winds in the city limits of Houston reached 80+ MPH. So far two deaths due to falling trees.

I'm okay. I'm over in the southwest side by Reliant/NRG Park. It hit us around 4:00 AM. Power was on and off before blacking out for good a little after 6:00. Haven't ventured out yet, but I can see broken branches all over outside from my window. I'm also by a main thoroughfare and I can hear traffic beginning to pick up.

Most of my people live at various points along I-10 on the West Side... all of them are without power since this morning. Seeing rainfall totals creeping up over 10" in the last 12 hours on the East/SE sides of town!

The eye apparently passed over the west side 'burbs (Sugar Land, Katy etc.) which might have saved us.

So we're driving around Bellaire and West University, and if you discount the tell-tale signs of blackout conditions and felled trees/signage, it does not look like a hurricane just came through. Very little standing water. In fact, rn I'm in a Randall's parking lot at an intersection that was completely flooded <ON SATURDAY>, when the initial rain bands did a hit'n'run that afternoon.

So it's extra-frustrating that it might be days before power is restored.

First of all, I've got no power, so I spent the night in our gassed-up truck with a/c that I fortunately didn't need to use.

Checking FB this morning I notice an update from an acquaintance in The Woodlands, a northern suburb 80-90 miles inland from Galveston, who had two tall trees fall into the kitchen of his late-'70s build home, allowing it to completely flood to the tune of 2 inches, in a house that's normally never flooded before due to location and height off the street.